lying bastards

My credit card companies (as well as others, especially Verizon), using the rationale of saving trees via eliminating paper use, prompt me, every time I log into their websites, to change to electronic billing, and yet they continue to mail me paper advertisements for any number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with billing. What's up with this? Are they really interested in saving paper, or what? Verizon is the worst. They send me (coated, the worst form of) paper solicitations to expand my services at least once a week; and I get additional copies of this junk sent to “resident” with the weekly junk mail. They don’t give a frell about saving trees, they're just trying to save money so as to increase profits for their shareholders, disingenuous bastards that they are.

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corporate grifters

People are increasingly recognizing the fact that insurance companies are no longer honest, legitimate companies, that they've slowly ruined whatever little bit of good reputation they had when they began resorting to all kinds of nefarious practices and excuses in order to prevent paying claims so as to increase their profits.

As a consequence, people are opting out of insurance (only the most gullible, socially brainwashed people, those who work for companies that provide it cheaply, or the rich still have it), figuring that the downside is not as bad as getting ripped off would be if and when the insurance company failed to pay off after a legitimate claim was filed.

Therefore, the government has to get involved (spurred on by lobbying, of course) and start mandating that insurance policies be purchased. First, a long time ago, it was house insurance (which, to be fair, banks, not the government, mandated; for good reason); then it was car insurance; and next it's health insurance.

Why do you think that companies increasingly fail to provide insurance to their employees? They recognize it has become a scam business and they don't really want to continue to participate; or, if they feel that their employees will not like it, they require that their employees pay a part of the premium, which has been increasing over time.

Employees, in order to maintain their insurance, must now buy into the scam; and when they do, human psychology dictates that they adopt a belief consistent with their behavior: They're paying for it, therefore they must believe that it's worthwhile. It's classic con game psychology. Once they've got you hooked, you maintain the hold.

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bad company

Last night, Geraldo defended a NY top cop (didn't catch his name), stating that he was a friend and a "good man". The guy was accused and recently convicted of having his home remodeled for less than the going rate, which constituted corruption (bribery?, since the work was done by Mafia-types?) in the eyes of what Geraldo considered to be an overzealous judge.

The "news" piece started with the cop's wife complaining about how her family life has been upset and they have suffered a great deal as a result, as if that had anything to do with anything. "Real" criminals' family lives are equally upset by arrests and convictions. Too bad. It goes with the territory.

Next came Geraldo's defense. His primary points were that other dignitaries (he named one or two of them; again, I didn't catch the names) got much lighter sentences for the same crime and that the prosecutors and especially the judge were overly strict.

Listen, Geraldo. It's right for the judge to be strict, since this is a cop who's supposed to be protecting the public from this kind of nefarious activity. If you want to argue the point, argue the case for the others having gotten off with a wrist slap for being the corrupt assholes they were. You do the crime, you do the time.

And the guy being your friend and a "good man" is irrelevant. Besides, truly good men don't do corruption. If you had argued that he was innocent, that would be a different matter; but, since you didn't, I'm assuming that even you thought he did it. He got what he deserved. And one day so will you. Meanwhile, watch out for those chairs.

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legalizing corruption

The government is supposed to be preventing or at least acting to minimize, corruption, by catching criminals and punishing them, rather than by doing what they're currently doing, legalizing the corruption, which is what in fact the current system of lobbying and the way they "punish" corporations are: bribes to pass legislation that favor interest groups and wrist-slapping companies with fines instead of sending malfeasant executives to jail.

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controlled inflation

Conservative business people claim that they don't want wage and price controls because they see it as a form of socialism and they want a "free market" instead. But they know goddam well that we haven't had a truly free market for nearly a century and that we already have wage and price controls. The fed controls the prices via ill-controlled inflation, manipulating the money supply in the way criticized by the Austrian School model. By this method, business is assured that prices will continue to slowly rise and deflation will seldom if ever occur, and if circumstance get so bad that deflation cannot be prevented, then the government will step in and divert huge blocks of taxpayer money into the business system to make sure that the value of the business inventories does not drop (as with GM and the banks recently); because inflation benefits business and deflation benefits consumers.

And wages are controlled via the INS, which works to insure that a constant supply of lower level workers enter the US every year so that business can hire them at wages that keep the entire wage system as low as possible by making available to employers not only low cost day laborers, temporary workers, and entry level employees, but also shifting the indigenous worker class up one level (or into unemployment; the choice is theirs) where they can pay them less than they normally would have to; and so on up the wage scales, which leaves all that much more room at the top for huge corporate bonuses to high ranking executives.

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corporate shite

When you make me an offer of a benefit or a sale or whatever, I don't want to have to go out of my way to contact you to ask you make good on your promise (when you haven't done it of your own volition) when I have purchased your product or service in good faith. I want whatever was promised to be there, without question. I don't want to have to call you or email you or write you or whatever to get what was promised to me, and I especially don't want to hear the old "Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. We must have made a mistake. We'll correct this problem right away" speech. But, if I do hear that speech, then the mistake better be corrected in the speedy way that you say it will. I very especially don't want to have to contact you a second time about it. When I get this kind of delaying, "We're so sorry, please excuse us" behavior, it's probably the last time I'm going to ever do business with you again. And, I'll do my very best, in person and online, to influence friends, family, and total strangers never to do business with you either. Because I'm fed up with all this corporate shite and I have no intention of putting up with it any more.

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common carrier

“Net neutrality” is stupid
Robin Harris
“Net neutrality” is another term for “common carrier,” first used for US telecommunications over 150 years ago. If advocates would just use “common carrier” instead of “network neutrality” we could quickly put this debate behind us.

Instead, by making “network neutrality” something new, controversy is created in what should be a settled area: common carrier status for communication infrastructure. Common carrier simply means that carriers handle all comers at a set fee, instead of auctioning access to their network.

The auction model

If network access is sold through an auction, the wealthy get good service and the rest of us get the leftovers. Carriers put their time and energy into maximizing revenue instead of minimizing costs.

If network access is available to all comers for a fee, then we all have equal opportunity to use the Internet for work or play. Providers can offer different service levels at different prices.

Look at FedEx: overnight costs more than 3-day delivery. But the important thing is that overnight costs everyone the same. Imagine going to a FedEx office with a time-critical legal document and instead of a flat fee they said “we have 1 overnight slot available - you’ll bid against these other people.” Very profitable for FedEx - not so good for you - or the country.

Same argument against providing electricity, natural gas, and water and sewage fees discounts for high-usage business customers while charging residential customers standard, non-discounted rates. Reverse socialism: enable business interests at the expense of average citizens. One more way of diverting money to the rich.

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