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from the how-many-times-do-we-have-to-pay-for-broadband? dept.
U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has proposed up to $275 billion in infrastructure investment, including investment in broadband:
Hillary Clinton has announced a $250bn plan to build out the United States' broadband infrastructure and ensure that everyone has fast internet access at an affordable price by 2020.
That's the headline figure anyway in her new policy position called "Building Tomorrow's Economy Today." In reality, the presidential candidate has pledged to fund a $25 billion dollar "national infrastructure bank" over five years that will cover all infrastructure improvements for roads, bridges, pipes, and internet network.
That bank will provide "up to an additional $225 billion in federally supported investment," according to the policy paper, by leveraging "the $25 billion in direct loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of credit enhancement."
[...] Interestingly however, even Clinton's $25 billion infrastructure bank idea doesn't appear to have been her own. Democratic rival Bernie Sanders has been talking about the US' lackluster networks for some time, noting that the US comes 16th globally in terms of broadband access, and 12th in terms of average speed, according to the OECD. "Today, businesses, schools, and families in Bucharest, Romania, have access to much faster internet than most of the United States. That is unacceptable and has got to change," Sanders says in his policy position on "rebuilding America."
Interestingly, Sanders pledged the exact same figure as Clinton – $5 billion a year – but solely for internet rollout, rather than all infrastructure needs, through an Act of Congress. "The Rebuild America Act will invest $5 billion a year to expand high-speed broadband networks in under-served and unserved areas, and to boost speeds and capacity all across the country. Internet access is no longer a luxury: it is essential for 21st century commerce, education, telemedicine, and public safety," he said.
DSLReports calls the promises "painfully ambiguous". Other outlets have gravitated to the promises of "smart cities", "free Wi-Fi", "5G networks", and supporting "tomorrow's Internet of Things".
Billions in broadband investment? Hmm, where have I heard that one before?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday December 05 2015, @12:10AM
Fix our roads, bridges, water and other services. Bridges are outdated. Water is being trashed by fracking. My car needs new shocks now.... dam potholes....
The greatest generation kicked some Nazi ass, then built a lot of infrastructure so the country could grow. The baby boomers didn't want to pay to maintain that infrastructure, and pissed the money away on crap like farm/corporate subsidies and assorted wars. Gen X looked around and said "hey, I reroof my house every 10 years, how come none of this infrastructure has been maintained for 30 years?". The millennials realize where the pointy part of the screw is heading and stay in their parent's basements.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2015, @06:20AM
Well, not so much knowing we will get screwed and more dumbstruck, recovering in the parent's house from the speed and ferocity of being screwed by the dotcom bubble, housing bubble, and recession all in a row before we have even begun to contemplate paying back the massive student debt we carry for those 300 apiece textbooks. The younger millenials still have a shot at a normal life. but people born in the 80's are a lost generation already.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Saturday December 05 2015, @06:20AM
The millennials became gender fascists and stay in their parent's basements posting diatribes on Tumblr. FTFY
MY generation was fighting to save the rain forest, stop rivers from catching on fire due to rampant pollution, and fighting a government that thought the war on poverty meant you should declare war on poor people. What are the millennials doing? Attempting to fight for MORE government intrusion in the name of banning "cyber" words, bringing back racism in the form of "the progressive stack" and supporting such heart warming movements like third wave feminism and the whole "die cis scum" and "all men are rapists" bullshit. You should watch the recent Atheism talks, I swear to fucking God the panels take more than 15 minutes at the start giving their sexual orientation that is for these groups a fucking merit badge to show your qualifications!
If you want to know why corporations can get away with fricking murder now? Its because the second you try to organize here is a bunch of millennial social justice narcissist twats to wreck shit by trying to add a bunch of off topic horseshit like a damned congressman trying to add pork to a fucking defense bill! Just look at how quickly they completely wrecked the Occupy Wall Street movement which had such a simple and universally supported message...get corruption out of banking. That was it, simple and to the point. Then here came the SJ narcissist squad and suddenly they are grabbing the mike to talk about "rape free zones" and shouting down anybody who spoke that wasn't part of the progressive stack and turned such a simple message into a snarled clusterfuck that was so nasty nobody wanted anything to do with it.
