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Sorting Through the Analog to Digital TV Mess
H_Fisher writes "CNN offers an article from Fortune magazine, giving a look at the problems surrounding the mandatory switch from analog to digital TV in the U.S., now slated for 2009. 'Managing this transition -- which will render about 70 million TV sets obsolete -- will be not be easy,' Marc Gunther writes. Among the problems: millions of American households without cable or satellite access will lose free access to news and weather along with the rest of their broadcast fare. Uncle Sam's solution? 'Yes, the very same federal government that is cutting back on college loans and food stamps will soon be issuing TV vouchers' - $1.5 billion to help U.S. households buy new digital TV equipment."
!"increasing as much as planned" != "cutting back"
Of course, it is a
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
You can already pick up HD signals with your crappy rabbit ears or that monstrosity attached to your house...a generic UHF/VHF antenna will do just fine, and companies that advertise their antennas as being for HDTV are just trying to entice you into buying them.
You will NOT have to replace your antenna, what you will need to get is an external converter to turn the signals from your antenna into something your current TV can handle.
If you are poor, elderly or uneducated TV should be the last thing you are worrying about.
This really gives some credit to the theory that the primary purpose of television is to pacify people and have them forget the real problems they face.
From tfa: the sale of the spectrum would generate approximately $10b in revenue. The net gain ($10b - $1.5b) would still be a revenue influx of $8.5b. This sounds like a (surprisingly) fair and mutually beneficial deal.
Regardless of your feeleings on television, it is important that everyone have free (or near free) access to news, state of the union addresses, etc.
Yeah, don't pick on television. As you can see from Tassleman's post, television helps us develop our intellect and debating skills. We all are more informed and useful citizens and members of society thanks to TV.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
"We bitch about and make light of all the delays going digital,"
"We" do? Personally, I'm still complaining about needing to switch to begin with. Between the government-mandated switch, the push for the broadcast flag, and now these new pork vouchers, I find nothing to be happy about with the entire process.
LOL, I love slashdot. :-)
;-)
If we converted to digital and left the poorest of our nation out in the cold, we'd devolve into some discussion about how the evil government was depriving the weakest among us from access to a free press, possibly even with a few stats peppered in about how TV is even more important for them because of illiteracy rates, and so on, and maybe some good socialism arguments to boot.
But when we DO help them, it's, of course, a conspiracy to spread propaganda and keep everyone under their thumbs! (After all, network television is nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the government!)
You guys are the best.
I didn't see this rather obvious fact in a post yet, but people keep debating the government spending the 1.5 billion, so I guess I'll go ahead and state the obvious...
If you RTFA you will see that the government will be selling off the spectrum used by analog tv for an estimated 10 billion dollars... Hence, spending a small portion of that to facilitate the switch still leaves them with a 8.5 BILLION DOLLAR profit.
So can we please not have any more stupid posts about increased spending, when this deal is entirely designed to make money, not spend it. 8.5 billion will be made almost immediately, with a likely increase in other technologies boosting the economy in the long run as a direct effect.
On a side note, I'd love to see any conversation about this move to digital being driven, in part, by the ease of applying DRM to a digital signal.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
!"increasing as much as planned" != "cutting back"
Pretend the following:
Your job is to provide 1 apple to every student each day. It is 2005 and apples cost 50 cents. You have 200 students. The 2005 government budget has given you $100 dollars a day to do the job. You can do your job and have no problems. You serve 100% of the students.
The government forecasts that in 2006, apples will cost 60 cents and increases in enrollment will give you 220 students. Because it knows that these are just projections, the government projects a 2006 budget for you of $140 a day, 40% increase in budget, but you should be able to do your job with a little money to spare. You still serve 100% of the students.
When it comes time to actually pass the budget, the government gives you a budget of $125 a day budget, a 25% increase over this year's budget. However, government projections of prices and enrollments were on target. Apples now cost 60 cents and you have to provide apples for 220 students each day.
You can only purchase 208 applies, which means that 12 students are no longer covered.
Did your budget increase? Yes.
Did you cut back on the percentage of students you can serve and the services you offer? Yes.
Thus not increasing by as much as planned does equal cutting back.
Actually, if the free apples program costs $100/day then you would probibly be budgeted $500/day and would have to do the usual orgy of aquisition at the end of the year so that you can say you don't have enought money to do the job. You will probibly have at least twice as many employees working for you then you need too since in government, your status is judged by how many people you have.
Lets not even get into how you will frequently run out of apples while waiting for multiple competitive bids from apple suppliers. Then you must make sure that the apple supply contracts are handed to vendors in the proper legislative districts so you will have the votes you need.
special consideration to 'disadvantaged' apple suppliers
Invironmental impact studies
Gotta make sure you pay the fairtrade apple rate
and so on...
No matter where you go, there you are.
First off, you're probably just counting income tax. All poor people, even unemployed, pay sales tax. Almost all employed poor people pay social security taxes and a few other non-refundable taxes. Fees tend to be paid disproportionately by poor people because they're an equal dollar tax on everyone who uses the facility or lives in the state.
Second, the upper 1% control far more than 1% of the wealth or income. The only way to get the upper 1% to control only 1% of income is to have perfect equality. In practice, the number is more like the top 1% controlling around 50% of the wealth. Even under a flat tax, their fair tax burden would be around 50% of total taxes paid. Anything less is a regressive tax regime.
What happens is that the poor pay fairly high rates (probably around 20%-30% of income) because they are still responsible for the social security tax (11% or so once you include the employer portion), sales tax, tolls, and sin taxes (gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol). The middle class pay a similar amount, with a higher nominal rate being offset by fat mortgage deductions, better tax preparers, and far less sin taxes and tolls. Even without breaking any laws, rich people will pay less taxes because they essentially pay no sales, tolls, or sin taxes and they often shop around for lower tax countries to park their money. Capital is also favorably treated, and most of their income comes from capital.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFacts/Tfdb/TFTem plate.cfm?DocID=221&Topic2id=20&Topic3id=22
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http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=2
While the Top 20% may pay 60% of the tax, they hold 80% of the wealth.
The bottom 50% hold less than 5%.
So maybe the tax burden on the top 20% should be a little higher, as they are currently being taxed at a low rate in proportion to their benefit.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking