7 ms·

Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

78 points by yekko 13y ago

galectin 13y ago
They told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney that lobbyists would be put in charge of the internet.
- josh2600 13y ago
  It doesn't matter who you vote for; lobbyists already control the Internet.
  - numo16 13y ago
    > It doesn't matter who you vote for; lobbyists already control the Government. FTFY
    - yekko 13y ago
      If voting actually changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  There was nothing false about that. It was your mistake for assuming that voting for Obama wouldn't also result in lobbyists being put in charge. As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another. It's like expecting your local cable monopoly to be a better ISP because they have to compete with your local telephone monopoly for Internet subscribers.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    I completely agree. Even though there are many political parties[1] in the US, there are only two that have the funds and mindshare to win presidential elections. I like that independents like Bernie Sanders[2] and Angus King[3] manage to get into the senate, it provides a little bit of hope for change. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Major_political_parties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_th... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King
    - spikels 13y ago
      Don't Sanders & King almost always vote with the democrats? I would like to see real independents that vote sometimes with one party sometimes with the other and sometimes against both. That would be a true independent.
      - unclenoriega 13y ago
        As for Sanders, given the two-party system, I would expect a senator left of the Democrats to mostly vote with the Democrats just as I would expect a senator to the right of the Republicans to mostly vote with the Republicans. We need more political parties on the left, right, and center, but I don't think limited options makes him a false independent. As for King, he's only got a few months of a voting record, but it makes sense to caucus with the majority given the choice.
        MatthewPhillips 13y ago
        Left right and center are mostly party constructs. Political ideology is infinitely more complicated than that, but the idea of left, right, and center make it easier to lump your beliefs nicely with those of others, which is necessary for a party system. In reality a politician can be in favor of regulating the oil industry and against regulating the communications industry; there is not hypocrisy there.
    - harshreality 13y ago
      The two major parties are propped up by the mathematics of voting, and funds. I believe mindshare is a symptom of those two things. http://www.rangevoting.org http://www.rangevoting.org
      - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
        Interesting site, but the process is more complex than I think it needs to be. Try instant-runoff voting[1], Australia already switched to it: http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote-explained.html http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote-explained.h... Of course, this assumes that people know how to vote for the parties best for them. Which comes down to quality education and good news sources. You’d have to ban paid political ads, SuperPACs, lobbyists. Then there’s the matter of voting fraud. Voting computers shouldn’t be used at all, all voting should be done on paper and the ballot design should be standardized. Voter registration should be done away with. On election day, all public transport should be free and workers should get at least one hour paid leave to go out and vote. (None of these things are going to happen anytime soon, but I think they would help.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
  - mseebach 13y ago
    Democracies tend to gravitate towards a binary choice, regardless of the actual number of parties. This happens all the time in Europe. Don't mistake the fact that we have social policies different from those in the US for diversity, it is very much a cross-party consensus.
    - w1ntermute 13y ago
      I never suggested that we should imitate Europe, did I? That would lead to even worse economic problems than we already have. I just think that we need to introduce more competition so that the parties are forced to compete on concrete goals and actions, rather than lofty ideals that are more suited to a sports match (which is what American politics often feels like).
      - mseebach 13y ago
        No, I was reacting to this: > As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another. In Europe, there are many more parties, but that doesn't make politics less of a two-team sports match. My point was that you've identified the wrong culprit in the two-party system.
ck2 13y ago
This notion that each industry knows best how to regulate itself keeps ending us up in one disaster after another.
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  This notion that industry needs regulating keeps ending us up in one disaster after another. Who was it who said "when buying and selling are legislated, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators?"
  - supercanuck 13y ago
    How would the free market prevent the Fertilizer plant from exploding and killing all those people?
    - Danieru 13y ago
      Fertilizer plants are expensive? As are wrongful death lawsuits? Not saying this is enough but no one is exploding these things for profit.
