Senate Bill S.786 could kill NWS internet weather products [Archive]

Matt Whiting

May 7th 05, 03:54 PM

Blueskies wrote:

> "FlyBoy" > wrote in message ...
>
>>As a private pilot, I make frequent use of the NWS's Aviation Digital
>>snip...
>
>
>>I urge those who care about this
>>issue to sign the online petition, join the online forum, and write
>>their own senators with their opinions of this bill.
>>
>>1: NWS ADDS: http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/
>>2: S. 786: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:
>>3: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SaveTheNWS/
>>
>>FlyBoy
>>
>>
>
>
> This could end up like things in Russia. Public money funded resources are deemed too inefficient to be run by the
> government, so the assets are put up for bid to private companies. The private company acquires the asset, and then
> sells the service to the public.Very bad idea for the NWS, very bad idea for our freeways, very bad idea for our
> airways...

I'm not sure it is all that bad. I think if most "public" services were
provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in
aggregate for our money. The problem that many of us, me included,
don't like to accept is that aviation is not self-supporting and is
subsidized heavily from other revenue sources. A private enterprise
wouldn't likely have this subsidy so the user costs would reflect the
true cost of the sytem and this likely would be ugly ... even if GA only
had to pay for the meager subset of services that it really needs. Most
GA airports simply couldn't survive without subsidies.

I don't know if this is true for freeways or not, but I'm not sure they
are self supporting either if you consider the total costs, both capital
and expense to maintain them.

It all comes down to what is less costly, the waste in government or the
profit margin that a private enterprise would require. If the private
enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still cost
less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.

Matt

Larry Dighera

May 7th 05, 07:37 PM

On Sat, 07 May 2005 12:31:16 GMT, "Blueskies"
> wrote in
>::

>very bad idea for our airways...

Unfortunately, it's not such a bad idea for big business.

Larry Dighera

May 7th 05, 07:40 PM

On Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54:02 GMT, Matt Whiting >
wrote in >::

> If the private
>enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still cost
>less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.

It's difficult to envision a less costly and more equitable way of
collecting the revenue for ATC operation, than a tax on fuel.

Andrew Gideon

May 7th 05, 07:46 PM

Flyboy wrote:

> The audience in this case are the readers of the forum.
> Got it?

Then that he characterizes your views as "a bunch of distortions at best"
should be of limited concern if the audience is clear that he's being
duplicitous.

- Andrew

Matt Whiting

May 7th 05, 08:24 PM

Larry Dighera wrote:

> On Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54:02 GMT, Matt Whiting >
> wrote in >::
>
>
>>If the private
>>enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still cost
>>less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.
>
>
> It's difficult to envision a less costly and more equitable way of
> collecting the revenue for ATC operation, than a tax on fuel.

I was talking more about the delivery of services costs than the
collection costs. I agree a fuel tax is pretty simple, however, do you
know how high that tax would have to be to support the entire aviation
infrastructure? I don't, but I'll bet it would be several dollars a
gallon at least. I don't know where to get an accurate assessment of
the real cost of our aviation system (airports, ATC, navaids - we'd need
to pay our share of the cost of GPS for example) or I'd make an estimate
of the cost per gallon. I suspect the fuel consumption figures are
available with some research, but I doubt all of the costs of the rest
of the system area readily available.

Matt

Bob Noel

May 7th 05, 09:00 PM

In article >,
Matt Whiting > wrote:

> I don't know where to get an accurate assessment of
> the real cost of our aviation system (airports, ATC, navaids - we'd need
> to pay our share of the cost of GPS for example)

since I don't use GPS, my "fair share" would be zero.

Even if I used GPS for my bugsmasher, the cost to provide
regular ol' SPS GPS for my use is still zero.

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

Jose

May 7th 05, 10:02 PM

> I agree a fuel tax is pretty simple, however, do you know how high that tax would have to be to support the entire aviation infrastructure? [...] I don't know where to get an accurate assessment of the real cost of our aviation system

Costs are only half the story. Benefits are the other half. There are
invisible benefits to the system (any system) which also need to be
figured in.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Andrew Gideon

May 7th 05, 10:44 PM

Matt Whiting wrote:

> I agree a fuel tax is pretty simple, however, do you
> know how high that tax would have to be to support the entire aviation
> infrastructure?

If "big iron" suddenly ceased flying, much of that infrastructure could
simply disappear and we'd not only not care, we'd be pleased. What
percentage of operations out of Boston Center or NY TRACON are "small GA"?

WRT GPS, I'd be willing to pay a share if it costs were properly allocated.
The military is still the largest user, but let's not forget all those GPSs
in automobiles, hikers' backpacks, etc.

- Andrew

Dude

May 8th 05, 12:08 AM

>
> I'm not sure it is all that bad. I think if most "public" services were
> provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in
> aggregate for our money.

This can only be true where there is free competition and where the value is
measurable (if you die without healthcare, then its hard to measure its
value). Also, if the government must have the weather already (which it
must) then it is likely efficient for us all to have them dissemanate it.
How many of the private weather firms have there own satellites anyway?

The problem that many of us, me included,
> don't like to accept is that aviation is not self-supporting and is
> subsidized heavily from other revenue sources.

I have argued this myth a thousand times, and no one listens. It simply is
not provable given our system of other heavily subsidized activities being
involved. Pointing to the subsidies is not enough. You need to show that
it is MORE subsidized than other activities, as well as trace all the taxes
(monetary and regulatory) on it. I will be happy to cut my subsidy if we
can the rest as well. Let the poor beg the rich, and the food supply shrink
if that is what you want.

A private enterprise
> wouldn't likely have this subsidy so the user costs would reflect the true
> cost of the sytem and this likely would be ugly ... even if GA only had to
> pay for the meager subset of services that it really needs.

I suppose if weather were off the budget, the TV stations would end up
paying for a lot of it. And the airlines would HAVE to have it. I suspect I
could get almost all I need for free anyway.

Most
> GA airports simply couldn't survive without subsidies.
>

I am not too sure of that. The only thing GA airports HAVE to have is
protection from permanent closure. After all, if we want to be able to fly
someplace, there has to be a place to land SOMEWHERE near there. NIMBY's be
damned. Besides, the GA airports by definition have their ability to compete
taken away by the heavily subsidized airports the carriers use.

This argument won't be over until Delta and AMR start building their own
airports.

Since there are still successful privately owned airports I will chalk up
the need for subsidies to government inability to manage them without graft
and inefficiency.

> I don't know if this is true for freeways or not, but I'm not sure they
> are self supporting either if you consider the total costs, both capital
> and expense to maintain them.
>

My point exactly! The only sure thing is that our taxes are being spent on
lots of things we don't individually care for.

> It all comes down to what is less costly, the waste in government or the
> profit margin that a private enterprise would require. If the private
> enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still cost
> less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.
>

This is true but the problem is measuring the costs and benefits. It's not
easy. Weather has national security value and therefore must be predicted
at least somewhat well. To my knowledge, all weather services are using
some of the NWS resources at this time. I could be wrong, but this tells me
we don't know well if a free market in weather prediction is profitably
sustainable. It could be that we are unwilling to pay for the amount of
accuracy which the government requires.

> Matt

Matt Whiting

May 8th 05, 03:17 AM

Bob Noel wrote:

> In article >,
> Matt Whiting > wrote:
>
>
>>I don't know where to get an accurate assessment of
>>the real cost of our aviation system (airports, ATC, navaids - we'd need
>>to pay our share of the cost of GPS for example)
>
>
> since I don't use GPS, my "fair share" would be zero.
>
> Even if I used GPS for my bugsmasher, the cost to provide
> regular ol' SPS GPS for my use is still zero.

How do you see that? Somebody has to pay for the satellites. Sure the
military needs them anyway, but if this was all private enterprise, then
you'd pay for your fair share of the use.

Matt

Matt Whiting

May 8th 05, 03:18 AM

Jose wrote:

>> I agree a fuel tax is pretty simple, however, do you know how high
>> that tax would have to be to support the entire aviation
>> infrastructure? [...] I don't know where to get an accurate
>> assessment of the real cost of our aviation system
>
>
> Costs are only half the story. Benefits are the other half. There are
> invisible benefits to the system (any system) which also need to be
> figured in.

Such as?

Matt

George Patterson

May 8th 05, 03:45 AM

Matt Whiting wrote:
>
> I think if most "public" services were
> provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in
> aggregate for our money.

I disagree. I remember when the Weather Station first came out, they had very
frequent local reports and paging of text weather of various cities every 20
minutes or so. Also had some aviation weather, as I recall.

Then they started attracting advertisers. The pilot weather was gone the next
time I saw a report. By 1995, the local cable companies had replaced the local
weather reports with their own ads. TWS corrected that a few years later by
announcing that the local weather would be displayed every 10 minutes (on the
8s). That forced the cable companies to play it.

Basically, if you need something special and are perceived to be a minority,
private enterprise will cut you right out of the picture. If weather info is
provided only by private enterprise, we won't have pilot weather unless
something like AOPA provides it for us.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson

May 8th 05, 03:59 AM

Larry Dighera wrote:
>
> It's difficult to envision a less costly and more equitable way of
> collecting the revenue for ATC operation, than a tax on fuel.

True. The problem as I see it is the amount necessary. IIRC, AOPA stated that
the fuel taxes pay about 15% of the cost of the pilot weather system? That means
that we would have to increase this tax nearly 600% to pay the weather bills.

The last time I saw a breakdown of the fuel costs was a Raleigh years ago, but,
IIRC the Federal tax was a little less than 13 cents a gallon. If I'm
remembering all this correctly, we'd have to increase the tax to at least $.86 a
gallon to pay for the weather service.

Right now, Old Bridge is charging $3.45/gallon for gas. Regular auto gas is
$2.07 down the street. If 100LL jumps to $4.18/gallon (more than twice the cost
of car gas), I think quite a few more aircraft owners would opt for auto gas
STCs. That, in turn, would require another increase in fuel taxes, since fewer
gallons would be sold.

Wish I could say that I also see a solution.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Jose

May 8th 05, 04:13 AM

>> Costs [of public infrastructure] are only half the story. Benefits are the other half. There are invisible benefits to the system (any system) which also need to be figured in.
>
>
> Such as?

I'm not going to answer specifically, because I can't prove them. They
are hidden - that's what hidden means. But consider the following.

Where I live we recently discussed (with great heat) attracting
corporations to move into our town so that we would get a bigger tax
base. The more taxes paid by corporations, the less we'd have to pay in
property tax. The arithmetic is quite simple and very compelling. It's
also wrong. However, while we can all speculate as to why, it is
virtually impossible to prove. The only verifiable numbers are the tax
rolls, and they clearly show that corporations would pay tax that would
otherwise have to be paid by homeowners.

Nonetheless, looking at neighboring towns and graphing the mil rate
(homeowner tax rate) against the corporate percentage, those towns with
the highest corprorate presence have the highest mil rate. They have
the highest traffic density, the worst schools (schools are supported by
corporate and property tax), the highest prices in the stores... stuff
like that. The reason (I speculate) has to do with the impact of the
corporations on daily life - more cars parking, more roads to be built,
slower speeds, everything takes longer, wealthier people move out...
things like this that don't show up on the balance sheet.

I have no children, but it benefits me to have a good school system.
I'll leave you to figure out why (and it has nothing to do with my
screen name). Therefore, there is a benefit to non-users of the school
system.

The benefits to reliable mail service, reliable transportation (air and
otherwise), reliable telecommunications, extend to people who walk to
the store, don't have a phone, and burn all their mail. It means that
when I walk to the store, they will have what I want. OK, that makes me
an indirect user, but there are lots of indirect users of infrastructure
that are not tracked, but benefit from it.

We all benefit from our water system (unusual in the world in that even
our wash water is potable) because it reduces disease, even if I don't
use water from the system. It is not just the people with the tap that
benefit.

Street lighting could be seen as benefitting the drivers, and so should
be paid by the drivers. However in reducing accidents it also reduces
my health insurance premiums, and it reduces robberies to boot. These
are "invisible" benefits which accrue to non-drivers.

It's little things like this that add up all over the place, just like
little costs also add up all over the place, that make a strict "user
pay" accounting problematic.

Jose

--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

FlyBoy

May 8th 05, 07:25 AM

Follow up:

Here, is the bill,
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:

and below is the Commercial Weather Services Association's press
release advocating passage of the bill. I'll just point out one of
the many duplicities in the press release. Note the particular
paragraph that reads, "This will mandate that the public, including
users like pilots, boaters and farmers, and the private sector, will
all have unrestricted real-time access to government information."
What the press release doesn't disclose is that, under the bill, this
"unrestricted real-time access" will be through a set of data portals
designed for volume access by commercial providers of products or
services. In other words, the data would be in a form that would be
essentially useless to the lay public, including pilots. The
non-competition clause of the bill would likely kill any user-friendly
Internet weather presentations by the NWS if similar presentations
were available commercially on the Internet.

--------------------------
Commercial Weather Services Association Says S.B. 786 Assures Both
Public and Industry Access

April 29, 2005 - The Commercial Weather Services Association (CWSA)
announced today its support for Senate Bill 786, "The National Weather
Services Duties Act of 2005." S.B. 786, one of three related bills
now before Congress, will benefit both the public and the private
sector.

The new legislation would require the National Weather Service (NWS)
to distribute government generated weather information "in real-time,
and without delay . . . in a manner that ensures that all members of
the public have the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access." No
such requirement currently exists.

This will mandate that the public, including users like pilots,
boaters and farmers, and the private sector, will
all have unrestricted real-time access to government information.

The bill will also update the 115-year-old mission of the NWS to fit
within the American weather framework of today, in which both the
agency and the Commercial Weather Industry now play important parts in
providing weather products, services, systems, networks and
communications to the nation.

"Through more than 55 years of innovation by the Commercial Weather
Industry and a policy of free and open exchange of government
information, the American public has become the beneficiary of the
best
weather information available anywhere in the world," said Steven
Root, President of the Commercial Weather Services Association (CWSA).
"Unfortunately, the performance of the National Weather Service in
fulfilling its key tasks of collecting and disseminating government
information has not always kept pace with public and private needs and
critical information the agency possesses is not always reaching the
public in time."

CWSA has noticed an increasing number of occurrences where the NWS has
not provided timely, key information during hurricanes, floods, and
severe snowstorms, exposing the public to heightened and serious
danger. Just as alarming, this key information was not made available
to the public or the Commercial Weather Industry including the media.
Such delayed or missing information has included real-time cooperative
observer and snow intensity reports delayed up to twelve hours during
a blizzard, hurricane
reconnaissance reports delayed during an intensifying storm, and
missed flood warnings.

S.B. 786 will provide for better information and warnings to the
public by requiring NWS to focus on a defined core mission and adhere
to its own non-competition/non-duplication policy, which NWS has had
in effect, in one form or another, for over 55 years. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), the parent organization of the NWS, unilaterally repealed this
policy in December 2004. This NOAA action is not in accord with
long-standing government policies and programs designed to encourage
private-sector investment and development of products, services,
systems, networks, and communications facilities beneficial to the
nation. Root added, "Government duplication of existing products and
services readily available from the private sector is unnecessary and
detracts from the NWS mission of saving lives and property."

The result of the December repeal has been a growing uncertainty and
risk for private sector firms engaged in the weather enterprise and
threats to jobs throughout the industry. Accordingly, this NOAA
action also endangers the very existence of free weather information
to the public, an estimated 95% of which comes from the Commercial
Weather Industry including the media.

The bill requires the Secretary of Commerce, which directs and
controls the operations of NOAA and NWS, to determine what those
competitive and duplicative activities are and requires oversight
reports to Congress. The bill does not target any particular
government activity for elimination.

S.B. 786 endorses the concept of encouraging private-sector activities
and investment, rather than government expenditures, in the American
weather sector, a principle that was jointly adopted with bipartisan
support in both the House and Senate in November 2004 as part of the
appropriations legislation funding the National Weather Service
(Conference Report to H.R. 481 . The non-duplication provision of S.B.
786 is also in line with NWS's prior policy and the philosophy of
national policies on space transportation and other government
activities.

"CWSA believes that the public safety and well-being of the nation
would best be served by NWS concentrating on its long-standing and
critical core missions including disseminating government-generated
weather information and issuing severe weather warnings for the
protection of life and property of the public.

The NWS is the only source of official government weather warnings,
government data and computer models, all relied upon by numerous users
in government, industry and the public," said Root. "Activities that
shift the NWS focus away from this mission by duplicating products,
services, systems, networks and communications that are already widely
available from the private sector, many free to the public, do not
represent appropriate stewardship of public funds."

S.B. 786 was introduced April 14, 2005 by Senator Rick Santorum
(R-PA). It is one of three bills currently before Congress that would
reexamine and redefine the structure and mission of the National
Weather Service and its parent NOAA.

About the Commercial Weather Services Association

The Commercial Weather Services Association is the trade association
for professionals who make weather their business. Its members
collect, interpret and disseminate weather information to
weather-sensitive
businesses as well as the general public. In addition, CWSA members
engineer a variety of hardware and software systems, including weather
sensors and meteorological workstations and operate weather
information networks.

For more information about the Commercial Weather Services
Association, please visit:
www.weatherindustry.org

Bob Noel

May 8th 05, 12:35 PM

In article >,
Matt Whiting > wrote:

> > Even if I used GPS for my bugsmasher, the cost to provide
> > regular ol' SPS GPS for my use is still zero.
>
> How do you see that? Somebody has to pay for the satellites. Sure the
> military needs them anyway,

Exactly. we already paid for the satellites. And nothing on the GPS SV's
is there for me. Everything is there to meet military requirements. This
isn't like the Shuttle where NASA paid big bucks to add military-specific
capabilities which meant lotsa extra weight so that every single launch
costs extra money to haul the the extra weight into orbit.

>but if this was all private enterprise, then
> you'd pay for your fair share of the use.

Well, the GPS SV's aren't private enterprise.

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

Matt Whiting

May 8th 05, 01:58 PM

George Patterson wrote:
> Matt Whiting wrote:
>
>>
>> I think if most "public" services were provided by a free enterprise
>> system, then we'd get a lot more in aggregate for our money.
>
>
> I disagree. I remember when the Weather Station first came out, they had
> very frequent local reports and paging of text weather of various cities
> every 20 minutes or so. Also had some aviation weather, as I recall.
>
> Then they started attracting advertisers. The pilot weather was gone the
> next time I saw a report. By 1995, the local cable companies had
> replaced the local weather reports with their own ads. TWS corrected
> that a few years later by announcing that the local weather would be
> displayed every 10 minutes (on the 8s). That forced the cable companies
> to play it.
>
> Basically, if you need something special and are perceived to be a
> minority, private enterprise will cut you right out of the picture. If
> weather info is provided only by private enterprise, we won't have pilot
> weather unless something like AOPA provides it for us.

