The Only Winner in Opposing AT&T/T-Mobile Merger – Big Government
by Seton Motley(And we do not mean this august publication.)
John Donne famously said no man is an island. He didn’t live to see the Media Marxists and their absurd policy positions.
These Leftist alleged media “reformers” incessantly demand massive government insertion into and interference with every free market-media nook and cranny.
Insertion and interference in which almost no one else has any interest.
Save, of course, for the other forces of Big Government – Big Government being always interested in expanding its authoritarian sway.
We have noted this previously. For instance, the Media Marxists have all along been strident proponents of Network Neutrality – a government takeover of the Internet that was and remains the kid sitting by himself in the high school cafeteria – almost no one else wanted anything to do with it.
Except, again, Big Government. President Barack Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) joined the Media Marxists at the lonely lunch table – and unilaterally and illegally imposed Net Neutrality.
So radical and foolish is Net Neutrality that – in addition to 302 members of the then Democrat-controlled Congress and a unanimous D.C. Circuit court – a gaggle of normally pro-government groups are opposed to its imposition.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), the Urban League and the Sierra Club, to name but a few.
And then there were the unions.
Which are almost always Leftist, overwhelmingly pro-Democrat and were in 2008 vociferously pro-Obama – and they oppose Net Neutrality.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) – all opposed.
Why? In a word – jobs.
Net Neutrality will kill tech sector investment (and by the way, the tech sector requires huge coin to grow).
How do we know this? Because Robert McChesney – the Godfather of the Media Marxist movement – says that’s the point:
“(T)he ultimate goal (of Net Neutrality) is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”
And that investment – while it still exists – means lots and lots of jobs.
High-paying gigs that must be done here – you can’t pay someone in China or India to hardwire Chicago or Indianapolis.
Large swaths of the tech sector are unionized – so they know of which they speak.
And is why they – rightly – oppose the Media Marxist push for Net Neutrality.
—–
Which brings us to the pending AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
The Media Marxists are, once again, almost all alone in opposition to this free market deal. In large part because – they allege – it will cost jobs.
The proposed takeover will eliminate stores, jobs, back offices and marketing spending. This is not only a loss of jobs for T-Mobile and AT&T workers, but for every business with ties to the wireless telecoms industry.
So why are the unions – always on the lookout to keep their current gigs and add new ones – not on board with the Media Marxists this go round either?
Because the merger means investment – and investment means jobs.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) understand this. From a CWA publication entitled “The AT&T/T-Mobile Merger – Benefits for Consumers and Workers”:
In the long term, a post-merger AT&T will be better able to retain and increase jobs than either company could do separately.
CWA President Larry Cohen, in a Hill piece entitled “AT&T and T-Mobile Merger Means Better Broadband”:
“The acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T is good news for everyone who realizes that the United States needs to catch up to the rest of the world when it comes to broadband speed and buildout. It presents a real opportunity to expand true high speed broadband in this country that otherwise wouldn’t be possible…. This no-debt deal leaves more resources for quick buildout.”
“(M)ore resources for quick buildout.” “Expand.” These words means jobs.
If we are placing bets on who better understands the tech sector job market – the CWA or the Media Marxists – my money ain’t on the Marxists.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile has been losing money, so Deutsche Telekom – its current owner – would thusly have little or none to invest in maintaining its wireless network, let alone building it out.
And of course, past is prologue. So let us look at a recent wireless merger to see how it affected the tech sector job market, shall we?
Oh wait – we don’t have to, the Phoenix Center already did.
(I)n the two years preceding the (2004) AT&T-Cingular merger, wireless sector employment was in decline, falling 4.7% over the two-year interval. In contrast, sector employment rose 9.4% over the two-year period following the merger.
Oops, looks like history’s not on the Media Marxists’ side either.
So, if the federal government is truly interested in growing the private sector and creating private sector gigs – it will quickly and without concessions approve the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
If the federal government is truly interested in growing the size, scope and sphere of influence of the federal government – it will drag the merger approval out endlessly and mercilessly.
