... just bought about $4 billion worth of spectrum from Comcast.
Why do I like this deal, after showering AT&T's takeover over of T-Mobile with so much bile?
Because Verizon's deal brings new, unused spectrum to the market, actually doing what AT&T falsely claimed their deal with T-Mobile would accomplish. Because the Verizon deal still leaves the competitors on the field, especially the scrappy one (T-Mob) known for good prices and good deals. Because, in the final look, Verizon isn't AT&T.
Did you note last week that Verizon was the one major cell phone provider that did not use the sneaky software from Carrier IQ that knows more (a lot more) about you than your mother?
There is an obvious difference between Verizon and AT&T. One is good, the other is ... well, not so good. The corporate cultures seem vastly different. It's like going into a restaurant where staff is smiling and professional and eager, versus going into one where the first words you hear are "We close in fifteen minutes." Don't you just wonder what they're doing to your burger back there in the kitchen?
AT&T just seems to be in it for themselves, ya know?
We post this to let our conservative friends understand that we are not anti-business. We like business, and we like functioning markets, where they exist. Which does not include the U.S. pharmaceutical industry or anything that travels in the same wheel rut as AT&T.
That is not to say Verizon only wears a white hat. They were astoundingly silent about the AT&T and T-Mobile deal. Verizon's execs knew even if AT&T succeeded in swallowing T-Mobile and moving past Verizon to become the largest cell provider, even being second largest would increase Verizon's bottom line in a less competitive market. That's how oligopolies work.
But being silent is not the same as openly trying to undermine market competition. Verizon bought $4 billion of spectrum and will bring it online, while AT&T was taking a $4 billion charge for likely blowing a deal with T-Mobile that was a blatant attempt to subvert market dynamics so beloved of the right wing if in name only.
AT&T is anti-business, except their own. Rep. Greg Walden is anti-business,too, except for AT&T's business which Walden conducts quite well as a mole for AT&T at the government level. He is not working for small Oregon companies that need a functioning market in which to buy phone service. But then, we don't give Rep. Walden nearly as much money as he gets from AT&T.
Verizon is the nation's leader in customer service, the leader in basic service, the leader in high speed service, and it appears that lead will continue with this recent purchase of spectrum and marketing deals with cable companies.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Blessing in the loss
Her mother hovers near death, so light now she floats six inches above the bed while nestled small and frail so deeply in the sheets.
I am blessed, asked to sit in this room, asked to bring strong arms from which grief can be released. Blessed, trying to anticipate small needs, driving small errands, a presence to offer balance, solid with no weight.
"Perhaps mom hangs on to meet her great granddaughter," someone says.
I am blessed, asked to sit in this room, asked to bring strong arms from which grief can be released. Blessed, trying to anticipate small needs, driving small errands, a presence to offer balance, solid with no weight.
Blessed, in this watching, to see here great beauty.
Two weeks since she fell and shattered bones in hip and neck, a week since she lost consciousness. Four adult children attend with children of their own, a great grandchild due in a month visits via the womb.
"Perhaps mom hangs on to meet her great granddaughter," someone says.
"I think it would be better if mom meets her before she is born," says daughter-soon-to-be-grandmother with a smile but not joking, the quickness of her response and the love in this room offers another chance to laugh.
With laughter and warmth they share stories of childhoods where Gaga played her important role, memories brought out and burnished like holiday silver.
So many meals for so many as her own children searched for channels into adulthood, moved back home sometimes with their own kids until fully fledged and swimming on their own. There are many stories.
Running through it all is the common theme: "She made each of us feel like her favorite."
A grandson reads a book, his grandmother had read it to him, he cannot continue for tears that flow from love and loss. His father sits at mother's bedside, head resting on one arm, his eyes to the floor while she looks to other vistas.
He caresses his mother's brow for a long, long time. There is is no measurement for this waiting. He cries, one of his sisters puts her hand on the back of his neck.
The mourning is as natural and accepted the laughter, as the need to go out and get fresh air, to go home for a shower. We attend in shifts. Tears, laughter, errands, waiting, nurses come in every two hours with an opiate to ease her pain.
Until the end each dose eased her breathing for a while, but then seemed to have little effect at all.
A grandson in the Air Force flew home from Arizona, he and his brother stand at her bedside, eyes bright to her. They just stand, holding her hand, no tears, no drama, peace emanates from them. In another world they wore robes and traveled by horse or mule, they are timeless.
Rebel son of rebel dad, long hair creeping from under cap, but pride earned and voice direct to her even as she cannot hear, the love she poured into him pours back to her, from pitcher to cup to pitcher.
The words "I love you" bring from her a smile. They are the words spoken in this room most often.
An Army Sergeant brings his family home from Texas to be here for the services, and uses his leave to be part of this, to help as he can. Soldiers, aviators abound in this family, tough men who do not flinch from their own weeping.
They attend, ageless youth. Baby blankets she made for them, satin edging worn away by their tiny fingers, return to the foot of her bed, warming her now and them now again.
"What will I do, her love was so important to me," asks a granddaughter, a professional pilot, overwhelmed in this moment by her helplessness.
"I just don't want to let go of her hand," responds her mother, who for years absorbed the pain of her mother's uncertain shuffle to flowers in the garden, worn by years of a long transition.
Daughters together here and now, their tears flow to her in one stream through it all.
Then, a smile, another story, one stands to go to her bed, to hold her cool hands, to feel her feet to be sure they are warm enough as circulation slows.
Over the last days and nights her breath slows, becomes uneven, long pauses cause everyone to stop, to listen, then she gasps as the body's need of oxygen overwhelms her soul's desire to flee, the breathing is ragged in her throat, softened only by sponged drops of water.
"There is a door," she said when she still had a few words left to share, "but I don't know how to go through it."
"Daddy waits and will show you the way, your papa waits and will guide you," her children reply to her stillness. "All those who have passed through will be there."
Finally, early in the morning her breathing slows even more and grows even more shallow, then just stops. This struggle is over, surrounded by loved ones through it all, not one moment of this departure did she spend alone in this room.
Such a blessing to be here.
Friday, December 2, 2011
More falsehoods from AT&T
AT&T does not like the report from the Federal Communications Commission on its takeover of T-Mobile. They don't like that the report was released. Surprise.
So they trot out a smart man to try to cast doubt. Let's look at what he had to say.
So they trot out a smart man to try to cast doubt. Let's look at what he had to say.
"The document is so obviously one-sided that any fair-minded person reading it is left with the clear impression that it is an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis," Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior vice president of external and legislative affairs, wrote in a blog post.
Actually, no. The report simply states reasons why FCC staff do not support the merger. The "analysis" is elsewhere. For nine months AT&T filled the atmosphere with falsehoods about how "what's good for AT&T is good for America." FCC disagreed, and said why. That's all.
AT&T claimed acquiring T-Mobile would help the rollout of its 4G LTE network. The FCC agreed with AT&T rivals who argued that AT&T is going to build out its 4G network with or without T-Mobile because of competition. Cicconi denied that, pointing to "sworn declarations" about its 4G LTE plans.
Oh, please. "Sworn declarations?" And we should wait for AT&T to say "Oh, that sworn declaration? Yeah, about that, well, our plans have changed." That's what always happens when the consequences for lying are less than the benefits. Guess we'll see if AT&T will let Verizon be the only company with a nationwide 4G network.
"The report apparently assumes a high enough level of competition exists in rural areas to compel billions of dollars in investment," Cicconi wrote. "Yet the report elsewhere argues that the level of wireless competition in more populated areas of America is so fragile that the merger must be disallowed. At the very least, these conclusions show a logical inconsistency."
Mr. Cicconi is a smart man. So he must be a lawyer to use the word "competition," which means different things in different situations, and claim it only means one thing and the FCC is being inconsistent.
There is nothing inconsistent in saying AT&T will roll out 4G in rural areas with or without T-Mobile, and loss of competition in 99 out of 100 urban markets (where the money is) would be bad for consumers. This is just a tricky trap of language, common to a certain political class.
The FCC says the deal will kill jobs, Cicconi says AT&T has "promised" to create jobs. No. AT&T was going to recoup the $39 billion it was willing to spend on T-Mobile instead of spending $4 billion to build out its own LTE by cutting jobs and raising prices, which it will be able to do in a duopoly with Verizon across most of America. Somewhere there is a document that shows that, an email, meeting notes. Let's find it and send perjurers to jail.
Cicconi says the FCC is hypocritical in saying there is a national spectrum shortage but saying two national companies face "no such constraints." He thinks we're stupid.
Yes, more spectrum is needed for new phone technology for the public good. But the public, as a whole, does not benefit from one company gobbling the spectrum of another. If you agree with his argument, walk into the coffee shop with a dollar in in your right pocket, move it to your left, tell the server you have a dollar in each pocket for a $1.50 cup of coffee, and, of course, you plan to leave a 50¢ tip.