Yes, that is why I said in aggregate. We overall have much better
weather services today than we had 30 years ago when it was nearly all
government provided. I didn't say that aviation would be better off.
Actually, my point is that aviation is very heavily subsidized and would
likely take it on the chin without such subsidies.

Government is very wasteful, but it does provide for the special
interests in a manner that wouldn't exist were everything based on a
"pay as you use" basis. In the end it might work out OK, but it
certainly would look a lot different. I wouldn't pay school taxes if I
didn't have kids in school, but I'd probably pay $10/gallon for avgas,
if it was even available, and I'd pay for weather briefings, use of ATC,
use of GPS, etc.

Matt

Matt Whiting

May 8th 05, 02:07 PM

Jose wrote:

>>> Costs [of public infrastructure] are only half the story. Benefits
>>> are the other half. There are invisible benefits to the system (any
>>> system) which also need to be figured in.
>>
>>
>>
>> Such as?
>
>
> I'm not going to answer specifically, because I can't prove them. They
> are hidden - that's what hidden means. But consider the following.
>
> Where I live we recently discussed (with great heat) attracting
> corporations to move into our town so that we would get a bigger tax
> base. The more taxes paid by corporations, the less we'd have to pay in
> property tax. The arithmetic is quite simple and very compelling. It's
> also wrong. However, while we can all speculate as to why, it is
> virtually impossible to prove. The only verifiable numbers are the tax
> rolls, and they clearly show that corporations would pay tax that would
> otherwise have to be paid by homeowners.
>
> Nonetheless, looking at neighboring towns and graphing the mil rate
> (homeowner tax rate) against the corporate percentage, those towns with
> the highest corprorate presence have the highest mil rate. They have
> the highest traffic density, the worst schools (schools are supported by
> corporate and property tax), the highest prices in the stores... stuff
> like that. The reason (I speculate) has to do with the impact of the
> corporations on daily life - more cars parking, more roads to be built,
> slower speeds, everything takes longer, wealthier people move out...
> things like this that don't show up on the balance sheet.

Those costs aren't hidden at all. It is fairly easy, admittedly very
tedious though, to figure them out. And, as you said, it is easy to
simply look at a town that looks like your town would look after you
attract large corporations. I don't see much hidden here. Large
companies need lots of workers, better fire fighting equipment,
hazardous waste response teams, etc. The cost of these is pretty easy
to figure out and, as you say, tends to offset the taxes that the
corporation pays.

> I have no children, but it benefits me to have a good school system.
> I'll leave you to figure out why (and it has nothing to do with my
> screen name). Therefore, there is a benefit to non-users of the school
> system.

If you are benefiting, then then you are a user of the system and should
help pay for it. :-)

> The benefits to reliable mail service, reliable transportation (air and
> otherwise), reliable telecommunications, extend to people who walk to
> the store, don't have a phone, and burn all their mail. It means that
> when I walk to the store, they will have what I want. OK, that makes me
> an indirect user, but there are lots of indirect users of infrastructure
> that are not tracked, but benefit from it.

Yep, same thing. You are still using the system, albeit it somewhat
indirectly.

> We all benefit from our water system (unusual in the world in that even
> our wash water is potable) because it reduces disease, even if I don't
> use water from the system. It is not just the people with the tap that
> benefit.
>
> Street lighting could be seen as benefitting the drivers, and so should
> be paid by the drivers. However in reducing accidents it also reduces
> my health insurance premiums, and it reduces robberies to boot. These
> are "invisible" benefits which accrue to non-drivers.

They aren't invisible. It isn't that hard to compare crime rates in
areas with street lights and those without.

> It's little things like this that add up all over the place, just like
> little costs also add up all over the place, that make a strict "user
> pay" accounting problematic.

Yes, I agree it would be an accounting nightmare.

Matt

Matt Whiting

May 8th 05, 02:11 PM

Bob Noel wrote:

> In article >,
> Matt Whiting > wrote:
>
>
>>>Even if I used GPS for my bugsmasher, the cost to provide
>>>regular ol' SPS GPS for my use is still zero.
>>
>>How do you see that? Somebody has to pay for the satellites. Sure the
>>military needs them anyway,
>
>
> Exactly. we already paid for the satellites. And nothing on the GPS SV's
> is there for me. Everything is there to meet military requirements. This
> isn't like the Shuttle where NASA paid big bucks to add military-specific
> capabilities which meant lotsa extra weight so that every single launch
> costs extra money to haul the the extra weight into orbit.

They have to be replaced periodically and monitored by folks on the
ground. There are onging operational costs. If the military isn't the
sole user, it shouldn't be the sole payer. All users should be
supporting the system. If this was the case, then folks that don't use
GPS wouldn't be taxed as heavily to support the military and thus
subsidizing those of us who do use the system. That is the essential
point. Aviation is very heavily subsidized and folks who argue it isn't
are deluding themselves.

>>but if this was all private enterprise, then
>>you'd pay for your fair share of the use.
>
>
> Well, the GPS SV's aren't private enterprise.

Right, and that is why our use of it is subsidized by general revenue to
the defense department.

Matt

jls

May 8th 05, 02:33 PM

"Matt Whiting" > swaggered in message news:P1ofe.2026 I
wouldn't pay school taxes if I
> didn't have kids in school,

Oh, yes you would or suffer the consequences.

[crossposting trimmed]

Jose

May 8th 05, 03:26 PM

> I wouldn't pay school taxes if I didn't have kids in school

It is in your best interests that other people's children are well educated.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose

May 8th 05, 03:37 PM

> Those costs aren't hidden at all. It is fairly easy, admittedly very tedious though, to figure them out.

No, it is not easy at all to figure them out. How much of the price of
ham is due to the fact that it takes two minutes longer to get through
town? How much of my income is leaking away in little costs like this
because a developer put a corporate park next to the river? And even if
you could figure it out to your own satisfaction, could you do so well
enough to convince the voters?

> If you are benefiting [from a good school system], then then you are a user of the system and should help pay for it. :-)

I am not a consumer of the school system in any shape or form.
Nonetheless, I benefit because my fellow citizens know how to add and
subtract, can reason properly, understand logarithmic progressions, and
are familiar with literature. This means for example that plays and
concerts are popular (which allows me to be a consumer of these events),
and that when a referendum comes by, I can count on people to think more
than react.

If the schools were funded simply by tuition, I'd be getting a free
ride. But if the schools are funded publicly, I might argue (like we
are doing in aviation) that I'm not a user of the system and shouldn't
pay for it - the money should come strictly out of the pockets of the
students.

I use the aviation system just by eating a ham sandwich (and not just
when I'm navigating :). Why shouldn't I pay for it (in taxes) instead
of having pilots getting a weather briefing fork over their credit cards?

> It isn't that hard to compare crime rates in areas with street lights and those without.

True, but as an indirect measure of an indirect benefit, it's subject to
much interpretation.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Larry Dighera

May 8th 05, 04:04 PM

On Sat, 07 May 2005 19:24:38 GMT, Matt Whiting >
wrote in >::

>Larry Dighera wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54:02 GMT, Matt Whiting >
>> wrote in >::
>>
>>
>>>If the private
>>>enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still cost
>>>less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.
>>
>>
>> It's difficult to envision a less costly and more equitable way of
>> collecting the revenue for ATC operation, than a tax on fuel.
>
>I was talking more about the delivery of services costs than the
>collection costs. I agree a fuel tax is pretty simple, however, do you
>know how high that tax would have to be to support the entire aviation
>infrastructure? I don't, but I'll bet it would be several dollars a
>gallon at least. I don't know where to get an accurate assessment of
>the real cost of our aviation system (airports, ATC, navaids - we'd need
>to pay our share of the cost of GPS for example) or I'd make an estimate
>of the cost per gallon. I suspect the fuel consumption figures are
>available with some research, but I doubt all of the costs of the rest
>of the system area readily available.
>

The aggregate cost of all government services provided aviation is
probably a staggering figure, but so is the amount of aviation fuel
consumed annually. AOPA's 2005 Fact Card figure is 18,857 million
gallons. Fortunately, Congress is only contemplating ATC
privatization at this time.

[email protected]

May 8th 05, 05:28 PM

At our city-owned/operated airport we have available a commercial
weather product (I can't recall the name but it is one that is commonly
found at FBOs) that I find useful when I am there to use it. But I
also use the NWS-generated ADDS Aviation Weather and IMHO it is First
Class and a damn fine example of the government "getting it right" (a
refreshing anomoly).
Of the possibility that AccuWeather's Michael Steinberg could be
(speaking) in a self-serving manner should be a given and the weight of
his "arguments" assigned a big fat zero.

