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Cable TV Prices Rising At Four Times the Inflation Rate
An anonymous reader writes "A new FCC report (PDF) has found that U.S. cable TV prices are rising at four times the rate of inflation over the past two decades. 'Basic cable service prices increased by 6.5 percent [to $22.63] for the 12 months ending January 1, 2013. Expanded basic cable prices increased by 5.1 percent [to $64.41] for those 12 months, and at a compound average annual rate of 6.1 percent over the 18-year period from 1995-2013. ... These price increases compare to a 1.6 percent increase in general inflation as measured by the CPI (All Items) for the same one-year period.' Equipment prices rose faster than inflation, too. The report also found that the price increases weren't helped by competition — in fact, the prices rose faster where there were competing providers than in areas where the main provider had no effective competition."
The report also found that the price increases weren't helped by competition — in fact, the prices rose faster where there were competing providers than in areas where the main provider had no effective competition."
True, but it notes right in the article that 'expanded cable' is basic + the most subscribed to package, and in areas with competition that the extra $3 buys you more service on average in competitive areas. IE if people get a better deal they're willing to buy more.
Unclear in the article would be the effects of FIOS service, which is even more tightly bundled with internet services than traditional cable.
I don't read AC A human right
The quantity of programming has increased with the prices
......yet the quality of programming decreases......
so (quality/quantity) * price is constant?
Has there been a corresponding increase in service? By that I mean the number of channels delivered for the given tier, since cable companies usually pay the broadcaster a certain rate per channel.
(I don't subscribe to cable, so I don't know how things have changed over the decade since I've left home.)
Don't pay for cable. There really isn't much on cable tv worth watching that can't be obtained through other legal sources.
That is matching the rate of growth of government employees and their salaries. Who would of thought...
But nowhere near the rate of increase of medical costs since Obamacare has come into being, where we were promised we'd be able to keep our health plan, keep our doctors, and pay less.
Nope. Can't keep your plan - lied to. Can't keep your doctor - lied to. And health care costs have gone up more since Obamacare started then they did in the entire decade beforehand.
Obama and the Democrats CAN'T be THAT incompetent, can they? One would think Obamacare was DESIGNED to destroy healthcare in the US.
I want to know how come my telephone line has gone from $7/month in 1997 to $32/month today, with no change in service.
basic, plus hobo, movie channel, and showtime, and usa g-men network, mtv (simulcast on FM-over- the-cable for stereo), tbs, cnn, lifetime was a health channel, and so on, all for
$20 american
'member the showtime oriental exercise girl, all hot and sweaty?
There will be 5,000 channels and absolutely nothing to watch.
Outside of the baby boomers generation most individuals in my age bracket (28 here) gave up on cable/satellite television due to hyper-aggressive advertising policies, price gouging, and providing little to no value over services that frankly the internet does a better job of. It is simply undesirable to watch/use in favor of essentially anything else.
With Bitcoin or better, DogeCoin, you won't feel the 4x rise. Now if only there were a cable company willing to accept my computer-generated cash...
This price increase is cause by the cost of content going up several hundred percent.
Tell the content creators to lower their prices and cable companies could too.
As it is, Content creators charge what they want for their creation. As is their right.... Cable companies charge what it takes to make money over the top of that.
Unlike consumer electronics, somethings get more expensive over time, not less.
With the recent FCC ruling concerning fees for faster content delivery the cable companies will be making even more soon.
The rate is meaningless because since 1995, cable companies had to upgrade their system from analog-only to digital, and then also be able to support HD, develop and implement cable-card, develop and implement voip, develop and implement on-demand services, mobile apps, etc.
All of those things don't have an industry set price, so they pass the price onto you, the customer.
When we were all forced to move from Analog to Digital Television both over cable and over the air the promise that the FCC gave was that more local programming would be available over the air and that Cable Companies would be forced once and for all to provide subscribers the ability to pick and choose their own channel lineup.
Well If you are like me when Digital happened the Analog over the air tv stations that I use to get were not broadcasting strong enough digital signal to get to my home which is 50 miles away from the nearest tower.. and no i do not live in Iowa or the Nevada Desert I live in Delaware which should get me Philly New Jersey and Maryland stations that I use to get....
So my only choice is Dish or Comcast.
Comcast boxes are DIGITAL and comcast can control which lineup is sent to each and every box whether it is a large or small set top because they all work like network devices.
The Technology has been there for a few years now.. We were forced to no longer be able to get Analog over the Air and if we want ANY TV we must Pay.
A La Carte rules were suppose to allow me to pick each and every station THAT I WANTED TO PAY FOR...
I don't want to pay for 70 stations when I only watch 10 and out of that 10 i primarily only watch 3
I want (NEED) the News.. I want Sports with Nascar, baseball, hockey and I want Discovery.. the rest i almost never watch but maybe I would get 5 more for a single show here and there that I like.
If comcast wants to throw in Shopping channels or CSPAN or whatever else for free FINE
and I should get all the Local Channels that Analog once gave me for free.
WE WERE FORCED TO BUY BOXES AND NEW TVS WITH THIS PROMISE
I DO NOT WANT TO PAY FOR GARBAGE THAT I DO NOT AGREE WITH OR LIKE
AND THAT WAS THE AGREEMENT! FOR THE HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WE ALL SPENT TO UPGRADE
I want 10 channels and I want to pay $15 a month.. that is more than enough...
Let someone with 5 kids get every channel in the world I DO NOT WANT OR NEED THAT
I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS.. If i pay for 3Mbit or 10MBit or 25Mbit then I WANT ALL OF THAT 24/7
and i want out of this paying for 60 stations that I never watch.. BECAUSE THEY STILL GOT COMMERCIALS ON THEM.. AND I HAVE TO PAY ON TOP OF COMMERCIALS??????
Just wait until they can sell us internet access a la carte too!
Competition increases consumer costs. How unexpected.
Can we have our monopoly now? Its good for you.
Capitalism and the markets demand exponential growth in a finite world, so you either find an ever increasing customer base or you rise prices, problem is just about anyone who wants broadband now has it already so there are minimal customers left to gain the only thing left is constantly raise prices above inflation, bonus if you are the only provider then you can raise prices with impunity.
until the "markets" come to terms with market saturation things wont change
... till then my cord remains cut.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Said it before, I'll say it again. The worst thing the cable company ever did was refuse to give me free TV with my internet. Been well over five years now and I am more productive and lively. Sure, there are some shows I like. I can watch them online when I want to see them. I don't need TV for anything. Let them raise rates until they fail. We don't need them.
Anytime you talk about inflation, you have to be cognoscente of the fact that every government on the planet lies about it.
Their deficit spending, fiat currency, crony capitalism for the elite depends on it.
Look at Venezuela for example
Or the US of A.
I'd be willing to bet that if you price cable services in terms of real assets like oil, gold, silver, food, energy or even a subway ticket in NYC it would be a different picture, averaged out over the long term.
If you're taking the government's figures on inflation I've got prime ocean front real estate to sell you in beautiful New Mexico.
How do you tell if the government is lying?
Their lips are moving (or they've typed something out).
Liberty.
You're right. He should be more considerate. It's all about balance. Unfortunately, since the furlough's and cost cutting has been brought in, this delicate balance has been upset.
For example, the "Pushing paper to the left dept" has faced significant downsizing, and now must push double the pieces of paper to the left in a given day, as the "Pushing paper to the right dept" is of strategic importance to the "Defending the pencil holder dept". At this rate, there are two extra pieces of paper that must be moved according to government procedures and standards exactly one inch to the left, and there are now only 30 people left in this area to perform this arduous and highly important task.
At this rate, we will be drowning in paper by the year 2045 unless something is done immediately! Think of the children.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
decides to cancel your plan and the first thing you do is scapegoat the black democrat. It would appear that they know exactly how ignorant and bigoted their suckers are.
I've been weaning myself off cable in stages. Six months ago I realized that I wasn't watching Starz enough to justify the $40/month charge, so I dropped it.
Now I'm coming to the realization that I watch Hulu+ and Amazon Prime as much if not more than cable, so now I'm on the verge of cutting my cord to Comcast and just steaming through my pokey old AT&T DSL line. It's not quite fast enough for a 1080p stream, but it looks acceptable to me at standard def on my 55" plasma. So there you go. Comcast has just priced themselves out of my life.
You're totally offtopic, but this needs a reply.
Obama and the Democrats CAN'T be THAT incompetent, can they? One would think Obamacare was DESIGNED to destroy healthcare in the US.
It was designed that way because it's a HERITAGE FOUNDATION design, which is why Romney picked it for MA.
For all of the "socialist policies" of Obama, he sure seems to be supporting the right-wing policies of his predecessor and think tanks.
