That's what my pappy always said.

let the 3 million foxes run the place - foxes who only have what the chickens give up.?

that I need it and they dont offer it

They will corner the market soon and the prices then will be the most they can charge without bankrupting you

To tolerate FOR PROFIT COMPANIES providing LIFE NECESSITIES

is


I
N
S
A
N
E

How did you manage that?

Verizon does not allow rollover of data from month to month, unless you know something I dont

i

HAVE TO HAVE A CELL PHONE, YOU SEE

keep making excuses for them while they screw you, it is amazing to see, but it is amusing

That contract almost certainly stipulated that unused minutes would not roll over.

The time to demand rollover minutes is prior to signing the contract. You can't reasonably enter a contract and complain about the terms after you've signed.

Verizon has the only workable coverage where he lives.

At least that's what I got from his reply.

And even this household has an amazing variety of phone and networks to choose from.

I can go to Safeway, K Mart or WalMart (if I was a WM shopper,) and there I would find so many choices I might be overwhelmed.

There is Samsung with Metra, and two or three other phones that come with other providers. You can have a service for as little as $ 30 a month.

If a person thinks such and such a company is their only choice, then things are indeed limited for them. I once got a great deal on a barely used Mazda sedan as the owners were having a baby and they had heard the only vehicle with a dependable heating and AC unit was a Mercedes Benz.

receive signal from only verizon.

Another place we lived we could only get signal through at&t.

By signal I mean something that stays connected long enough and clear enough to actually have a conversation.

Others carriers advertised as available but were effectively useless. Our rural areas frequently have mountains blocking signal and not enough "repeaters" to keep the signal consistent. There is an entire section of freeway just north of Phoenix in which the signal drops until you come around a long, slow rise.

It happens whether you have experienced it or not.

Last edited Thu Jun 26, 2014, 11:23 PM - Edit history (1)

Has a very good chance of getting it in a six to eighteen month period.

Eventually there will be no way to get away from it. And then the people who want the cheap rates and the competition will be happy (Although more likely to get hit by some damn driver who is texting at the wheel.)

for the past 5 years; Monday through Friday about 4:30pm-ish to 7:30pm-ish at this location. It was worse at my mom's place. DSL. Six to eighteen months for infrastructure upgrades would be nice. I thought we'd have residential gigabit long before now.

As to the cheap rates...I'll believe it when I see it. Cable keeps going up not down (we don't have cable, just fyi). CDs were supposed to be cheaper than albums. "Competition" keeps looking like who can buy up the most of a resource and "corner the market" rather than anything that lowers prices.

I knw relatives who live in Illinois who think it is awesome that I have phone, deluxe cable TV and internet for a mere $ 150 a month. (It is all packaged, and I have to have deluxe TV or the other two services go up so much that is cheaper to take the package.) And the service just dropped to $ 120 a month as our contract expired, and the company that does this for us has been losing a lot of customers to other providers.

We go with this service as it means we can phone Europe for like 3 cents a minute, which we need to do for business. We originally had AT & T and they wanted $ 80 for a ten minute ph call to Germany.

for my cell phone service and right now have over 7000 rollover minutes on it.

You mean all those folks who signed those bogus mortgages should just deal with it? What about the folks in Detroit who can't afford the water and getting it shut off....should they have read the contract they signed when they moved in the house? I mean seriously. You can't have compassion for anyone???????

Your analogies are questionable, but here goes:

in over ten years.If you dont get the new phone every two years at a Verizon discount there is no new contract to sign.I still have unlimited data too that is no longer offered in new contracts.I buy my phones on Ebay.

I'm 63. I lived about 50 years without one.

I hardly us more than under 2GB....however one month I really needed to use the web on the phone a lot and went over 4GB and was changed a TON of money. It is ridiculous how they cheat us so much. I think it should be rolled and maybe have a limit on the roll like 10 GB or something. I want to be fair, but the companies should be fair too. I love Verizon but things like this just make me want to scream.

nothing will change. We will continue to provide obscene profits for basic services.

Congress, the WH, and the Supreme Court are supposed to protect and serve the people - not whore for corporations.

spending. With low wage jobs replacing those lost, with the disappearance of the middle class and cuts to domestic spending it gets harder and harder for a large segment of the population to buy anything but basic necessities.
I was in a city of Ohio this past weekend. I saw many very obese people smoking and buying packages of comfort foods to eat. I think it is a way to "comfort" themselves in the midst of increasing poverty. Their cars were old because of no ability to buy a new one.

and I will blame those of us who sat back and did nothing, more than the criminal rightwing fucks who dont know any better

Where Simon Pegg's character Gary King is engaging with the Network and he says something like "The human race was founded on fuck ups. We are more stupid, more stubborn, and more idiotic than you could possibly imagine!"

