Salon: Subsidize Broadband, Not Newspapers

Subsidize nothing. This country is already beyond broke.

When I first read the story, and before reading any comments, that was EXACTLY what I was thinking - so you took the words right out of my mouth..

The wonderful thing about America is that we have many rights.. we have many freedoms.. and in both cases we have the right to, and are free to, fail! The second great thing about this country are those with the spirit to pick up where others fail and seize the opportunity at every turn.

If a business or industry is failing, there are usually a few reasons:

- Failure to adapt to the times or the needs of consumers.

- Plaint flat stupidity on the people running these companies. (very broad, I know, but true)

- greed and theft in the REAL sense of those terms.

To "bail out" or "subsidize" anyone sets a set of entitlement mentalities in motions that ONLY sets up ultimate failure and catastrophe in the first place. It also furthers some set of notion that who ever is in that industry has some sort of "right" to exists - and they don't!

The bank failure was a classic example. The government kept getting their nose into places of that industry it had no business getting into in the first place. They kept pushing dollar after dollar into programs and entitlements to not only the businesses but the people it served. If something is going to fail - LET IT! It's failing for a reason! Someone else will buy out the assets and probably do it better or at least take a different approach. The banks that failed did so for a reason. The government also let them get too big as well which was a failure (and in my book, also subsidizing failure)

If the news papers aren't adapting, stop throwing money at them.. they're failing for a reason. There are other entities out there that have picked up where they are leaving off as it should be. These publications need to die off as they currently are. Like I said, every dollar given to them is a vote of "you have a right to exist" and they don't! The market place will decide what stays and what goes but the government simply won't learn.

They also need to stop the multi-billion dollar mergers as that also brings us into the "too big to fail" mentality (like the banks) and ultimate requires.. subsidies and bail-outs as well.

In my opinion, subsidies only inhibit our ability to evolve.. LIMITED regulation and a good set of rules are where the government needs to set its sights.

Karl:The US voters can't or won't clean up the political mess that is our Federal government. They just don't have it in them. Most either don't care, or are so uninformed, that reform is a hopeless task. The best that can be hoped for is that we get the Federal Bureaucracy to be as hands off as possible, because whenever they get involved in fixing things they only make them worse and at MUCH higher cost.

I have a feeling the next few election cycles are going to show a bit of "real change we can believe in"... I think the voters are finally waking up a little bit from their government drug-induced coma that voters have fallen into.

Incumbent politicians are finding themselves on the chopping block already and I don't think ti's going to stop for a while.

Unlike back in the 50's and 60's where people somewhat cared about the world they lived in, today's voter doesn't really care. However, the mess this country has fallen into has FINALLY hit them at home and they're waking up a little... so yup! .. the average person has finally been hit in their wallets and if we have any sense, we'll start voting people out on to the streets where they belong... they can start with Pelosi,.. that hack needs to see an unemployment line like so many of her constituents.

Then again, I think I'm putting too much faith into voters to snap out of it and realize that there isn't really anyone in congress that cares about anyone or anything other than the survival of their own party and their own paycheck.

I am sure that the buggy whip manufactures would have asked for for subsidies from our government, to keep them in business when the Horseless Carriage replaced the Horse drawn carriage. Fortunately for us the buggy whip boys could not figure out how to pay off the lawmakers or the lawmakers would have required that all new cars would be equipped with a buggy whip. Newspapers have more than one function. Expired newspapers are great for lining the bottom of a bird cage.

We might as well get our news from that guy in the office that knows everything since broadcast and newspaper journalism is so incredibly biased one way or the other there is no useful facts in it anymore anyways. Don't give us the facts tell us how to think.

Not just bias but everything is sensationalized like some tabloid story.

I recently saw a perfect example of why traditional media is dying. It was entirely due to the incompetence and uncaring attitude of the media organization.

The East Valley Tribune (Mesa, AZ) has been struggling for 3-4 years. A couple months ago they changed content-management software. The did this without

1. Notifying their subscribed readership, informing them of changes and what readers may experience.

2. Migrating user accounts to the new system.

3. Creating permalinks to URLs of old news articles, preserving their historic value.

4. Working with Yahoo to transition Yahoo's news aggregation.

That last one was the most remarkable. The Tribune broke Yahoo's aggregation (which is used to present local news to Yahoo users who register with a zip code in the Tribune's area). After being broken for a week, Yahoo removed the Tribune from the aggregation, replacing them with headlines from a local teevee station's web site.

All that stuff was entirely in the Tribune's control. "Low-hanging fruit." But, they chose to do a bad job. Like they didn't care.

The result was 1) readers kicked off their system without any notice. 2) Total loss of readers of historic news (through links to old articles). 3) Loss of position with a referral giant (Yahoo)!

One of the most remarkable things I've seen. They did it entirely to themselves.

... company with their hands out. And, if they paid off the right people, they'll get it. And part of it will be kicked back in "bundled" campaign donations. The circle of political life.

How about, for once, Congress NOT steal our money to give to yet another industry with its hand out, and instead, return it to us, so WE can decide how best to use it?

Maybe if WE knew what to do with it in the first place WE wouldn't have these issues today. People always complain about the lack of faith in government but fail to see that government is run by PEOPLE. The same kind of PEOPLE who are also too lazy to go far enough (and smart enough) to make things better.

Which is of course why no one should have faith in government.

Then how would anyone expect anything to get done? If you can't have faith in the government and you can't have faith in people... then what the hell do you do?

Having faith and trust in people is different than observing that those people actually do the things you entrust them with doing. For me, I prefer to judge based on actions taken, not claims made.

I'd normally agree with you because we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people...

However, this isn't really true - and honestly never really has been true anyway.

This is a government run by people that get into office and think that it's become an "us vs. them" as in the government is above the people. Politicians don't represent "the people"... they represent their party and this is EASILY described...

.. if government was run "by the people" then during elections we wouldn't have parties spending millions of dollars to "reach the pulse of the people" with things like demographics and polls, etc. All this says to me is "we need to know who has the most popular opinions out there so that we say the right thing to those people to elect us"...

If politicians were really out to represent the people, this homework regarding who they represent would be done far in advance and not during election cycles. Candidates would simply lay out their beliefs and let the most popular candidate win. But nope... they're out to figure out what you think so they can say the right thing. I mean, why do they need to know what the hispanic voter is thinking? Or the black community? Religious people? Gay people? That shouldn't matter one bit. Once they get into office they pretty much do as they party says so they'll get the next endorsement. I really just never understood why parties even exist in the first place.. who's interest is being served? The people? or the party?

When someone runs for office they need to know the people who they serve.. and if they feel they are a voice of those people then they should run... otherwise, they're not representing the people in their districts at all.

There is no "true" representation of "the people" which is why the people have no faith in government. Just about every politician, INCLUDING Obama, tells a good story, but when they get into office they rarely ever do as they say.

Obama, even, made all sorts of promises to the people, and he of all people who has incredibly powers in government, has failed to do as he said MANY times.. so where is the faith in that? ..and he also supposedly comes from the small people...

These candidates are ALLL to eager to "listen to the people" when there is a ballot hanging over their heads. However, when they get into office, how eager are they to listen? They're "too busy doing the work of the people" .. but really, if they're not listening, then "WHO'S work" are they really doing?

.. there's your lack of faith in government..

Further, candidates

Your position seems to presume that "something must be done" ("made better") when, in fact, there is no such requirement. Internet access is NOT a utility necessary for life in any way, and there already are thousands of non-government entities providing cost-effective answers.

There is no "need" that exists which would justify stealing from your neighbors to pay your internet bill.

The People DO know better. But it is hard to exercise your own judgement when the tax man takes your last dime.

There is a demand for it... if the demand is not met then there will be repercussions felt for it. Many things are not necessary for life so leave that lame excuse out. It holds no water here. I'm sick of people crying about taxes and the tax man. People always talk about being responsible with your own money then how about you stop spending well beyond your limit? If you know how much you are getting taxed then you know how much you have to work with. Stick to it or find a way to make more money to cover your expenses.

If there is demand, then someone will supply it, and YOU can pay for it. You have no right to steal from someone else just because you want something, whether you do it in person, or by proxy through the tax man.

You may be sick of people crying over taxes, but for those of us who actually pay them, we make major decisions based on tax policy - which explains why Texas has all the job growth, while California has 12.5% official and 20% real unemployment.

Anybody still reads what the goons at salon vomit on the internet, let alone finds it relevant

The similarities between Salon and BBR's news page are pretty obvious. But just like regular news, when you try to interject rabid left-leaning political spin into nearly every article (all of which are gleaned from other sites with little original thought), the results are predictable and tedious.

BBR has quickly gone the route of pro-government intervention when we all know that almost any government intervention is bad for both companies and consumers.

How about we subsidize common sense, instead?