Featuring Google
This country was built upon the notion that the people with the best ideas would succeed – and in so doing would make life better for everyone. This is called capitalism. In human history, no other system has yet been devised that does more good for the most people. Yes, the Best Idea People get much richer – but everyone else gets richer too. It’s a virtuous circle.
To make the most room possible for everyone – our Founding Fathers placed determinate and very real limits on government. Because bigger government crowds out the Best Idea People – and everyone else. And drives an ever-bigger wedge between them.
Imagine the marketplace is a row of plane seats. On the window is the Best Idea People. On the aisle is everyone else. In the middle is government. Who do you want in Seat B – Heidi Klum or Michael Moore?
We have left far behind the concepts upon which we were founded. Our federal government is now an uber-corpulent nightmare mess. It’s ridiculous 2015 budget is $3.7 trillion. The entire private economy is $17.7 trillion. Which means the federal government alone takes from and then spends 21% of what every man, woman and child creates. And the Feds this year alone bleed another $1.9 trillion in regulations-compliance costs.
We’re now WAY past even Michael Moore rotundity. Soon enough, government will be taking up the entire plane row.
When the government’s regulatory hammer and checkbook are this big – the relationship between the private and public sectors is warped beyond recognition. The Best Idea People don’t succeed nearly so often as do the Best Crony People – those who have the best relationships with Huge Government. Because Huge Government can shove the Best Idea People out of the way – to make more room for the Best Crony People.
In the Age of Barack Obama, there is no bigger Best Crony – than Google. Which is pathetic in one additional way – Google doesn’t need the help. They are worth a net $350 billion. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Denmark – is $342 billion.
But being the Best Crony People is a whole lot easier than trying to be the Best Idea People. Ideas are hard – campaign donations are comparatively very easy. Google in two election cycles has been very, very good to Barack Obama. And Barack Obama’s administration has in turn been very, very good to Google.
The old Internet saw is: If something is free, what’s for sale – is you. What you do and view on the Net – is of value to advertisers (and others). Google’s bread and butter is Web data collection. The more you do with Google (Web search, email, documents, etc.) – the more they know about you. And the more they have on you to sell.
Which is one of the reasons why they want an “open Internet.” Open – to unlimited access to you by them. “Open Internet” is an innocuous sounding term Google uses to escape the noxious one: Network Neutrality.
Net Neutrality Passes: Everybody Equal, But Google Much More Equal: “It has now been reported that Google and its allies at the Free Press and New America’s Open Technology were uniquely given a copy of the 332 page document shortly before the vote, and allowed to offer tweaks to the rules that may be extraordinarily self-serving.”
But Net Neutrality wasn’t enough. For Google to really get the best Best Crony treatment possible – the Obama Administration needed to unilaterally execute complete Internet reclassification. Which is slamming 1934 landline phone law – down on to the Web. One year ago Friday, the Administration did just that.
Reclassification is the Administration grabbing sweeping new powers – to then execute sweeping new grabs. Most – just about all – coincidently help Google. Shocker: “FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has penned…the next backwards-looking power grab: huge new backdoor mandates via television set-top-boxes….Set-top-boxes are the devices we lease from cable companies to watch their television packages, which we are doing to a lesser degree as the marketplace has already created myriad ways for us to ‘cut the cord.’ Meaning, give up cable television and the set-top-boxes altogether.”
Set-top-boxes collect data. So of course Google wanted in – in 2014. But the marketplace is already passing them by: “The future (and increasingly the present) of television isn’t boxes, it’s apps (and alternate hardware like Apple TV and Amazon Firestick). Netflix, Amazon Prime, Roku, Hulu and a host of other companies deliver you (via their apps) unlimited streaming TV and movie content using only an Internet connection. No cable TV subscription (or box) required.”
Google loathes apps – because they can’t get at the data collected by them. So they want to muck up the apps (r)evolution – and prop-up the dying set-top-box. The Obama Administration is more than happy to oblige.
And how about the finite, vitally important world of wireless spectrum? The Administration has Google’s back there too. NAB: FCC Wants TV Spectrum for ‘Google Channels’.
Oh – and Google is world-renowned for its intellectual property theft. Who is currently head of the Administrations’s Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – one of the government joints charged with protecting intellectual property? Michelle Lee – who’s last gig was Head of Patents and Patent Strategy…for Google.
There are many more examples of this sort of cronyism. And many more most certainly to come. Because that’s what Google wants – and that’s what the Google Administration does.
Man it feels good to be a crony.