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Billion Dollar Handout To Upgrade TVs
db32 writes "SFGate has the story of the cutoff date for those rabbit ear antennas that some of us grew up with (Feb. 19, 2009). Now while the story of analog vs. digital TV has been beaten to death, still I think there is something more here. 'The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration... said it is setting aside $990 million to pay for the boxes. Each home can request up to two $40 coupons for a digital-to-analog converter box, which consumer electronics makers such as RCA and LG plan to produce.' Beyond my disdain for most TV to begin with, I am blown away that with all of our current problems — homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad — our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions."
You have to understand what is important to people.
I don't know why you are surprised.. TV is the opiate of the masses.
Tell them they are happy.
Medicate them.
Tell them that the Government is protecting them.
Medicate them.
Provide an conduit for masses to not _need_ to think about day-to-day life.
Encourage them to medicate themselves.
Result; they will think that they are happy.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Oh, for the love of pete! Give it a rest!
If I had a nickel for every time some idiot said the government should cut program X and give the money to program Y, however benevolent that might seem, I'd have enough to lobby congress to give me one bajillionth the money spent on lobbying and bridges to nowhere.
You know what, if it matters that much, put your money where your talking out of, cancel your TV and internet subscriptions, and go help a food kitchen or homeless shelter. Do you know how much they could do with the price of your broadband and entertainment budgets?
(Now, if you think that it's a stupid idea to cut off your internet access and fun to help someone, since you already give things away, stick a sock in your hypocritical nonsense. On the other hand, run for congress and fix it yourself!)
... is the opiate of the masses. ;)
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
If spending $1B ensures that the majority of citizens can watch TV, especially news, it is money well spent. Where and how else would you be able to deliver your messages to the mass simultaneously?
Imagine the chaos when people have to access "news" from various/conflicting sources, and start coming up with their own minds.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
The government does more than one thing, but this is a completely frivolous thing. This is nothing short of a ridiculous misuse of funds.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
...with all of our current problems -- homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad...This argument can be used to make almost any expenditure look silly. I can't believe, with all of the homelessness, that our government is [sponsoring arts programs | paying for students to take field trips | building monuments to fallen soldiers | repaving roads |
Just because you have certain problems, doesn't mean that you do without anything else, until those problems are solved.
Then again, I can't believe that you bought yourself a television, when you could have donated your money to fight homelessness, etc...
They are the public airwaves, after all. And there are still lots of people who only have broadcast tv, no cable, no internet. Maybe a radio. We can't just up and revoke people's access to what might be their main source of mass media / news.
Anyway, what we are apparantly really paying for is better communications for public safety responders.
The federal government is requiring that the analog channels be shut down, and consumers have invested billions of dollars in the technology that's going to become obsoleted at the flip of a switch.
So, because of their doing, they are taking a little responsibility and offering people a more painless way to make the switch. Whether or not $40 is going to be enough, remains to be seen (they might sell the boxes for $300, who knows.)
I don't think it's a waste of money. I think things like.. ohh, you know, going on this Iraq war was a ridiculous misuse of funds. And the numbers are absolutely staggering for that. This is a drop in the bucket.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Which is opposite of:
Demagoguery works both ways...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I can tell you the reason why the industry needs a subsidy:
No one wants to pay for DRM.
The market hasn't failed. Rather, the content companies have begun to realize that people don't want to pay more to get less.
I mean, why would I buy a tv with fewer features?
The content companies have begun to realize that they need to provide some kind of short-term incentive to get the customer to give up the rights to which they have become accustomed. Once the first generation grows up without the ability to record tv, they'll think it's normal. And the worst of it is that it isn't the content companies paying the bill, but the American taxpayer!
With DTV, the public domain goes away. DRM isn't there to prevent some content from being rebroadcast; it is there to keep all content away from the net. Even things legally in the public domain.
Call your Senator and tell him to oppose this bill. Tell him you don't want Congress wasting money...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
$1 BN is a lot of money to me, too, but this was the only way to get everybody to agree to give up the extremely valuable RF spectrum currently wasted by broadcast TV. I say "wasted" because the old technology is using up huge swaths of some of the very best frequencies. Newer technology will use this limited natural resource much more efficiently.
I'm a small government, small federal budget kind of guy, and I rarely approve of federal spending, but this I agree with. If the government passes a law that makes my otherwise perfectly useful TV obsolete, they damn well better help me upgrade.
"Bread and Circuses". It's all you need to placate the populace. Getting things done might be productive, but cheap entertainment is so much easier.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's fucking TELEVISION. Those people had nearly a DECADE to deal with this cut-off. I have no sympathy.
Blar.
If you deny the peasants their bread and circuses, they might just up and start paying attention to the world around them, and realize that their government is whittling away their freedoms one by one.
By the way, the plan to allocate these funds was announced back when the FCC announced plans to force migration to digital -- years ago.
I'm obviously not as pessimistic at the world as you are because I think that's complete garbage, but assuming you're correct: If a person thinks they are happy, who cares? Are you going to try and prove to a happy person that are, in fact, just as angry and boring as you are? What's the point? Leave them in their happiness.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
1. TV is important since it is tells people what's going on
2. Luxuries are important in modern society.
3. It would be unfair on poor families to suddenly take away their TV service rather than take measures to rectify the situation.
4. This only amounts to about $3.30 per US citizen.
5. The money spent on this is not being taken out of crime prevention, housing, the military or anti-terrorism efforts. If they did not do this, we'd only see a tiny tax break.
Seriously. It just doesn't work like that. The US is the richest nation in the world. If the government believed that the problems mentioned could be solved by throwing a couple of billion dollars at them then they would. Lack of television reception is a problem that can be solved by throwing a billion dollars at it.
First off, I do think this is an example of wasteful government largesse. But I really hate the given justification.
How about, "Innocent people continue to be raped and murdered on their way home at night. And yet, the government continues to spend money on post office boxes. Is your child's life worth less than a post office box?"
The notion that because something is very important that it therefore innately subsumes all lesser priorities is not consistent with any form of logical cost benefit analysis. Rarely if ever is there a linear relation to investment and payoff in terms of moneys allocated to resolving social issues, and the sort of qualitative analysis you mentally apply to "homelessness" vs. "television" is an irrational and inappropriate way to compare what is actually a quantitative analysis of "unit payoff per unit investment to resolve homeless" and the corresponding.
Anyway, I think a better question than "how can the government waste money on instead of ?" might be "why do I trust the government to be responsible for these monies in the first place?" It's pretty much a given that, whatever Uncle Sam does 'for our own good' with our own money, ninety percent of us are going to pissed about it.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I thought that "rabbit ear" antennas could still receive the new digital broadcasts (the 2009 requirement)? You'd need to upgrade to a TV that can decode ATSC, or get one of those boxes...
Why? Unlike the problems you mentioned above, millions of Americans waking up one day to find that their televisions no longer work really could cause substantial civil unrest.
But how are we supposed to ignore our social problems without TV?
Maybe we don't *need* a government-sponsored TV upgrade, however, as other(s) have pointed out, the government wants to sell of the VHF spectrum. To that end, they have mandated that after the cut-off date people will no longer be able to use their otherwise perfectly usable TVs to watch TV. These TVs are not being artificially obsoleted for some clear greater good such as safety issues or environmental preservation (indeed, all the SDTVs getting junked for HDTVs will doubtless have a negative impact on the environment), but solely for the convenience of both the broadcast television industry and the government itself.
IMO, this makes the government ethically liable to pay for adapters. Yes, I know that it's myself and other US taxpayers who are actually paying for it, and I think that sucks, but the point at which to stop that suckage is long past: when HDTV was mandated. Now we just have to clean up the mess.
I firmly believe that the free market should have been allowed to decide when SDTV went away. Big government strikes again.
Its far more than capitalism, this is what drives evolution. Why on earth do Peacocks have such rediculous plumage? Is doesn't improve their ability to survive, and certainly other species can find mates w/o such massive shows. Man has been collecting worthless crap since we walked erect, seashells, pretty rocks, shiny baubles. Even the most primative tribes put on feasts to show their wealth to other tribes. It's what drives evolution.
If noone bought things they didn't need, we'd eliminate all jobs but agriculture and medicine with a 90+% unemplyment rate.
Get rid of manufacturing jobs and we'll all be working the fields, just like ancient Sumeria. There wil be no doctors because they be too busy growing their own food. You need tractors, irrigation, distribution networks, etc. so the 1% of farmers can grow enough food for the rest of us. Those in turn need energy, miners, etc for resources. The fact that a reasonably educated westerner can't figure out the resource allocation to accomplish the basic goal of feeding 600 million Americans is why Communism fails, and why government screws things up.
Consider:
1. The FCC controls airwave licenses.
2. A significant number of people out there do not have the means, or rightfully refuse to upgrade to a television capable of decoding over the air digital signals.
3. A significant number of people out there do not have the mans, or rightfully refuse to purchase cable and/or satellite service, yet they continue to watch TV via over the air signals.
4. Eliminating analog over the air signals will open up gobs of frequencies for other uses; including 2-way communications, IP communications, and more digital channels, both TV and radio.
5. Finally, $990 million is _nothing_ compared to how much auctioning off the new spectrum will generate in revenue for the FCC. The last auction generated something like $40 billion; $990 million in order to generate good will among the populace, and ensure that the working class (working poor) does not get cut off from their TV, is a win-win.