--
BMO
We should be able to buy the box with no outlet fees like how it is in canada.
Yes in the usa you can get a cable card but on some systems like comcast you only save $2-$3 mo over a box due to there high outlet fees.
Big Cable never stood a chance, the Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs will win and Big Cable will lose...
TV, and Cable TV, is crap.
it's mostly crap, with ads.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The prices of cable are exactly why I don't have cable TV. I'm not a big sports guy, so I was never interested in having the sports package for the games, etc. I can understand why some people enjoy that but for me personally, it's just not my thing. As a result, it was easy (borderline obvious) to take a step back and really see what I was getting out of cable TV.
So I get a series of TV shows that get put on at random times based on whatever the provider decides. I know DVRs are available but, no thanks. I don't keep track of show times to know when to set what to record or anything like that. I just know when I am able to sit down, I want to watch xyz item. That's it. Likewise, these programs run for (on average) half hour slots of time, where nearly a third of that is simply commercials. I'm already paying for the service, yet commercials are littered all over the place in an effort to pay for revenue.
I hear what some people are paying for cable TV and it makes my stomach churn just thinking about that monthly bill. I'm quite happy with my Netflix/Chromecast setup, although that may inevitably change when/if (but mostly when) this laughable merger goes down and streaming prices skyrocket.
In other news, Comcast was recently calling me on a frequent basis to sign up for cable TV. After a lengthy discussion about prices and an endless array of butting heads, the rep actually asked me what I would want to pay for TV service and he would see what he could do in terms of matching me to a package. I sincerely sat back and really put into deep thought what I value cable TV as. I don't mean a "well I'd like to pay a dollar" type thing, but I mean what I truly valued cable TV at. Given what sort of TV shows I would actually watch and the massive array of commercials, I concluded 18-20 dollars would be a price I would likely sign up for cable TV at.
Needless to say I haven't had a discussion with Comcast about signing up for cable TV in quite a while.
"90% of Everything is Crap".
This applies to everything, including cable TV.
The remaining 10%? Well, 90% of that is crap too.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
They obviously forgot to do the hedonic adjustment to account for the larger screens people are watching on.
If you want to watch it live, you go friend's house or restaurant/bar to watch it.
Otherwise you watch ESPN after-game highlights which shows all the pivotal moments of the game in 5 easy minutes.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Don't you mean Dubyacable? The transition to ATSC expanded channel selection for most households without cable TV.
to watch TV Just makes to damn much money or has rocks in their head.
Cable tv is loaded with useless channels that the consumer is forced to pay for. Channels that most consumers never watch and/or never heard of come with the package and contribute to the cost of monthly access. Cable providers will never allow the consumer to pick what channels they want so the only solution is to cut the cord and subscribe to services like Netflix and Hulu. The other(not so legal option) is to torrent your favorite shows.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968.
It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?
No, you don't get it, cable inflation rates is the real rate of inflation.
The real rate of inflation, for things people need, is four times higher than the BS 1 or 2 percent per year that the BLSD pomulgates.
Look at real food prices lately? Cost of education, of medical care???
Real inflation is 5-10% a year. see http://www.shadowstats.com/
$7.99 per month for netflix, $6 per month for a proxy server so we can watch BBC iplayer and stream live BBC TV...we never even bothered with cable; we haven't even got a digital aerial.
You don't miss what you don't have in the first place :-)
Especially the ads :-D
-- Fuck Beta
For those of us who don't watch sports, sports programming is a large part of the cost of cable, and I can't get just the channels want a la carte... everything is in tiers that cram sports into the mix.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Tens of millions of those without cable will get access to affordable quality cable through the marketplace. Over half of thous without cable Americans can get free or low cost cable service using their State's Cable Providers Marketplace. You can't be denied from coverage when you get sick or make an honest mistake on when you talk to operator. You also can't be denied coverage or television for being lazy or charged more for being lazy. You can't be charged more for being a woman either. Small businesses can get tax credits for up to 50% of their employees cable television installation costs, assuming employers allow to watch obamacable at work at least one hour a day. Young Adults can stay in parents house and watch cable free until they turn 26. 82% of adults without cable will qualify for free or low cost cable. ObamaCare helps to curb the growth in cable spending. Your Obamacable bill will be cheaper than cable bill
http://www.wired.com/2013/07/w...
