Looking for some art to go with a David Broder piece in tomorrow’s paper, I ran across this pic of Obama with his economic advisers, which had the following cutline:
President-elect Obama, center, meets with his economic advisory team in Chicago, Friday, Nov. 7, 2008. Facing camera, from left are, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons. Back to camera, from left are, White House Chief of Staff-designate Rahm Emanual and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
… which prompted me to think, Time-Warner Chairman? How about asking him, while he’s at the table, when he’s going to start letting us pay for the cable channels we want, a la carte, instead of having to buy expensive "packages?" Now that’s some change I could believe in, and you wouldn’t even have to pass a new law. You wouldn’t even have to be president yet. Just jawbone him, the way JFK did the steel companies.
Yeah, I know it’s not as important as Detroit collapsing or any of that stuff, but as long as he’s sitting there, why not ask?
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Or even better, how about ending local cable monopolies and mandating competition?
I always thought TWC was bad until I moved to Aiken and got introduced to our new local monopoly, which doesn’t include HD with digital cable and can only pick up the SCETV signal on alternate Wednesdays in months ending in “y”.
If I had a choice of another cable provider, one that does a better job of acknowledging I live in SC and not GA, I’d switch in a heartbeat.
Socialized medicine would be run the same way as cable TV is now – a monopoly, supposedly heavily regulated, but actually partnering with the government, delivering as little service as it can get away with.
Turn off the TV. I haven’t had cable TV since 1991.
192 months x $50 (that’s what I was paying back then) = $9600 saved
Not to mention the brain cells still intact.
I get the little-known “broadcast tier,” which they don’t advertise. You have to ask for it. It gives you all the local broadcast channels, cable-clear, for about 10 bucks a month.
Mamanem won’t let me get the “basic” service you’re speaking of. Her family didn’t have TV when she was a kid because her Mom disapproved of it. So she didn’t get hooked. She read books instead.
I read books, but immersed myself in TV, too — so I’m well-rounded.
Brad, please explain writing about the Sopranos here if all you have is broadcast tier. Inquiring minds want to know.
Then I’d like to see a post about just how henpecked you are. Most men in the “upper quintile” (your words, not mine) of income wouldn’t let their wives tell them what level of TV service they can have.
Sounds like you could save money with rabbit ears and a UHF loop. Does your wife realize that?
You have an inquiring mind, p.m.? You said a few threads back that you never read anything you disagree with, except maybe on this blog, which is often nothing but partisan rant. You don’t read the Economist, because the magazine doesn’t agree with your views.
Just what do you call “an inquiring mind,” anyway?
Of course I have an inquiring mind, Herb.
And a sense of humor to go with it, unlike some people I could mention.
I’m not interested in just broadcast TV. Like almost any man holding a remote control, I want to see what else is on, on all the basic channels anyway.
To answer your question, I’d say the person who asks how A and B can add up to C when they actually don’t has an inquiring mind.
I’d also say an inquiring mind wants to find out what’s happening on those other channels when all they have is broadcast TV.
I’d think that in order to hold certain jobs, a guy would need to be that well-rounded, too.
Next to last, but certainly not least, I’d like to say the phrase that I used — “Inquiring minds want to know” — is a cliche associated with a certain tabloid, and by using it, I intended to take a faux jab at Brad.
If you need more information about inquiring minds, I’m afraid I can’t help, other than to say that I’m sure that a great many of America’s inquiring minds don’t read The Economist.
I don’t read it because I never actually met an economist, and I have doubts that anyone actually is an economist, though I have met more than one entrepreneur. Seems to me folks who claim to be economists write about things that entrepreneurs know, but supposed economists don’t really fathom.
You know, like editors writing about how a state should be governed — one thing in theory, something else altogether in practice.
The free market will do a better job of fixing this with satellite, phone companies, and even electric companies offering new pipelines for information and television. The best way to shape up cable companies is to free broadcasting from FCC shackles. The only reason cable companies went anywhere is because they were the only way to bypass the FCC.