You don't have the facts, nor the understanding and knowledge of economics to prove me wrong.
So, get off it already! You've become a nuisance already. Stop being so thick!
Adomoe, why don't I prove you wrong--AGAIN.
Why? Because, you can't prove someone wrong by using lies, or fake statistics, or "made up 'facts'".
I'm not going to repeat myself about the 150 million Americans; honestly, if you don't believe nearly half of the American population isn't a vast number
That is not what you've been arguing about, you ninny!
150 million is a huge number, but, the question was not about what constitutes a "vast number"; it was about your statement that a vast number of Americans weren't getting broadband. See the difference? I'll bet you can't.
And, I asked you to provide the study and statistics which prove that 150 million Americans don't have broadband within their reach. You haven't done that, so you can't or haven't proved me wrong.
then I want you to pay me a penny for each and every American that doesn't have broadband available. Confirmed and demonstrable proof, please. I've already offered my proof.
If your whole premise is wrong to begin with, then your expectations would be completely preposterous.
Second: "A company is NOT obligated to provide service to anyone." So wrong it's ridiculous.
Nothing wrong with a very truthful statement. No company should be "forced" to provide services if the customers aren't going to provide at least a break even proposition, but, breaking even is not what being in business is about.
"Universal Access
When local telephone companies began springing up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they concentrated on areas with high population densities. These areas allowed companies access to a large subscriber base with minimal network setup and maintenance charges; however, providing telephone service to remote areas with few households wasn't deemed cost-effective. With federal oversight came the mandate that AT&T had to provide basic telephone service to all households." (
http://www.ehow.com/list_6737230_fcc-phone-regulations.html )
Did you notice that part about "federal oversight"? That meant that the government was/is in charge in that particular business sector and could dictate how and when a service is provided. The FCC, with its mandates, can "force" a business to provide services, but, if the services do not account for the "loss in revenue" by charging more elsewhere, then the service provider would probably have had to go out of business. In services like that, the service is being subsidized by either government or the other consumers who will be charge more for their services.
Here is clear and obvious proof that your opinions do not match history. This rule still stands on the books today.
It's government dictates, and not good business practice. It's socialism rearing its ugly head in a free-market system, and it's the big reason why so many businesses fail, and the biggest reason that the economy today is in shambles.
Our current Administration and the FCC are striving to extend this ruling to include broadband internet access.
YOUR current administration. Nobody except you wants to be associated with that Marxist in office, and the majority of people have already stated their opinions in polls by saying that they won't be voting for him again.
Now, the current administration is not congress, and congress would have to vote to include broadband as a free service or losing service to those that are out of the regular reach of the broadband providers. What you're advocating is more of the same insanity that has the economy going down the drain. It's a good thing that the country is still not ruled by a dictator, which seems to be your preferred method for ruling the country.
Whether such a mandate should or should not be imposed is beside the question; such a mandate already exists as far as the telephone companies are concerned.
But, it is the question, and the question is not applicable to broadband providers. The FCC mandates and regulations were intended for telephone and over-the-air broadcasts; not for broadband providers. So, again, you're absolutely WRONG!
This doesn't mean they have to give the service away, but that it must at least be available for the customer to accept, should they desire it.
Use some common sense, will you?
To make a service available to the "out of regular reach" consumers, would take some major undertakings and some major expenses by the broadband providers. Those can't be provided for "free", nor at a cheap price. However, telephone service is still available to those in far off places, and even over-the-air broadband is available to, according to the commercials, 98% of the country. So, the service would seem to be "available".
You really need to stop throwing libelous terms around;
Calling you an idiot is not "libelous" if you are, in fact and demonstrably, saying idiotic things.
calling me an idiot in the face of facts that people don't necessarily choose to 'move' to a place of limited access just shows your gigantic conceit.
That's not the only reason for calling you an idiot. I called you an idiot because of your belief that, government is the answer to solving the problems which plague us. And, like all socialists, which you seem to be one of them, you have to be an idiot if you believe that, socialism is good for an economy. Socialism is the problem, and big government is the problem, and the people who believe that "doing the same thing, over and over again, hoping for different results", have to be idiots. Socialism is the definition of insanity.
People do move to areas where services aren't easily available, and they should expect that there is a "price" to pay for it. If one moves to a far away place, and expects a hospital to be built within easy reach because he/she doesn't like being in the metro areas, then that's idiotic. Someone like that shouldn't expect broadband to come to serve his/her special needs. And, people who have lived there before broadband became a service, shouldn't also be expecting any special treatment.
Just because you 'chose' to live where you now do doesn't mean that a farmer 'chose' to buy the farm he now lives on--especially if that farm has been in his family for 40 years or longer.
Farmers, for the most part, aren't in very distant places, and they do have adequate, or even easy reach, to most services they desire. However, farming is not that "30%" or even the "vast" number or the 150 million that you speak of. Making up numbers just to justify your argument is not going to make it "factual".
You might really be surprised how many people outside of the big cities and towns are still farmers.
Believe it or not, I'm living in a good size city right now, and the metro area is about 3 million people. But, I see farms and ranches on a regular basis around the area. And, from what I can gather, though they do take large land masses, the number of people working the farms and ranches, is still not that large. Like I said in my previous post, the number of people doing farming is about 1% or less. Which makes your numbers quite exaggerated. And, like I said above, the people in those ranches and farms aren't too far from the cities and towns, and therefore, they do have broadband available.
Just take a drive in the country some time and get off that oh-so-smooth freeway so you can see the real America.
Florida does have a lot of farms and ranches, and I see them even within the "city limits" and not too far from the city, and I see them when I take a simple 20 minute ride outside the city. From my experiences, none of the ranches and farms are too far away from civilization and broadband. When it comes to a place like Texas or Alaska, perhaps you'll find farms and ranches that are 100 miles from "civilization", but, who is going to lay cable lines that are 100 miles long just to accommodate a few ranches or farms? The infrastructure to accomodate that kind of customer would be prohibitively expensive.
Were it not for those farmers and others, you wouldn't have a bite of food on your table in that fancy kitchen of yours.
Now you're headed off into the red-herring territory. Stay on topic. That secondary argument has nothing to do with the crux of the arguments which you're trying to make. They're irrelevant.
Every statement you made after calling me an "idiot" was pure conjecture on your part.
You may not have liked my arguments, but they were on point and applicable. If you or anybody makes idiotic statements, I'm going to call you on it. If I can call the president an idiot for his policies (and he is), then I can call you and others the same. You can call me the same, but you better be ready with facts to back up your statements.
Many of those farmers do need the internet. They watch the weather in order to maintain and harvest their crops.
Believe it or not, the radio and TV still work in a lot of areas where farmers work, and they still have telephone services. Exaggerations just to justify your arguments, still won't be truthfull. How did farmers and ranchers ever get the weather in the past before broadband? Broadband is relatively new, and farmers and ranchers did get the information they needed even all those long 10 years ago.
They purchase seed and supplies, tractors and tools through the internet as well as using cell phones to maintain communications with the house while they're out in the fields.
Let me guess: they weren't able to do those things before the internet came about? Look, stop the phoney arguments. Exaggerations aren't good arguments when trying to prove anything.
You'd be quite surprised how technical farming has become, and a lack of broadband communications can and will inhibit the farmer's productivity just as much as it would any other industry.
More of the phoney arguments. More red-herrings.
Farming has been "high-tech" for decades, and that's why it doesn't take 10% of the population to grow our vegetables and fruits and get our milk and meats. Maybe it's you that is beginning to find out those simple facts.
Now, again I'll ask you, how did those farmers and ranchers ever get by before the internet and broadband? How did they ever do any kind of negotiations and purchases and selling and delivering of goods before the internet? Perhaps people starved and there wasn't any food before the internet? I had no idea!
How do I know all this?
Let me guess: you heard it somewhere? Or you made it up?
I personally know farmers, both modern and Amish. I'll tell you now that your opinions are an insult to both groups.
You're such a phony!
You're just steering your arguments away from your original points in order to try to score points. Ain't gonna work with me.
Have you ever heard of "fish farms"? Well, you must have, because, all that youre arguments are about lately are "red herrings". In other words, stinky-fishy arguments. They don't fit the original points you tried to make.
Believe it or not, I too was a "farmer"; of sorts. As a kid in Puerto Rico, I lived on a farm, and we grew chickens and cows and fruits and vegetables and sugar cane and other goodies which needed to be brought to market. As a kid, a long time ago, we didn't have the internet, and we didn't even have a telephone and not even a radio or TV. Yet, we managed to do the farming and live off the land and take our products to market. Where there was a will, we found the way. Likewise with the current crop of farmers and ranchers, except,they have it much easier than in the past, when the farmers and ranchers still were able to make a living and bring their products to markets; all without the benefits of the internet and broadband.
Again, read your history. Black Tuesday in 1929 was caused by a lack of regulation--regulations that were put on after the fact to prevent corporate (and especially banking) abuse of the citizen.
Before 1929, the problems were already starting to rear their ugly heads. The problems had been in place before 1929 came about. A recession is not a sudden act of God. Most recessions are the result of overreaching government policies and regulations. Just like the current one that we're all suffering through.
It's you that needs the lessons of history, and you could even use a good dose of common sense. Recessions are the results of cumulative damages to the economy, and they're not sudden events that just crop up out of nowhere.
Every excuse you make about America's historical recessions totally ignore the fact that those recessions were caused by corporate abuse of their customers.
More garbage!