Sid Knox

FlyBoy wrote:
> As a private pilot, I make frequent use of the NWS's Aviation Digital
> Data Service (see 1). I especially like their "Java Tools" graphic
> presentations of METAR, TAF, and AIR/SIGMET data. Senate Bill S. 786
> (see 2) could well kill such NWS weather presentations in favor of
> private sector subscription or advertisement supported Internet
> weather services. AccuWeather.com has been a vocal proponent of this
> bill. The Senator sponsoring this bill is from AccuWeather's home
> state.
>
> I have been arguing the case against this bill with AccuWeather's
> Michael Steinberg in an online forum on ipetitions.com (see 3). If
> any of my fellow pilots wish to add their voice to the discussion, I
> would appreciate it. I must admit that I have reached the limit of
my
> patience with Michael Steinberg, who characterizes my views as "a
> bunch of distortions at best". I believe that I have presented an
> accurate interpretation of the likely effects of this bill and I also
> believe that any "distortions" in the forum largely originate with
> AccuWeather's Michael Steinberg. I urge those who care about this
> issue to sign the online petition, join the online forum, and write
> their own senators with their opinions of this bill.
>
> 1: NWS ADDS: http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/
> 2: S. 786: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:
> 3: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SaveTheNWS/
>
> FlyBoy

George Patterson

May 9th 05, 04:38 AM

Matt Whiting wrote:
>
> They have to be replaced periodically and monitored by folks on the
> ground. There are onging operational costs. If the military isn't the
> sole user, it shouldn't be the sole payer.

The military doesn't pay a dime. They get every bit of "their" money from the
general fund, so "everybody" *is* paying the cost.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson

May 9th 05, 04:42 AM

jls wrote:
> "Matt Whiting" > swaggered in message news:P1ofe.2026 I
> wouldn't pay school taxes if I
>
>>didn't have kids in school,
>
> Oh, yes you would or suffer the consequences.

Matt postulated a world in which everything is based on a "pay as you use"
basis. In that world, there would be no consequences to that action. To see what
that education system would look like, you have only to look back about 200 years.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Matt Whiting

May 9th 05, 11:30 AM

George Patterson wrote:
> Matt Whiting wrote:
>
>>
>> They have to be replaced periodically and monitored by folks on the
>> ground. There are onging operational costs. If the military isn't
>> the sole user, it shouldn't be the sole payer.
>
>
> The military doesn't pay a dime. They get every bit of "their" money
> from the general fund, so "everybody" *is* paying the cost.

Well, everybody in the US anyway.

Matt

Dude

May 9th 05, 06:34 PM

>
> Government is very wasteful, but it does provide for the special interests
> in a manner that wouldn't exist were everything based on a "pay as you
> use" basis.

Ah, but if EVERYTHING were pay as you go, then they might exist because we
could afford to pay.

In the end it might work out OK, but it
> certainly would look a lot different. I wouldn't pay school taxes if I
> didn't have kids in school, but I'd probably pay $10/gallon for avgas, if
> it was even available, and I'd pay for weather briefings, use of ATC, use
> of GPS, etc.
>

Exactly! Because we are not "pay as you go", whenever you take out one
item and say it is "sunsidized" and we should be grateful for the
government, you are falling for a fallacy. The existing system has us all
standing with our hands out after they take so much taxes.

Blueskies

May 10th 05, 12:34 AM

"FlyBoy" > wrote in message ...
>
>
> Follow up:
>
> Here, is the bill,
> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:
>
>

Why don't your links work for me?

Flyboy

May 10th 05, 03:59 AM

"Blueskies" > wrote:

>Why don't your links work for me?

I don't know. They work for me in Mozilla, Firefox, and Internet
Explorer. I did notice that ipetitions.com was down for a few hours
yesterday. For the record, here are all the links I referenced:

1: NWS ADDS: http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/
2: S. 786: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:
3: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SaveTheNWS/

[email protected]

May 10th 05, 02:44 PM

Matt Whiting wrote:
> Blueskies wrote:
>

> >
> >
> > This could end up like things in Russia. Public money funded
resources are deemed too inefficient to be run by the
> > government, so the assets are put up for bid to private companies.
The private company acquires the asset, and then
> > sells the service to the public.Very bad idea for the NWS, very
bad idea for our freeways, very bad idea for our
> > airways...
>
> I'm not sure it is all that bad. I think if most "public" services
were
> provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in
> aggregate for our money.

Probably so for some services, I dunno about most. In the instant
case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
and so on. There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.

The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.

A similar program during the Reagan era privatized much of the
Landsat data, after the Governement had paid for the programs
to obtain and archive it. The result was that it was priced
beyond reach of a lot of researchers. Oil companies could
afford it though.

>
> It all comes down to what is less costly, the waste in government or
the
> profit margin that a private enterprise would require. If the
private
> enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still
cost
> less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.
>

Not in the instant case. The government would still have all
the expense of operating a weather service--then a private concern
would get to sell the fruits of that tax money. E.g. Corporate
Welfare without even the meager benefits that something like a
subsidized sports stadium brings a community.

The proper and effective way to privatize services of this sort
is to put the operational support for the service up for competative
bidding by prospective contractors and NOT by privatizing the data
themselves.

--

FF

Matt Barrow

May 10th 05, 03:51 PM

> wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> In the instant
> case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
> bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
> and so on.

Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites? And the broadcast
groups?

> There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
> quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.

So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?

These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and Amtrak.

>
> The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
> but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.

Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they could
do that.

Get a clue!!

Dude

May 10th 05, 05:19 PM

"Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
...
>
> > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>>
>> In the instant
>> case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
>> bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
>> and so on.
>
> Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites? And the broadcast
> groups?
>
>> There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
>> quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.
>
> So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?
>
> These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and Amtrak.
>
>>
>> The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
>> but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.
>
> Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they could
> do that.
>
> Get a clue!!
>
>

C'mon Matt. You are overboard here. First of all, the USPS was, IMHO, much
better at providing services before it was made into its present "corporate
form". Even if it was expensive, you could stand on solid ground when you
said you mailed something to someone, and they should have gotten it. Not
so anymore, no matter what the IRS says.

Second, both examples are more like what would be created by this bill, not
what we have now. Semi-privatization just don't fly.

Lastly, the argument that is made here is both valid, reasonable, and should
be a litmus test for privatization or outsourcing. What this bill does is
not really either privatization or outsourcing anyway.

If the NWS is not up to the level of quality desired by the market, then why
do the private services need the NWS data? IOW, why are there not self
contained services ready to go? The problem this bill would address is one
where the fine cheese makers cannot sell cheese because the government is
giving it away. That would be a good argument except that in this case, the
government will still be making the cheese and the cheesemakers wil just
become profitable distributors.

No, there is a need for better packaging, delivery, and interpretation.
There are many services that perform these functions but they often use
government sources along with private ones to make their predictions and
build their products. They make money only where they can add value. Giving
up a lot of benefit for little reward is not something the taxpayers should
do just in the name of free markets. We first need to be convinced the free
market will be better and more efficient. IOW, we need to know that the
satellites and other infracstructure will be replaced by the private sector
instead of the private sector simply siphoning off some profit and leaving
when the free cheese runs out.

Matt Barrow

May 10th 05, 05:59 PM

"Dude" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > > wrote in message
> > ups.com...
> >>
> >> In the instant
> >> case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
> >> bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
> >> and so on.
> >
> > Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites? And the
broadcast
> > groups?
> >
> >> There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
> >> quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.
> >
> > So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?
> >
> > These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and Amtrak.
> >
> >>
> >> The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
> >> but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.
> >
> > Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they
could
> > do that.
> >
> > Get a clue!!
> >
> >
>
> C'mon Matt. You are overboard here. First of all, the USPS was, IMHO,
much
> better at providing services before it was made into its present
"corporate
> form". Even if it was expensive, you could stand on solid ground when you
> said you mailed something to someone, and they should have gotten it. Not
> so anymore, no matter what the IRS says.
>
> Second, both examples are more like what would be created by this bill,
not
> what we have now. Semi-privatization just don't fly.

No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry "could do
what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.

Matt Whiting

May 10th 05, 11:38 PM

wrote:
> Matt Whiting wrote:
>
>>Blueskies wrote:
>>
>
>
>>>
>>>This could end up like things in Russia. Public money funded
>
> resources are deemed too inefficient to be run by the
>
>>>government, so the assets are put up for bid to private companies.
>
> The private company acquires the asset, and then
>
>>>sells the service to the public.Very bad idea for the NWS, very
>
> bad idea for our freeways, very bad idea for our
>
>>>airways...
>>
>>I'm not sure it is all that bad. I think if most "public" services
>
> were
>
>>provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in
>>aggregate for our money.
>
>
> Probably so for some services, I dunno about most. In the instant
> case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
> bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
> and so on. There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
> quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.
>
> The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
> but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.
>
> A similar program during the Reagan era privatized much of the
> Landsat data, after the Governement had paid for the programs
> to obtain and archive it. The result was that it was priced
> beyond reach of a lot of researchers. Oil companies could
> afford it though.

The point is that we would have to have most taxes go away in order for
this to happen. If we paid no income tax at all, then we could afford
to pay quite a bit for the services that we actually need. There is no
question that government redistributes wealth in many ways. What I
don't know is what things would look like if the wealth was distributed
by a free market rather than by government. I really don't know who
benefits the most from the redistribution, but given that much of
government is now involved not with providing services, but with the
redistribution process itself (IRS as one major example), which adds
zero economic value, it is an interesting thought experiment as to what
things would look like if this waste were put to use productively.