They offer you 4gb of data at a certain fee. You CAN pay by the gb if you want, but you'd rather take a flat fee to have your price locked in. Though in many cases they do have some minimum amount for a "data plan".

If I pay for a gym that's open 24-7 and only use it only 2 hours a day, are they ripping me off? If I pay for an "all you can eat" buffet and only have one plate, are they ripping me off? Should I be able to come back next month and eat for free?

no, it is a good example of how WE have become CONDITIONED to accept being fucked over

Did they prevent you from using 4gb in a month? If it's their fault you didn't use all 4gb, you have a good argument, if it's because you chose not to use them, it's a pretty week argument.

we cant stop being fucked in the ass constantly until we wake up and realize it

you just gave a bad example with the cell phone data usage.

to have cell service to survive.

Internet same thing, the cost for internet service which is 10 times faster than what we have now, should be NOTHING

or so little it is inconsequential, we can do that if we nationalize it...

and oil, and cell networks, etc.

If you don't use it one month, next month you have another 4gb of data all over again. If you use a lot of cell data, you can get a minimum plan and then pay extra for what you use beyond that. If your provider doesn't offer that, find one that does (some do), or go to a pay-as-you-go cellphone. Then you will ONLY be charged for what you use.

And I agree.

Guess not.

You're trying to make a social issue out of YOUR choice.

And before you say you couldn't get a contract-free phone, remember your other option,
which was (and is) to not have one at all.

ps

this is why we deserve to be fucked over as we are

Just like we shold not have allowed -- or continue to allow -- too big to fail banks, and shit like that.

But we do it and rationalize it, and get hosed for it.

but yes indeed, how nice would it be to go back in time and tell Nancy Pelosi she will take NOTHING off the table

The two examples you cited to refute it are both cases where you have paid a flat fee for unlimited usage. They really don't reflect the situation in the OP at all. It would be more accurate to use a restaurant where you paid a fee for a particular entree, but didn't eat it all. How would you feel if the restaurant said "no, you can't take it with you to finish later. You actually paid for UP TO a complete entree; anything you don't eat we get to keep". I doubt you'd stand still for that and neither would I.

Funny thing, I just realized that if restaurants could reuse that leftover food for anything at all they WOULD in fact refuse to allow doggie bags.

Apparently, the OP chose a different plan and is now complaining about that plan and suggesting that such plans should not exist. It's not like they can't get what they're asking for. It's there and available for anyone who wants to pay as they go.

Cell companies don't "sell" 4gb, they offer you UP TO 4gb a month at a flat fee. It's the same difference as ordering "a meal" or going to an all you can eat buffet. You're comparison on the doggie bag would be more like asking for a doggie bag after you've finished eating at a buffet, walking over to the buffet, filling it up, and leaving.

Cut off the cable. The only thing they care about is money.

the most effective cell network in the country, providing service in areas where others dont or not as well.

They are doing this by drastically overcharging us and screwing us out of our data etc., soon enough they will be the ONLY game in town, sure the service will be great, but which of your two children will you have to sell to afford it.

As is AT&T. Yeah the coverage isn't as good, or unavailable... taking the lowest cost option is probably the best in those circumstances. Verizon is literally the absolute worst. If I were you I'd get away from them ASAP.

The government we have now isn't about to do a damn thing about it. Our only power is our consumer $$$

For fucks sake you recognize they are screwing you but you sign up anyway.

It's like bitching about how wall mart treats their employees and doing all your shopping there.

ISP and phone provider? The NSA does .

Argentinian state phone company was a nightmare--wait time for a new phone line was 5 years.

at the helm, not neanderthal moron rightwingers

especially monopolies that aren't regulated, which is the case of government monopolies.

The Argentinan state phone company was a socialist enterprise, but it failed because there was no accountability, no one would lose their job if customers were unhappy, the state phone company had no competition so it would never go out of business or suffer from the effects of its own poor service.

ps

Argentina and USA are very different places...government can work wonderfully if run by good people

the system and incentives and institutions matter moreso than individual personalities.

the key is to align selfish incentives with things that benefit everyone

ways but when it comes down to decency for all, the lib wins every time and would make a good not for profit operation

for competence and functional organizations.