And if it does eventually approve – will saddle the parties with pages and pages of illegal and anti-free market, intrusive and punitive coerced capitulations (a la the Comcast/NBCU merger).
I’d much prefer A. I’m, sadly, again expecting B.
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44 Comments
Economic rationality plays no part in the "net neutrality" or merger matters. It's about nullifying grass-roots movements against the encroachments of our political elite. The progress of the thing has been predictable from the outset.
Never expect the High to wield its powers for the benefit of the Low.
I wouldn't give it a second thought if it didn't make it all the more easy for the police state to access and monitor every phone in the county with their "best intentions" i.e. "emergency alert system"
Two threads on the merger and nothing about the DHS cellphone chip.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/05/10/national-e...
It just seems to be a Big Government topic to me.
Oh well.
I've come to the conclusion that our problem lies in the fact that none of the generations since JFK's
administration have been taught the meaning of the word Communism.
These younger folks have no fear of the government the current demoCRAPPER Party (Commies all) is
attempting to impose on us…
How the HELL do we wake them up?
.
So then the Federal Government will only have 2 Companies to order to wire-tap, track, and send texts to?
Americans need more Wireless Phone Companies, not less.
Americans need choice.
This is about one thing and one thing only…………..control.
Morning,
I've been hashing this in my mind for a few years now. The only way I see is by one on one discussions. Let them state their case, then disprove it with facts. If we examine the problem these young people face it's pretty astounding. Their role models tout Communism. They've been totally indoctrinated since the early formative years into Communism. The leader of the free world touts Communism. Movies, ads, MSM, all tout Communism. All, obviously by design.
It's a tough one my friend.
It doesn't matter if it is the ATT merger, or net neutrality, just look back in history.
Take the Cable TV industry for example.
When it came into existence, they put forth a solidly funded Lobby effort, to anvance and protect their cause de celebre. Their main selling point, was that once it was all cobbled together, it would effectuate substantial savings for every household in America, and people would see their cable bills reduced.
Now I ask you, further, I challenge you, when was the last time you EVER saw your cable bill DECREASE?
BIG GOVERNMENT needs BIG ENEMA…proggs need letting out…off our soil OUTING! GTFO!
Smack down a socialist douchebag here: http://www.breitbart.tv/california-agency-rejects...
SMACK A HIPPIE SOCIALIST HERE: http://www.breitbart.tv/california-agency-rejects...
Thank you.
Most trolls aren't worth the time but this particular troll is of the most vile stripe and absolutely deserves it!
saw it decrease twice: once when we dropped HBO and another time when we cancelled it altogether…
But if they stopped 'bundling'- which the left in Congress forces upon us- everyone's would drop. Why?
Because over EIGHTY PERCENT of the recipients would drop PBS and MTV. And they would wither and die for lack of free market support. Both being important propaganda tools of the Progressives they will NOT allow this to happen…
suggest we invade and throw the proggressive bums and leeches out…
You hooked yourself a troll there, throw it back.
Try mine, at least he tried to debate up until the end, when he admits defeat.
http://www.breitbart.tv/cellphone-alert-system-un...
I don't think AT&T should be able to coalesce back into the same market dominance it had before Reagan broke it up. It's easier for AT&T to gobble up competitors to expand its infrastructure than actually build more alongside competitors. Less carriers isn't a good thing for consumers. How could it be? It will inevitably lead us back to the government-empowered (pseudo)monopoly that AT&T once was.
Giant AT&T = Big Government involvement in telecom.
This is correct – it's either this or let them figure it out by themselves, by which time it will be too late.
Which is where we seem to already be anyway…
Good idea or bad idea?
That matters not to me because it isn't my decision, especially through government, to make. This is, at its core, a private property and private sector issue. Aside from the investors themselves, the rest of us, government included, have no business getting into that business.
Those crying about monopolies should take note – it is government, via Supreme Court dictate and unjust amendment of the Constitution from within that judicial activism that foments the monopolies. Do please read SLaughterHouse cases and see how the 14th Amendment was gutted and our economic freedoms were snaked away. Folks call on government to "break up" these "evil corporations" when it is government itself that sees them created in the first place. Stop being stooges of government! Stop being sheep and see the reality for what it is. Government is the PROBLEM, not the SOLUTION!
The FCC wants to assert control over the Internet, true, but it's tough to stand up and defend these giant, stagnant telcos that would rather merge and stifle competition than compete against the emerging disruptive technologies. The cost of providing broadband is dropping, yet the prices are going up and there are fewer and fewer choices for the consumer. I have a feeling that letting AT&T gobble up yet another competitor (whether it's doing well or not) will not benefit the consumer.
Reagan wasn't a "stooge of government" when he broke up the government-sanctioned monopoly that was AT&T. Nor would the Justice Department be now if it prevents AT&T from merging back into a monopoly. Consumers need choice.
I'm calling BS on the notion that not letting AT&T merge will chill investment. Demand for broadband is surging, and telco businesses are raking it in.
I've said it earlier folks… If the Democrats try and chain the internet to their morality police, the backlash from all those 3l33t will be crippling at best and at worst… <shudder> Your president Obama is an intellectual lightweight if he's taking some Czar Nipplehead's word over actually reading what the security community itself is largely saying and specifically those little uber companies in Canada, Norway and America whose only notoriety within THE COMMUNITY is being the finders and fixers of all those obscene security flaws John Q. Public is never supposed to have (and hasn't) heard about.
Remember folks that while all these governmental spook agencies across the globe are being held up as the paragons of information security, all those major exploit's and their injection vectors have almost completely been discovered by private companies and individuals. The first sites to go would be Climate Realists followed by those like Breitbart whose opponents while maintaining near full control of the MSM, have been losing the information war here in the Blue Nothing.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
Tel them socialist nations have killed 260 MILLION people during PEACE time this century alone.
http://www.economicnoise.com/wp-content/uploads/2...
. http://www.americanthinker.com/cartoons/?id=1323
I can only add that coming from the land of no choice where phone is concerned, my provincial monopoly means I spend past $250 a month on my house phone, a dynamic internet connection as well as 3 cell phones before actually putting any mileage on any of them. God forbid I go over 120 minutes on the cell phones also as I've seen $400 in overages quickly accumulate and oh yeah, my long distance is nothing to smile about either. Also contracts are 3 years long and phone choices are whatever they decide to make available. Hell we're only just getting the iPhone NOW and this from a company who has made linear +profits from day 1! Yup, monopolies are good! Where can I get one?
This is another example of the contradiction of progressives.
Their goal is supposedly social justice and equality. The way they want to do it is through redistribution, ie, giving their supporters a bigger piece of the pie.
Well, stupid progressives, if you keep making the pie smaller….what the hell are you going to end up redistributing?
Good God. They can't even get the basis of their 'social justice' right.
Seton,
I am TIRED of fellow conservatives APPLAUDING these "mergers". We are getting less and less choices, which means higher and higher prices in the near future. I also find it amazing that "conservatives" forgot what happened when MaBell was broken up and was forced to have competition. Remember those bulky telephones you had to buy from Bell that cost $89? Remember the "party" lines where 4 or 5 customers had to share the same line? But OH the rapid rate in technology, customer service, and lowering of prices when it was broken up. Now you are gloating that the old company is being reconstituted? You say you believe in "Free Market" principles, but you show you hate competition by supporting the mergers, which, in the end will be disastrous for the consumer.
Oh, I get it, you want competition like the OIL COMPANIES who colluded with the state governments to price fix fuel. (notice the disparity at the gas stations on prices??? No??) I believe competition brings down prices, encourages ingenuity, and makes things better. The "conservative" talking heads seem to disagree with me.
CL, there was a tiny town in NW Florida that owned their own cable network, the voters voted overwhelmingly to keep a private company from taking over, why? Because they were paying SUBSTANTIALLY lower costs than their neighboring cities for the same services. (I know this is anathema to my fellow conservatives) The key was they also elected conservatives that kept all of the bills lower as well. That was 11 years ago, they may have moved to privatize it, but in that case the local government was working. I think it was either Niceville of Valparaiso (Val P as the locals call it).
Same thing with big oil. They colluded with State Governments to pass laws to equalize pricing of fuel in geographic areas, they sold it as "keeping the supply stable", but it is nothing more than price fixing to keep competition away.
Never mind a little guy known as the consumer.
nice post. you could go on. like why are your "fellow conservatives" even calling themselves conservatives when they don't adhere to free market principles and instead advocate subsidies for Big Oil and Big Agriculture??
With all due respect to the author, and I mean that sincerely, I am definitely an economic conservative anti-Marxist pro free enterprise type. I have to disagree with his assertion on reasons to block the merger for several reasons.
First of all I am a T-Mobile customer. Go research the big 4 mobile carriers and see if you don't come away with the lowest cost of owning a mobile phone being on T-Mobile for most usage patterns. T-Mobile has a record as being tops in the industry for customer satisfaction and quality of service. On the other end of all those equations is AT&T. So my first reason is purely selfish. There is no carrier that is close in my opinion and no way I want to suffer AT&T.
My second reason is because I am a geek and understand technology. Supposedly this will help to modernize the US mobile network. BS! Of the competing technologies out there being mislabeled as 4G Spring has Wimax, an unmitigated flop performance wise still running at the 6 Mbps cap it had 3 years ago and actually falling below measured speeds on my T-Mobile HSPA which is capped at 7 Mbps. Verizon has LTE, a proprietary standard and is rolling it out. AT&T is caught with their pants down dabbling in HSPA+ and LTE. They have nothing really worth noting for national high speed data. Their plan is to convert T-Mobile towers to LTE and thus buy and upgrade a ready made infrastructure…
And what an infrastructure. T-Mobile was first in the country to have a large high speed network with HSPA+ capped at 21 Mbps and is in the process of upgrading that to 42 Mbps. That means new phones on T-Mobile are as fast and quickly getting faster than Verizon LTE. The AT&T buyout though will have an effect that after conversion all those HSPA and HSPA+ phones will be USELESS. AT&T has a different spectrum and wants to go LTE and Verizon and Sprint have different technologies. So unless your T-Mobile phone supports the other carrier's high speed network you are back down to a fraction of the speed you had before the buy out.
All this brings up the logical question. If T-Mobile is cheaper, has better customer satisfaction, higher quality service, faster data rates and better national coverage why is it bleeding customers and up for sale? Why indeed. Look at what mobile devices are going gangbusters in the last two years and T-Moblie has had really only the Samsung Vibrant. They have focused on cheap phones with their plans… phones people really don't want because they don't make you say wow. On top of that most mobile customers are locked into a contract so they have a short window at around two years after their last purchase to find the most exciting mobile device they can hope to live with for two years.
The idea that the buy out will not hurt competition in the mobile industry is just as absurd as saying the before Obamacare the health care industry was totally free market. It's just not true. If a customer is into buying mode at months 23 and 25 after their last purchase that gives 4.8%-8% of the market at any given time able to respond to competition. This is why Android is so compelling because so many devices are released by different manufacturers to take advantage of this time window.
My conclusion is that this buyout leaves Sprint as damaged goods with a slow offering that has a 4G stamped on it and real data rates left to Verizon and as AT&T kills exiting T-Mobile phones they become the other option. Neither company has to be particular competitive for any real time frame with course corrections measured over 5% of their customer base and there isn't even any need to buy Sprint who will desperately need their own shot in the arm for some speed. Millions of us will pay more for this and have to buy new hardware to hope to recapture former data rates. I don't think this serves us any more than enabling larger banks to crush smaller banks and take all the credit card business.
Most farmers are democrats. At least most of the ones I know.
When they ARE taught about Communism, it is to romanticize it. Highlighting it's "virtues" and "fairness". They have been very crafty. They knew the best way to infiltrate was to grab the children and, as you say OCP, it's been going on for years. So, we have several generations who don't understand the threat we are under and some even welcome it. How do we "wake them up"? Who knows… I guess, our best hope is that a majority of them weren't very good students and ignored what was being taught. Other than that, perhaps their own wish for individual accomplishment, (or even, greed), will overcome the teachings of "what's best for the group".
I don't think you get it. T-Mobile is losing money. They need to merge or they will go out of business completely. If they go out of business completely everyone of their workers in the US will lose their job, and there will still be less choice. This isn't complicated.
You're not looking at this situation specifically. T-Mobile does not have the funds to stay competitive. If they don't merge they go out of business and all their people are unemployed. I know that you have an irrational fear of Ma Bell because you're too much of a hick to realize that the cell industry is vastly different than the land line industry, but all you are actually in favor of is making 25,000 people jobless. Learn the facts, then post.
Why are so many uneducated people posting about this. This isn't a merger, it's an acquisition. The reason there is a difference is because T-Mobile USA is in dire financial straights. They will not survive. If they are not purchased, when they go out of business there will still be less choice, but there will also be more unemployment. By being purchased by ATT, more jobs will be saved, and high speed internet access will spread to areas that would previously have had to wait much longer. Also, cell service will extend to areas that currently have old or out of date providers increasing competition in those areas. Get the facts.
Let me explain why you don't know what you're talking about. First, the reasons you state for why you like T-Mobile are the same reasons they are being purchased. They have set up a financial model that is unsustainable. If they are not purchased they will go out of business. This is also the reason they can't get the best phones. They simply can't pony up. As far as speeds are concerned. In most areas they best speed available on T-Mobile is 14.4 mps. To reach that speed they use HSPA+. ATT also uses HSPA+ and can reach the same speeds in select areas. While HSPA+ can top out at around 50mps in a lab setting, LTE can top out at 100 mps and use much less capacity. That allows more people to use there phones and provides lower prices. T-Mobile does not have the capital to deploy LTE. Also, this merger will allow ATT to get to areas that would otherwise not receive any high speed, or at best have to wait much longer to get it. Those are the facts. Capitalism is at work here. A dying company is being bought out by a competitor. If you understand capitalism, then you understand that it really is a survival of the fittest.
Seton Motley appears to be yet another shill for the telecommunications industry spreading baloney. There is no benefit to the public in reducing competition – what kind of fools does this shill think we are? The AT&T/T-Mobile merger will do exactly what it was intended to do – reduce competition so that they can raise prices. AT&T has been hording spectrum to set up a fake crisis just so they can eliminate competition while giving useful idiots like Motley talking points. We're supposed to believe that monopolies and duopolies are good for consumers and competition is bad for consumers – what kind of a fool does this shill take us for? AT&T's problem is that they won't invest in expanding their network even while losing market, what kind of moron thinks they would invest if they don't have 3 competitors nipping at their heels? Rates will go up if Seton Motley has his way and then he'll tell you it's for the best.
This is how Statism works, kiddies.
Don't you know, making and having money is evil? And so is spending it on anything not Kantian!?
Read up on the history of Ma Bell. AT&T was allowed to become a monopoly in the first place because integrating all the competitors created a better network for the country. But we were left with a monopoly that could not be controlled by market forces so it had to be regulated by the government. This is not good, nor is it competitive capitalism. And we're going down the same road for similar reasons.
T-Mobile may be in dire financial straights, but if AT&T is allowed to gobble up its competitors then the market will stagnate and/or invite government regulation. Remember, AT&T was more than happy to submit to the government in return for having a monopoly.
Ok, so sell to investors outside the industry. AT&T is not the only source of capital for reinvestment. And I highly doubt they're the only ones willing to invest in a well-developed wireless network. It's not exactly an industry in decline.
Hopefully DOJ won't make a decision based on how great it makes AT&T's network, but rather on whether or not it hurts competition by allowing AT&T to approach a monopoly. Let T-Mobile sell to whomever it wants, but grant final approval based on the resultant market share.
If AT&T wants to invest $40 billion in upgrading its network, let them build out on their own alongside competitors. That's called competing, and it's how healthy markets function.
How pathetic is it that I have trolls that go around following my posts to give them a thumbs down? As if I or anyone else cares….how many 'thumbs up or down' you have has ABSOLUTELY no bearing on the content of a post. WHAT AN INCREDIBLE CONCEPT….which is clearly alien to trolls.
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