>>It all comes down to what is less costly, the waste in government or
>
> the
>
>>profit margin that a private enterprise would require. If the
>
> private
>
>>enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still
>
> cost
>
>>less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.
>>
>
>
> Not in the instant case. The government would still have all
> the expense of operating a weather service--then a private concern
> would get to sell the fruits of that tax money. E.g. Corporate
> Welfare without even the meager benefits that something like a
> subsidized sports stadium brings a community.
>
> The proper and effective way to privatize services of this sort
> is to put the operational support for the service up for competative
> bidding by prospective contractors and NOT by privatizing the data
> themselves.

I agree that any transition would be painful. I was just trying to
imagine what things could look like if the services were provided more
efficiently. Our revenue collection process now is a huge resource hog
that provides no intrinsic value. I can't find the source now, but I
recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all tax
preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was simply
staggering. Think how much more competitive our economy would be if
these people were actually growing, mining or making things or doing
something else with intrinsic value.

Matt

Matt Whiting

May 10th 05, 11:51 PM

Matt Barrow wrote:

> No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry "could do
> what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.

True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
less expensively. I would certainly hope it wouldn't simply "do what
the NWS does" as that would be a real waste.

Matt

[email protected]

May 11th 05, 01:25 AM

Matt Barrow wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ups.com...
> >
> > In the instant
> > case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the
weather
> > bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather
satellites
> > and so on.
>
> Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites?
> And the broadcast groups?

How many of those were put into orbit by privately developed and
operated launch vehicles?

>
> > There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
> > quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.
>
> So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?

Yes and they do.

>
> These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and
Amtrak.

Unhappy with the USPS are you? It has already been privatized.
IMHO, service was far more consistant and consistantly good
when there was a Postmaster General in the Cabinet.
Amtrak could not compete with the heavily subsidized airline
industry regardless of who managed it.

>
> >
> > The proposal would not significantly reduce the government's costs,
> > but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.
>
> Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they
could
> do that.
>
> Get a clue!!

I'm not able to parse that, But riddle me this, is the market
for weather reporting more lucrative in heavily populated areas
or in sparsley populated areas? Which of those two are the
preferred areas for GA?

--

FF

Blueskies

May 11th 05, 01:34 AM

"Flyboy" > wrote in message ...
> "Blueskies" > wrote:
>
>>Why don't your links work for me?
>
>
> I don't know. They work for me in Mozilla, Firefox, and Internet
> Explorer. I did notice that ipetitions.com was down for a few hours
> yesterday. For the record, here are all the links I referenced:
>
> 1: NWS ADDS: http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/
> 2: S. 786: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:
> 3: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SaveTheNWS/
>
>

All is well now, thanks fro reposting

George Patterson

May 11th 05, 03:27 AM

Matt Whiting wrote:
> Matt Barrow wrote:
>
>> No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry
>> "could do
>> what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.
>
> True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
> less expensively.

Unlikely. That's a situation in which competition wouldn't really be feasible.
You have only to look at the way AT&T was handling their monopoly and charging
structure in the '70s to see that the charges would almost certainly be
considerably higher than what we pay in taxes to support NWS today.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson

May 11th 05, 03:39 AM

wrote:
>>
>>Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites?
>>And the broadcast groups?
>
> How many of those were put into orbit by privately developed and
> operated launch vehicles?

A great many of them. Although NASA used their political muscle to stifle
private launch ventures in the States, there are companies elsewhere who will
put up a satellite cheaper than using the shuttle.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Matt Barrow

May 11th 05, 04:02 AM

"Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
...
> Matt Barrow wrote:
>
> > No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry "could
do
> > what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.

Whoops...that should be "couldn't do".

> True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
> less expensively. I would certainly hope it wouldn't simply "do what
> the NWS does" as that would be a real waste.

The NWS doesn't do anything by itself; it has no manufacturing capacity. It
merely derives income from the thugs at the IRS.

In the same vein, it has no stimulus to provide a better product. That's
what the profit motive creates, "MOTIVE".

The NWS/NOAA will get it pound of flesh regardless of the quality of its
product. AAMOF, if they fall behind, they can just demand/plead the need for
MORE money and resources...sorta like the school systems. (**** up and move
up).

Matt Barrow

May 11th 05, 04:03 AM

"George Patterson" > wrote in message
news:B4ege.440$Ld4.227@trndny04...
> Matt Whiting wrote:
> > Matt Barrow wrote:
> >
> >> No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry
> >> "could do
> >> what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.
> >
> > True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
> > less expensively.
>
> Unlikely. That's a situation in which competition wouldn't really be
feasible.
> You have only to look at the way AT&T was handling their monopoly and
charging
> structure in the '70s to see that the charges would almost certainly be
> considerably higher than what we pay in taxes to support NWS today.

Key word: monopoly. Context: government mandated and enforced monopoly.

Matt Barrow

May 11th 05, 04:11 AM

> wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Matt Barrow wrote:
> > > wrote in message
> > ups.com...
> > >
> > > In the instant
> > > case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the
> weather
> > > bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather
> satellites
> > > and so on.
> >
> > Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites?
> > And the broadcast groups?
>
> How many of those were put into orbit by privately developed and
> operated launch vehicles?

Every one of them.

NASA has no manufacturing capacity of it own.

>
> >
> > > There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
> > > quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.
> >
> > So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?
>
> Yes and they do.

LOL!! Boy are you easily satisfied. Good little menchen, you!

> >
> > These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and
> Amtrak.
>
> Unhappy with the USPS are you? It has already been privatized.

Man, you're nievity is incredible.

Here the story a while back about the USPS fining people for carrying first
class mail?

How much do UPS and FedEx pay in income taxes? In property taxes?

Privitized? Like AMTRAK?

Like I said: get a clue!

> IMHO, service was far more consistant and consistantly good
> when there was a Postmaster General in the Cabinet.

Yup. They took decades to convert to faster means of transport that UPS and
FexEx had from day ONE.

In essence, the old Post Office didn't evolve during it's first 170 years of
existence.

The comparison is not the Post Office and the modern day USPS, it's FedEx,
UPS, and a slew of local delivery services/

> Amtrak could not compete with the heavily subsidized airline
> industry regardless of who managed it.

Want to compare subsidies for the airlines versus Amtrak?
> > > The proposal would not significantly reduce the government's costs,
> > > but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.
> >
> > Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they
> could
> > do that.
> >
> > Get a clue!!
>
> I'm not able to parse that, But riddle me this, is the market
> for weather reporting more lucrative in heavily populated areas
> or in sparsley populated areas? Which of those two are the
> preferred areas for GA?

Non-sequitur -- the market is nation wide.

Again, get a clue rather than the bilge the media and your handlers shoved
down your throat and which you uncritically swallowed.

Matt Barrow

May 11th 05, 04:13 AM

"George Patterson" > wrote in message
news:Ofege.1466$rw4.774@trndny03...
> wrote:
> >>
> >>Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites?
> >>And the broadcast groups?
> >
> > How many of those were put into orbit by privately developed and
> > operated launch vehicles?
>
> A great many of them. Although NASA used their political muscle to stifle
> private launch ventures in the States, there are companies elsewhere who
will
> put up a satellite cheaper than using the shuttle.
>
Good story is the project that former astronaut Deke Slayton worked on in
the years before his death...the one that NASA stove mightily to stifle.
They spent their entire chest of working capital in chasing
paperwork/bureaucratic BS.

Jose

May 11th 05, 04:28 AM

> In the same vein, it has no stimulus to provide a better product. That's
> what the profit motive creates, "MOTIVE".

What's the motive to provide good public libraries?

Jose

--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Matt Barrow

May 11th 05, 04:42 AM

"Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
...
> The point is that we would have to have most taxes go away in order for
> this to happen. If we paid no income tax at all, then we could afford
> to pay quite a bit for the services that we actually need. There is no
> question that government redistributes wealth in many ways. What I
> don't know is what things would look like if the wealth was distributed
> by a free market rather than by government.

Does it matter how it would be distributed? In any case, it would be
distributed to those who provided goods and services to people in freely
accepted transactions. The key word is "freely"...ya know, _freedom_!!

> I really don't know who
> benefits the most from the redistribution,

Pols, bureaucrats and those with political pull.

> but given that much of
> government is now involved not with providing services, but with the
> redistribution process itself (IRS as one major example), which adds
> zero economic value, it is an interesting thought experiment as to what
> things would look like if this waste were put to use productively.

It would like like a truly "Free Country".

>
> I agree that any transition would be painful. I was just trying to
> imagine what things could look like if the services were provided more
> efficiently.

Prosperity would skyrocket.

(Imagine the fellow whose parents spoiled him all his life, then tossed him
out of the house.)

>Our revenue collection process now is a huge resource hog
> that provides no intrinsic value.

Think of the mafia!

> I can't find the source now, but I
> recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
> collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all tax
> preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
> CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
> counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was simply
> staggering.

Not only the cost of collecting, but the bureaucratic overhead, not to
mention the Gestapo-like tactics of the collection agencies. Not to mention
the inversion of "servants" and "masters".

>Think how much more competitive our economy would be if
> these people were actually growing, mining or making things or doing
> something else with intrinsic value.

There is no such thing as "intrinsic" value. Only value to people apply to
things.

Roger

May 11th 05, 07:27 AM

On Wed, 11 May 2005 02:27:45 GMT, George Patterson
> wrote:

>Matt Whiting wrote:
>> Matt Barrow wrote:
>>
>>> No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry
>>> "could do
>>> what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.
>>
>> True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
>> less expensively.
>
>Unlikely. That's a situation in which competition wouldn't really be feasible.
>You have only to look at the way AT&T was handling their monopoly and charging
>structure in the '70s to see that the charges would almost certainly be
>considerably higher than what we pay in taxes to support NWS today.
>

Let's see:

Low bidder get the contract. So they start out cheap, and then have
to figure in a profit margin. Something is going to either get cut or
added, most likely both. Less service at a higher cost.

