Almost There Bob...

Julian Sanchez | June 6, 2003

Amidst the usual consolidation mania in this Bob Herbert op-ed, we find reference to a useful report on the Center for Public Integrity's website on media ownership, OpenAirwaves. It seems FCC officials took over 2,500 trips on the industry's dime over the past 8 years... and by "dime" I mean about $2.8 million. Vegas was the most popular destination. What always puzzles me is that folks like Herbert cite these data showing, with embarassing clarity, that regulatory bodies are always captured by the industries they're intended to regulate, that they're subsequently used to protect market incumbents. Then this is offered as an argument for... more regulation.

Comments

|6.6.03 @ 1:12AM|#

Some regulation has failed, let's scrap it all. And since there are still fires, let's scrap the firehouses. And since the government cops can't stop crime, let's disband them, too.

thoreau|6.6.03 @ 1:14AM|#

Careful, erf. Some people here will take you seriously.

Lefty|6.6.03 @ 1:48AM|#

The only competitive sport I know of that doesn't use judges or referees is golf. And business competition sure ain't golf.

|6.6.03 @ 1:49AM|#

Erf, there aren't many similarities between the FCC and the fire department. But if you're advocating running the FCC on the fire department model- that they do nothing until a problem arises, put the fire out, and then leave, I'd be much less critical of them. If the fire department were run like the FCC- standing guard of my house, demanding that I prove to them that my house won't burn down, well, I'd advocate shutting them down, too. As far as the police go, I think they should switch to the fire department model.

omnibus bill|6.6.03 @ 1:54AM|#

That's an average of $1120 per trip, if my math is correct.

You really think FCC lawyers and regulators are bought that cheaply? If that's a buyoff, it doesn't look like they're getting very nice bribes out of the whole deal...

|6.6.03 @ 1:58AM|#

Lefty,
Marathons, automobile racing, chess... You seem like a smart guy, Lefty, but your views seem constrained by convention.

Julian|6.6.03 @ 2:13AM|#

Well, a handful of top officials got a large number of those, and probably the average is skewed-- lots of low-level flaks getting a comped plane ticket or hotel stay for a few hundred bucks, higher ups getting better treatment.

Julian|6.6.03 @ 2:15AM|#

Analogies come cheap folks. How about "putting leeches on the patient doesn't help, and actually seems to be making things worse... let's stop doing that." Of course, that too is just a glib knee-jerk substitute for an actual argument.

Lefty|6.6.03 @ 3:32AM|#

Twisted - maybe chess and poker. Your other examples use judges and, now that I think about it, pro golf always has an official around, too. Unbiased (emphasis on the "un") regulators are far more common than not in competitive environments.

Warren|6.6.03 @ 3:53AM|#

Lefty,
Are you crazy? I wouldn't sit down at a poker table that didn't have a whole team of 'officials' watching every move everybody made. In fact all organized competition requires a governing body of some kind.

The spectrum should be treated as property. Title gives you the right to transmit so much power in your band within a given region. Anyone poaching on your frequency it trespasses.

The FCC is anathema to a free society. They exist to control content, not to protect free speech/press rights. The last thing we should be tolerating, is a federal agency regulating the content of EM broadcast.

|6.6.03 @ 5:05AM|#

The FCC is telling people what club to use, not simply observing to make sure they don't move their ball.

Artie Detu|6.6.03 @ 5:22AM|#

Bill, (post #9) you're cheating yourself -- your math is a bit under-estimated.

Let's not forget the money spent on roulette wheels, one-armed bandits, whores, dinners, and copious drinks, to boot -- all on YOUR dime.

But that's par for the course, ain't it? (skuze da pun.)

|6.6.03 @ 5:29AM|#

Lefty, I'll accede that regulators are far more common than not, but I challenge the view that because that's the way it is, that's the way it should be. Again, I think you concede too much to convention. I also think the analogy of business to sports is false. The public is simply a spectator in sports. In business the public (customer) has the ultimate power.

Kevin Carson|6.6.03 @ 5:59AM|#

Eric:

Land fronting on rivers is also scarce, and inappropriate activities by one riverfront owner can interfere with the rights of use by someone downstream. That's why we have the common law of riparian rights (and not a regulatory agency using administrative law methods).

The licenses issued by the FCC take up only a fraction of available space on the broadcast spectrum. They were given away free or for nominal cost to privileged groups in the beginning, and are now sold for big bucks. The FCC's regulations are just a cartelizing device for the broadcast industry.

As usual, the regulatory state operates under cover of "progressive" rhetoric, but that's just to sell it to us "sovereign" suckers, when the policies were designed to benefit the corporate oligarchs.

godfather|6.6.03 @ 6:40AM|#

Or more simply put, it's a Protection Racket. No different from what the Mob does. (Actually, the Mob imitated gubmints.)

|6.6.03 @ 11:44AM|#

In most cases, I'd agree with you that the inevitability of corruption and cronyism is a good reason, among others, why government regulation of major industries should be kept to a minimum. But in the case of mass media, I don't think we have a choice.

The main reason for this is that radio and TV spectrum are by nature finite resources. Since there's only so much of them to go around, it's very easy for a handful of companies to corner the markets and squash all competition for years out into the future. The same doesn't hold true if you're talking about, say, personal computers, doorknobs, or bobble-head dolls. Thus, some degree of regulation becomes necessary.

|6.6.03 @ 12:07PM|#

Eric, I disagree with you that the spectrum is finite. It is being treated that way, but that doesn't make it so. No doubt the frequencies available on AM seemed limited and finite, until FM was introduced. New transmission technologies are using not only different frequencies but also smaller bands. I predict that for the next few years clearchannel will spend megabucks buying up all there "competition" only to find that their real competition is not AM/FM.

Julian|6.6.03 @ 12:12PM|#

First, what he said... spectrum is a "finite resource" because we have a regulatory structure that forces it to be that. As Yochai Benkler and others have argued, it doesn't need to be-- we may soon be able to shift to a "spectrum commons" model. But second... dealing with scarcity is precisely what markets are supposed to be good for. There's only so much beachfront property, too. Jesse Walker's the resident expert on this one, though...

JDM|6.6.03 @ 12:57PM|#

The newer technology will actually change the model completely. It will be sort of like having one channel, and the user will be able to pick what gets broadcast over it. The real power is that the user can more easily broadcast in the other direction. What the Internet has done for documents, wi-fi will do for broadcasting.

|6.7.03 @ 1:43AM|#

Kevin's right. Colin Powell's son's decision will benefit his boss, Bush. The Carlyle Group has invested in a company that plans to buy as many radio stations as quickly as they can. And Godfather, I respect the Mob more, they don't pretend it's for the public good.

|6.7.03 @ 4:20AM|#

"Are those of you who are against preventing few owners in the marketplace also against monopoly protection in other areas?"

Neither help me nor hinder me in my pusuit of a living. Let me stand or fall on my own merits. If that be anarchism, so be it -- albeit your terminology. I'd rather view it as autarchism, thank you.

True monoplies wield guns (often hidden, but nevertheless.) There's only one true monopoly in every nation-state: government.

Free traders in the marketplace do not hold guns to their customer's heads. Customers are always free to patronize or not.

And that's the cardinal difference.

Lefty|6.7.03 @ 7:29AM|#

Twisted, conventional wisdom is kind of a combination of theory and experience, tested and applied in the real world. It doesn't come in a vacuum.

I'll accept your notion that, hypothetically, markets and consumers take care of themselves without outside regulation. That same hypothetical notion applies to sports, too, but cheaters looking for an edge eventually fuel the demand for regulation from whatever neutral body they can find to protect them from themselves.

