George Gilder

Senior Fellow and Co-Founder of Discovery Institute

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Wisconsin Telecom Policy Needs Update

Regulation hampers ability of telecom providers to create and maintain jobs and opportunity in Wisconsin
FULL REPORT (PDF) SUMMARY In 1994 the Legislature revised Wisconsin’s telecommunications law to permit and encourage competition as a catalyst for delivering new technologies, improved service quality and choice among telecommunications providers and ultimately lower prices for consumers. Although the 1994 act opened the market to competitive entry, it contains significant vestiges of legacy regulation that are no longer necessary to protect consumers. They also are having the unintended effect of preventing full competition which is necessary to stimulate the deployment of new technologies. By advantaging some providers and disadvantaging others, legacy regulation acts as a restraint on competition. Ensuring that consumers reap the full benefits of competition will require the

California’s Destructive Green Jobs Lobby

California officials acknowledged last Thursday that the state faces $20 billion deficits every year from now to 2016. At the same time, California’s state Treasurer entered bond markets to sell some $14 billion in “revenue anticipation notes” over the next two weeks. Worst of all, economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I’m not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races. This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act, which ratchets the state’s economy back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020. That’s a 30% drop followed by a mandated 80% overall drop by 2050. Together with a $500 billion public-pension overhang, the new energy

The Drive to Create

In a castle in Newcastle, complete with reflecting pool, dappled woods nooked with marble sculptures, and pastures lowing with cattle, Matt Ridley, dean of British science writers and author of four erudite, Darwinian bestsellers, might seem an intellectual grandee ready for an honorable, bland retirement in a North Country Eden, perhaps readying himself for the House of Lords. But at the end of his lawn, invisible throughout a leisurely walk down its length, is a vast and amazing surprise that offers a vivid portent of this new Ridley book: a tome as unexpected and as ambitious and as contrarian as a massive coal mine under an environmentalist’s lawn. Far below, a visitor can descry the tractors and extractors crawling around in the dirt like yellow-jacketed ants. And like the Ridley

Unnecessary telecom regulations hurting Illinois

The National Broadband Plan presented to Congress on Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission aims to connect every U.S. household to the fastest broadband as soon as possible, a goal which the agency’s staff estimates could cost $350 billion. Much of that investment will have to come from private industry, agency officials have conceded. This month, the Discovery Institute conducted a study for the Illinois Technology Partnership, the Illinois State Black Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that found simple updates to the Illinois Telecommunications Act will spur this critical, private sector investment in broadband infrastructure which will lead to job creation and retention in Illinois. Every resident of Illinois and the nation should have

Illinois’ Incomplete Telecom Report Card

Remnant telecom regulation threatens jobs and opportunity in Illinois
FULL REPORT (PDF) SUMMARY In 1985, the Illinois General Assembly declared that “competition should be pursued as a substitute for regulation,” delivering new technologies, improved service quality, choice among telecommunications providers and ultimately lower prices for consumers. The goal of the 1985 act, which was to open the market to competition, has been achieved, but not the task of ensuring that consumers will reap the full benefits of competition – which requires eliminating legacy regulation that is no longer necessary to protect consumers, harms competition and that limits the deployment of new technologies by advantaging some providers and disadvantaging others. By simple reforms of outdated laws, Illinois can ignite a spiral of innovation and revival based on new

Cap and Trade for the Internet

Under Chairman Julius Genachowski, Al Gore’s old friends at the Federal Communications Commission are out to reinvent the Internet. In the name of a bogus crisis in broadband deployment, the FCC is today lathering on an array of network stimuli and subsidies as part of a new “National Broadband Plan” that will transform this current font of U.S. economic growth into a consumer of taxes and a playground for pettifogs. This subsidy plan comes on top of previous ill-defined “network neutrality” requirements that would bar carriers from charging different prices for different forms of Internet content. Whether spam, TV programs, pornography, stolen video, movie downloads, streaming games, cyberwar intrusions or sensitive voice services, carriers of Internet

The Cut That Heals

For the last ten years or so, I have been urging drastic reductions in the U.S. payroll tax, which funds Social Security. If we want to reduce tax rates without falling into the rhetorical trap of “tax cuts for the rich,” then the payroll tax is our best target — and the one that will affect the most employment decisions. Now I am feeling the heat of the herd as bipartisan throngs join me in the cause. An unharmonious choir of politicians and thinkers, most of whom agree on little else, is singing the virtues of cutting the payroll tax. Among them are Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich, Massachusetts miracle Scott Brown, Alaskan rogue Sarah Palin, the American Enterprise Institute’s John Makin, economist Russell Roberts of George Mason University, and former Bush advisers Larry

Future Imperfect

In this intriguingly contrarian rework of the Thomas Friedman “hot and flat” motif, Gregg Easterbrook asserts that venture capitalists are no better than lottery players when it comes to choosing new technology companies. He reports that leading stock analysts outperform broad market-index funds only one-third of the time. He adds that the preeminent financial pundits break into two groups — pessimists like Robert Shiller and Nouriel Roubini, who are right during downturns, and optimists like Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs, who are right during upturns. (There are no up-and-down visionaries like Steve Forbes or Ken Fisher visible anywhere on his horizon.) Easterbrook, a writer for The Atlantic and The New Republic, winningly acknowledges that “wonderful

Why Antagonize China?

While attempting to appease a long list of utterly unappeasable foes—Iran, North Korea, Hamas, Hezbollah, and even Hugo Chávez—today the U.S. treats China, perhaps our most crucial economic partner, as an adversary because it defies us on global warming, dollar devaluation, and Internet policy. It started last June in Beijing when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lectured Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who recoiled like a man cornered by a crank at a cocktail party. Mr. Geithner was haranguing the Chinese on two highly questionable themes, neither arguably in the interests of either country: the need to suppress energy output in the name of global warming—a subject on which Mr. Geithner has no expertise—and the need for a Chinese dollar devaluation, on which one can scarcely

Georgia’s Unfinished Telecom Agenda

Regulatory Reform Would Grow Georgia's Economy

Legacy utility regulation threatens new technological opportunities and economic efficiencies which, according to others, promise a direct economic stimulus of at least $3.3 billion in Georgia over the next five years in the form of lower prices for voice services, plus an additional $3.9 billion in economic impact annually from increased broadband availability and use – including over 70,000 new jobs per year.


Capitalism, Freedom, and Jewish Accomplishment: The Israel Test

George Gilder will present arguments from his new book, The Israel Test, at a forum sponsored by American.com: It is well-known that Israel faces hostility and pressure from religious enemies on its borders. But in a new book, author George Gilder reveals that Israel has also become “the crucial battlefield for capitalism and freedom in our time.” … Gilder will present arguments from his new book, The Israel Test, at a forum sponsored by American.com, AEI’s online magazine of ideas.  CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE FOR AUDIO OF THE

Capitalism, Jewish Achievement, and the Israel Test

Israel has become one of the most important economies in the world, and is second only to the United States in its pioneering of technologies benefitting human life, prosperity, and peace. Like the Jews throughout history, Israel poses a test to the world. In particular, it is a test for any people that lusts for the fruits of capitalism without submitting to capitalism’s imperious moral code. Because capitalism, like the biblical faith from which it largely arises, remorselessly condemns to darkness and death those who resent the achievements of others. At the heart of anti-Semitism is resentment of Jewish achievement. Today that achievement is concentrated in Israel. Obscured by the usual media coverage of the “war-torn” Middle East, Israel has become one of the most

Stimulate Broadband and Lower Utility Bills With Regulatory Reform

Study Highlights Needed Telecom Regulatory Reforms in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee
SUMMARY Incumbent telecommunications providers are facing significant competitive pressure from the voice over Internet Protocol (voice over IP) services of cable operators and from cellphones. One analysis projects that by 2012 the market share of incumbent telecommunications providers will have dwindled to 51 percent nationwide (in fact, this has already happened in some metropolitan areas). An opportunity now exists in the market for local phone service for lawmakers to rely on competition instead of regulation to deliver new technologies, improved service quality, choice among providers and ultimately lower prices for consumers. This is a proven approach. Regulatory reform opened the long-distance market to competitors in the early 1980s and eliminated vestiges of utility regulation