This would be like an airline letting out their maintenance to a low
bidder.

There are few things where a government/tax supported service works
better, but weather and traffic control are two.

If ATC were supported only by user fees the cost of flying would be
far higher than today.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

>George Patterson
> There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
> mashed potatoes.

Matt Barrow

May 11th 05, 03:29 PM

"Roger" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 11 May 2005 02:27:45 GMT, George Patterson
> > wrote:
>
> >Matt Whiting wrote:
> >> Matt Barrow wrote:
> >>
> >>> No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry
> >>> "could do
> >>> what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.
> >>
> >> True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
> >> less expensively.
> >
> >Unlikely. That's a situation in which competition wouldn't really be
feasible.
> >You have only to look at the way AT&T was handling their monopoly and
charging
> >structure in the '70s to see that the charges would almost certainly be
> >considerably higher than what we pay in taxes to support NWS today.
> >
>
> Let's see:
>
> Low bidder get the contract. So they start out cheap, and then have
> to figure in a profit margin. Something is going to either get cut or
> added, most likely both. Less service at a higher cost.

You assume it would be another monopoly. Flat out wrong in the same way
other media is a monopoly.

>
> This would be like an airline letting out their maintenance to a low
> bidder.
>
> There are few things where a government/tax supported service works
> better, but weather and traffic control are two.

Assumptive at best, and wrong by history.

> If ATC were supported only by user fees the cost of flying would be
> far higher than today.

Directly, yes. Overall, no.

Andrew Gideon

May 11th 05, 04:48 PM

Matt Barrow wrote:

>> I can't find the source now, but I
>> recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
>> collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all tax
>> preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
>> CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
>> counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was simply
>> staggering.

But how much of this is solvable not by eliminating the taxation process,
but by (honestly, this time) simplifying it. In this day of automation,
the state of tax preparation is incredible to the point of offense. I
would not tolerate this in a vendor from whom I was purchasing by choice.

That the government has yet to get this right - along with any other
technological project of significance, like the FBI's fiasco - is a good
point for private enterprise. However, there are inherent inefficiencies
with that approach too.

Every payment has a cost, even in an efficient (ie. not government {8^)
world. The efficiency of the payment (ie. the amount that goes to overhead
of the payment infrastructure) drops as the actual cost of the purchased
item/service drops. In other words, it's more efficient to pay a single
large sum than several smaller sums.

This gets especially bad in the range called "micropayments", for which the
world is still waiting on a good (accepted) solution.

By aggregating several purchases, taxes do (rather: could in theory) provide
efficiency.

If only it were done well.

- Andrew

Peter Duniho

May 11th 05, 07:02 PM

"Andrew Gideon" > wrote in message
online.com...
> [...]
> By aggregating several purchases, taxes do (rather: could in theory)
> provide
> efficiency.
>
> If only it were done well.

Not sure if you really believe this or not, but your suggestion makes the
assumption that taxes are only about paying for services. They are not.
Much of the complexity found in tax law is about social engineering and
catering to special-interest groups.

It would be hard to simplify taxes while still preserving those goals, held
dear by those who control tax law.

Pete

Dude

May 11th 05, 07:25 PM

>
> There are few things where a government/tax supported service works
> better, but weather and traffic control are two.
>

Military Defense is a good example of something best done by government.
Even if you do pay more.

Weather is a defense issue for one thing. Military types need good weather
forecasts even more than pilots. They need them for places outside the
country, too.

Could someone who thinks that a free market would work better here, please
DESCRIBE how that market would work? Please include infrastructure costs and
who is paying for them since the government will not be paying for them
anymore, otherwise its not a free market!!! What this bill describes is a
free ride, not a free market. If we have a free ride, let's all share it.

Governments (and philanthopists) are necessary for big expensive long term
projects with questionable profitability. It is very possible that the
market demand for good weather data would not support a profitable weather
service. If you cannot determine that the demand is there, then simply
saying free markets are better will not work.

If all this was so simple, healthcare would not be a big issue. The bottom
line is that on average, people won't invest in this sort of thing until
it's too late. How many people would actually budget for the real pice of
the healthcare they desire? About 10% would be my guess.

You know, a guy in trainer can fly with or without the weather forecast and
not care. He may not leave far from the field though. However, the FAA says
he HAS to have weather before going up. Are you going to change these rules
when everyone has to pay?

> If ATC were supported only by user fees the cost of flying would be
> far higher than today.
>

Only if the system was as it is now. User fees, depending upon the
structure, WILL change who flies what and where and how often.

Dude

May 11th 05, 07:27 PM

"Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Matt Barrow wrote:
>>
>> > No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry "could
> do
>> > what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.
>
> Whoops...that should be "couldn't do".
>
>> True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
>> less expensively. I would certainly hope it wouldn't simply "do what
>> the NWS does" as that would be a real waste.
>
> The NWS doesn't do anything by itself; it has no manufacturing capacity.
> It
> merely derives income from the thugs at the IRS.
>
> In the same vein, it has no stimulus to provide a better product. That's
> what the profit motive creates, "MOTIVE".
>
> The NWS/NOAA will get it pound of flesh regardless of the quality of its
> product. AAMOF, if they fall behind, they can just demand/plead the need
> for
> MORE money and resources...sorta like the school systems. (**** up and
> move
> up).
>

You are just assuming there is actually enough profit here to motivate
someone to invest like the government has?

Dude

May 11th 05, 07:34 PM

All this tax talk is good.

I kinda like www.fairtax.org myself.

I am all about free markets and eliminating government as much as possible.
However, the bill in question does not eliminate NWS. IF they want to put
out a long term plan and show how this will help, and when we will see a
better, more efficient, and free market in weather; THEN, I will support it.

From here though, it sounds like the arguments are just a bunch of "free
markets are always better" talk. We don't live in a free market utopia, so
this is not always true.

Matt Whiting

May 11th 05, 10:51 PM

Andrew Gideon wrote:

> Matt Barrow wrote:
>
>
>
>>>I can't find the source now, but I
>>>recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
>>>collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all tax
>>>preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
>>>CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
>>>counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was simply
>>>staggering.
>
>
> But how much of this is solvable not by eliminating the taxation process,
> but by (honestly, this time) simplifying it. In this day of automation,
> the state of tax preparation is incredible to the point of offense. I
> would not tolerate this in a vendor from whom I was purchasing by choice.

Yes, a flat income, sales or VAT tax could certainly eliminate much of
the government bureaucracy.

> That the government has yet to get this right - along with any other
> technological project of significance, like the FBI's fiasco - is a good
> point for private enterprise. However, there are inherent inefficiencies
> with that approach too.

Such as? There are often inequities in private enterprise, depending on
how you define equity, but typically the efficiency is quite high over
time as the inefficient players die out.

> Every payment has a cost, even in an efficient (ie. not government {8^)
> world. The efficiency of the payment (ie. the amount that goes to overhead
> of the payment infrastructure) drops as the actual cost of the purchased
> item/service drops. In other words, it's more efficient to pay a single
> large sum than several smaller sums.
>
> This gets especially bad in the range called "micropayments", for which the
> world is still waiting on a good (accepted) solution.
>
> By aggregating several purchases, taxes do (rather: could in theory) provide
> efficiency.
>
> If only it were done well.

Yes, that is the crux of the problem. Government has no incentive to do
this well.

Matt

Jose

May 11th 05, 10:57 PM

> Yes, a flat income, sales or VAT tax could certainly eliminate much of the government bureaucracy.

.... and that's exactly what we already have in place to pay for aviation
services. A flat tax on gas. Everyone who buys gas pays for the
service, and mostly everyone who buys the gas uses the service. How
much better can it get?

Jose
(r.a.o and r.a.h trimmed)
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Matt Whiting

May 11th 05, 11:21 PM

Jose wrote:

>> Yes, a flat income, sales or VAT tax could certainly eliminate much of
>> the government bureaucracy.
>
>
> ... and that's exactly what we already have in place to pay for aviation
> services. A flat tax on gas. Everyone who buys gas pays for the
> service, and mostly everyone who buys the gas uses the service. How
> much better can it get?

Not much for aviation, but I was talking about taxes in general. If
only it was all as simple...

Matt

[email protected]

May 12th 05, 12:46 AM

Matt Barrow wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ups.com...
> >
> > Matt Barrow wrote:
> > > > wrote in message
> > > ups.com...
> > > >
> > > > In the instant
> > > > case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the
> > weather
> > > > bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather
> > satellites
> > > > and so on.
> > >
> > > Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites?
> > > And the broadcast groups?
> >
> > How many of those were put into orbit by privately developed and
> > operated launch vehicles?
>
> Every one of them.
>
> NASA has no manufacturing capacity of it own.
>

As you will recall,
in om> I wrote:

The proper and effective way to privatize services of this sort
is to put the operational support for the service up for competative
bidding by prospective contractors and NOT by privatizing the data
themselves.

Which is precisely how NASA builds, launches and operates satellites.

That is not the sort of privatization being proposed for the NWS.