Pre-FDR business practices are an example of this. Holding companies, sometimes ten times removed from their original source, were able to manipulate markets, sqeeeze out any new competition, generate wildly speculative paper profits for the folks at the top of the pyramid and avoid any rudimentary state efforts at regulation. Small business was strangled in the crib. It was in their interest and at their demand, just as much as the general populism of the time, that got the Feds into business regulation.

Spektator|6.7.03 @ 10:50AM|#

At first glance, your analysis sounds cogent enough, Lefty. However, there's one key element you're leaving out of the equation; and that's the element of permanence.

There's nothing ad hoc about what comes out of the halls of government (any government.) Persistence, tenacity, entrenchment � those are its watchwords, without regard to utility or obsolescence. Every rule, every regulation, every law -- once created, is here to stay, in perpetuity.

"Yeah," you might say, "but we can always repeal it with another bill, or by voting it out." Sure, maybe; and certainly with tremendous difficulty. (Ever try to pry a murderous, parasitic vine loose from around a tree?)

Laws and Regulations, once enacted, remain there for all eternity.

Contrast this to an ad-hoc ruling, or a lawsuit brought forth against the culprits by the very "general populism" you mention, and the myriad other (innocent) businesses can breathe a lot freer and get down to business like they're supposed to, instead of spending 60% of their time filling out forms every month.

This is precious time for which YOU ultimately pay, by the way � in the form of higher prices.

|6.7.03 @ 11:58AM|#

I'm a little confused at the difference between libertarians and anarchists. I agree with the Mafia analogy more than the referee analogy when it comes to government and the recent FCC decision certainly gives credence to the idea that regulatory bodies wind up working for the powers they regulate rather than the common good. Having said that, the idea of the FCC still seems a good one. Spectrum is a limited resource, way more so than the paper and ink it takes to make a newspaper. Almost half of American households still don't have internet access and spread spectrum technology is still years from wide adoption. For the time being, protecting access of multiple viewpoints on television still seems a necessary evil. I see Puffy Powell's couching this decision as a blow for diversity in media as just more use of the Big Lie philosophy the current administration has espoused.

Are those of you who are against preventing few owners in the marketplace also against monopoly protection in other areas?

|6.8.03 @ 1:42AM|#

Jon B, you ask, "Isn�t the idea that a monopoly prevents customers from having another choice in the marketplace?"

Please, give us an example of a monopoly (other than government) that prevents customers from having another choice.

Bear in mind that governments don't have "customers."

Lefty|6.8.03 @ 7:12AM|#

Well, that's kind of tough to do. You see, the damage that monopolies, holding companies, cartels and the like did to workers, consumers and the general economy led to their being outlawed several years ago. There are no monopolies now. You can read up on it in any junior high text book.

There are some adventurous folks such as yourself that think that that abuse of mankind was a fairy tale - something those Commies dreamed up - and want to try again. I don't think that's good for the country.

|6.8.03 @ 7:31AM|#

Lefty, "There are no monopolies now."?? What do you suppose governments are? They're the one's who fed you that pap in the gubmit schools when you had to read those junior high text books.

Abuse of mankind is NOT a fairy tale. It's something the Commies dreamed up, and are still trying. We experience it every April 15.

You're right. It's not good for the country.

Lefty|6.8.03 @ 12:07PM|#

Spektator - Nothing's permanent. Nothing.

|6.8.03 @ 12:44PM|#

I'm still not sure I get it. Isn't the idea that a monopoly prevents customers from having another choice in the marketplace? A complete lack of regulation seems like a good idea on the surface, but in practice it seems to favor the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the less-connected many. Not exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers had in mind. Sometimes regulations protect the consumers ability to have more than one choice. And while I'm all for the idea of meritocracy, I don't see that as being the natural result of not having any rules.

|6.9.03 @ 11:48AM|#

well, the FCC does demand that when we buy an electronic device that the device not interfere with others and with broadcasting. so it's not ALL bad... i mean, imagine if your microwave interfered with your tv reception...

Sarantitis Joshua|9.10.04 @ 12:24AM|#

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