      - shiftpgdn 13y ago
        Tort reform in Texas HIGHLY limits the payout on a wrongful death lawsuit. It'd barely be a dent in a days business for the plant.
    - chrismsnz 13y ago
      Theoretically civil lawsuits, or the threat of such.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - spikels 13y ago
      Explosions are very bad for business not only is your valuable plant destroyed but you can't make fertilizer until you build a new one. Existing and potential employees would demand higher wages and/or increased safety measures after an accident. Neither the free free nor a regulatory body can reliably prevent all accidents. Probably has more to do with how the interested parties value life and property.
greenyoda 13y ago
Here's the story at the LA Times, which is not behind a paywall: Obama to nominate venture capitalist Thomas Wheeler to head FCC http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-wheeler-20130501,0,213730.story http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-wheeler-20130501,0...
rayiner 13y ago
It's interesting what the headline chooses to mention. He was a lobbyist from 1979-1984, but he's also a venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has founded multiple telecommunications companies: "Mr. Wheeler is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a Washington investment firm with $350 million under management. He has helped to oversee the firm’s investments in an array of start-ups and small- to mid-size technology companies, including GoMobo, Twisted Pair Solutions and Jacked. He also is a member of the board of EarthLink, an Internet service provider that competes aggressively with Verizon and AT&T." (From the NYT article). The NYT article is a bit better: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/technology-investor-is-reported-choice-for-fcc.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/technology-invest... Forbes has more info: http://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-wheeler http://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-wheeler. BusinessWeek has a more complete profile: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=533926&privcapId=751092&previousCapId=174438&previousTitle=TARGET%20CORP http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/pe... He has a blog/website: http://www.mobilemusings.net http://www.mobilemusings.net.
- greghinch 13y ago
  Sadly, the WSJ has just another soundboard for Rupert Murdoch's FUD. Doing whatever they can do to make a story more polarizing.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - CrazedGeek 13y ago
    (EDIT: Disregard the following, see ordinary's reply) Not that I disagree about the WSJ, but it seems that the lobbyist part of the headline was added by the submitter.
    - ordinary 13y ago
      The article's header says "Obama to Name Wheeler to Head FCC", but the HTML title attribute says "Obama to Name Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC".
Qualman 13y ago
Does being a former lobbyist make him inherently evil, though? I'm no fan of lobbying from any aspect, but it's shallow to judge his priorities off of this one piece of his career -- especially with the article highlighting his history in favor of the government regulating telecom.
- mseebach 13y ago
  As a lobbyist, he headed the National Cable Television Association, and later the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Why might cable TV operators, cell operators and Internet providers would pay someone good money to lobby for more government regulation? What business purpose could that possibly serve?
  - snikolic 13y ago
    To be fair, those were actually fairly progressive and disruptive industries when was involved in lobbying for them.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      So why did they need lobbying for more regulation? Why did they turn into complacent monopolies?
      - rayiner 13y ago
        Lobbying is just a way of telling the government what regulatory environment you think best suits your industry. At the time he was lobbying, the push was for deregulation, which was the right call. As for why they have become complacent monopolies: that is the nature of telecom (natural monopolies). There is unlimited economics of scale, so the most efficient state is E.G. For Verizon to keep growing until its the only wireless carrier.
  - Qualman 13y ago
    These are irrelevant questions, as the article specifically states that he is in support of regulation: "...Tom Wheeler, appeared open in 2011 to letting wireless giant AT&T Inc. acquire T-Mobile USA...But he had a price. In exchange for a $39 billion merger, AT&T would have had to agree to a slew of new regulations, according to an idea Mr. Wheeler laid out at the time on his personal blog." If you dig into said personal blog, you can find the following article [1], where Mr. Wheeler summarizes his reasoning: "Now we have the perverse situation where a government win means less regulation while a victory for the corporate interest opens the door to more." It is clear through his explanation that his approval was meant only as leverage for harsher regulations on the duopoly of wireless TelCos. That is a pretty solid indicator of where his allegiance lies. Likewise, if you meander around his blog, you'll see lots of musings in favor of Net Neutrality. [1]: http://www.mobilemusings.net/2011/09/awaiting-final-aria.html http://www.mobilemusings.net/2011/09/awaiting-final-aria.htm...
kislayverma 13y ago
Hope. Change. Flushed.

