Senate Bill S.786 could kill NWS internet weather products

"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!

"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?

"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.

"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

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.

"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.

Dude wrote:

Do you happen to know what level of
investment the private weather companies have made in there own satellites?

Haven't a clue. I was in telecom at one time and had a little info coming in
about those 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?

My uneducated guess is that they would not. My bet is that, if the NWS went
away, the commercial weather providers would simply start providing the sort of
guesses that one could get in the late 40s.

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

That's probably where I got it -- got a photo 'round here somewhere. Thanks, though.

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

On Fri, 13 May 2005 01:11:15 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

wrote:

E.g. Ariane is not a private venture.

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

Might as well give up George. We aren't going to convince them with
facts.

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.

George Patterson wrote:
wrote:

E.g. Ariane is not a private venture.

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


Thanks for the correction. I'm looking for something to invest in.
It would be nice to get some dividends paid for by European tax
money!

--

FF

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.



You notice they don't want to maintain the 350 or so ASOS's around the
country many of which are in remote locations. I maintain about 9 of them
along with a radar computer systems river gages precip gages alert
transmitters (NWR) etc etc. They could not do this and make a profit!