More Broadband, Increased Choice and Lower Prices Begin With Regulatory Reform

Study Highlights Needed Telecom Regulatory Reforms in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin
SUMMARY Incumbent phone companies are facing significant competitive pressure from voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) services provided by cable operators and from wireless services. A prime example of this competitive pressure is the 2.7 million net access lines AT&T lost in the first half of 2008 nationwide. It is estimated that AT&T and Verizon are losing residential lines at a rate of about 10 percent per year. One analysis projects that by 2012 the market share of incumbent telephone companies will have dwindled to 51 percent, with potent competition from a variety of innovators using VoIP. The traditional rationale for utility regulation — that fixed landline telephone service was a natural monopoly — is gone. Lawmakers must face the reality that continued reliance on

Unleashing the Exaflood

Two decades ago, Sun Microsystems prophesied: “The network is the computer.” Today, BitTorrent video and 3D graphics flood the Internet, Apple iPhones tap the Net’s computing power, and PC-king Microsoft pursues Net-centric Yahoo. Sun’s mantra has become reality. But as the Internet booms and moves to the center of the global economic sphere, it draws proportional attention from politicians and regulators. In Congress and at the FCC, legislators and lawyers think they can manage overflowing Net traffic and commerce better than the network companies themselves. Next week, the FCC is meeting en banc at Harvard Law School to consider two petitions that seek to ban network “traffic management.” The meeting’s host, Rep. Ed Markey, has renewed his

Telecosm 2007

LAN's End
The World at Our Fingertips  Steve Forbes The Exacosm George Gilder The Global Warming Myth Dr. Noah

Broadband Brawl

A Debate Over Net Neutrality
The 10th Annual Gilder | Forbes Telecosm Conference, held October 4-6, 2006 in Lake Tahoe, California, featured an outstanding panel and debate sponsored by the Discovery Institute on the subject of Network Neutrality regulation. Broadband Brawl: A Debate Over Net Neutrality Tod Cohen: Vice-President and Deputy General Counsel, Government Relations, eBayGeorge Gilder, Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute; Editor in Chief, Gilder Technology ReportPeter Huber, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; Co-founder, Digital Power CapitalAndy Kessler, former hedge fund manager; Author, Wall Street Meat, Running Money, How We Got Here, and The End of MedicineLawrence Lessig, Professor of Law and Founder of Center for Internet and Society, Stanford UniversityPaul McWilliams,

Adviser Soapbox: Michael Milkenomics

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Perhaps people are just spooked by debt. Inspired by Warren Buffett’s memorable dismissal of spendthrift America as “Squanderville,” doomster pundits point portentously to the “twin towers” of debt: record trade deficits ($900 billion) and budget deficits (a projected $448 billion). The Squanderville chorus prophesies the same debt doom they predicted last year and the year before that and so on, back through the centuries in the annals of finance. In a global economy, shifts in the balance among goods, assets and bonds are utterly predictable and innocuous. A trade deficit between the U.S. and China should arouse no more alarm than a trade deficit between California and Nevada. Nonetheless, perhaps I am missing

Are We Spiritual Machines?

Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I.
In the closing session of the 1998 Telecosm conference, hosted by Gilder Publishing and Forbes at Lake Tahoe, inventor and author Ray Kurzweil engaged a number of critics. He advocated “Strong Artificial Intelligence” (AI), the claim that a computational process sufficiently capable of altering or organizing itself can produce “consciousness. The session had an unexpectedly profound impact, not least because a number of important issues from technology to philosophy converge on this one issue. This volume reproduces and expands upon that initial discussion. Esteemed AI advocate Ray Kurzweil opens the volume arguing that by 2019, a personal computer will rival the processing power of the human brain. He is convinced that artificial intelligence – with

How McCain-Feingold Favors ‘Earmarking’

Letter to the Editor
Your Jan. 17 editorial “The Keepers of K Street” ignored the most crucial source of “earmarks” in the congressional process — a campaign finance system that favors the bribery of interest groups over the contributions of citizens. Under McCain-Feingold, a citizen with diverse interests in the future of the nation is permitted to contribute $2,000. A political action committee representing a single interest group is permitted essentially unlimited contributions. In other words, a PAC is a monomaniac with a single legislative goal. Until ordinary taxpayers with diverse interests and common sense — perhaps kids in school, a stake in the Iraq war, a direct grasp of the counterproductive effects of the tax code — are allowed to contribute as much as a