78 points by yekko 13y ago

galectin 13y ago

They told me that if I voted for Mitt Romney that lobbyists would be put in charge of the internet.

josh2600 13y ago
It doesn't matter who you vote for; lobbyists already control the Internet.
- numo16 13y ago
  > It doesn't matter who you vote for; lobbyists already control the Government. FTFY
  - yekko 13y ago
    If voting actually changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
w1ntermute 13y ago
There was nothing false about that. It was your mistake for assuming that voting for Obama wouldn't also result in lobbyists being put in charge. As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another. It's like expecting your local cable monopoly to be a better ISP because they have to compete with your local telephone monopoly for Internet subscribers.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  I completely agree. Even though there are many political parties[1] in the US, there are only two that have the funds and mindshare to win presidential elections. I like that independents like Bernie Sanders[2] and Angus King[3] manage to get into the senate, it provides a little bit of hope for change. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Major_political_parties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_th... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King
  - spikels 13y ago
    Don't Sanders & King almost always vote with the democrats? I would like to see real independents that vote sometimes with one party sometimes with the other and sometimes against both. That would be a true independent.
    - unclenoriega 13y ago
      As for Sanders, given the two-party system, I would expect a senator left of the Democrats to mostly vote with the Democrats just as I would expect a senator to the right of the Republicans to mostly vote with the Republicans. We need more political parties on the left, right, and center, but I don't think limited options makes him a false independent. As for King, he's only got a few months of a voting record, but it makes sense to caucus with the majority given the choice.
      - MatthewPhillips 13y ago
        Left right and center are mostly party constructs. Political ideology is infinitely more complicated than that, but the idea of left, right, and center make it easier to lump your beliefs nicely with those of others, which is necessary for a party system. In reality a politician can be in favor of regulating the oil industry and against regulating the communications industry; there is not hypocrisy there.
  - harshreality 13y ago
    The two major parties are propped up by the mathematics of voting, and funds. I believe mindshare is a symptom of those two things. http://www.rangevoting.org http://www.rangevoting.org
    - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
      Interesting site, but the process is more complex than I think it needs to be. Try instant-runoff voting[1], Australia already switched to it: http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote-explained.html http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote-explained.h... Of course, this assumes that people know how to vote for the parties best for them. Which comes down to quality education and good news sources. You’d have to ban paid political ads, SuperPACs, lobbyists. Then there’s the matter of voting fraud. Voting computers shouldn’t be used at all, all voting should be done on paper and the ballot design should be standardized. Voter registration should be done away with. On election day, all public transport should be free and workers should get at least one hour paid leave to go out and vote. (None of these things are going to happen anytime soon, but I think they would help.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
- mseebach 13y ago
  Democracies tend to gravitate towards a binary choice, regardless of the actual number of parties. This happens all the time in Europe. Don't mistake the fact that we have social policies different from those in the US for diversity, it is very much a cross-party consensus.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    I never suggested that we should imitate Europe, did I? That would lead to even worse economic problems than we already have. I just think that we need to introduce more competition so that the parties are forced to compete on concrete goals and actions, rather than lofty ideals that are more suited to a sports match (which is what American politics often feels like).
    - mseebach 13y ago
      No, I was reacting to this: > As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another. In Europe, there are many more parties, but that doesn't make politics less of a two-team sports match. My point was that you've identified the wrong culprit in the two-party system.

ck2 13y ago

This notion that each industry knows best how to regulate itself keeps ending us up in one disaster after another.

duncan_bayne 13y ago
This notion that industry needs regulating keeps ending us up in one disaster after another. Who was it who said "when buying and selling are legislated, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators?"
- supercanuck 13y ago
  How would the free market prevent the Fertilizer plant from exploding and killing all those people?
  - Danieru 13y ago
    Fertilizer plants are expensive? As are wrongful death lawsuits? Not saying this is enough but no one is exploding these things for profit.
    - shiftpgdn 13y ago
      Tort reform in Texas HIGHLY limits the payout on a wrongful death lawsuit. It'd barely be a dent in a days business for the plant.
  - chrismsnz 13y ago
    Theoretically civil lawsuits, or the threat of such.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - spikels 13y ago
    Explosions are very bad for business not only is your valuable plant destroyed but you can't make fertilizer until you build a new one. Existing and potential employees would demand higher wages and/or increased safety measures after an accident. Neither the free free nor a regulatory body can reliably prevent all accidents. Probably has more to do with how the interested parties value life and property.