Cicconi says the report lacks credibility, and distorts the facts. We think the report was a good summation of reasons why the merger should not go through, and Cicconi's response validates that conclusion.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
AT&T Randall Stephenson to jail?
It's one thing to lie in advertising. We all expect that.
It's another thing to lie in newspaper stories. Most of us expect that.
It's another thing to lie in applications to the Federal Communications Commission. That becomes a little more troubling.
But it's another thing altogether to lie to Congress. That's against the law. And there is some indication that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson did exactly that. If so, and if it can be proven he did so knowingly, he should go to jail.
By the way? THAT'S what the Occupy Wall Street protests were about.
It's another thing to lie in newspaper stories. Most of us expect that.
It's another thing to lie in applications to the Federal Communications Commission. That becomes a little more troubling.
But it's another thing altogether to lie to Congress. That's against the law. And there is some indication that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson did exactly that. If so, and if it can be proven he did so knowingly, he should go to jail.
By the way? THAT'S what the Occupy Wall Street protests were about.
AT&T's lies for all to see
How wonderful this last week to see the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission protecting markets, small businesses and consumers from a rapaciously hungry corporate monster.
Even "The Economist" magazine, hardly a liberal rag, opposed the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.
AT&T's discomfort at the release of the FCC staff report on the merger is understandable, and wrong. That is OUR government staff, that is OUR report, transparency is GOOD, the people have A RIGHT TO KNOW. The company wasn't opposed to putting its falsehoods out there during the process. It's blatant hypocrisy to affect outrage when the government releases its findings.
In fact, ALL the documents of the proposed merger should be released. They were filed with a public body to get something from the public. We should be able to see them. Distortions and other bad things, like AT&T, grow in the mouldering dark.
Anyone who watched the AT&T CEO in action before Congress, read the canned pro-merger crap AT&T regional presidents planted in newspapers around the nation (it all reads the same!), watched the callously manipulated spectacle of gay and lesbian organizations, Latino advocacy groups, Black community leaders giving pay back by advocating outside their interest, watched AT&T lawyers preen with false outrage, read anything about this corporation or even just dealt with an indifferent AT&T representative after the company attempted to rip them off, knows that AT&T is a company without a soul.
Yeah, yeah, we get there are people working for AT&T who have souls. So far. Leave it alone.
AT&T will eat whatever it can until gorged and then eat some more, the only thing stopping it something larger.
Which is why we have laws against monopolies, why AT&T had to be broken up once before, and why this last couple weeks of courage on the part of the justice department and FCC is only the beginning. AT&T has already said, somewhat ominously, they will pursue "alternate means" to get what they want.
One day, see the ancient James Coburn movie, "The President's Analyst."
At&T's representative from Oregon, Greg Walden, a man corrupted by campaign contributions and who knows what other spores AT&T may have planted in his brain, must be sweating bullets. He will now have to work harder for his host, and risks even greater exposure.
Even "The Economist" magazine, hardly a liberal rag, opposed the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.
AT&T's discomfort at the release of the FCC staff report on the merger is understandable, and wrong. That is OUR government staff, that is OUR report, transparency is GOOD, the people have A RIGHT TO KNOW. The company wasn't opposed to putting its falsehoods out there during the process. It's blatant hypocrisy to affect outrage when the government releases its findings.
In fact, ALL the documents of the proposed merger should be released. They were filed with a public body to get something from the public. We should be able to see them. Distortions and other bad things, like AT&T, grow in the mouldering dark.
Anyone who watched the AT&T CEO in action before Congress, read the canned pro-merger crap AT&T regional presidents planted in newspapers around the nation (it all reads the same!), watched the callously manipulated spectacle of gay and lesbian organizations, Latino advocacy groups, Black community leaders giving pay back by advocating outside their interest, watched AT&T lawyers preen with false outrage, read anything about this corporation or even just dealt with an indifferent AT&T representative after the company attempted to rip them off, knows that AT&T is a company without a soul.
Yeah, yeah, we get there are people working for AT&T who have souls. So far. Leave it alone.
AT&T will eat whatever it can until gorged and then eat some more, the only thing stopping it something larger.
Which is why we have laws against monopolies, why AT&T had to be broken up once before, and why this last couple weeks of courage on the part of the justice department and FCC is only the beginning. AT&T has already said, somewhat ominously, they will pursue "alternate means" to get what they want.
One day, see the ancient James Coburn movie, "The President's Analyst."
At&T's representative from Oregon, Greg Walden, a man corrupted by campaign contributions and who knows what other spores AT&T may have planted in his brain, must be sweating bullets. He will now have to work harder for his host, and risks even greater exposure.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Cell phone
Time for a new cell phone.
Two reasons: First, I am really, really tired of T-Mobile's poor coverage where I live in the mountains of Central Oregon.
Second, my Samsung Nexus S phone is busted up, the display cracked in many places. A friend loaned me a phone just in case this one fails before I find a new one.
I would prefer a GSM phone because it is a world standard and has simultaneous data and voice on the older networks that serve my area. Still, I haven't been out of the country in a couple of years and am not that good at multitasking.
And since I am giving up on T-Mobile and won't do ATT, that eliminates GSM. Sprint made me angry by charging me an extra $10 for data priviledges they did not provide on my HTC Evo last year. That leaves Verizon.
Verizon has the best coverage by far in rural Oregon, in the mountains or at the beach. A friend on Verizon can talk for 10 miles past the Cascade crest on our way to Portland, while my T-Mob phone has been dead for a half hour.
Two phones are coming to Verizon that interest me: the new Nexus, and the Moto Razr. I love pure Android, and I hate the crapware that most phones are loaded with, and their "skins." HTC Sense wasn't too bad, but pure Android is cleaner. I used to like my whiskey straight up as well.
But I can't say I have been happy with my Samsung phone. Some of the breaks are absolutely my fault. Dropping the phone onto my concrete floor without a case. What did I expect? Other cracks ... perhaps they were the result of the curved display being cracked once, but I don't think they should have happened.
So, I will probably get the Razr and give up pure Android until the boys and girls at XDA figure out how to snooker the locked bootloader and I can run the newest Android Ice Cream Sandwich. I love the look of the phone, the clipped edges and thin profile. I wish the display were a little higher resolution but it is good enough for now.
It is the right size, the iPhone is too small and the 4.5 inchers just don't fit my hand.
I wish Google would get rid of the three or four buttons across the bottom and allow the phone makers to get rid of as much of the bezel as possible. Integrate a home button into all apps. No, I don't want an iPhone.
That would be ideal: A beautifully designed, indestructible handset I could run on any network for which I had an account, a phone that was all display and no bezel, thin, that would function as a high speed modem for my laptop or tablet when I needed more visual real estate, completely flexible to load or download MP3s or anything else from anywhere. A communicator that would only open to my voice or thumbprint but would do so instantly.
Two reasons: First, I am really, really tired of T-Mobile's poor coverage where I live in the mountains of Central Oregon.
Second, my Samsung Nexus S phone is busted up, the display cracked in many places. A friend loaned me a phone just in case this one fails before I find a new one.
I would prefer a GSM phone because it is a world standard and has simultaneous data and voice on the older networks that serve my area. Still, I haven't been out of the country in a couple of years and am not that good at multitasking.
And since I am giving up on T-Mobile and won't do ATT, that eliminates GSM. Sprint made me angry by charging me an extra $10 for data priviledges they did not provide on my HTC Evo last year. That leaves Verizon.
Verizon has the best coverage by far in rural Oregon, in the mountains or at the beach. A friend on Verizon can talk for 10 miles past the Cascade crest on our way to Portland, while my T-Mob phone has been dead for a half hour.
Two phones are coming to Verizon that interest me: the new Nexus, and the Moto Razr. I love pure Android, and I hate the crapware that most phones are loaded with, and their "skins." HTC Sense wasn't too bad, but pure Android is cleaner. I used to like my whiskey straight up as well.
But I can't say I have been happy with my Samsung phone. Some of the breaks are absolutely my fault. Dropping the phone onto my concrete floor without a case. What did I expect? Other cracks ... perhaps they were the result of the curved display being cracked once, but I don't think they should have happened.
So, I will probably get the Razr and give up pure Android until the boys and girls at XDA figure out how to snooker the locked bootloader and I can run the newest Android Ice Cream Sandwich. I love the look of the phone, the clipped edges and thin profile. I wish the display were a little higher resolution but it is good enough for now.
It is the right size, the iPhone is too small and the 4.5 inchers just don't fit my hand.
I wish Google would get rid of the three or four buttons across the bottom and allow the phone makers to get rid of as much of the bezel as possible. Integrate a home button into all apps. No, I don't want an iPhone.
That would be ideal: A beautifully designed, indestructible handset I could run on any network for which I had an account, a phone that was all display and no bezel, thin, that would function as a high speed modem for my laptop or tablet when I needed more visual real estate, completely flexible to load or download MP3s or anything else from anywhere. A communicator that would only open to my voice or thumbprint but would do so instantly.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Obama has a tin ear
Unions first? Really?
About a year and a half ago, in this very forum, I suggested that jobs, jobs jobs should be the president's priority. Inexplicably, he ignored me.
More recently, I told him to put some bankers in jail. He seems to be ignoring that, too. Amazing, huh?
So now I will tell him that to focus on funding jobs for teachers, firefighters and cops is a really, really stupid fumble, one that gives Republicans a fact they can use as proof that Obama is just a special interest president.
And this on the eve of great success in Libya. Good Lord, hire a conservative to serve pragmatism with breakfast. Are you reading The Economist as often as you should, sir?
Mr. President, most of us out here without jobs do not have union representation. Teachers and firefighters and cops are very hard to fire, already have organizations fighting for them, and have pretty nice advantages. They are not the most in need, individually or as a "class," and buying them off does not quickly create the most jobs.
Sheesh, we should not have to say this. Giving unions our money is great politics when times are good, but now you have to do something bold to take care of the rest of us who also voted for you, who also worked for you, so we can make money, so we can buy things, so we can pay taxes and so those taxes can then be used to hire more teachers, firefighters and cops.
Horse, then cart. Horse pulls cart. It's that simple.
That's how you best leverage dollars, economically and politically. Build some damn roads and bridges, retirement homes for now broke baby-boomers, build schools where they are falling apart, add research facilities onto colleges to study why adding fly ash makes concrete into nearly indestructible pavement. Then put that pavement under trucks delivering stuff to build more stuff.
Pour money into small banks in stressed communities -- I mean pour it in, and pay them 4% to loan it at 2 % for twenty years to any business that wants to grow, and certainly any business that can return jobs to America or creates jobs that can not be exported. Let the money multiply as it moves through the economy and lifts us out of some pretty dire straights (cue the music).
Don't just give it to the unions, sir. It makes you look like a chump and a shallow pol. It is beneath the stature of a president who who saved the U.S. auto industry, got Bin Laden and put fear into terrorists, passed what may someday be viewed as the beginning of health care reform and whose new direction of foreign policy has aided democracy around the world and just deposed a vile dictator who murdered with impunity for 40 years.
I think Right Wing pundits should eat a bag of bugs for every self-righteous, mocking use of "Lead from Behind." I want to see Rush do it.
C'mon. There is still time to fix this. Have faith in America, not just the ideologues. For you to meet the opposition in the middle, you have to come farther than half way. Don't waste this crisis.
About a year and a half ago, in this very forum, I suggested that jobs, jobs jobs should be the president's priority. Inexplicably, he ignored me.
More recently, I told him to put some bankers in jail. He seems to be ignoring that, too. Amazing, huh?
So now I will tell him that to focus on funding jobs for teachers, firefighters and cops is a really, really stupid fumble, one that gives Republicans a fact they can use as proof that Obama is just a special interest president.
And this on the eve of great success in Libya. Good Lord, hire a conservative to serve pragmatism with breakfast. Are you reading The Economist as often as you should, sir?
Mr. President, most of us out here without jobs do not have union representation. Teachers and firefighters and cops are very hard to fire, already have organizations fighting for them, and have pretty nice advantages. They are not the most in need, individually or as a "class," and buying them off does not quickly create the most jobs.
Sheesh, we should not have to say this. Giving unions our money is great politics when times are good, but now you have to do something bold to take care of the rest of us who also voted for you, who also worked for you, so we can make money, so we can buy things, so we can pay taxes and so those taxes can then be used to hire more teachers, firefighters and cops.
Horse, then cart. Horse pulls cart. It's that simple.
That's how you best leverage dollars, economically and politically. Build some damn roads and bridges, retirement homes for now broke baby-boomers, build schools where they are falling apart, add research facilities onto colleges to study why adding fly ash makes concrete into nearly indestructible pavement. Then put that pavement under trucks delivering stuff to build more stuff.
Pour money into small banks in stressed communities -- I mean pour it in, and pay them 4% to loan it at 2 % for twenty years to any business that wants to grow, and certainly any business that can return jobs to America or creates jobs that can not be exported. Let the money multiply as it moves through the economy and lifts us out of some pretty dire straights (cue the music).
Don't just give it to the unions, sir. It makes you look like a chump and a shallow pol. It is beneath the stature of a president who who saved the U.S. auto industry, got Bin Laden and put fear into terrorists, passed what may someday be viewed as the beginning of health care reform and whose new direction of foreign policy has aided democracy around the world and just deposed a vile dictator who murdered with impunity for 40 years.
I think Right Wing pundits should eat a bag of bugs for every self-righteous, mocking use of "Lead from Behind." I want to see Rush do it.
C'mon. There is still time to fix this. Have faith in America, not just the ideologues. For you to meet the opposition in the middle, you have to come farther than half way. Don't waste this crisis.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Jail the Bankers
Look, take exception to the source, if you want. But read it. Then this.
Then download the report itself. Just Google: Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse. It was written by a bipartisan Senate committee.
Okay, you don't have to read all 650 pages of that. But download it anyway, so that when someone spouts off that it's just Rolling Stone or The New York Times, you can prove it is far more than that.
Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks and David Viniar and Thomas Montag should be given their day in court. If 12 of their peers determine they should go free, that's fine, then free they should be. But America needs them to stand trial.
Do this despite your temptation to give in to causistry, your desire to bury outrage by pretending 'it's impossible to know" and "in whose opinion?" Or worse, "It's just too hard."
C'mon, get off your ass and be an informed citizen, just like Thomas Jefferson said. That does not mean Fox News. There is such a thing as truth. Do what you need to do to learn what that is in the "market place of ideas." It's your job as a citizen, and you have been underemployed for too long.
Read it, do a little more digging, and form your own opinion. Then do something. But don't ignore it. You have ignored it for too damn long, and look where we are today because of that.
Then download the report itself. Just Google: Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse. It was written by a bipartisan Senate committee.
Okay, you don't have to read all 650 pages of that. But download it anyway, so that when someone spouts off that it's just Rolling Stone or The New York Times, you can prove it is far more than that.
Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks and David Viniar and Thomas Montag should be given their day in court. If 12 of their peers determine they should go free, that's fine, then free they should be. But America needs them to stand trial.
Do this despite your temptation to give in to causistry, your desire to bury outrage by pretending 'it's impossible to know" and "in whose opinion?" Or worse, "It's just too hard."
C'mon, get off your ass and be an informed citizen, just like Thomas Jefferson said. That does not mean Fox News. There is such a thing as truth. Do what you need to do to learn what that is in the "market place of ideas." It's your job as a citizen, and you have been underemployed for too long.
Read it, do a little more digging, and form your own opinion. Then do something. But don't ignore it. You have ignored it for too damn long, and look where we are today because of that.
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Oligarchs
And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?
A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.
... The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?
... And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.
... And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.
... And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured.
... And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.
... And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money; they honour and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.
... They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work.
... And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established.
Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we were speaking?
First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better pilot?
You mean that they would shipwreck?
Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything? ... This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?
... And here is another defect which is quite as bad.
... The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another.... Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.
How discreditable!
And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings—they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?
Anything but well.
There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this State first begins to be liable.
What evil?
A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature.
Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.
The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.
True.
But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?
As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift.
May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the hive?
Just so, Socrates.
And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings but others have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.
Most true, he said.
Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.
Clearly.
Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers?
Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler.
And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force?
Certainly, we may be so bold.
The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State?
True.
Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may be many other evils.
Very likely.
Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed ...Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State
... And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it.
Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.
And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?
Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came.
... He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State which he represents?He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as well as by the State.
... Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries? ... You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.... It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation for honesty he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions.
... The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones.
... For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him.
... And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.
... Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State?
There can be no doubt.
Plato, "The Republic"
380 B.C. or so.
(apologies to the author for extracting 'relevant' text)
Sunday, October 9, 2011
From a "mobster" in Oregon
The other day Eric Cantor, Republican Majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, accused me and many others of being part of a "mob."
“I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country,” Cantor said. (Read it here).
The same day Cantor was saying that, I was on Wall Street in the middle of a noisy, orderly demonstration. The people around me were claiming to be part of the 99%, that the top 1% should pay more taxes. I was talking with an out-of-work logger and a member of the Tea Party. It was surprising how much we had in common.
