When the bloody hell did it become the government's responsibility to give us free television access?
It's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself (as though happiness could be obtained from staring at the idiot box, but I digress...). The more we depend on the .gov to provide for our every whim and (perceived) need, the more we feed the leviathan. I'd prefer the fucker starved; these people are shoveling twinkies into the governmental piehole...
Look, it's a $40 coupon towards the converter box. If you can't afford $40 for the boob tube, perhaps you need to adjust your priorities a bit rather than whine about the government not bringing your free cheese on time. $40 = 800 cans to recycle. Go out and pick up some of the Natural Light empties surrounding the doublewide, you'll be fine.
Ugh. I fear for our species sometimes...
That is all.
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8 comments:
I think the reasoning is because this change is not market driven, the need for the converter box is an arbitrary requirement that the government placed by fiat.
The TV industry feared that they would lose business because some people (especially those who watch Jerry Springer and Oprah) wouldn't be able to afford the converter box and would just stop watching. They would have actively lobbied against the new regulations had this provision not been put in.
I'm not so upset about the provision itself...at least the .gov TRIED to anticipate some unintended consequences of their bright ideas for once.
What annoys me is this: What do you think the odds of the .gov concerning themselves with the financial hit to the industry their policies would cause if it had been...say...oil companies, or firearms manufacturers, or any number of other industries rather than the entertainment "industry"?
You can go to wal-mart today & get HD rabbit ears for $20.
Sorry, I have little sympathy for people dropping big bucks for a flatscreen but who want a rebate for the converter box. They're probably the same people who whined like little children when they paid a buck to get money from ANTOHER BANK'S ATM machine (remember that 'crisis'?).
We've become a nation of spoiled babies.
Sailorcurt,
I get your point, certainly.
However, there weren't any "antenna subsidies" in the 50-odd years since teevee first started being dissembled over the airwaves.
You want something, you pay for it. TANSTAAFL.
If the TV industry is so afraid of losing viewers, let *them* offer the coupons.
The .gov has about as much business giving away converter boxes as they do bailing out GM.
Oh. Wait.
Ricky,
Exactly. The image forever burned in my mind is the Katrina "victims" sitting on the road, waiting for the .gov bus to take them to a shelter.
In forty years we've managed to remove the "not" from "Ask not what your country can do for you"...
And happy birthday buddy!
It's in part because the public airwaves are owned by the people, but having everyone broadcast at will would be anarchy - therefore the government regulates the airwaves (and profits handily from doing so).
What sucks, is that the coupons got released but the manufacturers held off on releasing sets that were full featured. Only now are those coming to market (after the coupons expire).
Anyways, I picked one up. And since their is a Fox station right next door. I am hoping I'll finally be able to watch Glenn Beck on TV.
*lol*
Speaking as someone who doesn't even own a TV (and whose box sat untouched for more than a year before it was gotten rid of), I can't figure out what the fuss is. I cannot come up with one single thing that anyone needs the TV for.
I'm not a very good Libertarian. I support the government providing for basic necessities when people really need them.
But I cannot make myself see television as a necessity. The gov't is acting as if it is, though. They're opening...I forget what they call them, exactly, but they're opening two large offices here in San Antonio to assist people in claiming these coupons. Because, apparently, not only are these people too poor to avoid the $40 for a converter, they're not smart enough to dial the phone number to ask for a coupon.
I'm with Sailorcurt on this.
The whole HD thing was a government mandate. It's not unreasonable that they pay for the mandate, since they made it, and profit from it.
From a libertarian point of view, it's actually quite reasonable.
On the other hand, I managed just fine without a TV for years. Only a GF threatening to stop spending the night and a teenage daughter throwing a hissy fit talked me into buying another "G*ddamn Noisy Box" (Quote courtesy of Jubal Harshaw.)
In actuality, there are relatively few people in this country holding out their hand for Mommy Government to hand them a check. In my experience, most folks look to government when they feel they have no other option. We can talk all day about whether a given individual *actually* has an option, but it's mostly a subjective argument.
Quick and dirty answer: "Bread and circuses."
The federal government sold our property, the spectrum currently used for the inefficient analog broadcasts, to a private entity for $20 billion.
To ease the transition they're using $800 million - $1.3 billion of it in coupons for converter boxes.
It's not a whole lot different than Alaska handing back money to its citizens when they lease out their oil right.
What I wanna know is WTF are they doing with the other $19 billion? Where'd that go?
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