Wait a minute, you read my comment and thought that I was claiming that the cost for a family to watching every game on TV was in the same ballpark as the same family attending every game in person?
Well, that was not my intention. I was simply reinforcing just how much money $1200 is. Family of 4. Ask each one if they would like $400 cash or cable for the year, and I suspect you'll get some takers for the cash. In my case, I'd rather attend $400 worth of live games and catch what I can on OTA.
I'm an authorized user now, but notice that I was able to ADD service without being an authorized user. That is simply a shady business practice. They are "protecting" my wife from a lower bill but not from a higher bill. Changes of any sort to the account should encounter the same amount of protection.
A corporation can be made to do anything that you want. Just enact legislation. Local utilities are particularly susceptible, as they cannot go anywhere. Sure, they have lobbyists - but public unions do, too.
Sure, but instead of getting almost $200 in revenue from their capital equipment and maintenance crews they are only getting $70. Same wire. This makes them very nervous. Brian Roberts, the Comcast CEO was on "APM's Marketplace" a few weeks ago. He seems pretty lucid about Comcast's need to improve customer service and make you actually want to use your cable line for things besides internet. Phone was one example he gave, and another was home monitoring and automation. It seemed pretty clear that he knew cable TV was something on it's way down. Cable is the printed newspaper of the 2010s. Pretty soon they will just try to milk their older, diminishing customer base until the business goes away entirely.
If you stick Amazon Prime in there as well, you get all the Viacom crap (Nickelodeon) as well as the Disney crap that you get with Netflix. Kids.... sated. Netflix and Prime combined cost only as much as two months of cable, and they work on all of your i-Things.
I'm not sure you could have anything except a very local monopoly without the aid of government. Could Carnegie have built his empire without the aid of a government charter for his limited liability corporations? This is without even invoking the other huge interference of government in the free market: intellectual property.
I see very little difference between government and private monopolies as an end user, and letting the government do it puts me in the additional position of having to make good on any debts or liabilities they incur. I think you put up a competitive bid process for a heavily regulated monopoly infrastructure provider, and just accept that it won't be the most efficient thing ever. Then let anyone rent the "pipes" to be the ISP/cable/telephone provider. In other words, the utility model. Crap customer service, not as cheap as it could be, and a little behind on the technology curve - but fairly reliable and available everywhere.
My opinion of Comcast is summed up nicely with two versions of a similar conversation: Me: "Hi. I'd like to add a service to my account." Comcast: "Sure, no problem. Have a nice day."
a few months later... Me: "Hi. I'd like to remove a service from my account." Comcast: "Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. Let me transfer you to retention." Retention: "Hi, are you not enjoying the quality programming?" Me: "No, I would like to just remove this service from my account." Retention: "I see you are not the account holder. We will need permission from the account holder." Me: "She's at work. I'm her husband." Retention: "Well, we'll need her permission."
Honestly, it's one of the most entertaining things on TV. But that bar is pretty low and I can do without sports that they don't put OTA. Baseball works when on the radio, and my kids keep me too busy for football. Hockey and basketball are on so often that I get my fill with just the OTA stuff. During playoffs I can spend that $1200 that I saved by cutting cable out at the bar.:)
Or, just sign up for the intro cable rate for a few months. Did that for the superbowl once.
Don't get me wrong, inflation can be good. In fact, the reason you list is a kind of good inflation. Labor rates hardly ever go down - or at least they are slow to respond - so in effect you can fix that by devaluing the money. But that's not what we are doing with QE, or at least it is not the stated reason. It could be that the policy makers just aren't fessing up, because how could a politician run on a platform of wage reduction? I'm just worried that with this precedent they will pull stunts like QE when the labor market is healthy. That will most certainly be bad.
If there are a few standout exceptions, it proves it's not an inherent problem with FWD.
That's not really true - it is just that they made other design compromises in order to make the FWD perform better. Off the top of my head was some of the Audis, where they turned the engine around 90 degrees to improve balance and torque steer, but at the expense of size and cost. That was OK, because the really nice version was AWD:)
The whole "bad handling" thing just isn't an issue in the 21st century, unless you have a serious sports car or something
Agreed, but you are discussing this with someone who drives a Camry and a Sienna:) The Camry, incidentally, is horrendous in the snow. The Sienna seems to have a lot more weight over the wheels and does pretty darned well. If I wanted a sports car, I'd be pissed if there weren't any RWD options. And a manual gearbox, because those are more fun...
Similarly, if I lived any further south than I do now, I wouldn't consider snow at all. As it is, I'm pondering trading the Camry for a Subaru so that I have some traction.
Sad, but true. The "sequester" was a fraction of what is needed, and it cause a major panic attack. It's amazing to watch people in such denial, even arguing that you can just print money with no real consequence. Oh, and by the way, did you see that real wages have gone down since the 60s? [rolls eyes]
How about "it will stave off our fiscal crises by a month, at least"?
If the country has to buy its own debt and pay interest to itself to avoid default, that is in many respects the same thing as printing money. Just wait until interest rates go up and people realize that we need to use most of our discretionary budget just to pay interest.
Indeed. They just decided to get along and pass a budget deal, and they managed to make a whole 3% reduction in the deficit. Wow. That will stave off our bankruptcy by a month, at least.
I don't think your political speech rights are seriously infringed by waiting to get off of the plane to talk to someone. I'm not even sure that a telephone has been used for political speech, but I'm sure if one crowd can come up with an example, it will be the Slashdot crowd.
Now if they passed a bill that said you can't criticize the President while on an airplane, that would be something different altogether.
I'm not "hating", I'm just pointing out that in the huge list of gigantic data breaches there certainly seem to be a lot of non-cloud instances. I don't think rolling your own makes you safer unless you are exceptional in that regard.
Jeep? That's a pretty American brand.:) Most of the time a rear-wheel drive vehicle with some extra weight in the trunk and a set of snow tires was pretty decent in the snow. My dad is from Pittsburgh, and if he could get around snowy hills with that configuration, I'm pretty sure other folks could too.
Four wheel drive was complicated and expensive, and you ended up with an extra bulge and shifter on your floor. FWD was and is pretty crappy for handling in all of the rest of the year, with a few standout exceptions. FWD is cheaper and gives you a flat floorpan - that is the primary reason why it was adopted.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, man, like brown noise. I hope this thing makes dogs shit all over everything.
Oh, wait.
Wait a minute, you read my comment and thought that I was claiming that the cost for a family to watching every game on TV was in the same ballpark as the same family attending every game in person?
Well, that was not my intention. I was simply reinforcing just how much money $1200 is. Family of 4. Ask each one if they would like $400 cash or cable for the year, and I suspect you'll get some takers for the cash. In my case, I'd rather attend $400 worth of live games and catch what I can on OTA.
I'm an authorized user now, but notice that I was able to ADD service without being an authorized user. That is simply a shady business practice. They are "protecting" my wife from a lower bill but not from a higher bill. Changes of any sort to the account should encounter the same amount of protection.
Even real, pro NHL tickets are affordable once you have an extra $1200. :)
Well, LOL, all I can say is that my sports bar solution might not work for everyone. I'd bet you can get cable for 3 months to cover playoffs, though!
A corporation can be made to do anything that you want. Just enact legislation. Local utilities are particularly susceptible, as they cannot go anywhere. Sure, they have lobbyists - but public unions do, too.
Sure, but instead of getting almost $200 in revenue from their capital equipment and maintenance crews they are only getting $70. Same wire. This makes them very nervous. Brian Roberts, the Comcast CEO was on "APM's Marketplace" a few weeks ago. He seems pretty lucid about Comcast's need to improve customer service and make you actually want to use your cable line for things besides internet. Phone was one example he gave, and another was home monitoring and automation. It seemed pretty clear that he knew cable TV was something on it's way down. Cable is the printed newspaper of the 2010s. Pretty soon they will just try to milk their older, diminishing customer base until the business goes away entirely.
If you stick Amazon Prime in there as well, you get all the Viacom crap (Nickelodeon) as well as the Disney crap that you get with Netflix. Kids.... sated. Netflix and Prime combined cost only as much as two months of cable, and they work on all of your i-Things.
I'm not sure you could have anything except a very local monopoly without the aid of government. Could Carnegie have built his empire without the aid of a government charter for his limited liability corporations? This is without even invoking the other huge interference of government in the free market: intellectual property.
One of my favorite movies was made for about $35,000. So there ya' go. Life would roll on if Hobbit were still only in book form.
I see very little difference between government and private monopolies as an end user, and letting the government do it puts me in the additional position of having to make good on any debts or liabilities they incur. I think you put up a competitive bid process for a heavily regulated monopoly infrastructure provider, and just accept that it won't be the most efficient thing ever. Then let anyone rent the "pipes" to be the ISP/cable/telephone provider. In other words, the utility model. Crap customer service, not as cheap as it could be, and a little behind on the technology curve - but fairly reliable and available everywhere.
My opinion of Comcast is summed up nicely with two versions of a similar conversation:
Me: "Hi. I'd like to add a service to my account."
Comcast: "Sure, no problem. Have a nice day."
a few months later...
Me: "Hi. I'd like to remove a service from my account."
Comcast: "Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. Let me transfer you to retention."
Retention: "Hi, are you not enjoying the quality programming?"
Me: "No, I would like to just remove this service from my account."
Retention: "I see you are not the account holder. We will need permission from the account holder."
Me: "She's at work. I'm her husband."
Retention: "Well, we'll need her permission."
And so on.
Clearly you don't care about live sports
Honestly, it's one of the most entertaining things on TV. But that bar is pretty low and I can do without sports that they don't put OTA. Baseball works when on the radio, and my kids keep me too busy for football. Hockey and basketball are on so often that I get my fill with just the OTA stuff. During playoffs I can spend that $1200 that I saved by cutting cable out at the bar. :)
Or, just sign up for the intro cable rate for a few months. Did that for the superbowl once.
Came here to post this. I'm happy for them - glad they are working on a space program.
Don't get me wrong, inflation can be good. In fact, the reason you list is a kind of good inflation. Labor rates hardly ever go down - or at least they are slow to respond - so in effect you can fix that by devaluing the money. But that's not what we are doing with QE, or at least it is not the stated reason. It could be that the policy makers just aren't fessing up, because how could a politician run on a platform of wage reduction? I'm just worried that with this precedent they will pull stunts like QE when the labor market is healthy. That will most certainly be bad.
If there are a few standout exceptions, it proves it's not an inherent problem with FWD.
That's not really true - it is just that they made other design compromises in order to make the FWD perform better. Off the top of my head was some of the Audis, where they turned the engine around 90 degrees to improve balance and torque steer, but at the expense of size and cost. That was OK, because the really nice version was AWD :)
The whole "bad handling" thing just isn't an issue in the 21st century, unless you have a serious sports car or something
Agreed, but you are discussing this with someone who drives a Camry and a Sienna :) The Camry, incidentally, is horrendous in the snow. The Sienna seems to have a lot more weight over the wheels and does pretty darned well. If I wanted a sports car, I'd be pissed if there weren't any RWD options. And a manual gearbox, because those are more fun...
Similarly, if I lived any further south than I do now, I wouldn't consider snow at all. As it is, I'm pondering trading the Camry for a Subaru so that I have some traction.
OK, I'll bite on your ad hominem. I was using rhetoric in this sense:
"rhetoric:
language that is intended to influence people and that may not be honest or reasonable"
That is, even though I know full well that the federal government can't go "bankrupt", I used the word anyway. Thus, I was being rhetorical.
Was there something of substance that you wanted to discuss, or are you just being a seagull?
Sad, but true. The "sequester" was a fraction of what is needed, and it cause a major panic attack. It's amazing to watch people in such denial, even arguing that you can just print money with no real consequence. Oh, and by the way, did you see that real wages have gone down since the 60s? [rolls eyes]
It was meant to be rhetorical.
How about "it will stave off our fiscal crises by a month, at least"?
If the country has to buy its own debt and pay interest to itself to avoid default, that is in many respects the same thing as printing money. Just wait until interest rates go up and people realize that we need to use most of our discretionary budget just to pay interest.
Indeed. They just decided to get along and pass a budget deal, and they managed to make a whole 3% reduction in the deficit. Wow. That will stave off our bankruptcy by a month, at least.
I don't think your political speech rights are seriously infringed by waiting to get off of the plane to talk to someone. I'm not even sure that a telephone has been used for political speech, but I'm sure if one crowd can come up with an example, it will be the Slashdot crowd.
Now if they passed a bill that said you can't criticize the President while on an airplane, that would be something different altogether.
I'm not "hating", I'm just pointing out that in the huge list of gigantic data breaches there certainly seem to be a lot of non-cloud instances. I don't think rolling your own makes you safer unless you are exceptional in that regard.
And then your data doesn't get "stolen" or "lost".
Yeah, that never happens.
I have a feeling there is a vendor for that situation, too.
Jeep? That's a pretty American brand. :) Most of the time a rear-wheel drive vehicle with some extra weight in the trunk and a set of snow tires was pretty decent in the snow. My dad is from Pittsburgh, and if he could get around snowy hills with that configuration, I'm pretty sure other folks could too.
Four wheel drive was complicated and expensive, and you ended up with an extra bulge and shifter on your floor. FWD was and is pretty crappy for handling in all of the rest of the year, with a few standout exceptions. FWD is cheaper and gives you a flat floorpan - that is the primary reason why it was adopted.