If the government didn't have a plan like this, most likely the analog over-the-air signals would end up continuing. This is a *bad* thing, as that spectrum is very valuable, and being used inefficiently.
Is this government intervention? Yes, of course it is. Unfortunately, this is a situation that libertarian's like myself have to learn to handle delicately, because it involves an actual *public* good, that being frequency spectrum.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I could probably make an argument baed on the Fifth Amendment that turning peoples TVs into very expensive paperweights by administrative fiat, so as to auction off the analog spectrum constitutes "private property taken for public use".
Hence, the us.gov is constitutionally required to do something like this as "just compensation".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If they didn't help people upgrade, they'd lose their most effective propaganda outlet. Additionally, RCA and LG must be making $$$$$$ deals with them. Everything in the govt can be bought. It's capitalism at it's worst.
are the opiate of the pretentious.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
They can't sell it off until they move the current transmitters off. The receivers don't matter at all.
Well, if enough people don't replace their receivers, some broadcasters may fight too keep the analog transmitters going because they don't want to loose the customer base which still receives OTA analog broadcasts, which is something like 15% of television viewers. Other broadcasters will probably be fine with abandoning their old analog equipment.
Why is it the government's job to make sure people can still watch TV when the television converts to a new standard, but it wasn't the government's job to buy a new CD player for everybody when the CD took over from Vinyl records?
That's not a good analogy. With the DTV switchover, the Government is asking people to spend money in order to receive the same level of service. Sure, it has more pixels, but it's still just television.
* The CD wasn't mandated by the government, Digital Television is.
* I can still buy and play Vinyl records on my existing system without spending any money. After the DTV switchover, OTA TV consumers will need to spend money and buy a converter or a new television. There are few choices for a DTV converter, and most of them are not cheap. Rabbit ears probably aren't powerful enough to pull in a clean DTV signal, so many OTA consumers will also need to buy a better quality antenna.
* CDs can coexist with vinyl records. The Analog TV spectrum can't exist with the dozens of technologies which will eventually use the spectrum.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Since there are no (to my knowledge) set-top boxes being actually manufactured in the US anymore (they all say "Made in China"), this program will simply result in a $1bn gift to the Chinese electronics industry.
Chip H.
Yeah OK, we all see that it's a win for the US gov't to free up bandwidth.
The problem is that by doing so, they're aiding the campaign to implement DRM and "close the analog hole"s.
If digital TV provided the same freedom and flexibility as analog TV, this wouldn't even be a story on Slashdot.
They are NOT "spending" the money. It's more like "investing". Once they get everyone off of those analog channels they can sell the newly freed up RF spectrum for a LOT more than $1,000,000,000. So by investing this money on converter boxes they get to auction off the old channels years earlier.
A billion sound like a lot of money but in the US that amounts to less then four bucks per person.
this isn't "chump change," it's gross inefficiency.
The summary, which claimed "our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions." shows a serious lack of understanding. "The government" is us.
In simple terms, this just means that we, as taxpayers, will be giving ourselves $80 in coupons, and funding bureaucrats along the way. For the $80 we get, we'll probably spend that and an extra $40 to support those bureaucrats, given the inefficiencies of the federal government. Furthermore, this will likely be taken as a signal to RCA and LG that they can hold prices higher for a while, because it amounts to a mandated time payment plan (buy now, pay at taxtime), and hides the true cost. The net effect is that the taxpayer will be inefficiently funding bureaucrats and private industry.
Absolute best case, if you're a liberal, is that this is a minor means of income redistribution.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The govt may also be concerned about staving off a surge of TVs being disposed of. Even if affordable HDTVs become available, there will be people with TVs that can be used if they have a converter box. This is admittedly a secondary concern but one worth considering.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
The government could instead use the revenue to fund wars instead. At least Americans get a coupon so they can continue to sit in front of the tube.
Could you imagine might happen if Joe six-pack TV stopped working all of a sudden? What would he do with his free time? He might notice that he's pissed off at his diminishing importance in the world and start a revolution.
TV is still the soporific for the masses. Digital TV (with the coupon deal) increases the number channels, at a lower cost, to be sure that Joe has no time or motivation to realize his sorry state.
Why on earth do Peacocks have such rediculous plumage? Is doesn't improve their ability to survive...
The hell it doesn't! That precisely what it's for. The guy with the most bling gets the chicks. And that's how they decide who's "worthy". That's how nature works, and that's what life is all about...getting laid and reproducing. Every single thing we do is for that explicit purpose. And that would include all the plumage and war trophies, and for that matter, that's what capitalism is all about. It is, and we are nature in its purest form.
Get rid of manufacturing jobs and we'll all be working the fields, just like ancient Sumeria. There wil be no doctors because they be too busy growing their own food.
All the manufacturing and agricultural work is supposed to be done by machines. We have the knowledge to live this way, but the subjugation of other humans seems to be more profitable, and natural for the moment. Contrary to what most of you might think, we really are not in control. We are still motivated by the most basic of instincts.
What?
Not true at all. The Amish only buy what they need - they are 100% (self) employed - not only as farmers, AND the community is thriving and growing exponentially all over the US. No TV's either.
If noone bought things they didn't need, we'd eliminate all jobs but agriculture and medicine
Well, and construction. And architecture. And computers for architects to use. And programmers for to write software for architects to use. And junk food and soda makers to feed programmers. And pizza delivery guys to show up with junk food and soda. And someone to make Taco Bell hot sauce.
And last *I* checked, the people north of the USA are Canadians, the people south are Mexicans. Those in South American have their own country/place-names, none of which are typically labeled "America(n)". If you look at what citizens of the USA call themselves, it is Americans. That is also the way the rest of the globe typically labels us (I include myself, as I am an American). We aren't typically labeled United Statesians, or some other such nonsense.
It's your study of economics(specifically 19th Century, it's still our current MO) that clouds your vision. And has caused you to misunderstand what I'm saying, to the point of getting it completely wrong. I'm not talking about avoiding industrialization and going "back to nature". I'm telling you that we are motivated by the same forces that motivate everything. You've missed the point completely. And "spitting"(if that's what you were saying) has two Ts. And furthermore, I don't drink coffee. I get my buzz from sugar and chocolate, and herbs that don't require your huge infrastructure to cultivate and consume. So you can keep your French press. And furthermore,
...if people didn't buy "useless" things like HDTVs, iPOds, cars and others you'll probably would not have...
I already saw that nonsense elsewhere in the thread. And it convinces me of nothing. Toys do not progress make. And I don't measure progress in yearly model updates or volumes of currency changing hands. I had plenty of good jobs before any of your "new" gadgets came out, and I sure don't need them to stay alive now. As a matter of fact they have eliminated some of the jobs I used to do. Which is fine because they do it better with less effort. This is what I want, for the machines to do all the work. It will make mincemeat of that old economic system and silly theories you all cling to out of fear of change.
What?
We have a large number of social-welfare problems, we cannot provide adequate care for our veterans, we have people living in the streets and we are thinking of handing out billions of dollars to help the HDTV revolution. This is an absolute obscenity. Few articles have made me angrier. I do not want my tax dollars going to fund someone else's entertainment. Everyday on the way to work, I have to pass a homeless man so underweight that he looks like my grandfather did after liberation from Dachau in WWII. His body looks so hollow you can see ribs through his shirt just as my grandfather was. Never mind that he may have alcohol or drug problems; no human being should ever, ever have to experience this. And everyday, I buy him some food as I do not know how to really help him and that, by proxy, makes me a small part of the problem. In America, we should not be seeing people like this. Finally, when I see fucked-up, lame-brained plans like god-damned HDTV incentives I just want to yell.
All politicians know better than to fsck with peoples' TVs. Wow, would that get them out to vote.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Sorry, not buying it. Why can't grandma pony up 40 bucks, especially since she gets a fat social security check every month? Instead of your demagogic misdirection, how 'bout you face facts: The government is subsidizing mind control devices in order to ensure the passivity of the populace.
(As a person who hates TV and doesn't own one, it really pisses me off that my tax dollars are being spent on this boondoggle. Fortunately, the avarice of the convert-makers will ensure that the device costs far more than 40 dollars.)
You want demagoguery? How about this: The government should send a check for 40 dollars to every single cigarette smoker to account for increased prices (because of lawsuits & taxes). Or maybe the government should send 40 grand to Coca-cola for every soda/pop machine that is removed from our schools because of those uppity parents' groups.
Your demagogic judo misses a very salient point: TV is bad for you. It's bad for your mind, your body and your soul. Why is the government subsidizing something that, by almost all accounts, is detrimental to our health? Children spend 44.5 hours per week in front of screens -- as much time as I spend at my job -- and the government is not only unconcerned they're funding this? Don't you see something wrong here?
The posters who mentioned Bread & Circuses are right on. This is about pacifying the population. If we didn't have TV to numb our brains people might start to wake up to all the nefarious shit going on around us. Ideally, TV would be an excellent medium to tackle these social ills, but the mega-media-corps rarely seem to do so, especially when their own bottom line is at risk.
Instead, we will all continue working all day, going home to veg for a few hours and then waking up and doing it again... and with our softened brains we'll never have time to ponder why a highly-advanced country like ours works so much, yet has so little to show for it (besides bigscreen TVs). With American Idol on we'll never deduce that the rich are stealing from us through inflation, real-estate boom & busts, taxes and other financial trickery that make it possible for the middle classes' earning power to actually decline over the last 30 years despite the rich getting fantastically richer.
We are being FUCKED. But most people are too hypnotized to notice.
Electric Monkey Pants