It's opening day here in CO, and it's sunny and in the 70's. Almost enough to make you believe in God.....except for all the times it has snowed on this most sacred of holidays!
Sorry I haven't written in a while. Not much going on in the world, of course, other than the middle east uprisings, bombing Libya, the nuclear contamination in Japan (and resulting panic by idiots on the west coast of the US), and rising gas price. All of these things are Obama's fault, of course!
So, what am I going to write about? How about the AT&T buy T-Mobile.
Any idiot knows that competition will bring better products at lower prices, which is why the folks in big companies hate it. So, instead of innovating and doing a better job, AT&T has decided to buy a rival, so that it and Verizon will have a duopoly on cell service. We have anti-trust laws to prevent this type of non-competitive behavior, and we consumers had better hope the the Obama administration hikes up their pants and says no to this deal.
How important is competition? Check out the speed and cost of internet service in the rest of the developed world. An example is France, where providers are forced to share their infrastructure, and therefore there is far more competition than the 2 choices we have here in my neighborhood. So, they get 28M speed service for less than $40/month, with digital TV often thrown in. Here in the US, our politicians have happily let the telecom industry line their pockets in exchange for laws that block this kind of competition. I just switched to Comcast, where I will pay much more for service that is less than half that fast. Throw in the TV, and were talking $130 a month. Monopolist bastards!!
So, if you want your phone service to get worse, then buy the argument that I am sure you will hear from some idiots that to block the merger would be to interfere in "free markets". These are the people who want to turn back the clock 100 years in this country, to the days when a monopolist could do whatever he liked, as long as he kicked back enough to the pols. You know, when there was no income tax, so the country had to be better off. Yeah, right!
2 comments:
Wasn't today's game snowed out?
As you say, shared infrastructure is the key in France. Here, building new infrastructure is a huge barrier to entry. Competition in the auto industry would be a lot different if car makers also had to the build roads on which their cars travel!
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