Internet providers are now pretty much monopolies -- or the next worst thing, duopolies. Ten years ago, you could still find half a dozen high-speed Internet providers in a typical medium-sized city. Twenty years ago you could find dozens of dial-up providers. Now, you're lucky if you can find more than two. Duopolies have many of the same restrictive, anti-competitive drawbacks as monopolies. As for public "monopolies," wherever local governments have sought to create public Internet services, the typical response of private providers in these locales has been to sue or get friendly lawmakers to ban public operators. Mind you, these public service providers typically use public infrastructure -- just like the private-sector providers often depend on public rights of way.

So concern over an abusive public ISP (actually, not just one giant such ISP but the potential for thousands of them, in localities or regions all over this country) is, in my view, way overstated. Besides, the presence of public ISPs often helps CREATE market competition. And where private ISPs refuse to provide good service or reasonably priced service or any service at all, the public ISPs become matters of public common good and necessity.

Turn it all over to wonderful private corporations, who are never bureaucratic inefficient or corrupt or monopolistic or abusive.

Okayyyyyyy, surrrrrrre.

I don't agree with the blanket statement "government sucks at providing a lot of services."


Fuller response here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5155644

at replacing it in a lot of situations, I would maybe say is a better way of putting it.

with the exception of some services that don't belong in the private sector because they should be provided to 100% of the population (e.g. health care, firefighting, police) or things like communications/media which should not be owned by the government (for many reasons).

It was awesome when you had a whopping two choices of phones, and you had to wait a month to get a new one.

And the phones were big enough that they were easier to find.

"Mister we could use a man like hoibert hoover again!"



Ah irony, DU be thy name.

an oversight as I am very well aware of Detroit

Too soon, too many people are brainwashed by capitalism, too soon...

It is sad that people think cell service is a necessity.

I am sincerely interested in your response, so we agree to disagree or now that cell service isnt a necessity

what is, which ones are you willing to say must NOT be left to the for profit mentality of wall street?

My water company (Fairfax Water) is a quasi-governmental entity and works well. Even nationalized, you'd still have to have some structure on how much water everyone receives. Should everyone water lawns 24/7? If you're filling a swimming pool shouldn't you pay more? What about someone who doesn't waste water, plants native plants that use less water, and installs water saving plumbing fixtures? Shouldn't they pay less because of their conservation? Water works best on a public - local level. Avoid privatization.

Same arguments for electrical power.

If people can't pay for their water, power, elec, heating oil, heating gas, them we need to have programs to help them pay and ensure that they don't get cut off.

Including cell phone data plans or cable tv as a necessity is ridiculous.

And there's a whole generation that sees landlines as yesterday's technology and would no sooner use one than use an 8-track to play their music. 1/3 of Americans don't have landlines and many who do have them don't use them.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/12/more-than-half-of-american-homes-dont-use-a-landline/266675/

In my personal situation (I'm on the road for months on end) it makes absolutely no sense to have a landline. And besides, with a landline, I have to PAY EXTRA for my privacy (ie for my number to not be made public). That is a load of fecal matter in my opinion (I don't have a common last name). I have unlimited talk and text on my phone, so no point whatsoever in having one.

I haven't had a landline in over a decade (I last had one when I lived with my parents, and that was theirs, not mine. I stopped receiving calls on it as soon as I got my first cell).

Not sure how old you are, but I'm of a demographic where the vast majority of us do NOT have landlines.

I'm against nationalizing the cell phone service providers.

It's almost 100 degrees out there.

a concern.

If you use up your allotment, they just switch you to slower speeds. It's not that bad.

I'm against nationalization of these things.

Sorry to inform you that what you call a necessity is
actually a luxury. 4g of data per month? You don't NEED
1K of data per month.

How much data per month did you get in 1991? Yup: NONE. Yet you're here now.

It didn't work out for them.

As long as we are duped enough, brainwashed enough, to think that ONLY a for profit company can provide

NECESSITIES

try surviving in this economy and this world without a cell phone, good luck

As long as we believe, wrongly, that ONLY for profit companies can effectively run cell and internet and water and oil and fuel and electricity and so on, we deserve what we get.

You do realize the SOLE responsibility of ANY corp is to charge you as much as they can, no matter what the product costs them, they will charge the amount where the break point is and people stop buying the product, especially when they can create a situation where this is little to no competition.

Capitalism only works in small doses with huge regulation, LOOK AROUND YOU, these corps are screwing everybody on everything...shareholders of those corps are laughing all the way to the Cayman's

Cell service is not a "necessity." It's a convenience. George Washington managed without one.

If you didn't use up all of the GB that Verizon provided for you, that's your problem, not theirs.

As others have said, you had a choice to decline to use their service. The terms of service of their contract wasn't a mystery before you agreed to do business with them.

I use a land line, and I don't worry about "GBs" of anything. I have brief conversations and then I hang up the phone.

I think a lot of these companies rip people off, but the way to avoid that is to just stop doing business with them.

21st century medicine or dental. No antibiotics of the quality we have today.

Air travel. Public transportation. Refrigeration. Supply trucks - or uniforms or shoes, either.


There's a metric to use.

but he didn't have a cellphone, and he managed. More importantly, the average citizen, up until recent years, did just fine without a cellphone.

They're convenient, but that's really all they are. They're a portable TV, still/movie camera, and rolladex. Most people don't use the "phone" part--they text if they communicate at all. I don't see the value in the enormous costs that providers impose on users for them. If people are willing to enter into those agreements with the providers, though, they shouldn't be surprised if they get what they pay for.


Tracfones are just a bit more than a hundred bucks a year--I always have minutes left over; in my household we have over a six thousand unit surplus; and we loan out the phones to friends who want to call overseas all the time and still have a tough time paring down the minutes.

.

we have that are part of our "First World," technologically advanced status and to try to compare what we have now with what our ancestors had is an illogical premise.

In spite of the repubs (so far) there are things, such as electricity and indoor plumbing, that are part of our modern experience. They are things which began as "luxuries" and which became part of our daily life; for example, talking to people any place on the planet via Skype or typing on a political board. Cell phones are part of that.

If one relies upon this "First World" technology, then one needs to be prepared to pay the price for it.

People seem to forget that, way BEFORE cellphones, that a long distance phone call could be a wallet buster. When I lived abroad, my telephone bills to talk to my family back in America were around four of five hundred bucks a MONTH--and that was some serious scratch several decades ago. My priorities were speaking with my family so I ponied up the dough. I thought it was expensive, but that's what the traffic was able to bear at the time.

You want the convenience of a cell phone, you pay for it. That's how it rolls. If you think another company can give you a better deal, grab it. Otherwise, deal with what's available, or do without.

You want something you pay for it.

That's why people in Detroit are having their water turned off; can't pay for it, don't get it.

Much the same with healthcare...even now. Dental care. Eye care. "Specialty" or "orphan" drugs.

Yep and yep.

By the way, I know a lot of people who need their cell phones. Is my anecdata more or less valid than yours?

But, like I said, I wanted to speak to family, and that is what it cost. I could have sent a tape home, and had them send a tape back, but I preferred the more immediate form of communication.

Nowadays, people skype and use the internet to communicate for next to nothing. That is an option for people who don't want the cost to use a cellphone, too.

If you need your cellphone, fine--good for you. Pay the bill and you've got it.

You've given several good examples.

The "bare necessities" change over time. The "free market" is supposed to bring those prices down as they become more common-place. I don't see that happening and I still don't understand why water can be denied because of money. Nor do I understand how healthcare can be denied because of money. Nor food. I'm sure you get the idea. But then, I'm just one o' them old-time "socialists" the r/w hates. I actually think people and their lives are more important than corporate profits.

Just an fyi, I rarely use my cellphone.

reason. They clean the water, they test it for germs, they maintain the pipes that distribute it. The workers who do this stuff expect, rightly, to be paid. It's not magic, and it costs money to maintain this sort of distribution system.

They aren't "corporate"--they're municipal.

If you want "free" water, go down to a stream with a bucket and see what you get. If you want food, go hunt and trap it. Or go to the soup kitchen--probably easier. Or go to social services and see what kind of public assistance you can get--that assistance might involve you living somewhere where water is available, not the place where the water got cut off for nonpayment. If you own the house, you might have to sell it. Downsize to something affordable.

At the end of the day, someone is paying. Nothing is truly "free"--except maybe the crappy air we breathe.

You don't sound like a socialist to me, you sound, pardon the expression, like a bit of a freeloader. Socialists understand that they have to contribute TO a system when they are able--it's not all Take Take Take.

People who are having a rough patch can apply for assistance, but of course the level of that assistance is commensurate with the ability of the community providing that assistance to PAY for the things that people needing assistance are asking for.

If the community is broke, there's not a lot of resources available. Someone's gotta pay, and if no one has any money to contribute to the "greater good," then you've got trouble. That's Detroit in a nutshell--they're broke, their tax base is in the toilet, it is a sad situation for them. They're a city that has failed in lots of ways. I hope they can find their way back, but it's probably not going to be easy for them.

We have such a long way to go, our brains are polluted with capitalism nonsense

walk to the nearest water fountain for a drink, then not having your water hooked up is the least of your worries.

But yeah--go on ahead and equate Not Paying the Water Bill to You're Gonna DIE!!!!!! And it's "Corporate Capitalism's" fault!!!!

