Steve Forbes is no fan of the federal government’s approach to telecommunications, as he explains in the latest issue of Forbes.
Modern socialists learned years ago that you can effectively control large swaths of the economy through overwhelming regulation rather than outright nationalization. The President has become a master at this; health care, banking and energy are well on their way to becoming impotent vassals of the U.S. government. Another industry in which this phenomenon is unfolding is telecommuni–cations. With elections looming, the White House will make sure nothing happens in this area without clearance from Washington’s far-left liberals. …
… Ponder this for a moment: One deal is quashed because it is anticompetitive and another blocked precisely because it would be all too competitive.
Now a Verizon deal to buy needed and currently fallow spectrum from several cable companies is in jeopardy because of Washington regulators.
Telecommunications companies are still seemingly independent, but Washington’s socialist tentacles make that problematical long term. The Obama Administration has no intention of letting spectrum be used in a free-market fashion. Why give up such a tool that is so useful for ultimate control?