What is proposed is that the information to be distributed be
made into a privately owned intelectual property--like was done
with the Landsat data that effectively destroyed it's value to
anyone but the company to which it was given.

>
> > >
> > > These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and
> > Amtrak.
> >
> > Unhappy with the USPS are you? It has already been privatized.
>
> Man, you're nievity is incredible.
>
> Here the story a while back about the USPS fining people for carrying
first
> class mail?

I was not aware that the USPS had authority to fine anyone. Federal
Law sets aside the carriage of first class mail for the USPS so
that all citizens can have their first class mail deliverd for
the same price. Those who violate that law may be enjoined or
finedby the courts I would presume, though maybe the USPS police
(e.g. the stamp cops) ocnduct the investigations. Otherwise,
persons in some parts of the country would be effectively without
mail service. Some people think that's OK, you know, the sort of
people who only think the benefits they get from government are
appropriate.

....
>
> Yup. They took decades to convert to faster means of transport that
UPS and
> FexEx had from day ONE.

UPS and Fedex perform different services. However, I have never had
the deliver problems with the USPS that I have had with UPS. Not
much experience with Fedex, nor will I since they are so friggin'
expensive.

>
> The comparison is not the Post Office and the modern day USPS, it's
FedEx,
> UPS, and a slew of local delivery services/
>

No it is not. None of those are privitized delivery networks for
product obtained at taxpayer expense. The current proposal has
us paying the government to obtain the data and make the forcasts,
and they pay somebody else to be able to access them.

>
> > Amtrak could not compete with the heavily subsidized airline
> > industry regardless of who managed it.
>
> Want to compare subsidies for the airlines versus Amtrak?

Go ahead. Take an especially close look at fuel costs. Be sure
to include the United Airlines (spit) pension plan.

> > ... But riddle me this, is the market
> > for weather reporting more lucrative in heavily populated areas
> > or in sparsley populated areas? Which of those two are the
> > preferred areas for GA?
>
> Non-sequitur -- the market is nation wide.

'The' market for first class mail is nation wide too. Where do those
small time outfits illegally delivering first class mail spring up,
in the business districts of major cities or in the backcountry of
Montana?

>
> Again, get a clue rather than the bilge the media and your handlers
shoved
> down your throat and which you uncritically swallowed.

Oh, you're one of those paranoid nut-jobs, eh?

--

FF

[email protected]

May 12th 05, 04:17 AM

George Patterson wrote:
> wrote:
> >>
> >>Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites?
> >>And the broadcast groups?
> >
> > How many of those were put into orbit by privately developed and
> > operated launch vehicles?
>
> A great many of them. Although NASA used their political muscle to
stifle
> private launch ventures in the States, there are companies elsewhere
who will
> put up a satellite cheaper than using the shuttle.
>

Please tell us about some of them.

--

FF

Matt Barrow

May 12th 05, 04:24 AM

"Andrew Gideon" > wrote in message
online.com...
> Matt Barrow wrote:
>
>
> >> I can't find the source now, but I
> >> recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
> >> collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all
tax
> >> preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
> >> CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
> >> counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was simply
> >> staggering.
>
> But how much of this is solvable not by eliminating the taxation process,
> but by (honestly, this time) simplifying it. In this day of automation,
> the state of tax preparation is incredible to the point of offense. I
> would not tolerate this in a vendor from whom I was purchasing by choice.

Check your cutting/snipping. That's not my post (with three levels of
indentation)

>
> That the government has yet to get this right - along with any other
> technological project of significance, like the FBI's fiasco - is a good
> point for private enterprise. However, there are inherent inefficiencies
> with that approach too.
>
> Every payment has a cost, even in an efficient (ie. not government {8^)
> world. The efficiency of the payment (ie. the amount that goes to
overhead
> of the payment infrastructure) drops as the actual cost of the purchased
> item/service drops. In other words, it's more efficient to pay a single
> large sum than several smaller sums.

Government does not derive just powers from it's level of efficiency, but
from it's moral base. IOW, there are things a government MUST do by itself
(and things that it MUST NOT) due to the nature of it's power. A government
that can ititiate force against it's citizens or others is a THUG. This fact
does not go away regardless of how man people vote for it.

A legitimate governmetn cannot do anything that an individual citizen can.

>
> This gets especially bad in the range called "micropayments", for which
the
> world is still waiting on a good (accepted) solution.
>
> By aggregating several purchases, taxes do (rather: could in theory)
provide
> efficiency.
>
> If only it were done well.

Efficiently, but not morally.

Matt Barrow

May 12th 05, 04:27 AM

"Dude" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > "Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> Matt Barrow wrote:
> >>
> >> > No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry
"could
> > do
> >> > what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.
> >
> > Whoops...that should be "couldn't do".
> >
> >> True. A private industry would do what the NWS does only better and
> >> less expensively. I would certainly hope it wouldn't simply "do what
> >> the NWS does" as that would be a real waste.
> >
> > The NWS doesn't do anything by itself; it has no manufacturing capacity.
> > It
> > merely derives income from the thugs at the IRS.
> >
> > In the same vein, it has no stimulus to provide a better product. That's
> > what the profit motive creates, "MOTIVE".
> >
> > The NWS/NOAA will get it pound of flesh regardless of the quality of its
> > product. AAMOF, if they fall behind, they can just demand/plead the need
> > for
> > MORE money and resources...sorta like the school systems. (**** up and
> > move
> > up).
> >
>
>
> You are just assuming there is actually enough profit here to motivate
> someone to invest like the government has?
>

Government invests?

Thank you for providing a good verification of the statist nature of public
schools as mentioned above.

Matt Barrow

May 12th 05, 04:28 AM

"Dude" > wrote in message
...
> All this tax talk is good.
>
> I kinda like www.fairtax.org myself.
>
> I am all about free markets and eliminating government as much as
possible.
> However, the bill in question does not eliminate NWS. IF they want to put
> out a long term plan and show how this will help, and when we will see a
> better, more efficient, and free market in weather; THEN, I will support
it.

How about the Constitutions article 1, section 8?

> From here though, it sounds like the arguments are just a bunch of "free
> markets are always better" talk. We don't live in a free market utopia, so
> this is not always true.

What a wishy-washy pile of ****.

Matt Barrow

May 12th 05, 04:32 AM

"Matt Whiting" > wrote in message
...
> Andrew Gideon wrote:
>
> > Matt Barrow wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>>I can't find the source now, but I
> >>>recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
> >>>collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all
tax
> >>>preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
> >>>CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
> >>>counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was simply
> >>>staggering.
> >
> >
> > But how much of this is solvable not by eliminating the taxation
process,
> > but by (honestly, this time) simplifying it. In this day of automation,
> > the state of tax preparation is incredible to the point of offense. I
> > would not tolerate this in a vendor from whom I was purchasing by
choice.
>
> Yes, a flat income, sales or VAT tax could certainly eliminate much of
> the government bureaucracy.

Yes, for the first two, No, for the VAT. Also, a VAT is the most easily
hidden and abused. It also penalizes productivity.

George Patterson

May 12th 05, 04:50 AM

wrote:
>
> Please tell us about some of them.

The big hitter is Ariane in France. They've been launching since 1980 and
currently put up more than half the satellites launched every year. They just
signed a deal with the Russian space agency, which will allow them to use the
Soyuz infrastructure.

Messerschmitt made a stab at it at about the same time, but I'm not sure they
every got operational. They were planning to build launch facilities in Africa.

Then there's International Launch Services, which is a joint venture of Lockheed
Martin and Russian rocket builder Khrunichev State Research and Production Space
Center. They were formed in 1995.

Sea Launch was also formed in 1995 and made their first commercial lift in 1999.
They launch from platforms in the ocean to get around having to deal with NASA
to use land bases in the U.S..

Boeing is also getting into the act with their Delta system.

And if you need to put up something really massive, there are several companies
in Russia who have access to updated military launch facilities, and, of course,
the Russian government will be happy to help you as well.

Launches planned for the next few months may be viewed at
http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking . As you can see, there are 40 scheduled. One
is NASA. A few others are U.S. military.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

[email protected]

May 12th 05, 03:31 PM

George Patterson wrote:
> wrote:
> >
> > Please tell us about some of them.
>
> The big hitter is Ariane in France. They've been launching since 1980
and
> currently put up more than half the satellites launched every year.
They just
> signed a deal with the Russian space agency, which will allow them to
use the
> Soyuz infrastructure.

Ariane ws developed by and is operated by ESA, the European
counterpart to NASA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane

E.g. Ariane is not a private venture.

>
> Messerschmitt made a stab at it at about the same time, but I'm not
sure they
> every got operational. They were planning to build launch facilities
in Africa.
>
> Then there's International Launch Services, which is a joint venture
of Lockheed
> Martin and Russian rocket builder Khrunichev State Research and
Production Space
> Center. They were formed in 1995.

Checking out their site http://www.ilslaunch.com/whoweare/ it is not
clear how many launches they have made. It is clear that they rely
on launch vehicles that were developed and proven by the US and
Soviet Governments.

>
> Sea Launch was also formed in 1995 and made their first commercial
lift in 1999.
> They launch from platforms in the ocean to get around having to deal
with NASA
> to use land bases in the U.S..
>

Their home page is here http://www.sea-launch.com/ where they report
sixteen launches to date. Excellent! However their launch vehicles
are modifications to vehicles developed by the Soviets.

