It appears Al Franken is bringing his vast experience as a failed comedian and talk show host into the arena of telecommunications.
We can only hope this venture doesn’t turn out so poorly for the consumer as their regulation of the energy industry has.
Up to The Hill for more:
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) became the latest lawmaker to publicly oppose AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA on Tuesday, arguing the deal would harm consumers, stifle competition in the wireless market and lead to thousands of lost jobs.
Franklin complained.
“This transaction is not in the public interest. If approved, it would result in greatly reduced competition, the potential loss of thousands of jobs, higher consumer prices, and less innovation in technology.”
And it continued.
In an unusual argument, Franken also claimed the merger would undermine the principle of net neutrality “because it would place de facto control of our nation’s information infrastructure in the hands of only two companies.”
In a way it is interesting to witness Franken arguing for more competition in the market. We are all for that. Which also accounts for our opposition to the very government forces that destroy competition by removing from consumers the authority to decide what succeeds and what fails.
It is also interesting to note that in the end its down to this issue of net neutrality. Don’t be fooled though. Net neutrality has as much to do with neutrality as the fairness doctrine had to do with fair. Net neutrality is a pleasant euphemism for Stuart Smalley regulating our use of the Internet.
– Written by Kip Hooker at TheVitaminPress.com
Source: TheHill.com
