I'm at a loss. Either I'm hopelessly confused (and I don't think I am), or you still have not even tried to address a single one of the points I have raised. Th

I'm at a loss. Either I'm hopelessly confused (and I don't think I am), or you still have not even tried to address a single one of the points I have raised. That's too bad, because I think this could have been an interesting conversation. I'll try one more time, this time coming from a slightly different angle: you say that the government should just give spectrum away to existing firms, but... 1. Which ones? You seem to take for granted that there are only a small number of firms interested in spectrum and that it will be easy to decide who gets what. But, in reality, there would be countless firms that would very much like access to the same spectrum, especially in the biggest markets. Our experience with spectrum auctions amply proves this. How does the government choose between these competing firms? How does a new competitor enter the market if the government always gives spectrum to the big four carriers? 2. Assuming that the government will not reliably select the firm that would use the spectrum best (history makes pretty clear that this is the case), wouldn't this gifted spectrum immediately come up for sale on the secondary market to be sold to an even more productive user? If so, wouldn't the secondary market price approximate the would-be auction price (plus the significant transaction costs that these secondary-market transactions entail)? If so, the cost of spectrum to the ultimate user would be the same (and maybe a little higher) than if the spectrum had been auctioned in the first place, plus a large windfall to the original licensee/seller. 3. More fundamentally, given that many other firms would also like to have received the gifted spectrum--and would have paid good money for it (as spectrum auctions prove)--shouldn't we regard this gift as a massive subsidy to the original licensee and not merely the absence of a tax?