As far as what Hillary wants? I honestly don't think she has a snowball's chance in hell so it honestly does not matter, the amount of hatred and backlash I'm hearing and seeing against the progressive movement I honestly think is gonna cause a hard right shift, just as the years of neo-cons and moral majority being shoved down our throats caused the hard left shift we experienced in the 90s. Why do you think Trump has gotten such high numbers? He is the embodiment of the "I'm tired of this shit" sentiment.Right now people are worried about whether they will have a job next week, whether the bridge they drive across is gonna collapse, if they will be able to pay their bills, they REALLY don't give a rat's ass about another 200 billion+ dollar bribe for the corps to take in return for a single low res Goatse like they did under her husband and the fact she thinks this is actually a selling point? Just shows how fucking out of touch that woman is. I swear the more I watch her the more I think of GHWB looking amazed at the checkout scanner, she seems THAT out of touch with the common person.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 05 2015, @01:31PM
I agree with you. Trump's numbers are born of nihilism. People are heartily sick of the corrupt status quo. Hillary is still playing 1990's politics, throwing out sops to focus-group tested special interests. This week, it's a sop to millenials. Last week it was some coal-related sop to the Appalachians who supported her over Obama during the last primary. She is utterly tone-deaf.
If we were still talking about a functional democracy, I'd say Bernie would be the best option since Elizabeth Warren chose not to run (more's the pity--I would have gone to the mat for her). But this democracy has ceased to function and needs burning down. Trump is the best man for that job, and he might even make me laugh occasionally while doing it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday December 05 2015, @01:54PM
she is a functionary of Empire, which just happens to be the route they chose to enrich themselves, ensconce a place at the elbow of the puppetmasters, and otherwise feather their nest by going full authoritarian in an attempt to salvage pre-Fall Empire...
the clitons are willing tools of Empire, wormtongues all, in service to perpetuating the 'necessary illusions'...
liars and hypocrites, willing to garishly paint themselves for their part in the kabuki play distracting the masses...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 05 2015, @01:59PM
That's a florid way to put it, but, yes, that's it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday December 05 2015, @03:53PM
You don't realize what kind of hell you're asking for.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 05 2015, @06:09PM
As opposed to 99% of the population being ground down into nothing 24/7, 365? You're right, we are living in paradise. What was I thinking?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Hairyfeet on Saturday December 05 2015, @07:00PM
I lost any and all respect for Bernie when he cowered before Thug Lives Matter and let them shove him around like a little white bitch. When I saw that I knew he would be about as worthless in the office as Carter was and the LAST thing we need is another president with zero backbone.
SJ twats can call me an "ist" all day long,but as black activist Tommy Sotomayor pointed out when it comes to Thug Lives Matter (as well as coining that phrase) "Why is it they didn't say a word when that 11 year old boy was executed by gangbangers? When that 7 year old girl was killed walking home from a thug spraying a drive by? Because to TLM its perfectly fine as long as its Pookie doing the shooting, its ONLY a problem if Pookie gets shot by a white person. Doesn't matter what Pookie did, rob a store, pull a weapon on the cop, nope none of that matters because "he did'nt do nuffins!". TLM if they are taken by a white person, otherwise? They ain't worth shit".
Say what you will but after 30 years of voting straight democrat across the Board? Myself as well as everybody I know is more than willing to vote Trump as we're sick of the whole Clinton/Bush corporate crony trickle upon politics, he certainly can't do any worse than the constant corp welfare and backroom backstabs we got under Clinton/Bush/Obama.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday December 07 2015, @02:00PM
If "Pookie" does the shooting, he goes to prison. If Officer Smith does the shooting, he gets two weeks paid vacation. THAT is the problem. "Nobody is above the law" has turned into "I am the law."
(Score: 1, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:52AM
Bullshit, when it came out that Pookie had robbed a store in Mo and there was a dozen eye witnesses come forward that he had attacked the cop while the cop was in his car and went for the gun, did you see TLM say "Oops, our bad". Nope because they are racists and don't give a wet fuck WHY something happens, only the color of the skin of the shooter. If the shooter is black? Its all good man, you will never see a TLM say a fucking word, if the one that pulls the trigger is white or even Mexican like Zimmerman? Then here they come, looting and burning and acting like fools.
Remember boys and girls, you can't spell reverse racism without racism!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:49PM
The guy who actually owns the store disputes that and says it wasn't robbed at all. I think he'd probably know. The person who called the cops was a customer who was, at best, mistaken about what he saw.
Please explain how he was reaching for the cop's gun while the cop was several yards away and behind him. Because that's how he was killed. Or are you saying pre-trial public executions are an official part of the US justice system?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 05 2015, @06:03PM