greenyoda 13y ago

Here's the story at the LA Times, which is not behind a paywall: Obama to nominate venture capitalist Thomas Wheeler to head FCC http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-wheeler-20130501,0,213730.story http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-wheeler-20130501,0...

rayiner 13y ago

It's interesting what the headline chooses to mention. He was a lobbyist from 1979-1984, but he's also a venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has founded multiple telecommunications companies: "Mr. Wheeler is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a Washington investment firm with $350 million under management. He has helped to oversee the firm’s investments in an array of start-ups and small- to mid-size technology companies, including GoMobo, Twisted Pair Solutions and Jacked. He also is a member of the board of EarthLink, an Internet service provider that competes aggressively with Verizon and AT&T." (From the NYT article). The NYT article is a bit better: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/technology-investor-is-reported-choice-for-fcc.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/technology-invest... Forbes has more info: http://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-wheeler http://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-wheeler. BusinessWeek has a more complete profile: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=533926&privcapId=751092&previousCapId=174438&previousTitle=TARGET%20CORP http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/pe... He has a blog/website: http://www.mobilemusings.net http://www.mobilemusings.net.

greghinch 13y ago
Sadly, the WSJ has just another soundboard for Rupert Murdoch's FUD. Doing whatever they can do to make a story more polarizing.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- CrazedGeek 13y ago
  (EDIT: Disregard the following, see ordinary's reply) Not that I disagree about the WSJ, but it seems that the lobbyist part of the headline was added by the submitter.
  - ordinary 13y ago
    The article's header says "Obama to Name Wheeler to Head FCC", but the HTML title attribute says "Obama to Name Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC".

Qualman 13y ago

Does being a former lobbyist make him inherently evil, though? I'm no fan of lobbying from any aspect, but it's shallow to judge his priorities off of this one piece of his career -- especially with the article highlighting his history in favor of the government regulating telecom.

mseebach 13y ago
As a lobbyist, he headed the National Cable Television Association, and later the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Why might cable TV operators, cell operators and Internet providers would pay someone good money to lobby for more government regulation? What business purpose could that possibly serve?
- snikolic 13y ago
  To be fair, those were actually fairly progressive and disruptive industries when was involved in lobbying for them.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    So why did they need lobbying for more regulation? Why did they turn into complacent monopolies?
    - rayiner 13y ago
      Lobbying is just a way of telling the government what regulatory environment you think best suits your industry. At the time he was lobbying, the push was for deregulation, which was the right call. As for why they have become complacent monopolies: that is the nature of telecom (natural monopolies). There is unlimited economics of scale, so the most efficient state is E.G. For Verizon to keep growing until its the only wireless carrier.
- Qualman 13y ago
  These are irrelevant questions, as the article specifically states that he is in support of regulation: "...Tom Wheeler, appeared open in 2011 to letting wireless giant AT&T Inc. acquire T-Mobile USA...But he had a price. In exchange for a $39 billion merger, AT&T would have had to agree to a slew of new regulations, according to an idea Mr. Wheeler laid out at the time on his personal blog." If you dig into said personal blog, you can find the following article [1], where Mr. Wheeler summarizes his reasoning: "Now we have the perverse situation where a government win means less regulation while a victory for the corporate interest opens the door to more." It is clear through his explanation that his approval was meant only as leverage for harsher regulations on the duopoly of wireless TelCos. That is a pretty solid indicator of where his allegiance lies. Likewise, if you meander around his blog, you'll see lots of musings in favor of Net Neutrality. [1]: http://www.mobilemusings.net/2011/09/awaiting-final-aria.html http://www.mobilemusings.net/2011/09/awaiting-final-aria.htm...

kislayverma 13y ago

Hope. Change. Flushed.