> Boeing is also getting into the act with their Delta system.
>
> And if you need to put up something really massive, there are several
companies
> in Russia who have access to updated military launch facilities, and,
of course,
> the Russian government will be happy to help you as well.

Which obviously are using vehicles and infrastructure deleloped
by the old Soviet Union.

IOW none of those are examples of launch vehicles developed by
private industry. I think those programs area good thing. However
they do not show industry doind something better than government,
they show something industry could not have done at all if
governments had not done the precursor work.

The Chinese will also launch commercial satellites with the Long
March.

>
> Launches planned for the next few months may be viewed at
> http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking . As you can see, there are 40
scheduled. One
> is NASA. A few others are U.S. military.

I see two NASA launches, one joint NASA/NOAA, and one NOAA launch
scheduled as well as a number of USAF GPS lauches. Several launches
are for support of the ISS.

Dude

May 12th 05, 03:31 PM

>> You are just assuming there is actually enough profit here to motivate
>> someone to invest like the government has?
>>
>
> Government invests?
>

While perhaps not the most common usage, one can call spending millions on
infrastructrure "investing". Normally, I take my inability to communicate
as my own fault, however, after reading:

> Thank you for providing a good verification of the statist nature of
> public
> schools as mentioned above.
>

I think perhaps you just don't want to understand me because your
programming will get all wigged out.

Dude

May 12th 05, 03:37 PM

"Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Dude" > wrote in message
> ...
>> All this tax talk is good.
>>
>> I kinda like www.fairtax.org myself.
>>
>> I am all about free markets and eliminating government as much as
> possible.
>> However, the bill in question does not eliminate NWS. IF they want to
>> put
>> out a long term plan and show how this will help, and when we will see a
>> better, more efficient, and free market in weather; THEN, I will support
> it.
>
> How about the Constitutions article 1, section 8?
>

How about it? Are you trying to say that funding a NWS is not covered under
section 8?

>> From here though, it sounds like the arguments are just a bunch of "free
>> markets are always better" talk. We don't live in a free market utopia,
>> so
>> this is not always true.
>
> What a wishy-washy pile of ****.
>

Ha! I was right, your programming has wigged out!

Dude

May 12th 05, 03:41 PM

"Matt Barrow" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Andrew Gideon" > wrote in message
> online.com...
>> Matt Barrow wrote:
>>
>>
>> >> I can't find the source now, but I
>> >> recently saw a summary of how much money is spent simply related to
>> >> collection income taxes. This included the cost of the IRS, and all
> tax
>> >> preparation services such as H&R Block, tax software, tax attorneys,
>> >> CPAs, etc. The number of people and amount of money spent simply
>> >> counting and collecting taxes (and trying to avoid the same) was
>> >> simply
>> >> staggering.
>>
>> But how much of this is solvable not by eliminating the taxation process,
>> but by (honestly, this time) simplifying it. In this day of automation,
>> the state of tax preparation is incredible to the point of offense. I
>> would not tolerate this in a vendor from whom I was purchasing by choice.
>
> Check your cutting/snipping. That's not my post (with three levels of
> indentation)
>
>
>>
>> That the government has yet to get this right - along with any other
>> technological project of significance, like the FBI's fiasco - is a good
>> point for private enterprise. However, there are inherent inefficiencies
>> with that approach too.
>>
>> Every payment has a cost, even in an efficient (ie. not government {8^)
>> world. The efficiency of the payment (ie. the amount that goes to
> overhead
>> of the payment infrastructure) drops as the actual cost of the purchased
>> item/service drops. In other words, it's more efficient to pay a single
>> large sum than several smaller sums.
>
> Government does not derive just powers from it's level of efficiency, but
> from it's moral base. IOW, there are things a government MUST do by itself
> (and things that it MUST NOT) due to the nature of it's power. A
> government
> that can ititiate force against it's citizens or others is a THUG. This
> fact
> does not go away regardless of how man people vote for it.
>
> A legitimate governmetn cannot do anything that an individual citizen can.
>
>
>>
>> This gets especially bad in the range called "micropayments", for which
> the
>> world is still waiting on a good (accepted) solution.
>>
>> By aggregating several purchases, taxes do (rather: could in theory)
> provide
>> efficiency.
>>
>> If only it were done well.
>
> Efficiently, but not morally.
>

Is your position that a government should not engage in an activity that
promotes the general welfare that could otherwise be done in the private
sector? Even when the government can do it much more efficiently?

Could you apply this to the building of roads and the taking of property for
the purpose thereof?

Dude

May 12th 05, 03:54 PM

"George Patterson" > wrote in message
news:InAge.1551$1f5.1545@trndny01...
> wrote:
>>
>> Please tell us about some of them.
>
> The big hitter is Ariane in France. They've been launching since 1980 and
> currently put up more than half the satellites launched every year. They
> just signed a deal with the Russian space agency, which will allow them to
> use the Soyuz infrastructure.
>
> Messerschmitt made a stab at it at about the same time, but I'm not sure
> they every got operational. They were planning to build launch facilities
> in Africa.
>
> Then there's International Launch Services, which is a joint venture of
> Lockheed Martin and Russian rocket builder Khrunichev State Research and
> Production Space Center. They were formed in 1995.
>
> Sea Launch was also formed in 1995 and made their first commercial lift in
> 1999. They launch from platforms in the ocean to get around having to deal
> with NASA to use land bases in the U.S..
>
> Boeing is also getting into the act with their Delta system.
>
> And if you need to put up something really massive, there are several
> companies in Russia who have access to updated military launch facilities,
> and, of course, the Russian government will be happy to help you as well.
>
> Launches planned for the next few months may be viewed at
> http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking . As you can see, there are 40
> scheduled. One is NASA. A few others are U.S. military.
>
> George Patterson
> There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
> mashed potatoes.

George,

Thanks for all the good info. Do you happen to know what level of
investment the private weather companies have made in there own satellites?
Would you make a guess about whether, if the NWS ceased to exist, these guys
be able to make enough money to the NWS data?

This seems to be the crux of the issue to me. If the NWS budget a few years
from now could be slashed and/or replaced with less expensive and better
private sources, then I would think this bill is a good idea. No one seems
to be promoting it this way though.

BTW who thinks that the french Ariane company is not HUGELY subsidized?
Raise your hands.

PS I have a picture of your Sig on a resturaunt billboard if you want it.

Flyboy

May 13th 05, 01:22 AM

"Dude" > wrote:

>
>This seems to be the crux of the issue to me. If the NWS budget a few years
>from now could be slashed and/or replaced with less expensive and better
>private sources, then I would think this bill is a good idea. No one seems
>to be promoting it this way though.

No one is promoting it that way because that is not what the bill is
about. Indeed, even the duplicitous arguments in favor of this bill
from those representing the commercial weather services industry
haven't dared to suggest that the NWS budget would be "slashed" if the
bill were passed. It should be noted, however, that such arguments do
frequently resort to the deceptive "I don't want my tax dollars being
used..." line.

No, the commercial weather industry wants the NWS to continue their
data collection and forecasting duties (as clearly stated in the
bill). They just don't want the NWS to present that data in a
user-friendly form to the public if there is a commercial alternative
(as also clearly stated in the bill). This bill is about cutting the
NWS out of the weather presentation business, and in particular the
Internet weather presentation business, so that the commercial weather
industry can charge, or charge more, for such presentations.

Because it takes only a tiny fraction of the NWS operating budget to
make Internet weather presentations available, this bill would have a
negligible effect on the NWS operating budget.

Flyboy

George Patterson

May 13th 05, 02:11 AM

wrote:
>
> E.g. Ariane is not a private venture.

Yes, they are. They are incorporated and their stock is traded publicly.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Dude

May 13th 05, 03:11 AM

"Flyboy" > wrote in message
...
> "Dude" > wrote:
>
>>
>>This seems to be the crux of the issue to me. If the NWS budget a few
>>years
>>from now could be slashed and/or replaced with less expensive and better
>>private sources, then I would think this bill is a good idea. No one
>>seems
>>to be promoting it this way though.
>
> No one is promoting it that way because that is not what the bill is
> about. Indeed, even the duplicitous arguments in favor of this bill
> from those representing the commercial weather services industry
> haven't dared to suggest that the NWS budget would be "slashed" if the
> bill were passed. It should be noted, however, that such arguments do
> frequently resort to the deceptive "I don't want my tax dollars being
> used..." line.
>
> No, the commercial weather industry wants the NWS to continue their
> data collection and forecasting duties (as clearly stated in the
> bill). They just don't want the NWS to present that data in a
> user-friendly form to the public if there is a commercial alternative
> (as also clearly stated in the bill). This bill is about cutting the
> NWS out of the weather presentation business, and in particular the
> Internet weather presentation business, so that the commercial weather
> industry can charge, or charge more, for such presentations.
>
> Because it takes only a tiny fraction of the NWS operating budget to
> make Internet weather presentations available, this bill would have a
> negligible effect on the NWS operating budget.
>
> Flyboy
>

It seems to me, that you are right. What I do not understand though, is how
anyone outside the weather industry would think this is a good idea? Even
pro market, and pro privatization (I do not believe the two are the same,
though the supporters seem to all line up and on the same sides) should be
skeptical of this bill.

One would have to take Matt B's type position to be for this. That would
have to be one based on markets at any costs, and markets are always better
stance. As a matter of fact, they would be better off not passing this one
either, as it is sure to be used against them as a bad example when
something more wothwhile comes up.