Senate Bill S.786 could kill NWS internet weather products

Matt Whiting wrote:

They have to be replaced periodically and monitored by folks on the
ground. There are onging operational costs. If the military isn't the
sole user, it shouldn't be the sole payer.

The military doesn't pay a dime. They get every bit of "their" money from the
general fund, so "everybody" *is* paying the cost.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

jls wrote:
"Matt Whiting" swaggered in message news:P1ofe.2026 I
wouldn't pay school taxes if I

didn't have kids in school,

Oh, yes you would or suffer the consequences.

Matt postulated a world in which everything is based on a "pay as you use"
basis. In that world, there would be no consequences to that action. To see what
that education system would look like, you have only to look back about 200 years.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson wrote:
Matt Whiting wrote:


They have to be replaced periodically and monitored by folks on the
ground. There are onging operational costs. If the military isn't
the sole user, it shouldn't be the sole payer.


The military doesn't pay a dime. They get every bit of "their" money
from the general fund, so "everybody" *is* paying the cost.

Well, everybody in the US anyway.

Matt

Government is very wasteful, but it does provide for the special interests
in a manner that wouldn't exist were everything based on a "pay as you
use" basis.

Ah, but if EVERYTHING were pay as you go, then they might exist because we
could afford to pay.

In the end it might work out OK, but it
certainly would look a lot different. I wouldn't pay school taxes if I
didn't have kids in school, but I'd probably pay $10/gallon for avgas, if
it was even available, and I'd pay for weather briefings, use of ATC, use
of GPS, etc.


Exactly! Because we are not "pay as you go", whenever you take out one
item and say it is "sunsidized" and we should be grateful for the
government, you are falling for a fallacy. The existing system has us all
standing with our hands out after they take so much taxes.

"FlyBoy" wrote in message ...


Follow up:

Here, is the bill,
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:



Why don't your links work for me?

"Blueskies" wrote:

Why don't your links work for me?


I don't know. They work for me in Mozilla, Firefox, and Internet
Explorer. I did notice that ipetitions.com was down for a few hours
yesterday. For the record, here are all the links I referenced:

1: NWS ADDS: http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/
2: S. 786: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:
3: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SaveTheNWS/

Matt Whiting wrote:
Blueskies wrote:




This could end up like things in Russia. Public money funded
resources are deemed too inefficient to be run by the
government, so the assets are put up for bid to private companies.
The private company acquires the asset, and then
sells the service to the public.Very bad idea for the NWS, very
bad idea for our freeways, very bad idea for our
airways...

I'm not sure it is all that bad. I think if most "public" services
were
provided by a free enterprise system, then we'd get a lot more in
aggregate for our money.

Probably so for some services, I dunno about most. In the instant
case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
and so on. There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.

The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.

A similar program during the Reagan era privatized much of the
Landsat data, after the Governement had paid for the programs
to obtain and archive it. The result was that it was priced
beyond reach of a lot of researchers. Oil companies could
afford it though.


It all comes down to what is less costly, the waste in government or
the
profit margin that a private enterprise would require. If the
private
enterprise is efficient enough that it can make a profit and still
cost
less than a government agency, then it is a good deal overall.


Not in the instant case. The government would still have all
the expense of operating a weather service--then a private concern
would get to sell the fruits of that tax money. E.g. Corporate
Welfare without even the meager benefits that something like a
subsidized sports stadium brings a community.

The proper and effective way to privatize services of this sort
is to put the operational support for the service up for competative
bidding by prospective contractors and NOT by privatizing the data
themselves.

--

FF

wrote in message
ups.com...

In the instant
case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
and so on.

Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites? And the broadcast
groups?

There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.

So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?

These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and Amtrak.


The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.

Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they could
do that.

Get a clue!!

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...

In the instant
case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
and so on.

Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites? And the broadcast
groups?

There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.

So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?

These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and Amtrak.


The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.

Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they could
do that.

Get a clue!!



C'mon Matt. You are overboard here. First of all, the USPS was, IMHO, much
better at providing services before it was made into its present "corporate
form". Even if it was expensive, you could stand on solid ground when you
said you mailed something to someone, and they should have gotten it. Not
so anymore, no matter what the IRS says.

Second, both examples are more like what would be created by this bill, not
what we have now. Semi-privatization just don't fly.

Lastly, the argument that is made here is both valid, reasonable, and should
be a litmus test for privatization or outsourcing. What this bill does is
not really either privatization or outsourcing anyway.

If the NWS is not up to the level of quality desired by the market, then why
do the private services need the NWS data? IOW, why are there not self
contained services ready to go? The problem this bill would address is one
where the fine cheese makers cannot sell cheese because the government is
giving it away. That would be a good argument except that in this case, the
government will still be making the cheese and the cheesemakers wil just
become profitable distributors.

No, there is a need for better packaging, delivery, and interpretation.
There are many services that perform these functions but they often use
government sources along with private ones to make their predictions and
build their products. They make money only where they can add value. Giving
up a lot of benefit for little reward is not something the taxpayers should
do just in the name of free markets. We first need to be convinced the free
market will be better and more efficient. IOW, we need to know that the
satellites and other infracstructure will be replaced by the private sector
instead of the private sector simply siphoning off some profit and leaving
when the free cheese runs out.

"Dude" wrote in message
...

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...

In the instant
case, it is not feasible for private concerns to operate the weather
bureau infrastructure, inclusing constellations of weather satellites
and so on.

Oh, like the constellation of communications satellites? And the
broadcast
groups?

There is also a need for consistant (preferably high)
quality and availabllity from the standpoint of public saftey.

So you rely on government bureaucrats to provide that?

These are much the same people as run the Postal Disservice and Amtrak.


The proposal would not significantly reduce the goernment's costs,
but would significantly reduce the public benefit. Not good.

Yeah..corporations give us all our comforts and prosperity, but they
could
do that.

Get a clue!!



C'mon Matt. You are overboard here. First of all, the USPS was, IMHO,
much
better at providing services before it was made into its present
"corporate
form". Even if it was expensive, you could stand on solid ground when you
said you mailed something to someone, and they should have gotten it. Not
so anymore, no matter what the IRS says.

Second, both examples are more like what would be created by this bill,
not
what we have now. Semi-privatization just don't fly.

No, it doesn't. The point made, though, is that private industry "could do
what the NWS does", and that's plain BS.