Deploying broadband infrastructure isn't as simple as merely laying wires underground: that's the easy part. The hard part - and the reason it often doesn't happen - is the pre-deployment barriers, which local governments and public utilities make unnecessarily expensive and difficult.
Before building out new networks, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must negotiate with local governments for access to publicly owned "rights of way" so they can place their wires above and below both public and private property. ISPs also need "pole attachment" contracts with public utilities so they can rent space on utility poles for above-ground wires, or in ducts and conduits for wires laid underground.
The problem? Local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than these things actually cost. For example, rights of way and pole attachments fees can double the cost of network construction.
You either have a crappy antenna for OTA channels, or you live in a crappy, hilly part of the country. I live in an area where I can pick up over a dozen OTA channels (3 channels of PBS, 2 or 3 NBCs with local news/events, 2 ABC with local news/events, etc. I just have to point the antenna in different directions) The farthest station is 70+ miles away; I would bet you need to replace your antenna to get your "lost" OTA stations back.
To be fair, 90% of the 10% left of the remaining 10% of the original 90% is crap too.
You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968.
It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?
Fox news, Sean Hanity, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, a million Facebook posts about evil socialists taking jobs and voting Tea Party is the way out etc. Fox news is number one rated and tens of millions listen to right wing radio. They really believe that 50% of Americans all are welfare queens who make $45,000 and get free iPhones which they call Obama phones. Members of government believe the hype too which is why they are so anti Obama.
http://saveie6.com/
The inflation rate as reported by the federal government is complete shit. It's likely closer to 10%
The equipment they're talking about is vastly different than the equipment in the previous year. How many people switched from SD to HD in that time? That was one of the peak years for HD adoption.
Internet speeds across the industry jumped drastically in 2012 due to DOCSIS 3 rollouts. I, personally, went from 15mb/s to 50mb/s over night with no cost increase to me at all.
In 2012 most cable companies introduced the new pay as you go plans which allowed you to pay a slightly higher rate in exchange for no contract.
the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968
In 1968, America was fighting a major war in Vietnam, and had a space program heading for the moon.
OTA user here. With analog, I could get CBS, NBC and sometimes ABC (RF3,5 and 22). With the switch to digital, I lost all three. In Montreal we have CTV broadcasting on RF12, and ABC is on 13 (so they reduced the power going to Montreal to protect CTV, and CTV might be drowning ABC on the adjacent channel). CBS and NBC used to be VHF-Lo, so the signal pretty much got around obstacles. Now they're on RF22 and 14 (UHF) which is pretty much line-of-sight and doesn't propagate around obstacles. So what I could get in analog with rabbit ears I can't even get with an outdoor antenna which is around 25 feet off the ground. Besides, some channels were snowy but still watchable. With digital, it's all or nothing.
I'll try replacing my 4-bay bowtie with an old Yagi from '78 (CM 4248) when I get some spare time, but I don't expect much since there's a big building (and the edge of Mt Royal) between my home and the transmitters on Mt Mansfield.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
That might explain why the OP doesn't get much channels.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
An antenna is tuened for a frequency band. Nothing special about a "Digital" antenna. A good antenna that could reduce or eliminate ghosting from multipath will work just fantastic for "Digital" TV. I never upgraded to a digital antenna.
The truth shall set you free!
That article pretty much does say that the plans are very similar at their core, just that the heritage foundation plan had a bunch of other details to it that would have been much worse that the ACA. Basically, the ACA is bad, but it could have been worse. It could have been better, as well.
Depends where in Canada. Videotron charges outlet fees for extra terminals.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
There's tax after tax after tax and additional regulatory burdens (on TOP of the basic corporate greed and bloat) added-on to the basic bill... oh, they all have "nice" names....
"Federal Subscriber Line Charge"
"Rate Surcharge"
"State Regulatory Fee"
"Federal Universal Service Fee"
"CA High Cost Fund Surcharge-A"
"CA High Cost Fund-B and CA Advanced Svc Fund"
"California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge"
"Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge"
"CA Relay Service and Communicatons Devices Fund"
"9-1-1 Emergency Access System"
"Federal Tax"
"Universal Connectivity Charge"
"Carrier Cost Recovery Fee"
...
