Broadband Stimulus, Fiat Takes Over Chrysler and the UN’s World Oceans Day
1. TECHNOLOGY
Business and advocacy groups flood the Federal
Communications Commission with comments on the agency’s proposed national
broadband plan.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on how the
government can best aid rapid
broadband deployment:
“The best way the Commission can stimulate broadband is not
by imposing new layers of regulation, but by adopting a deregulatory stimulus
in which government-created entry barriers are eliminated and costly
regulations are reduced. Marketplace investment and private enterprise have
driven broadband deployment in the United States, and the Commission
would be wise to expand proven, market-driven broadband policies.”
2. BUSINESS
Italian automaker Fiat completes
its takeover of Chrysler.
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Attorney Hans
Bader on why Chrysler and General Motors should have filed
for bankruptcy long before now:
“General Motors and Chrysler would have been better off if
they had filed for bankruptcy last year, rather than taking federal money,
since the bailouts have come with costly political strings attached, such as dropping
opposition to costly CAFE regulations and other federal mandates, and bowing to
political meddling in fundamental corporate decision making, and have left the
automakers with higher labor costs than if they had just ripped up their
collective bargaining agreements in a standard bankruptcy. That endangers their
long-run competitiveness. Indeed, the politicized auto bailouts resemble the
failed British auto bailouts of the 1970s.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
The United Nations observes “World
Oceans Day.”
CEI Expert Available
to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain
Murray on some of the policies that could deliver quick
environmental improvements:
“Introduce ‘grow and trade’ programs for
fisheries. These programs, also called Individual Transferable Quotas, have
seen fish stocks recover and thrive in areas as far apart as Iceland and New Zealand. They encourage
responsible management of fisheries rather than overfishing. Also, conclude an
international agreement to end subsidies for deep-sea fishing. Research from
the environmental organization Oceana has shown that most deep-sea fishing
would be uneconomic without these subsidies. Government action is
therefore contributing to environmental degradation.”
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