Oh, did I mention "my" protest happened on Wall Street in Bend, Oregon?
In Washington, Rep. Cantor, in an effort to pit Americans against Americans, said "Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”
What a perfect example of double speak. Wall Street (New York) banks pillaged retirement accounts and burned the jobs of those of us on Main Street through reckless and illegal acts; politicians bought-and-paid-for by those banks and others cut taxes for the rich and made profiteering easy for giant corporations through special interest legislation. Cantor should not be talking about "pitting Americans against Americans." He's been there and done that.
Just the opposite is true among the "mobs" toward which he would whip up a fear response. Americans are coming together in recognition that business as usual is a power grab, and men like Cantor are the grasping fingers.
The top brass of Goldman Sachs should be sent to prison. There should be true competition in the market place for pharmaceuticals. There needs to be true campaign finance reform that can't be overturned by three conservatives and two weasels on the Supreme Court. To say this is not divisive. To do so is to be an American.
That is what was amazing about the "mob" gathered in Bend, Oregon on the first Friday of October. The logger, the Tea Party activist and the Liberal all agreed on many of these things. Americans are being united, not divided, by being part of this "mob."
Heads up, Mr. Cantor.
“I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country,” Cantor said. (Read it here).
The same day Cantor was saying that, I was on Wall Street in the middle of a noisy, orderly demonstration. The people around me were claiming to be part of the 99%, that the top 1% should pay more taxes. I was talking with an out-of-work logger and a member of the Tea Party. It was surprising how much we had in common.
Oh, did I mention "my" protest happened on Wall Street in Bend, Oregon?
In Washington, Rep. Cantor, in an effort to pit Americans against Americans, said "Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”
What a perfect example of double speak. Wall Street (New York) banks pillaged retirement accounts and burned the jobs of those of us on Main Street through reckless and illegal acts; politicians bought-and-paid-for by those banks and others cut taxes for the rich and made profiteering easy for giant corporations through special interest legislation. Cantor should not be talking about "pitting Americans against Americans." He's been there and done that.
Just the opposite is true among the "mobs" toward which he would whip up a fear response. Americans are coming together in recognition that business as usual is a power grab, and men like Cantor are the grasping fingers.
The top brass of Goldman Sachs should be sent to prison. There should be true competition in the market place for pharmaceuticals. There needs to be true campaign finance reform that can't be overturned by three conservatives and two weasels on the Supreme Court. To say this is not divisive. To do so is to be an American.
That is what was amazing about the "mob" gathered in Bend, Oregon on the first Friday of October. The logger, the Tea Party activist and the Liberal all agreed on many of these things. Americans are being united, not divided, by being part of this "mob."
Heads up, Mr. Cantor.
Friday, October 7, 2011
A note to The Left
Yeah, can't you just feel it, doesn't it tingle in your shorts, this slow build to a new "movement?" Does it energize you who remember the 60s, and delight those sorry to have missed it?
Don't indulge yourselves. This is too important.
If you want to capture this opportunity, you will need to focus. This is not about sustainability or mass transit, Portlanders; stop calling every employer a "fat cat," AFL-CIO, that's just not true; it is not about gay marriage, carbon caps, dams and salmon.
If you dilute this by pulling every cause onto your wagon, you will have only the same old gang on board. And that is not enough. Haven't you learned anything from the last 20 years?
This is about power. This is about money. This is about a system systematically abused by powerful people who own our politics. Keep it focused, keep it tight, and do NOT give it up when they throw scraps from their table to the floor where you sit.
Corporations are not "We the people" written of in our Constitution. They should not have the "rights" of individuals. One man, one vote, how about one donation of one amount? Should the Koch brothers be able to buy $50 million of influence while the rest of us are stuck writing emails to our congressmen? Where is the "democracy" in that?
We need to fix it.
Goldman Sachs rules the world, along with 146 other entities that own 40% of the world's wealth. No, it was not illegal, but we can make it illegal, or at least the tactics they use to hold on to power. If those 147 control our governments, who controls the 147? A function of government is to protect the system of commerce. It can't do that if it is owned by commercial interests.
"Too big to fail" should become a footnote in history. Instead, a couple of short years after tax dollars flowed from Main Street to Wall Street, big banks are jacking us around and saying they will levy a surcharge for letting us use our own money (Bank of America: $5? Really?) while paying their CEOs millions.
Big banks need to be broken up so any of them can fail without taking down the system. That is a key element of "market" economics." There has to be a price for failure. At least, that seems to be the medecine the right is prescribing for the rest of us. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Koch brothers.
Goldman Sachs? Whatever it takes to make that blood sucker less powerful should be done, now. The revolving door by which Goldman employees enter government and vice-versa is a door to corruption that needs to be slammed shut. The same rules apply to all such leviathans.
Including labor, by the way, OEA, AFL, etc. etc. etc.
Consolidation of economic power should be resisted, laws against monopolies and oligopolies rigorously enforced. No, that's not "anti-business." It is pro-business, because it establishes a fair and level playing field on which business can be openly conducted, especially small businesses on which most of our economy still depends.
And that brings the final point: transparency.
Oregon was once a leader of transparent government. Nothing is more critical today. If we don't know what's going on, if we don't know who the players are, we can't make informed opinions. That was one of the promises of the current administration. It has not been fulfilled.
Make a contribution, your name goes on it. If you want to buy an ad, fine, but let the rest of us know who foots the bill. An informed populace is a key requirement of democracy, according to Jefferson, ballots are only secret when they go in the box.
To the media: good reporting is not weighing words pro and con in mythical scales of "fairness" and distributing them evenly on page or screen. There is such a thing as truth. Deal with that, take the consequences of doing your best.
If this be a call to class warfare, the lower class did not start the fight. It started when the bankers blew up the economy after telling us to borrow as much as we could, lowering the standards and hiding the consequences. When pharmaceutical companies wrote the Bush prescription act. When Enron had the key to Dick Cheney's office. When Haliburton got the no-bid contract to run the war in Iraq.
But I don't think it is so much "class warfare" as it is "Main Street versus Wall Street." They have taken enough from us, and now it is time to take to our streets, since every other avenue has been closed to us.
The left needs to avoid being shunted downs its favorite side streets, too. There will be time for all that, if we ever get to our destination. That destination, after these several centuries, remains an allegence to "Liberty and Justice for All." We just need to keep focused.
Don't indulge yourselves. This is too important.
If you want to capture this opportunity, you will need to focus. This is not about sustainability or mass transit, Portlanders; stop calling every employer a "fat cat," AFL-CIO, that's just not true; it is not about gay marriage, carbon caps, dams and salmon.
If you dilute this by pulling every cause onto your wagon, you will have only the same old gang on board. And that is not enough. Haven't you learned anything from the last 20 years?
This is about power. This is about money. This is about a system systematically abused by powerful people who own our politics. Keep it focused, keep it tight, and do NOT give it up when they throw scraps from their table to the floor where you sit.
Corporations are not "We the people" written of in our Constitution. They should not have the "rights" of individuals. One man, one vote, how about one donation of one amount? Should the Koch brothers be able to buy $50 million of influence while the rest of us are stuck writing emails to our congressmen? Where is the "democracy" in that?
We need to fix it.
Goldman Sachs rules the world, along with 146 other entities that own 40% of the world's wealth. No, it was not illegal, but we can make it illegal, or at least the tactics they use to hold on to power. If those 147 control our governments, who controls the 147? A function of government is to protect the system of commerce. It can't do that if it is owned by commercial interests.
"Too big to fail" should become a footnote in history. Instead, a couple of short years after tax dollars flowed from Main Street to Wall Street, big banks are jacking us around and saying they will levy a surcharge for letting us use our own money (Bank of America: $5? Really?) while paying their CEOs millions.
Big banks need to be broken up so any of them can fail without taking down the system. That is a key element of "market" economics." There has to be a price for failure. At least, that seems to be the medecine the right is prescribing for the rest of us. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Koch brothers.
Goldman Sachs? Whatever it takes to make that blood sucker less powerful should be done, now. The revolving door by which Goldman employees enter government and vice-versa is a door to corruption that needs to be slammed shut. The same rules apply to all such leviathans.
Including labor, by the way, OEA, AFL, etc. etc. etc.
Consolidation of economic power should be resisted, laws against monopolies and oligopolies rigorously enforced. No, that's not "anti-business." It is pro-business, because it establishes a fair and level playing field on which business can be openly conducted, especially small businesses on which most of our economy still depends.
And that brings the final point: transparency.
Oregon was once a leader of transparent government. Nothing is more critical today. If we don't know what's going on, if we don't know who the players are, we can't make informed opinions. That was one of the promises of the current administration. It has not been fulfilled.
Make a contribution, your name goes on it. If you want to buy an ad, fine, but let the rest of us know who foots the bill. An informed populace is a key requirement of democracy, according to Jefferson, ballots are only secret when they go in the box.
To the media: good reporting is not weighing words pro and con in mythical scales of "fairness" and distributing them evenly on page or screen. There is such a thing as truth. Deal with that, take the consequences of doing your best.
If this be a call to class warfare, the lower class did not start the fight. It started when the bankers blew up the economy after telling us to borrow as much as we could, lowering the standards and hiding the consequences. When pharmaceutical companies wrote the Bush prescription act. When Enron had the key to Dick Cheney's office. When Haliburton got the no-bid contract to run the war in Iraq.
But I don't think it is so much "class warfare" as it is "Main Street versus Wall Street." They have taken enough from us, and now it is time to take to our streets, since every other avenue has been closed to us.
The left needs to avoid being shunted downs its favorite side streets, too. There will be time for all that, if we ever get to our destination. That destination, after these several centuries, remains an allegence to "Liberty and Justice for All." We just need to keep focused.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
How will Oregon play the revolution?
Herman Cain says it's my fault that I don't have a job.
I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.
Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.
So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.
Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.
That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.
But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.
Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.
Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.
Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.
If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.
If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.
Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.
Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.
That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.
No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.
Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.
Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.
They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.
I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.
Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.
So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.
Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.
That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.
But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.
Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.
Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.
Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.
If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.
If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.
Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.
Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.
That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.
No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.
Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.
Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.
They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Steve Jobs changed our world.
Steve Jobs died today.
Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.
He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.
Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.
Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.
He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.
Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Greg Walden for Sale
Rep. Greg Walden is a representative for ATT. The telephone companies have bought themselves a congressman from Oregon.
Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.
The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.
Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”
How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.
Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.
Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.
Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.
Would you like to give him a call?
Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774
Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452
Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303
Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402
Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.
The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.
Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”
How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.
Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.
Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.
Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.
Would you like to give him a call?
Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774
Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452
Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303
Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Google + Motorola + T-Mobile = ?
I can't be the only one thinking this.
Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?
Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.
What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.
I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.
Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.
But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.
Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.
I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?
Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...
Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?
Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.
What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.
I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.
Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.
But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.
Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.
I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?
Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...
Friday, August 5, 2011
Obama: America's greatest president since Lincoln
When he took office, Barrack Obama inherited two wars, banks suffering a near fatal hangover from a binge on power and greed, a meltdown in the financial system via a faltering economy and unrealistic expectations, unions that still fight for responsibility without accountability, a political system that trades integrity for mediocrity by promoting ignorance, and a population that believes each of us and all of us are entitled without consequence as the common good is trampled by shouts of "where's mine?!?"
And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.
Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.
And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.
Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.
Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.
Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.
Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.
And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.
Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.
And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.
Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.
Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.
Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.
Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Class warfare
In the Wall Street Journal last week, a writer whined that Republicans, at least, had not resorted to "class warfare" in the debt ceiling/budget debate. More of this sentiment can be had from Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I want a dumb pipe
I don't want to be a captive of AT&T or Verizon. I want them to serve me.
In Europe, the owner of T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, prohibits its subscribers from using Skype in its terms and conditions. AT&T and Verizon would love to be able to impose the same terms and conditions here.
What's it going to be, Congress? Oregon representatives DeFazio, Wu, Walden, Blumenauer and Schrader need to stand up and protect the market from the power of the duopoly. You too, Wyden and Merkley. Be heard on this.
I love the iPhone, and I love my Evo 4G and my Nexus S. I think it is wonderful to be able to buy these phones with all the features preloaded and have a two-year contract and a high value added by Sprint or AT&T or Verizon. They should be able to sell that.
But I want more choice. I want to be able to use the phone I want in the way I want and pay a fair price for access that I control.
I don 't want AT&T or Verizon to dumb down my phone so I can't use it on my home's wifi network the way they do now. I want to use my home's broadband conveniently to make a call and not be forced to kludge a solution.
I don't want AT&T or Verizon to cut sweetheart deals with Samsung or HTC or Motorola so that I can't get the phone I want to work on the technology I want, the way they do now.
I want to pay for megabytes I choose to download and upload, and not be forced to pay for data sent by automatic programs that AT&T or Apple or Google have loaded on my phone that suck up my personal data and sneak it to their servers without my knowledge.
I don't want NFL or NASCAR or anybody else's bloatware on my phone, or at least be able to get rid of it, which I can't do now. At what point does "protect network security" become an excuse for "keep competition out?"
And by the way, I want to pay for my call minutes in tenths: a call that lasts two minutes and six seconds should be billed at 2.1 minutes, not three, which is nothing but a 30% theft by the phone company.
If the telecom's don't want to become "dumb pipes," then I want our government to ensure, through the mechanism of the free market, that I have the right to choose a "dumb pipe" for my mobile phone and data services.
In fact, I need to be able to choose between two dumb pipes, either GSM or CDMA technology. I want to be able to use any phone I want on whichever pipe that I choose. I want to own the phone, and be able to customize it in any way that I want, use it in any legal way that I want.
The current system is being abused, protections for the consumer are few, because the market has failed to be transparent enough to drive the abuses out through the mechanism of consumer choice.
That will get worse if the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is approved.
We need competition in the market place and a government that has reduced barriers to entry into the market of access to airwaves, "spectrum," that is owned and licensed by "We the People."
Our founding fathers would have been as outraged by the threat of corporate power as they were of royal power had such a thing existed in their day. It is up to us to stand up and demand our rights in a this new world. We do this by protecting the free market, doing what we need to foster competition and freedom of choice.
It is time our representatives in government took the threat to the future of communications seriously. We cannot let the consolidation continue by those who seek a monopoly. It is bad for markets, bad for America.
Hooray for Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) who earlier this week held a news conference urging regulators to block the deal, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Thank you for your free market stance that helps small business and consumers.
Power corrupts, even the economic power of private enterprise. The best antidote for that corruption is competition, functioning markets, and effective oversight.
Wake up.
In Europe, the owner of T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, prohibits its subscribers from using Skype in its terms and conditions. AT&T and Verizon would love to be able to impose the same terms and conditions here.
What's it going to be, Congress? Oregon representatives DeFazio, Wu, Walden, Blumenauer and Schrader need to stand up and protect the market from the power of the duopoly. You too, Wyden and Merkley. Be heard on this.
I love the iPhone, and I love my Evo 4G and my Nexus S. I think it is wonderful to be able to buy these phones with all the features preloaded and have a two-year contract and a high value added by Sprint or AT&T or Verizon. They should be able to sell that.
But I want more choice. I want to be able to use the phone I want in the way I want and pay a fair price for access that I control.
I don 't want AT&T or Verizon to dumb down my phone so I can't use it on my home's wifi network the way they do now. I want to use my home's broadband conveniently to make a call and not be forced to kludge a solution.
I don't want AT&T or Verizon to cut sweetheart deals with Samsung or HTC or Motorola so that I can't get the phone I want to work on the technology I want, the way they do now.
I want to pay for megabytes I choose to download and upload, and not be forced to pay for data sent by automatic programs that AT&T or Apple or Google have loaded on my phone that suck up my personal data and sneak it to their servers without my knowledge.
I don't want NFL or NASCAR or anybody else's bloatware on my phone, or at least be able to get rid of it, which I can't do now. At what point does "protect network security" become an excuse for "keep competition out?"
And by the way, I want to pay for my call minutes in tenths: a call that lasts two minutes and six seconds should be billed at 2.1 minutes, not three, which is nothing but a 30% theft by the phone company.
If the telecom's don't want to become "dumb pipes," then I want our government to ensure, through the mechanism of the free market, that I have the right to choose a "dumb pipe" for my mobile phone and data services.
In fact, I need to be able to choose between two dumb pipes, either GSM or CDMA technology. I want to be able to use any phone I want on whichever pipe that I choose. I want to own the phone, and be able to customize it in any way that I want, use it in any legal way that I want.
The current system is being abused, protections for the consumer are few, because the market has failed to be transparent enough to drive the abuses out through the mechanism of consumer choice.
That will get worse if the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is approved.
We need competition in the market place and a government that has reduced barriers to entry into the market of access to airwaves, "spectrum," that is owned and licensed by "We the People."
Our founding fathers would have been as outraged by the threat of corporate power as they were of royal power had such a thing existed in their day. It is up to us to stand up and demand our rights in a this new world. We do this by protecting the free market, doing what we need to foster competition and freedom of choice.
It is time our representatives in government took the threat to the future of communications seriously. We cannot let the consolidation continue by those who seek a monopoly. It is bad for markets, bad for America.
Hooray for Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) who earlier this week held a news conference urging regulators to block the deal, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Thank you for your free market stance that helps small business and consumers.
Power corrupts, even the economic power of private enterprise. The best antidote for that corruption is competition, functioning markets, and effective oversight.
Wake up.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Verizon is complicit
In a story (read it here) on May 24, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal, under the headline "These Companies Hate the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger," it was noted by reporter Shira Ovide that Verizon, which would drop from largest to second largest wireless company after AT&T swallows T-Mobile, has not come out against the proposed merger.
Duh.
Ovide notes the Verizon CEO is saying only “We’re not going to get distracted by this.”
Ovide refers to analysts who opine that the reason for Verizon's calm reaction is that "Verizon Wireless ... could get a lift if AT&T strips low-cost rival T-Mobile from the market. At the same time, AT&T could be distracted for a year or more securing all the necessary government clearances for the deal, and then integrating T-Mobile into the fold. The lull might help Verizon poach subscribers from its biggest competitor."
Sometimes it is hard to believe what passes for journalism. Distracted? Please.
One would think that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would understand the value of a duopoly (like a monopoly, but with two) to one of the duopolists. In other words, if AT&T becomes the only GSM wireless company, and is able to hammer suppliers and gouge consumers, then Verizon, as by far the largest of the CDMA wireless group, would also benefit. Even without direct collusion.
Markets require competition to work effectively. AT&T and Verizon are doing everything they can in the media, in Texas, and before the U.S. Senate to cloud the issues.
"We don't know if the market is best served by three or four carriers," burbles one wireless exec. "If we don't have more spectrum, ambulances will be unreachable," growls another from AT&T.
Nonsense. This merger is about AT&T sucking up spectrum now, dollars and dollars later, from a distortion of a market that rides on licenses to use airways owned … by… us.
We need more choices of which carrier to use, not fewer choices. We need three or four GSM carriers, and three or four CDMA carriers, for there to be a truly competitive "free" market. There is less competition if there are only three, if Sprint hobbles along as a distant 3rd, or two if Verizon sucks up Sprint.
Verizon is sanguine about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger because Verizon executives know that even as number two, they will still get a larger slice of porker pie than they do now, even if it is not the largest one on the table.
The U.S. government should protect consumers and small business and refuse to go along with this merger. Communication is the economy's lifeblood now more than ever. Republicans should live up to their ideals of doing what is good for business, and that does not mean just doing good for one of their largest political donors. Where the hell is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
AT&T was broken up once before. We should look at this power grab as a reason to consider doing it again.
Duh.
Ovide notes the Verizon CEO is saying only “We’re not going to get distracted by this.”
Ovide refers to analysts who opine that the reason for Verizon's calm reaction is that "Verizon Wireless ... could get a lift if AT&T strips low-cost rival T-Mobile from the market. At the same time, AT&T could be distracted for a year or more securing all the necessary government clearances for the deal, and then integrating T-Mobile into the fold. The lull might help Verizon poach subscribers from its biggest competitor."
Sometimes it is hard to believe what passes for journalism. Distracted? Please.
One would think that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would understand the value of a duopoly (like a monopoly, but with two) to one of the duopolists. In other words, if AT&T becomes the only GSM wireless company, and is able to hammer suppliers and gouge consumers, then Verizon, as by far the largest of the CDMA wireless group, would also benefit. Even without direct collusion.
Markets require competition to work effectively. AT&T and Verizon are doing everything they can in the media, in Texas, and before the U.S. Senate to cloud the issues.
"We don't know if the market is best served by three or four carriers," burbles one wireless exec. "If we don't have more spectrum, ambulances will be unreachable," growls another from AT&T.
Nonsense. This merger is about AT&T sucking up spectrum now, dollars and dollars later, from a distortion of a market that rides on licenses to use airways owned … by… us.
We need more choices of which carrier to use, not fewer choices. We need three or four GSM carriers, and three or four CDMA carriers, for there to be a truly competitive "free" market. There is less competition if there are only three, if Sprint hobbles along as a distant 3rd, or two if Verizon sucks up Sprint.
Verizon is sanguine about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger because Verizon executives know that even as number two, they will still get a larger slice of porker pie than they do now, even if it is not the largest one on the table.
The U.S. government should protect consumers and small business and refuse to go along with this merger. Communication is the economy's lifeblood now more than ever. Republicans should live up to their ideals of doing what is good for business, and that does not mean just doing good for one of their largest political donors. Where the hell is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
AT&T was broken up once before. We should look at this power grab as a reason to consider doing it again.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Republicans are anti-business
The right wing is still pushing the message, "government is bad, people are good." Less government, lower taxes, more freedom, let free markets work.
The message "government is bad" resonates because, since WWII, our government and wealth have often been directed toward doing things government does not do well. There has also been a successful effort on the part of unions to protect government jobs and paychecks while reducing accountability, which has not been good PR.
But the pointed message "government is bad" has been co-opted as propaganda by radical right wing think tanks that have an entirely different agenda which is being fed to the American people by political puppets. Simply stated, their goal is to reintroduce hardship as a means to improve productivity, and encourage corporate culture to become America's culture.
Which is not bad in and of itself, as long as we are able to have a discussion about what is involved. But we are lazy and we are easily misled and the issues take work and they are hard.
Before we throw out rules and regulations and limit government, we need a real conversation about what will take its place. What will limit the power of those who can and will take advantage of other people's weakness?
"Free markets" without rules that keep as many players as possible in the game aren't free at all. Markets are not "moral." They can't be nor should they be. At best, we hope they are efficient at providing the products and services we want at the lowest possible cost through the mechanism of competition.
Without enough players, and that number varies by industry, markets become captive to the most powerful. Then the powerful take advantage of the rest of us.
In some "markets," such as health care, even the lowest possible cost is probably still more than we can afford when we attempt to postpone death as long as possible. Everyone is being false when we debate only cost and affordability without acknowledging the spiritual issue that Death is inevitable and hard. Horrific manipulation from the right (death panels!) only served to hide the fact that the Republican agenda is a fast track to the same destination. Again, not to disagree with the direction, but the dishonestly is breathtaking.
Or the "markets" in communication. There has been more than one revolution in the telecommunications industry since AT&T, then called "Ma Bell," was broken up (by government regulation). These revolutions would have been far different, and less likely, had Ma Bell's monopoly continued.
Now we have different technologies, and different requirements. But monopolies, or duopolies, or oligopolies still seek power and profit and the power that profit provides. As they should. The corporation has a duty only to itself.
The entity that stands between abuse of corporate power is government. Our system of laws is the "playing field" on which we play the economic game. It doesn't work if one player is able to walk up to any other player at any time and say, "give me all your money."
Which is what AT&T and Exxon and UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs and Pfeizer and Monsanto are trying to achieve.
They don't want "free" markets, they want your money. Truly efficient markets would mean competition, which would keep costs down and limit how much they could take. So they attempt to reduce the government that could keep markets healthy.
So the Republicans who do their bidding (Bohner, Bachmann, etc.) don't like "free markets" either. They undermine government's role, or work to prohibit government from regulating industries that seek to monopolize our life blood services such as fuel, communication, health care, money and food.
Yes, price controls and direct government interference can do more harm than good. And government screws it up often enough. But let's not forget that government is not the only power, and that many laws are designed first and foremost to protect the public from robbery, either by a thug in a hoody or a Harvard grad in an expensive suit.
Successful efforts (by conservatives and liberals) to repeal banking laws that were enacted after the Great Depression, along with a failure to regulate new financial instruments, and a cultural change ("Borrow money against your house to buy ... toys! You deserve it!") promoted by banks led to the deep recession we have not yet survived.
Look at how much is spent on lobbying, by whom, and how the supreme court (why hasn't Clarence Thomas been impeached?) allowed corporations to hide their influence and spend as much as they like to upend "democracy."
There is an incoherence among a population that wants less government but more services. That incoherence is being manipulated by some very smart and greedy people who know that government is the last warden protecting the average American from a corporatist culture that views our nest egg as food.
And they are being aided unintentionally by a Left Wing that hates other people's money and thinks that good intentions are more powerful than the laws of economics.
The message "government is bad" resonates because, since WWII, our government and wealth have often been directed toward doing things government does not do well. There has also been a successful effort on the part of unions to protect government jobs and paychecks while reducing accountability, which has not been good PR.
But the pointed message "government is bad" has been co-opted as propaganda by radical right wing think tanks that have an entirely different agenda which is being fed to the American people by political puppets. Simply stated, their goal is to reintroduce hardship as a means to improve productivity, and encourage corporate culture to become America's culture.
Which is not bad in and of itself, as long as we are able to have a discussion about what is involved. But we are lazy and we are easily misled and the issues take work and they are hard.
Before we throw out rules and regulations and limit government, we need a real conversation about what will take its place. What will limit the power of those who can and will take advantage of other people's weakness?
"Free markets" without rules that keep as many players as possible in the game aren't free at all. Markets are not "moral." They can't be nor should they be. At best, we hope they are efficient at providing the products and services we want at the lowest possible cost through the mechanism of competition.
Without enough players, and that number varies by industry, markets become captive to the most powerful. Then the powerful take advantage of the rest of us.
In some "markets," such as health care, even the lowest possible cost is probably still more than we can afford when we attempt to postpone death as long as possible. Everyone is being false when we debate only cost and affordability without acknowledging the spiritual issue that Death is inevitable and hard. Horrific manipulation from the right (death panels!) only served to hide the fact that the Republican agenda is a fast track to the same destination. Again, not to disagree with the direction, but the dishonestly is breathtaking.
Or the "markets" in communication. There has been more than one revolution in the telecommunications industry since AT&T, then called "Ma Bell," was broken up (by government regulation). These revolutions would have been far different, and less likely, had Ma Bell's monopoly continued.
Now we have different technologies, and different requirements. But monopolies, or duopolies, or oligopolies still seek power and profit and the power that profit provides. As they should. The corporation has a duty only to itself.
The entity that stands between abuse of corporate power is government. Our system of laws is the "playing field" on which we play the economic game. It doesn't work if one player is able to walk up to any other player at any time and say, "give me all your money."
Which is what AT&T and Exxon and UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs and Pfeizer and Monsanto are trying to achieve.
They don't want "free" markets, they want your money. Truly efficient markets would mean competition, which would keep costs down and limit how much they could take. So they attempt to reduce the government that could keep markets healthy.
So the Republicans who do their bidding (Bohner, Bachmann, etc.) don't like "free markets" either. They undermine government's role, or work to prohibit government from regulating industries that seek to monopolize our life blood services such as fuel, communication, health care, money and food.
Yes, price controls and direct government interference can do more harm than good. And government screws it up often enough. But let's not forget that government is not the only power, and that many laws are designed first and foremost to protect the public from robbery, either by a thug in a hoody or a Harvard grad in an expensive suit.
Successful efforts (by conservatives and liberals) to repeal banking laws that were enacted after the Great Depression, along with a failure to regulate new financial instruments, and a cultural change ("Borrow money against your house to buy ... toys! You deserve it!") promoted by banks led to the deep recession we have not yet survived.
Look at how much is spent on lobbying, by whom, and how the supreme court (why hasn't Clarence Thomas been impeached?) allowed corporations to hide their influence and spend as much as they like to upend "democracy."
There is an incoherence among a population that wants less government but more services. That incoherence is being manipulated by some very smart and greedy people who know that government is the last warden protecting the average American from a corporatist culture that views our nest egg as food.
And they are being aided unintentionally by a Left Wing that hates other people's money and thinks that good intentions are more powerful than the laws of economics.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Monopolists harm America
A number of politicians (mostly Republican) have come out in support of the AT&T / T-Mobile merger. But their arguments do not make sense. Primarily, they cite benefits to America of competition in wireless before the merger. These very benefits would decrease if the merger goes through, despite false promises by AT&T.
These politicians are not in favor of the "free market." They are advocating a consolidation that would be bad for the market, and bad for America, while benefiting a monopolist in an industry where freedom is vital for economic security.
America has had to act against monopolists and oligopolies in the past. It needs to be vigilant again, and do what it must to preserve competition in the market place. Like railroads and the oil companies two centuries ago and AT&T itself in the last century, a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile would result in less innovation, higher prices, and less freedom of information. This process is common when new technologies foster a consolidation of power.
In fact, we need more communication companies in America, not fewer. We need more competition, not less. Much of the innovation in America's communications industry came after AT&T was broken up last time.
AT&T and T-Mobile both run on the GSM technology, most common in much of the world. The other two major carriers, Sprint and Verizon, run via CDMA. By allowing only one major player on the GSM side, there will be no one to challenge AT&T if a technological innovation comes to GSM.
AT&T would be the sole buyer of GSM technology in the U.S., giving it monopolist power over cell phone makers and software providers, to the detriment of consumers.
It is extremely expensive to build out a new cell network, acquire customers and put in place a cell phone company, and nearly impossible to acquire radio spectrum on which cell phones communicate.
In economics speak, the "barriers to entry" into the market are extremely high, and would be more so if dominated by a company is as well-heeled and politically powerful as AT&T.
Communications and information flow are the life blood of our nation, and becoming more critical every day. Control should not be allowed to slide toward fewer and fewer companies, especially when vertical integration may allow them to control what we see, how we see it, what we can buy and how easy it might be to find it.
It is naive to think that AT&T in that position would not use its power to fill its coffers at the expense of anyone and everyone. It would be its duty, in fact. We expect companies to make the highest profit allowable under the law.
For these reasons, government must preserve the free market in any way it can, and right now, the best way to do so is to deny the AT&T and T-mobile merger. The alternative, over the long run, is some form of regulation, which would have fewer benefits and higher cost.
If T-Mobile is to be sold, it should go to another company -- Google or Apple come to mind, though there may be issues there. Berkshire-Hathaway, perhaps. But its independence should be preserved.
In a market as difficult to foster competition as mobile communications, a market as critical to our future, America can not afford to allow monopolists to gain control.
These politicians are not in favor of the "free market." They are advocating a consolidation that would be bad for the market, and bad for America, while benefiting a monopolist in an industry where freedom is vital for economic security.
America has had to act against monopolists and oligopolies in the past. It needs to be vigilant again, and do what it must to preserve competition in the market place. Like railroads and the oil companies two centuries ago and AT&T itself in the last century, a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile would result in less innovation, higher prices, and less freedom of information. This process is common when new technologies foster a consolidation of power.
In fact, we need more communication companies in America, not fewer. We need more competition, not less. Much of the innovation in America's communications industry came after AT&T was broken up last time.
AT&T and T-Mobile both run on the GSM technology, most common in much of the world. The other two major carriers, Sprint and Verizon, run via CDMA. By allowing only one major player on the GSM side, there will be no one to challenge AT&T if a technological innovation comes to GSM.
AT&T would be the sole buyer of GSM technology in the U.S., giving it monopolist power over cell phone makers and software providers, to the detriment of consumers.
It is extremely expensive to build out a new cell network, acquire customers and put in place a cell phone company, and nearly impossible to acquire radio spectrum on which cell phones communicate.
In economics speak, the "barriers to entry" into the market are extremely high, and would be more so if dominated by a company is as well-heeled and politically powerful as AT&T.
Communications and information flow are the life blood of our nation, and becoming more critical every day. Control should not be allowed to slide toward fewer and fewer companies, especially when vertical integration may allow them to control what we see, how we see it, what we can buy and how easy it might be to find it.
It is naive to think that AT&T in that position would not use its power to fill its coffers at the expense of anyone and everyone. It would be its duty, in fact. We expect companies to make the highest profit allowable under the law.
For these reasons, government must preserve the free market in any way it can, and right now, the best way to do so is to deny the AT&T and T-mobile merger. The alternative, over the long run, is some form of regulation, which would have fewer benefits and higher cost.
If T-Mobile is to be sold, it should go to another company -- Google or Apple come to mind, though there may be issues there. Berkshire-Hathaway, perhaps. But its independence should be preserved.
In a market as difficult to foster competition as mobile communications, a market as critical to our future, America can not afford to allow monopolists to gain control.
Friday, May 6, 2011
The Snide
We have now seen how much arrogance money can buy. And it's not a pretty sight.
Donald Trump, will you please sit down and quit disturbing the other children?
Donald Trump is a racist. He is a bully. He is a joke of his own making. He is not very bright, and has that irritating middle school narcissism shared by other half-bright wing dings like Sarah Palin.
In fact, there is something just so middle school about that whole clique of Palin and Trump and Bachmann and to a lesser extent, Boehner. Something about the way they back bite, curl their lip at the rest of us, say stupid things and accuse people who point out the stupidity of "hating" or being envious or something else unrelated, like, or, or, or like, you know, they have a bad complexion and their mom, you know, drives an old Ford.
As if they get to say what they want and not be challenged because of who they are.
They get their slavish friends to nominate them for class president because, like, you know, they will put on just the most fabulous dance and play their favorite music, you know, and like if those other people don't like it they just should have been elected and maybe not come and they are just such a drag anyway ...
It's not that they are on the right: There are many, many wonderfully astute thinkers on the right, men and women with good ideas and the ability to articulate them. And it's not that the left doesn't have its own heaping helping of hubris.
But instead of a debate about ideas, we have these plastic Barbie and Ken dolls with their plastic smiles and plastic hair saying stupid things about ... birth certificates? Whether kids who knew him in elementary school remembered the president?
Oh, just shut up. You are tiresome and annoying and if you didn't have money or self generated momentum, no one would bother with you. Very few of those paying attention are friends. They don't really like you, either.
Can anyone, anyone? really compare Sarah Palin and Donald Trump to Obama? To Bill Clinton? To George H.W. Bush? To Eisenhower? FDR? Lincoln? Jefferson, etc?
Ever since the simulacrum Ronald Reagan, senile for a good portion of his presidency, was in office and the right realized it was only necessary to have an image of a president to be the face of policy, an actor instead of an actual person, we have suffered this train of Presidential presenters from the right.
Somewhat like news presenters, standing in front of a camera wearing a slicker in a hurricane, posing as journalists. Speaking of which, to the so-called journalists of America: WTF?
Needed now more than ever, you have ceded your responsibilities to Fox and the Huffington Post? Why are Al Jazeera and Jon Stewart the most reasonable representatives of the Fourth Estate? Where are you? Where have you gone?
Donald Trump, will you please sit down and quit disturbing the other children?
Donald Trump is a racist. He is a bully. He is a joke of his own making. He is not very bright, and has that irritating middle school narcissism shared by other half-bright wing dings like Sarah Palin.
In fact, there is something just so middle school about that whole clique of Palin and Trump and Bachmann and to a lesser extent, Boehner. Something about the way they back bite, curl their lip at the rest of us, say stupid things and accuse people who point out the stupidity of "hating" or being envious or something else unrelated, like, or, or, or like, you know, they have a bad complexion and their mom, you know, drives an old Ford.
As if they get to say what they want and not be challenged because of who they are.
They get their slavish friends to nominate them for class president because, like, you know, they will put on just the most fabulous dance and play their favorite music, you know, and like if those other people don't like it they just should have been elected and maybe not come and they are just such a drag anyway ...
It's not that they are on the right: There are many, many wonderfully astute thinkers on the right, men and women with good ideas and the ability to articulate them. And it's not that the left doesn't have its own heaping helping of hubris.
But instead of a debate about ideas, we have these plastic Barbie and Ken dolls with their plastic smiles and plastic hair saying stupid things about ... birth certificates? Whether kids who knew him in elementary school remembered the president?
Oh, just shut up. You are tiresome and annoying and if you didn't have money or self generated momentum, no one would bother with you. Very few of those paying attention are friends. They don't really like you, either.
Can anyone, anyone? really compare Sarah Palin and Donald Trump to Obama? To Bill Clinton? To George H.W. Bush? To Eisenhower? FDR? Lincoln? Jefferson, etc?
Ever since the simulacrum Ronald Reagan, senile for a good portion of his presidency, was in office and the right realized it was only necessary to have an image of a president to be the face of policy, an actor instead of an actual person, we have suffered this train of Presidential presenters from the right.
Somewhat like news presenters, standing in front of a camera wearing a slicker in a hurricane, posing as journalists. Speaking of which, to the so-called journalists of America: WTF?
Needed now more than ever, you have ceded your responsibilities to Fox and the Huffington Post? Why are Al Jazeera and Jon Stewart the most reasonable representatives of the Fourth Estate? Where are you? Where have you gone?
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Rep. Boehner to sell highways
House Speaker John A. Boehner wants to sell key U.S. highways to private interests that contributed to his reelection campaign.
Interstate 5 from Mexico to Canada would be cut into four sections and "privatized." The first section would run from Mexico through Los Angeles; the second from Los Angeles to Redding, Californa; the third from Redding to Portland, Oregon, and the last from Portland to the Canadian border.
"The sale of this underutilized asset will help with the deficit," Boehner said. "Private enterprise will do a better job."
"Transportation is under attack from both state and federal governments," Boehner said. "These bureaucrats have never set foot in a car factory, and many of them don't even like to drive."
Boehner also says the new owners of the blacktop should be able to set separate speed limits for individual vehicles. The proposal would allow Transport Inc. to "sell" higher speeds to the drivers of BMWs and Mercedes, while limiting the speeds of vehicles from other manufacturers. The same would be true of larger vehicles, such as trucks.
Some independent truckers have worried that the owners of Transport Inc., which has put in a bid for the Oregon section of the interstate, also own trucking companies. They say that Transport Inc. could set higher speed limits for their own trucks, or even limit the number of competing trucks from smaller companies.
"There are other highways if they choose to use them," Boehner said of those concerns.
He also said these complaints actually come from regulators in Washington who oppose the free market. “We see this threat in how the (govt.) is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the highway system,” Mr. Boehner said.
The idea that competition might actually be reduced by monopoly ownership of I5, constructed largely with federal highway dollars, did not concern the Republican.
“The last thing we need, in my view, is the US Department of Transportation serving as traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over trucking companies who have been serving their communities with transportation for decades,” he said to loud applause.
For more on Boehner's remarks, see this.
Interstate 5 from Mexico to Canada would be cut into four sections and "privatized." The first section would run from Mexico through Los Angeles; the second from Los Angeles to Redding, Californa; the third from Redding to Portland, Oregon, and the last from Portland to the Canadian border.
"The sale of this underutilized asset will help with the deficit," Boehner said. "Private enterprise will do a better job."
"Transportation is under attack from both state and federal governments," Boehner said. "These bureaucrats have never set foot in a car factory, and many of them don't even like to drive."
Boehner also says the new owners of the blacktop should be able to set separate speed limits for individual vehicles. The proposal would allow Transport Inc. to "sell" higher speeds to the drivers of BMWs and Mercedes, while limiting the speeds of vehicles from other manufacturers. The same would be true of larger vehicles, such as trucks.
Some independent truckers have worried that the owners of Transport Inc., which has put in a bid for the Oregon section of the interstate, also own trucking companies. They say that Transport Inc. could set higher speed limits for their own trucks, or even limit the number of competing trucks from smaller companies.
"There are other highways if they choose to use them," Boehner said of those concerns.
He also said these complaints actually come from regulators in Washington who oppose the free market. “We see this threat in how the (govt.) is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the highway system,” Mr. Boehner said.
The idea that competition might actually be reduced by monopoly ownership of I5, constructed largely with federal highway dollars, did not concern the Republican.
“The last thing we need, in my view, is the US Department of Transportation serving as traffic controller, and potentially running roughshod over trucking companies who have been serving their communities with transportation for decades,” he said to loud applause.
For more on Boehner's remarks, see this.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Boehner's calculating ignorance
If one needs more proof that the Republican Party capitalizes on the venality of its more vulnerable members (yeah, I know, given Sarah Palin that's hard to believe), Republican leader John Boehner provided it this week.
This Sunday on "Meet the Press," host David Gregory asked Boehner if he thought Obama was a Christian and a citizen. Boehner said he did. But about the conspiracy nut jobs who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya, Boehner said "... it's not my job to tell the American people what to think ... The American people have the right to think what they want to think."
What a facile, manipulative thing to say. Of course people have the right to think stupid things, and not just Americans. The question was whether Boehner has a responsibility to "inform their ignorance," in the words of Thomas Jefferson.
Of course he does. He is not a national leader if he does not. Facts are not matters of opinion or preference. If we can not agree on simple facts, we do not have "One Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all" (the original wording of the pledge).
But Boehner is not a national leader, he is a right wing flack who would rather use ignorance to further a shallow political agenda. "Informing their ignorance" is politically inconvenient; correcting that ignorance might allow people to think more calmly about more important issues.
"... he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong," said Jefferson. In saying it is not his job to speak truth to his troops, by hiding behind a shallow rhetorical gimmick, Boehner shows the world what he is, and what the Republican Party has become.
In this, Boehner has more in common with those who spread lies and hate about America than he does with the founding fathers of this great nation.
This Sunday on "Meet the Press," host David Gregory asked Boehner if he thought Obama was a Christian and a citizen. Boehner said he did. But about the conspiracy nut jobs who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya, Boehner said "... it's not my job to tell the American people what to think ... The American people have the right to think what they want to think."
What a facile, manipulative thing to say. Of course people have the right to think stupid things, and not just Americans. The question was whether Boehner has a responsibility to "inform their ignorance," in the words of Thomas Jefferson.
Of course he does. He is not a national leader if he does not. Facts are not matters of opinion or preference. If we can not agree on simple facts, we do not have "One Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all" (the original wording of the pledge).
But Boehner is not a national leader, he is a right wing flack who would rather use ignorance to further a shallow political agenda. "Informing their ignorance" is politically inconvenient; correcting that ignorance might allow people to think more calmly about more important issues.
"... he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong," said Jefferson. In saying it is not his job to speak truth to his troops, by hiding behind a shallow rhetorical gimmick, Boehner shows the world what he is, and what the Republican Party has become.
In this, Boehner has more in common with those who spread lies and hate about America than he does with the founding fathers of this great nation.
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