You might like all the stuff this crap provides (hey, who doesn't like 9-1-1 service?) but the FACT is that everytime some lawmaker proposes some new law or benefit or regulation, THERE IS A COST... and most voters are too stupid/short-sighted to pay attention. Just WHERE do people think all those free "Obama phones" are COMING from?!?!?!? Those of us who PAY our phone bills are kicking-in cash every month that goes (largely) to one of the richest men on the planet, (who just incidentally, of course backed Obama) Carlos Slim, who profits providing those phones. Oh, and I linked to HuffPo so you Obamabots cannot dismiss this so easily as a "faux news" post.
Another of the many 'net crazies who like to cite random blogs to support their point. Ok, well here's a random blog to refute your blog!
http://azizonomics.com/2013/06...
Citing things against a commodity like gold is even funnier. By that logic, there was no inflation from 1980 to 2005 since the price of gold was $590 in 1980 and $520 in 2005 (and much lower in between).
Who was charging you $10 a month in 1994 for cable tv? Nobody that's who.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
actually, it was a police action.
good thing we don't have any of those now...
So you want your ISP to build out support for all of it's users to pay for the max throughput of each modem on it's network on it's back end?
Somehow I don't think you'll be able to afford that cost... nor will the grandma down the street who pays $40 for high speed internet so she can Facebook with her kids and church friends, as well as Skype with her grandkids once a week... and who ultimately subsidizes your existing internet connection.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The road to hell has not been maintained and is no longer safe to drive on.
I work for one of the major cable companies so mine's free anyhow :)
"I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS."
Oh, the irony!
You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968 [theatlantic.com] .
It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?
This will be trolling, but you seem NOT to be foolish enough to trust what you read on the internet. However the starter comment seems as if he believes whatever he comes across, if not he believes what FauxNEWS is saying, this that comment seems like some of their 'honest and fair' reporting, and to be fair you can say that about all of the mainstream press.
I watch all my tv shows from netflix and piratebay.... What cable prices do you mean? Also stolen wifi(there dumb for not turning of certain router "features")... so i say again what prices?
It is funny that when people observe that almost everything raise faster that inflation, they blame all these providers/producers separately, instead of question reported inflation in first place.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alt...
If you look at shadowstats, last year inflation was around 5-%... as observed on cable service prices.
So real question should be not why cable service prices are rising so sharply, but rather, why CPI cheats? Answers are probably going to be more interesting that "rising cost of equipment"
My cable price from TimeWarner went from $102 to $134 in about 2 years.
What did I get for that price increase? Nothing. They even charged me more for the cable modem. I bought my own and my bill went up....
I will be cancelling the cable tv part and then sign up for internet only. I figure to save nearly $90 per month or $1000+ the first year.
That chart actually proves that we have too many government employees. The reason is that the number of people needed to do office type work has gone down dramatically with the invention of computers, copiers, printers, automated mailing centers, databases instead of huge rows of file cabinets, less phone operators thanks to the internet, etc. If you are running a company that does the same amount of business as it did in 1970 and you still use the same amount of office people, we're ether a small business or going to be out competed by somebody who uses modern technology.
Also, the charts don't show private contractors we are providing services that the government used, too which would be needed to get an idea of how effiecently the government is really using man power.
How does this compare to the increase in medical costs over the same time period? It's all BULLSHIT
The current market seems to be driven by a need to see major series as soon as they are released, if not sooner. Why is that? I hadn't heard many of my favourite albums until they were already 20 years old - what makes TV different?
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
It is because the CBS's and NBC's and CNN's and New York Times's have fallen down on their job of providing all sides and views that many people have resorted to Fox et al. Were the aforementioned organizations more centered and balanced, the rise of Fox would not have occurred.
Similar dynamics are involved in the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party is much like the Occupy movement. Both groups are comprised of people who are politically "homeless" and it is an indictment of the political system that such movements occurred.
BTW for most people in their 20's the most expensive services they have are cell phone and cable.
I've heard that Canada's DTV transition hasn't gone very well. But for what it's worth, VHF-lo is horrible for ATSC. Also, try rotating your outdoor antenna to see if you can improve the reception. Antennas can be somewhat directional, and it matters a lot for ATSC, especially with local channels that may have multipath interference. But mountains are definitely not going to make things easy for you.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS
It's that key to the left of 'A'.
You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968 [theatlantic.com] .
It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?
Haha, if you live anywhere near D.C. you'd know the number of "public" employees may have decreased, but the number of people employed by the government has drastically increased in the form of "government contractors" over the last two decades.
Same overpaid, underworked government-employment lifestyle, just under the guise of "private" industry. Take a look at government contracting expenditure stats to get an idea of the magnitude.
Cable is not rising faster than real inflation. The problem is that the government has been under-reporting real inflation by a wide margin since the Clinton era. Go to shadowstats.com for an explanation and to see what inflation really is using the original medodology, not the current rigged one.
Stop watching TV. It's amazing how much more productive and well informed I am once I cut the cable....
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Members of government believe the hype too which is why they are so anti Obama.
Not so sure it's that they believe the hype, possible, but it's likely more that 'their guy' didn't get to live in the White House. Which in turn, smashed their budget plans. This always comes back to money. Political ideology is a misnomer at this point, since actual Congressional legislation can be drafted in passed within a day if it needs to be. And, afaik, has.
Cable hasn't remained constant over that 18 year period. Nor is it the only item to have seen its cost outstrip inflation. The cost of beef, for instance, which has remained constant, increased in cost at about 1.5x the annual inflation rate over that same period. Unfortunately I could only find price data for basic food items and not other stuff.
The true inflation rate is more like 8.5 to 10%. So if cable prices are rising by 6%, then yes, they are rising faster than any made up number that is lower than 6%.
How many of the gov jobs have just been outsourced?
No longer gov employees, but we still are paying for them.
Like contractors in Afghanistan?
They make >100k$, 3X what an US Army guy makes.
IT work outsourced....
Sure the numbers are down, but the spending is still up.
Considering what we get given the spending I'd say they kept the wrong people.
I want (NEED) the News..
then why would you want cable, nothing there but propaganda. Stop watching the propaganda and your brain will power up enough that you will stop watching Nascar. too
I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS..
then turn off your caps lock for fucks sake
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
1. We were working to send a man to the moon (300,000+ people involved) which was NOT just some guys in "bunny suits" prepping astronauts and rockets in clean rooms at the cape... there were facilities being designed and built and staffed in many states. (it takes far fewer to maintain and use the stuff in later years)
I don't think you understand what "government employee" means. The vast majority of those 300,000 people worked at private companies that were completing government contracts related to the space program.
2. We were doing major construction on the creation of the interstate highway system (passed by Eisenhower in 1956, activity was very high in the 60's) It takes lots more people to plan and build such a system than to maintain it later.
Again, it's not as if the government went out and bought a bunch of backhoes and bulldozers to do the construction itself. Those highways were built by people working at private construction firms, not government employees.
3. We were fighting in Vietnam and at a very high Cold War strategic military posture with lots of HUGE highly-staffed bases all over the world; The US military used to do all its own work for things like base security, base food prep, grounds keeping, supply chain operation, troop transport, etc .... but now days many of these things are "outsourced" to civilian firms, and even the military itself is FAR smaller (the US navy, for example has fewer than HALF the ships it had under Reagan in the 80's and while THAT was higher than under Carter it was still historically lower than at many points).
You just proved the point of the Atlantic. You said that since the 1960s the military has vastly cut down the number of people it employs by outsourcing to private contractors and eliminating inefficiencies. Isn't this exactly what it means to have a small government?
4. Technology was SUPPOSED to reduce the workforce. Where Social Security checks required armies of federal workers to do the processing in the 1940's, it's now largely a computer task now with the payments often handled by automated "electronic funds transfers" (so the workers on-staff handle the human-interface functions and SHOULD be fewer than the number who used to work at SS). Given that much of what government does involves paper, records, and money, a big bloated government SHOULD require a fraction of the workers of decades ago, since all the work of computing numbers, moving and storing money, data, etc should be done my machines now.
This has happened. Today, Social Security Administration expenses as a percentage of the trust fund are less than one third what they are today. (source) But that doesn't fit into your pretty little narrative, does it?
Also, I'm sorry, but anyone who uses the Park Service as an example of big government is a fucking idiot. The Park Service gets .06% of the US federal budget. But wait, it adds up, doesn't it? What if we closed 500 agencies like the Park Service? We would cut government spending by 30%. Oh wait, no we wouldn't. Because the total of all non-defense, non-debt, non-healthcare, non-benefits spending adds up to 9% of the federal government. That's right, even if we shut down every "dispensable" agency -- from the FCC to the FAA, the DoE to the DoJ, the National Park Service to the Internal Revenue Service, the USDA, the USPS, the NIH, the NSF, the FDA, the FHA, NASA, the State Department, SCOTUS, POTUS -- we would only save 9% of the budget.
