> Uh, please read the methodology of the linked article. Those aren't direct tax subsidies. It's a made-up number based on effective tax rates below 35%. By your logic, the government is heavily subsidizing Apple & Google, which pay much less than the 35% rate.

Fine, we'll use your definitions. That's cool.

> Sweden putting in $900 million is like the U.S. putting in $27 billion.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/242713/fcc_votes_to_end_telep... "The FCC will cap the broadband fund at US$4.5 billion a year, the current budget of the USF high-cost program, funded by a tax on telephone bills." Over 6 years.

4.5 * 6=27 billion

What is your next objection?

> They're not. Utility infrastructure in the U.S. barely gets enough investment to keep it operation, much less keep up with technological development: http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2011/12/asce-report-o....

Moving goal posts by switching to publicly owned water infrastructure isn't valid. Privately owned utilities.

Like these: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/indus...

An example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelon

Exelon: ~2.5 billion net on ~55 billion assets Comcast: ~6.8 billion net on ~158 billion assets

And like any other market, Exelon isn't having trouble turning a profit from regulation but is losing money due to its own fuckups for failing to accurately predict what forms of energy are cheapest: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-09/business/ct-ex...

I'm sorry, but we just have to agree to disagree. Or are you planning to change goalposts?