In order for abusive corporate actions to bring on a recession, would require that those abusive actions be on a grand scale, where most corporations and even the small businesses and mom-and-pop stores, be partaking in those abuses. The only thing that could, in practicality and reality, cause recessions, are government actions, which do have an effect on just about every sector of the economy.
Your logic is faulty, just like all of your arguments.
You blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
I blame them because without them, the sub-prime loan packaging would not have been possible. Without Fannie and Freddie, the banks would not have had a purchaser ready to take on all of those bad loans.
while totally ignoring the fact that deregulation permitted them and nearly every other banking institute to offer--nay, give--loans to people who couldn't afford them.
You, again, are the one not paying attention to the real history and the causes of those bad loans. The CRA, which was passed under Carter, and given regulatory powers under Clinton, "forced" the banks and lending institutions to make those bad loans. So, it's the regulations from government that created the problem to begin with. When Bush proposed regulations to reign in the sub-prime loans and the practices by Fannie and Freddie, the democrats blocked him at every step. So, the bad regulations in the beginning started the problems, and the good regulations to stop the insanity were prevented by democrats.
This is why we're in such a credit crunch today--there is no stable platform for our world economies and banks--not the Government--have pretty much free license to 'make money' any time they want to by simply offering more credit.
You can't be for real. If you actually believe what you wrote in those statements, they you're really pretty stupid. (Yeah, I know, you're going to chastise me again for using a nasty word against you; but, you are as deserving as anybody that I've ever encountered).
Look, money policy is made by government, through the fed in the U.S. and similar agencies in other countries. But, that money policy is mostly as a result of consultation with the administrative branches of government. The banks don't
print money. The federal government does. Our money has been devalued by large amounts under the current administration, and all because he and congress haven't found a good plan to correct the funding and spending problems we're having because of the recession. There is nothing more stupid that people in government who don't understand economic matters and the repercussions of their idiotic policies. Obama is the most idiotic president to ever be in the presidency. In fact, he would have been wrong even as a manager of a corner lemonade stand; and the American people elevated him to the most important position in the world. I'm pretty sure you're one of those that voted for him. He's outta there after 2012, for sure, even if you do vote for him again.
Blame a Republican--Richard Nixon to be exact--for the US Dollar coming off the Gold Standard which in itself triggered yet another recession.
Utter garbage.
Coming off the gold standard may not have been the greatest decision anyone has ever made, but the problems with the economy after Nixon were because of the utter stupidity of Carter and congress. Carter, before Obama, was the worst president in history. Fortunately for Carter, Obama is outdoing him for the title of "worst ever". 21% mortgage loan rates and 10.4% annual inflation will kill any economy, and Carter was clueless about what to do. Obama is even more clueless now.
The job of government is to protect the people of the land.
That's right!
The government's job is to protect the people from foreign and domestic enemies.
But, it's not the job of government to pay for services that people can't have otherwise, or to protect them from their own stupidity.
Whether that government is a monarchy, an oligarchy, socialist or democratic, its primary purpose is to ensure the safety and livelihood of its citizens.
Safety is not the same as guaranteeing that they will have a good life, or a job or a home or even health care. And, it's not the government's job to provide ot to insure that people have internet and/or broadband. Whenever socialism tries to guarantee a good life to people, the end result is always massive poverty. That's exactly what happened in the Soviet Union, where socialism was never self-sustainable and the country crumbled. It's happeneing in the U.S. and anybody that doesn't recognize the same symtoms is an idiot.
This includes reigning in the abusive practices of greedy corporations.
That is absolutely NOT the function of government. Not in the U.S. That's actually unconstitutional, although the democrats have been able to justify and rationalize those functions since the great depression. But, it's that kind of belief of yours that's thretening to destroy the country.
When the corporations begin to own the government, the people WILL suffer.
You have things completely upside down.
Corporations are composed of people, and as far as the constitution is concerned, the government is supposed to be answerable to the people. The people are supposed to be in control, and the people often come in the shape of corporations and other regulat businesses. The only thing that government is responsible for is to insure that people aren't taken advantage of, but, not providing a service because somebody is way out of the way of civilization is not "being taken advantage of". It's practicality, and govenrment intervention is against the freedoms that the constitution guaranteed. In fact, even the FCC rules and regulations are unconstitutional. Government should not be in the business of regulating or controlling private sector services or products. The only way that government has been able to gain more power has been at the expense of people and business losing some of their freedoms. The bastardization of the "commerce clause" is the excuse that democrats have used in the last century to justify the government's increased power over the people and businesses. But, it's the increased power and control which has become so damaging, and we're now experiencing the repercussions. There is actually no way to recover from the damage, and in reality it's too late.
Now, do the country a favor and go away. Try China or Cuba or Venezuela. They have the kind of government you love.
And, stop being so thick!
