Why does Michael Powell, Colin's son and Chairman of the FCC (nepotism is so delicious), hate consumers? Because he loves corporations, and corporations hate consumers. They do, however, love consumers' money and want to screw you out of as much of it as possible.

Fortunately for us consumers, Michael Powell keeps getting shot down.

First, he tried to allow media companies to tighten their stranglehold on markets. That was defeated, thank God.

Now, he plans to appeal a court ruling stating that cable companies, like phone companies, have to lease their networks. The FCC ruled that cable lines were "information services" so that large corporations wouldn't have to let just anybody use their network. (Michael Powell said the ruling was meant to spur investment -- how does that make sense?) However, a judge ruled that since cable lines are used for back-and-forth communication now instead of just receiving Cinemax, the FCC had to consider them "telecommunications services." This would mean that cable companies would be treated like telephone companies.

Even though DSL is better than cable, cable is indeed easier to come by, and this ruling is great not only for consumers but for the economy. Sure, more competition means lower prices, but competition also means better service. Lower prices and better service means more widespread adoption of household broadband. More broadband customers means a new market. A new market means more new businesses and more new ideas. More new businesses and more new ideas means a stronger economic sector. More competition may mean fewer SUVs for a few CEOs, but it also means more jobs, more spending, more prosperity.

I'm not opposed to free enterprise. In fact, I'm all for free enterprise. However, the government should focus on the word "free," not the word "enterprise."

TANGENT: Unfortunately, more bandwidth means more websites designed entirely in Flash; I'll let useability guru Jakob Nielsen tell you why that's bad.