It's the good lifffeeeee

[uselesslegs]

Bravo to Meredith Attwell Baker, who was part of the FCC 4 to 1 to vote to approve Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal...AND who waited an entire 4 months to announce her leave at the FCC to take the position of senior vice president of affairs at NBCUniversal.

Ah, to hell with the look of impropriety...she'll be make'in bank!

Why there aren't laws in place that forbid any member of a regulatory body from EVER directly participating or becoming hired by ventures that stood to gain from the regulatory decision...boggles my fucking mind.

Bravo, you distorted fucked up version of Capitalism...keep up the good work!

[FooFa]

DEREGULATION

When applied in the United States this general concept describes most American electronic media policy in the past two decades. Largely a bi-partisan effort, this fundamental shift in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) approach to radio and television regulation began in the mid-1970s as a search for relatively minor "regulatory underbrush" which could be cleared away for more efficient and cost-effective administration of the important rules that would remain. Congress largely went along with this trend, and initiated a few deregulatory moves of its own. The arrival of the Reagan Administration and FCC Chairman Mark Fowler in 1981 marked a further shift to a fundamental and ideologically-driven reappraisal of regulations long held central to national broadcasting policy. Ensuing years saw removal of many long-standing rules resulting in an overall reduction in FCC oversight of station and network operations. Congress grew increasingly wary of the pace of deregulation, however, and began to slow the FCC's deregulatory pace by the late 1980s.

Specific deregulatory moves--some by Congress, others by the FCC--included (a) extending television licenses to five years from three in 1981; (b) expanding the number of television stations any single entity could own grew from seven in 1981 to 12 in 1985 (a situation under consideration for further change in 1995); (c) abolishing guidelines for minimal amounts of non-entertainment programming in 1985; (d) elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987; (e) dropping, in 1985, FCC license guidelines for how much advertising could be carried; (f) leaving technical standards increasingly in the hands of licensees rather than FCC mandates; and (g) deregulation of television's competition (especially cable which went through several regulatory changes in the decade after 1983).

Deregulatory proponents do not perceive station licensees as "public trustees" of the public airwaves required to provide a wide variety of services to many different listening groups. Instead, broadcasting has been increasingly seen as just another business operating in a commercial marketplace which did not need its management decisions questioned by government overseers. Opponents argue that deregulation violates key parts of The Communications Act of 1934--especially the requirement to operate in the public interest--and allows broadcasters to seek profits with little public service programming required in return.

American deregulation has been widely emulated in other countries in spirit if not detail. Developed and developing countries have introduced local stations to supplement national services, begun to allow (if not encourage) competing media such as cable, satellite services, and videocassettes, and have sometimes loosened regulations on traditional radio and television. Advertising support along lines of the American model has become more widely accepted, especially as television's operating costs rise. But the American example of relying more on competition than regulation also threatens traditional public service broadcasting which must meet increasing competition for viewers by offering more commercially-appealing programs, usually entertainment--rather than culture-based.

-C. H. Sterling

bold part may not address it specifically but I believe it's the same priniciple which is to say that there aren't any principles.

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=deregulation

In a very similar way regarding alliances of the unholy, McCain Feingold(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act)was supposed to stop the ongoing practice, only with campaigns instead of careers.

[Howey]

Why there aren't laws in place that forbid any member of a regulatory body from EVER directly participating or becoming hired by ventures that stood to gain from the regulatory decision...boggles my fucking mind.

Because as much as some people think the bankers own the government, that's only true to a point. It's the lobbyists. Get rid of the lobbyists and we'll see the end of this practice.

Additionally, as I've noted before, the Comcast takeover of NBC is but another unlocked door in the right wing's master plan, aka Citizen's United.

Armed with an extreme right wing agenda and big bucks, corporations like Comcast and Fox with Murdoch will do all they can to squelch the voice of reason.

[blindboytwitch]

Why there aren't laws in place that forbid any member of a regulatory body from EVER directly participating or becoming hired by ventures that stood to gain from the regulatory decision...boggles my fucking mind.
 

Because it's fucking unbelievable that someone would so openly and blatantly do this.  It's just stinks of bad character and the vacant, drifting ethical content of large swaths of American politics.  Right wingers harp on morality till they are blue in the face (mostly from auto-erotic asphyxiation, me thinks) but what about some goddamn ethics?  I don't care if you are banging three dudes and a chincillia in your off time.  Can you watch this goddamn ship that is heading for the goddamn rock or at least not steer the goddamn thing directly AT the rock?

[44nutman]

Rifleman, you should run for office. You could make some serious cashe that way.

[uselesslegs]

Rifleman, you should run for office. You could make some serious cashe that way.

You know what?  If I didn't have a conscious...I would.

[lil mike]

This is a great example of the point I've made many times in the past, that regulation is inherently corrupting.  The people who know enough about an industry to regulate it are the ones who go back and forth between government and industry.  An arrangement that no doubt benefits industry.

[Howey]

This is a great example of the point I've made many times in the past, that regulation is inherently corrupting.  The people who know enough about an industry to regulate it are the ones who go back and forth between government and industry.  An arrangement that no doubt benefits industry.

The above is another brilliant (or not so) example of a generalized statement so wrong in it's execution it doesn't deserve a response.

Why? Ask Michael Browne.

[lil mike]

The above is another brilliant (or not so) example of a generalized statement so wrong in it's execution it doesn't deserve a response.

Why? Ask Michael Browne.

And yet, you responded to a statement that doesn't deserve a response.

[ekg]

This is a great example of the point I've made many times in the past, that regulation is inherently corrupting.  The people who know enough about an industry to regulate it are the ones who go back and forth between government and industry.  An arrangement that no doubt benefits industry.

are you saying that we shouldn't have any regulation because it's inherently corrupt?  I don't buy that because regulation isn't inherently corrupt, people are and are motivated by greed, this is why pure capitalism, as well as pure socialism will never work. The sooner we admit that, the sooner we can move away from these ideological fantasies and start to fix what is broken with a combination of ideas..

there are good people behind good regulation.. your approach seems to be on the side of throwing the baby out with the bath. When instead, we should just throw out the person or people who are caught doing these kinds of deals.. instead of letting them  hide behind this or that party's petticoat ..

[FooFa]

In the case of FCC's one time regulations, they made good old fashioned common sense. It was in the people's interest to not have one corporation or a group of businesses all on the same side;focused on one metropolitan area. It was a good function of government to not let the same interest dominate tv, radio and newspaper. When that was done away with it opened Pandora's box and we all know how painful that can be.

[Howey]

are you saying that we shouldn't have any regulation because it's inherently corrupt?  I don't buy that because regulation isn't inherently corrupt, people are and are motivated by greed, this is why pure capitalism, as well as pure socialism will never work. The sooner we admit that, the sooner we can move away from these ideological fantasies and start to fix what is broken with a combination of ideas..

there are good people behind good regulation.. your approach seems to be on the side of throwing the baby out with the bath. When instead, we should just throw out the person or people who are caught doing these kinds of deals.. instead of letting them  hide behind this or that party's petticoat .

I saw it time and time again working for the state, and have witnessed it time and time again in the federal government.

A Governor or a President or an Agency Head will reward a political crony with a leadership position in a field in which they have no knowledge, don't know what they're doing, and are completely lost.

When said appointee fails, we hear cries of "See! Regulation doesn't work!" instead of:

"Why didn't you appoint someone to head that agency who knew what the fuck was going on?"

Of course, those words fall upon deaf ears:

Ask Michael Browne.