Telecom Regulation, Maritime Recycling and the Economics Nobel
The Federal Communications Commission moves to regulate telecom networks in the name of “net neutrality.”
Italian police investigate illegal disposal of “toxic” shipwrecks.
Experts continue to debate the impact of the recent Nobel Prize in Economics.
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.
1. TECHNOLOGY
The Federal Communications Commission moves to regulate telecom networks in the name of “net neutrality.”
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Information Policy Analyst Ryan Radia on why the government should let network owners compete amongst themselves:
“Competing Internet providers shouldn’t have to get permission from the FCC to manage their networks. No number of ‘brilliant engineers’ can formulate a single universal framework for distinguishing between reasonable and unreasonable network management. This knowledge is dispersed across millions of participants in the online ecosystem. Decentralized experimentation – trial and error – is best able to synthesize varying consumer preferences and economic interests.”
2. ENVIRONMENT
Italian police investigate illegal disposal of “toxic” shipwrecks.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Risk and Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on the damage that comes from banning industrial recycling operations:
“…the Basel Convention, [bans] trade in ‘hazardous waste’ between developed and developing nations. Because of this law, developed nations cannot send such ships or cargo to developing nations where it could be recycled. Greenpeace and similar groups pushed the Convention because they seem to think that any trade involving recycling of waste is always harmful. The reality is, such trade often creates opportunities that would lift communities out of far worse occupations or utter poverty…developing nations need trade—even in waste industries—to raise living standards.”
3. ECONOMICS
Experts continue to debate the impact of the recent Nobel Prize in Economics.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the insights of one of the winners:
“Oliver Williamson argues that when a transaction is very complicated and difficult to pin down in a contract, a company may be better off undertaking it internally. This is why companies often expand through mergers and acquisitions rather than outsource particular tasks. Williamson’s work has contributed to the recent welcome decline in antitrust intervention in the case of vertical mergers. Large companies, frequently maligned as rapacious by the left, expand to cut costs, not to impose monopoly prices on hapless consumers. Top-down government mandates that get in the way of such expansions make things worse for companies, their customers, and their employees.”
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.