I love uninformed hyperbole in the morning...!

wow

please tell us how you did that?

you dont have to answer, i am not going to respond to any of you type folks anymore

whether it is guns or blind faith in capitalism, i dont have the energy to argue with you anymore

have a nice life

And we know what goaders and baiters are, don't we? They certainly don't make this website a better place.

By your measure, there should be no homeless people, because "how can they LIIIIIIIVE without a water bill to not pay, so their water gets cut off?"

I don't have to answer -- you're quite right. But I will answer to tell you how little I think of your style of "argument." You postulate fantasies, whine about bullshit, conflate completely unrelated topics (guns? Really? WTF?) and pretend, between rambling on about all that bullshit, that you're having a discussion. You're not--what you're doing borders on trolling, and it's very uncivil, indeed. And then, of course, you run away, when you realize you've dug yourself into a hole of your own making.

I can't see how you can possibly have a nice life, with that kind of shitty, confrontational attitude and pointless rambling. You'll never have a reasonable exchange of views, because you delight in being fantastical and unreasonable, and you think, apparently, that it makes you cool and not ridiculous.

There are huge variations possible as to how the interests of the public can be included into important products and services -- and with the profit motive of private corporations. Basic regulation, targeted regulation, strictly-regulated monopolies, government-run services, nationalized corporations, etc.

But simplifying that down to an either/or choice of bad and inefficient government versus efficient and good private corporations sounds a hell of a lot like the crap that Rush and Faux news spill out every day.

the OP included a cell phone as a necessity, and it isn't. Not even close.

There is no real competition in any given market. There might only be three or four companies and they all offer essentially the same level of service. You can't say, "Fine, I don't like your terms, I'll go somewhere else," because the terms are basically the same everywhere.

Phone companies, and cable companies all have us over a barrel. Either go with the service they provide or do without.

If you want the latest technology smartphone and features you'll have to choose from between 4 similar packages, but if you're willing to accept a cellphone that merely allows you to talk and send text messages (maybe even pictures) you can find a lot of options at different price points.

I wonder if we'll ever grow up. I guess I think maybe in 1000 years or so...

Shouldn't they be nationalized because of wall street mentality?

Because after a while you do get to that sort of reducto ad absurdum.

Now i agree with the op. 5 guys should be nationalized and delivered to my house whenever I feel it is necessary.

Dammit!

those things would still probably have to be paid for via taxes, and while we could raise top tax rates in order to pay for these necessities, the RW has been excellent at misleading poor and middle-class voters into believing that their taxes will go up despite those groups not being affected. In a nutshell, I think we're not ready for those to be non-profit services due in large part to the ignorance of many Americans on taxation.

You need to shop around for the best price. Straight talk has some lower price options for one.

i dont

I shop Amazon or Walmart for cell phones. I live and buy downtown for convenience otherwise. But from what I find, not all phones are available in my zip code and I live in a city of 35,000 in Montana. But I can still gey a ptrtty good deal on an Android phone.

our consumer culture that has convinced you, along with a lot of other people, that a cell phone and 4GB of data are necessities. Along with cable and a big screen TV and a huge SUV that uses up lots of gas.

The truth is that a lot of those things are luxuries, pure and simple. It's not that hard to do without or with a smaller version or one with fewer glitzy features, no matter which one of the many consumer "necessities" we might want to discuss.

If I had to travel, say across the US or foreign travel it would definitely be worth the price. I love those apps like Google translate. Wow what a program. The one I was showed you could talk into it and it would translate a voice back to the foreign person you were talking to.

it's hopeless. These companies are fleecing the people.

it won't even start to cover one winter's heat or power. Not to mention internet access. We don't have cable or any goodies - well, my goodie is Internet access! We tolerate it because we've always tolerated it because........ oh, heck, Benghazi!

many struggle with what should be common sense basics...

The problem with discussing it here at DU is this is not a liberal site, there are tons of right leaning Dems, I assume they are Dems as I have to take them at their word, but too far to the right for my taste.

I cant, I wont talk to them anymore than I would a teapartier...i hope they vote Dem, and I will thank them for that, but there is no reason for us to discuss anything...waste of time



ps, this jury system here doesnt work...some right leaning person decides they dont like what i have to say they can just report me and hope the jury is made up of other right leaning persons who dont like to hear liberals talk

pisses me off, dammit

If people would understand "profit" is theft, they would understand your point.

I absolutely support not doing business with "for profit" corporations. But if all these services are provided by "for profit" corporations, you really don't have an alternative.

It is our airwaves, our water, our land -- we do need to make DEMANDS

We need to first straighten out our Democrats.