MMT

16 Apr 2016

The Federal Government CAN Afford to Invest in Infrastructure

0
One argument against federal funding to support special access and community broadband networks—or potentially any infrastructure project—is that the federal government “can’t afford it,” especially given the widely held belief that it should prioritize balancing the federal budget and paying down the federal debt.[1] My suggestion to those holding this view (or being confused and/or intimidated by it in public policy debates) is to begin examining the extensive literature related to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), perhaps starting with the selection of material to which I provide links at the end of this post (some of which are scholarly in nature, others […]
CONTINUE READING
15 Apr 2016

A “Public Infrastructure” Perspective on Special Access

0
As I discussed in an earlier post, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) recently released a paper by its Director of Research, Mark Cooper, which made the case that the FCC’s decision to deregulate special access in 1999 was premature and has resulted in large-scale economic harm, including an estimated $150 billion over the past five years. Cooper’s analysis focused on two elements of harm: 1) the direct cost associated with non-competitive excess-profit-extracting pricing and; 2) the indirect economic costs associated with this pricing regime. As it turns out, a few days after Cooper presented an overview of his analysis at […]
CONTINUE READING