This is what all republicans conveniently ignore when they talk about big government. Big government isn't caused by all the agencies they love to complain about.
At least Obama was trying to chip away at the real problem with health care reform. No, it isn't
Too bad they don't seem to take into account the simple fact that the government is outsourcing more and more of its jobs to "private" companies. I'd much rather see a chart including the number of people who's paychecks are paid by government money than one that only includes those who are officially government employees.
Sorry, but lying-with-statistics is a required course these days.
This has happened. Today, Social Security Administration expenses as a percentage of the trust fund are less than one third what they are today. (source [ssa.gov]) But that doesn't fit into your pretty little narrative, does it?
One third what they were in 1968, sorry.
We don't have time for that. Daryl Issa wants to talk about Benghazi and is ready to spend millions on his little witch hunt. Daryl Issa (I keep wanting to say Daryl Hannah) wastes more of my money than anybody else. At least they aren't going on junkets like they did back in the early 2000s.
Try getting the leaf antenna, it works pretty good. Costco has a competitor as well. I got about 30 channels. Admittedly I live on top of a hill with a clear view of everything. http://www.gomohu.com/
As a government employee who has had their salary reduced with forced furloughs every year, I'd tell you to go to hell...
As a private-sector employee who has seen outright layoffs (where you don't come back later or occasionally get refunded later by Uncle Sam for the time spent not working), outright salary reductions to help save a coworker's job, occasionally working insane hours (instead of, say, 9-4 M-F which most of the VA enjoys), and where you can be fired at any time for nearly any idiotic reason - oh, and where fat pensions are scarce-to-non-existent? Oh, and let's not forget that most private-sector employees have to make do with budgets that are not assumed to automatically grow each year.
Yeah - having a real hard time feeling sorry for you there, boyo.
PS: a "slash" in budget growth request is not a "slashed" budget. Come back when, say, the PHBs decide to whack your previously-approved CapEx by 50% because they're working an acquisition and the target company is balking at the offer. Then we'll talk about what a slashed budget really is.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
they cut your salary etc wile they buy a fleet of new privet jets don't you love are economics.
yep try only able to get so called temp work when its really permanent just so they don't have to offer you anything and able to fire you anytime for no reason that's the new game in the job market at least whats left of it.
no matter how bad it makes you look
So what. It's not like you were fooling anyone to begin with. Just keep your hissy-fit to yourself, and go crawl back under a rock.
is the rate of inflation wrong? We don't calculate the CPI the way we did just a few years ago. That's why it seems that everything you buy nowadays is going up with each visit to the store, but the government still claims a fairly low rate of inflation.
Go to http://www.shadowstats.com and read about it. I trust Walter William's calculations a LOT more than I trust government's.
I'm happy with my Charter cable and internet service. I get every channel Charter offers including all the premium channels. Internet is 30/5, and most times I get over 45 downstream. Cost is only $126/month. That's over $40 LESS than I was paying for fewer channels in 2001 and much slower internet. Plus, back in 2001 there was no HD or DVR service. Yeah, I'm happy. Quit yer bitching.
Every time I go to a friend's place and they say "hey, X is on!" and they flip on cable I can't believe I used to pay for it. Commercials are so annoying, and they are the main reason I dropped cable and never looked back.
Sorry, there's lots of other reasons to be anti-Obama. You didn't hit even one of mine. Mine are based around abusive centralization of power.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
They need to raise rates to start saving money for the FCC's Fast Lane they are building... right?
Not only that, but with 6 years of the left in power, the right is officially the underdog...for now. Just like the left was the underdog during the Bush years. There's nothing better to get your base riled up than to be the underdog, and to see policies implemented counter to your personal political beliefs. If the right gets back into power in 2016, it won't take the left long to acquire aforementioned status and gain a bit of a boost in the ratings.
Though admittedly it's a bit more complicated than that. A lot of folks on the right felt that Bush didn't adequately represent them. Such sentiment was one of the seeds of the Tea Party, and it gave Fox News something to latch onto before Obama was even elected. I tend to lean right these days (mainly due to my displeasure with the handling of fiscal matters) so I can only speak from that viewpoint...it might take awhile longer for the pendulum to swing the other way again as I know nothing of their internal bickering.
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Since nearly every hospital bed has a TV with cable access, I think it's fair to blame the cable industry for a good percentage of rising medical costs.
Great post. Too bad scores top out at 5.
