Australia Launches 21st Century Infrastructure ...

My good friend Paul Budde reports amazing developments in Australia:  Gov't is going to build fiber optic infrastructure everywhere.  They're getting interstate highways down there folks.  We're still on the equivalent of rutted wagon roads & we will get blown out of the economic and technological waters if we don't wake up and see the light.  

We've tried everything else.  None of it works.  The investment - say $450-500b to do it would pay off in ways no other gov't infrastructure has.  We have to get over the illusion that private capital in charge of public property works.  There's no natural monopoly b/c it's a contradiction (private ownership of public property).  There is natural commons - public ownership of public property.  One is complex, hard to regulate, impossible to adjudicate, and therefore always leads to regulatory capture which means essentially private interests run government.  The other is vastly simpler, direct, transparent, and works. If we can bail out Wall St. I think we can certainly bail out the Internet.  We'd better hurry up too b/c 5 years from now everyone is going to be wondering why all of the highest paying jobs are in Australia.

For more on Australia: http://www.buddeblog.com.au/analysis-of-the-national-broadband-network-announcement-australia/