In preparation of an article for Politic365.com, yesterday I had the most insightful conversation with the co-founder and president of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council David Honig. Entry into the media marketplace by members of the minority community is a top priority of the MMTC. For this reason, the MMTC is hosting tomorrow a forum on the spectrum crunch and how this crisis in the airwaves will impact minority communities.

We are hitting a wall on spectrum, Mr. Honig said to me and it’s going to have an impact on minority consumers and entrepreneurs. For consumers we’ll probably see degradation in services, particularly more dropped calls. As spectrum, like any resource, becomes scarcer, we’ll probably see higher prices. One can argue that all consumers, no matter their race, will see price increases, but for minorities there may be a greater negative incidence from an increase in cell phone rates.

For example, Black unemployment is around 13.8%, much higher than the national average of 8.3%. According to the Pew Research Council, White median household wealth is around $113,149 compared to Black household wealth of $5,677. The average income for Black households is $44,780 compared with White households who have an average income of $73,439.

Hispanics households, while having average household income of $51,540, have a household wealth of $6,325, according to Pew Research. The unemployment rate for Hispanics is also above the national average at 10.5%.

For minority entrepreneurs attempting to mitigate the damage of the last recession via self employment, entering the broadband, telecommunications or media markets with little equity or capital makes success even harder. Facing increasing spectrum’s increasing factor cost of production only adds to the burden.

Given MMTC’s knowledge and expertise with broadband and spectrum issues, the forum should provide attendees with great and useful policy insights.

My mom got her first computer a few weeks ago. She sent her first e-mail a couple days ago. Yes, at 68 she is now a pedestrian in cyberspace.

I descend from a line of merchants, with my very first memory having been in my great aunt’s store in the Irishtown section of Basseterre, St. Kitts. My mother worked in that store as well. From time to time the old merchant in her will spring an idea as to how best to put her capital to work. I have no doubt that she will eventually go through the same thought process as she learns how to use her lap top.

My nine-year old son is following his ancestors’ footsteps. The word “career” flows out of his mouth easily and probably more often than most teenage and twenty-something knuckleheads I see running around these days. With a “low on minutes” cell phone to their ear and pants low on their waists, young people today appear to be carrying on the same silly, consumer centric behavior of their parents and grandparents, only this time in digital form.

When I think about the level of unemployment we minorities face in this country and the poor performance of our gross domestic product, all I can conclude is that we have to pursue a different mindset. We are, in the words of my sister, addicted to a narrative that we just can’t seem to shake.

Writing for the MMTC’s Broadband and Social Justice blog, Ava Parker posted a piece that highlights the fork in the road consumers of digital technology now face. Do we continue with a mindset focused primarily on consuming communications and entertainment, or do we start turning our mobile information access terminals into productive capital and use this capital to create another source of equity; equity that allows us to weather the next financial or economic crisis.

CNET.com’s Roger Cheng obviously understands not only mobile technology, but the ripples that should be expected in a changing marketplace.

In his piece, Mr. Cheng cited a study by Deloitte which finds that 4G network deployment through the year 2016 could add from 371,000 to 771,000 jobs. Just as important would be an added $73 billion to $151 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product.

On the surface, investors should be pleased with that report. In addition, job creation, the number one issue among Americans, would get a needed boost.

Merger reviews can turn into barriers to market entry if they do not take into account pro-growth policy and outcomes, and investor interests. With AT&T planning to purchase T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom, 9.1% national unemployment, and 16% unemployment among African Americans in particular, this analysis should be considered in the FCC’s public interest analysis.

Net neutrality proponents haven’t quite gotten their finger on what the open network concept is supposed to be about. Color of Change used to harp on the civil rights aspect. Our rights to free speech were going to be violated by big corporate interests, according to Color of Change.

Then it was about consumer choice. Consumers would not be able to access the websites of their choice, the argument went. Without net neutrality, Comcast and Verizon would drive information consumers to their proprietary websites, which, according to Free Press, is the reason we should be wary of the NBC Universal-Comcast merger.

Color of Change and Free Press have even gone the populist route (probably borrowing a page from the Obama playbook) that the corporate takeover of broadband access to the Internet can be likened to the corporate greed exhibited by large financial companies during the credit market meltdown. Color of Change’s James Rucker has even taken issue with the alleged 80% profit broadband providers received from providing broadband access.

As usual, neither Color of Change or Free Press have provided any quantitative support for their assertions. I mean a little regression analysis or a chart where a credible source is cited would be nice every now and then. Or maybe cite the case law that supports their position that the FCC can reclassify broadband access without so much as a howdy do from Congress.

Unfortunately, for too many Americans, what net neutrality may mean is lost jobs and lost economic opportunity. The U.S. Department of Labor released its June jobs report last Friday. The economy lost 125,000 non-farm payroll jobs in June. While the unemployment rate fell to 9.5%, it was a result of over 600,000 people leaving the labor force.

This tepid growth in employment may be severely reversed should net neutrality rules go into effect. According to a report released last week by the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York University Law School, at the current rate of annual investment in plant and facilities, broadband providers and other ancillary services in the Internet industry are expected to generate 509,000 jobs between 2010 and 2015. The Institute expects this result after annual investments of approximately $30 billion over this five year period.

The Institute also concluded that if annual investment were increased by five percent per year, the broadband industry could generate an additional 405,000 jobs between 2010 and 2015. Mind you, this is in addition to the 509,000 I’ve already mentioned.

Net neutrality rules, however, would have the opposite effect. The Institute’s conservative estimate is that net neutrality rules, as envisioned by the FCC and its supporters, may lead to a ten percent decrease in broadband investment. This decrease in investment may lead to 502,000 jobs lost and an annual loss in GDP of $62 billion a year, according to the Institute.

Sixty-two billion dollars a year may sound like a drop in the bucket in a $14 trillion economy but when you apply a conservative multiplier to that number, the ripple effects amount to, by my estimate, $155 billion a year. That comes up to the amount that we are paying for President Obama’s health care plan.

Free Press, as I mentioned before, tried to make the weak argument that corporations were at the heart of the economic and financial meltdown. Any student of economics will tell you that at the heart of any economic meltdown is the reduction in capital investment and incomes. Given the 15.5% unemployment rate for black Americans, any interventionist regulatory concept that would lead to an additional stifling of economic opportunity amounts to, in my opinion, a high-tech lynching. Why the FCC, Free Press, and Color of Change can’t see this is beyond me.

The “third way” is the wrong way, especially for unserved and underserved minority and rural households concerned about the affordability and availability of broadband service. I can especially appreciate former FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate’s emphasis on the impact net neutrality would eventually have on employment.

While the May 2010 seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for white Americans is 8.8%, the unemployment rate for black Americans is 15.5%. Reducing investment in broadband facilities may only drive unemployment rates higher as employment opportunities are further reduced.

In addition, the additional costs incurred from added regulatory burdens of net neutrality will be passed on in higher consumer prices. Minorities attempting to alleviate the ravages of high unemployment through online opportunities will face only more uncertainty. Not only will it become more expensive for the entrepreneur to maintain an online presence, it may also become more expensive for consumers to access his products and services.

I agree with Mrs. Tate that it is not too late for the FCC to turn around. Don’t let misguided net neutrality advocates further distract you.