Udachny you droning rampallian varlot. Virtue is freedom and freedom is free markets and so we must let the free market decide whether government should have a monopoly in evil. To do otherwise is slavery. Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.
set down your kool-aid and your religious texts for a moment. or at least, set them down long enough to pay attention to what you write and catch your grammatical and spelling errors. your comment was so poorly written that you just simultaneously insulted and credited nixon.
tell us, how your church will handle that when you show up to the next services?
He's only *half* black, btw. I thought everybody knew that. Just like eveybody knows he's *fully* corrupt---black or not? Get out much.
-- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
OK, so let's get this straight: Left wing gut says *Obama* gets a pass because he's only doing what right wing nuts' candidate of choice ["Romney"] would have done? Rich. No wonder this country is going downhill. What else can we expect when even "nerds" act dumber than a box of rocks. On the other hand, sir/mam, if what you are really saying is that, "Democrat *or* Republican, either way we're screwed," I think there are a few people awake enough to say, "hear, hear!"
-- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
The big media companies in Hollywood are notorious for beeing greedy and working closely together. All music artists receive 3-5% for each record sold, no matter which record company they use. This is the reason artists tour heavily - because they keep all the money - not the record companies. So the large Hollywood companies fight greedily to get as much money as possible. USA has even threatened Russia with embargos if Russia did not shut down an illegal MP3 site, some years ago. So apparently, the media companies in Hollywood has great power.
Reading is too difficult for most Americans, and they are deathly afraid of being wrong about anything. So, they make up whatever they want to be true, never check it, and flip out when somebody tries to point out the truth. Every little correction to any incorrect "fact", regardless of where they heard it or whether they simply made it up, leads them to react like they're being called stupid. As a result, they're stupid. I'm generalizing above, but this is the most prevalent reality among laypersons and laborers in the United States.
Yeah, i'm so sure that a former cable lobbyist like Wheeler and co. will see to it that cable companies are MORE burdened. You serioisly nelieve this?
big difference.
None of us can force the broadband monopolies to compete when they act in alliance with one another, requiring a new contendet like google to force them out of their sedentary ways. You assume a free market in that realm when none exists.
No need to rotate, all the transmitters are in the same direction (only a couple degrees apart, except for PBS Mountain Lake)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The leaf antenna is much smaller than my 4-bay (therefore not as efficient at collecting weak signals). All the local stations are only 6 miles away, I can get them using indoor rabbit ears. The ones I'm trying to get are about 85 miles away and behind a big building (and part of Mt Royal). Unless I go to about 75 feet high (which is not allowed in Montreal), I probably won't be able to get any US channels from my location. Still, with only 14 channels sometimes I would need a second tuner for my media center, so I've got plenty of entertainment for free.
I will still try my old '70s Channel Master yagi (big 4248), UHF only, but since RF10 and RF12 are so near, it won't matter much, those I can get just by putting a paperclip in the tuner...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
No, Obama doesn't get a pass. In order to "compromise" he threw all the other options off the table. Like he's done with just about everything.
The only difference between getting Romney elected last time and Obama is that Romney would have had us "boots on the ground" in Iran within two or three months of inauguration, because the neocon chicken-hawks had their hooks into him (Dan Senor said we'd invade Iran at the behest of Israel on Meet The Press and Romney never corrected him, for example.)
--
BMO
Someone has to pay for those multi-billion dollar sports deals.
You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968 [theatlantic.com] .
It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?
Fox news, Sean Hanity, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, a million Facebook posts about evil socialists taking jobs and voting Tea Party is the way out etc. Fox news is number one rated and tens of millions listen to right wing radio. They really believe that 50% of Americans all are welfare queens who make $45,000 and get free iPhones which they call Obama phones. Members of government believe the hype too which is why they are so anti Obama.
Noooooo, you hard left libby msnbc lover!!! the stupid uneducated people that bow to Obama & accept all his hand-outs, which by the way, us hard working americans are actually paying for, THEY CALL THEM OBAMA PHONES! you stupid jerk! They simply have used that stupid phrase & made it work against the terroist you call your god, "OBAMA". quit watching chris mathews & wake-up!
And info commercials on cable TV have increased 4 times over the years! Cable companies are such scammers when they say they are increasing their content - more commercials.
By "rotate", I meant point it in the right direction to begin with, not add a motor to the mast. Even then, I still have to get on a ladder every couple of months to twist the antenna around because its direction gets changed by the wind.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }