Re: Lowry Mays speaks

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 01:40 PM 2/24/2003 -0500, Dan Billings wrote:
> > In the real world, if you have a
> > weak gov't oversight, you have weak gov't oversight period...you'll never
> > manage to tweak that agency's budget finely enough to have strong
>technical
> > oversight and weak ownership oversight.   Esp. since in a lot of cases
> > (more AM than FM) there is some overlap between the two.
>
>Huh?  Why can't you have the FCC concentrate on enforcing technical issues?
>The rules have changed.  Why can't the regulators strictly enforce the rules
>that remain?  You could argue that with less rules to enforce, they could do
>a better job of enforcing that ones that remain?
>
>-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine

"fewer" rules, Dan.  Not "less"   LOL  :-)

I just don't see the FCC...or any government agency....as being capable of 
organizing itself in such a way to accomplish that.  The budget 
brushstrokes are always too broad because there's always at least a small 
constituency that will insist on some sort of ownership oversight, and the 
politicians will insist on having some part of the FCC paying lip service 
to it if nothing else.

Government, by design, is pretty inefficient...it's necessary to represent 
the wishes of a diverse population.   Dan, your idea demands a greater 
degree of streamlining than government is likely to allow, IMHO.

Similar arguments are being made over the SEC (Securities & Exchange 
Commission) these days...since the SEC is not getting enough power or 
funding to *really* enforce any laws, what's the point of having an SEC at 
all?   Economically it's an easy call but of course it's all really politics.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA