Our Government is so helpful!

A government program to help you continue watching tv? And information about a $40.00 coupon printed in at least 6 languages. Spanish, Chinese, French, Pycc??? (Russian), Tagalog (Filipino), and Vietnamese.

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What a bunch of crap!

"If the government can find a way to spend your money, they will."

Future News Headline; Lawsuit filed to require a SAP in Tagalog.

Mike

Reply to
amdx
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This isn't quite so simple as "the government spending your money." The government (the FCC, actually) has *auctioned off* the RF spectrum to the tune of *billions* of dollars, and if you consider that the government is supposed to be "managing" that spectrum in the "best interests" of the people, it's a decent argument that it might make sense for the feds to then turn around and give some of those billions back to the people, $40 at a time.

I won't attempt to argue whether or not the $40 vouchers are really a "good" idea or not, just pointing out that there's more to the story than what your post implies. If you want to be unhappy about the government handing out money, the Bush tax rebates of $600/each are probably a much better starting point -- whether or not people spending those rebates and revitalizing the economy to the extent that the country ever "makes" that $600 back is a lot more nebulous than how much the RF spectrum is worth in cold, hard cash.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Nice to know our Government still cares...

Another Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett

Well, maybe the money came from selling the spectrum, but it is just silly to develop a program to help people watch tv.

(Billions from the spectrum auction)

If you want to open that, what about the cigarette lawsuit that cost billions to the manufacturers. The taxpayers paid billions in extra healthcare because of smoking, then the government wins the lawsuit and the taxpayers didn't get there money back!

Yes, I agree that the tax rebates are wrongheaded. The money should go to employers to help grow the economy. It probably should be some type of tax incentive to expand business. I left my accountant early this morning (ahh, tax paperwork is done), He informed me that I would get $1800 to help stimulate the economy. I don't need anymore money to spend. I'll save it for my kids education, then they will be able to earn enough to pay back what was borrowed to provide the tax rebates. :-( Mike

Reply to
amdx

Part of the whole "social contract" thing is that if government is going to make a huge change in policy (the case here -- discontinuing NTSC broadcasts that have been used for over half a century) they have a responsibility to help mitigate the negative impact of that change (literally millions of pissed off citizens who no longer get to watch PBS or the local news or, yes, Oprah, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and all the other tripe on TV these days).

I suppose you could view it as a "bribe" so that you don't have millions of folks up in arms. :-) Joerg is convinced that there'll still be enough people who can't get a decent ATSC signal that a lot of local politicians are going to get quite the earful come next March.

I don't have any real comment on the rest of what you wrote, but they are good points.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

Good to see you, Mike.

Yes, you are right. What a bunch of crap. And, in another post about the tax "rebates", why not just CUT TAXES in the first place? Only I know what the answer to that is. Because they are corrupt morons.

Dave

Reply to
Dave

Ever watch Tony Brown's Journal? A few years ago he gave a great speech at Columbia U and played it on his show.

One good line was, "They don't know how to tax us because they don't think in terms of right and wrong."

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Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

I demand they make the offer in Cherokee, Lithuanian, Hopi, Basque, and Mixlix.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Since a majority of americans get what little news and information they do get from the TV and a functioning democracy requires an informed public, perhaps they were concerned that the lack of the TV decoder would be just enough to take the public below the degree of informed needed to have a functioning democracy.

The government has a duty to act in the best interest of the public and is about to rake in a huge amount of money selling the spectrum, the investment of some of that money in $40 to keep the US democracy functioning is a moral obligation that they could not avoid.

The fact that they understood that TV is the uniting force that holds the nation together speaks well of the politicians. I am certain that american society would fall into chaos if the public suddenly found that it could no longer learn who got kicked off American Idol.

They understand that a great many americans do not speak english and those people may be at risk of being the least informed of the public. Making the offer in the language spoken by those folks makes a lot of sense.

What I wonder about is what distribution of informed public is the minimum to maintain the democracy. Perhaps one language wasn't needed on the coupons.

Reply to
MooseFET

On Mar 28, 10:42 am, "amdx" wrote: [...]

The program is to get the makers to produce the decoder boxes. The government promiced the coupons so that there was certain to be a market for about a $40 decoder. This was promiced early enough to ensure that someone would set up to make them.

make sense for the feds to then >turn

Yes they did.

It went to a $40 incentive to expand the business of making the decoders. This created a whole new industry. Giving it to employers does not expand business. Employers only expand business when there is a market for them to fill. They are driven by market forces so if you want the most leverage on expnading business, you want to create markets. Spending the money on creating a new technology which would create a new market may have been even more effective.

The $40 will get lost int he noise of the money borrowed to pay for the "war in Iraq" etc. At least for this $40 they may have a converter box that is still functioning.

Reply to
MooseFET

In message , Joel Koltner writes

Sounds a lot like gratuitous socialism to me. Why should the feds pay people to watch TV - it isn't like the set top boxes are expensive. Once the analogue signal gets dropped people have a choice to continue watching or not. I presume they are advertising this changeover on TV.

Idle couch potatoes will see their screens go blank - so what? TV is not an essential service needed for living that should be subsidised for the poor unlike food, heating, lighting and water.

Subsidising digital TV receivers for everyone is utter madness - far better to put the money into the infrastructure needed to *broadcast* the digital signals properly. Especially true if has been suggested here there are serious problems with multipath in the US digital implementation.

Regards,

--
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

So why are you paying a tax in the UK for the "privilege" of watching TV ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Yes, they have advertized it a lot, but there is a major problem. A lot of people don't take in the information in things like ads or the news. The ads have been poorly done. To have worked they needed to be like this:

SEX SEX, cute puppies, you need a converter box Brittany Spears Paras Hilton.

Instead they were like this:

Analog TV is going away. You need a converter box if you want to watch the over the air digital TV.

I think you can see the problem.

Riots, chaos in the streets and a baby boom 9 months later is what. You simply don't want to let that happen.

Lighting isn't essential either but you included it in your list.

Well it may be a crap system but it is our crap system so how dare you.

Reply to
MooseFET

Get real! A $40 per household subsidy to the rabble is a ridiculous pittance compared to the sales tax revenues generated from access to the medium.

Who knows- this whole charade of an economy and government is about to collapse anyway...

Reply to
Fred Bloggs

People invested in TV sets... the government is seizing the spectrum they require to work, and will be auctioning off the spectrum and pocketing the money. Earmarking a few percent of the estimated $50bn proceeds to partially compensate those TV owners does not seem unreasonable.

It will be interesting to see what services with subscription fees and other cash extraction methods the new owners of the spectrum will have to use in order to make that investment profitable. They will need to make a *profit* of perhaps $125 per household in the US, so a fair bit of money has to flow.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

A lot of people like to say "collapse anyway" but it won't happen.

Every time the economy takes a dive, the gov'mt will prop it up again. Like its doing now.

Unless the Sheeple take action, the gov'mt will do as it damn well pleases.

Americans are fat and lazy, without a clue of the rights they have lost or how to get them back.

The brain washed kids going to fight an illegal war will be the police state to control the masses when they get back.

My gun may protect me, but will it be enough to help protect you.

donald

Reply to
donald

If you want to talk about massive subsidization I suggest you look out your door. Those streets were subsidized so that the automobile industry could sell more cars.

Same is true of airports.

I always love when people bring up the canard of socialism. Socialism isn't as evil as we'd make it out to be.

Other examples of socialism are Social Security, Veterans Administration and a host of other programs.

Reply to
T

In message , T writes

ROFL. I was being ironic. Did you not see the headers ? I am posting from the UK. We are all pinko liberal socialists over here (at least according to your dittohead talk radio).

We did not need to bribe people to buy digital set top boxes. I understand vouchers are available for pensioners and those on very low incomes to assist in the changeover. Although I think the TV companies are funding it.

It is far more important to put the money into upgrading the transmitter network for digital than to subsidise bone idle couch potatoes.

There is one thing in common. Our government is also stealing back the freed up wavebands and then selling them off to the highest bidder.

Indeed. And they are a good thing. In the UK we have a National Health Service too.

Regards,

--
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

In message , Jim Thompson writes

It is the law of the land. To operate a TV reception apparatus in the UK you must own a TV licence. We did not own a TV for a few years after graduating and the state had considerable difficulty accepting that fact.

They prowl around in WWII era detector vans with impressive looking conical aerials on top and then knock on all the doors that don't own a TV licence. They can pick up the IF emissions from a working analogue set, but these days rely almost exclusively on the database.

When I lived in Belgium I watched BBC TV without paying a UK licence fee. NHK in Japan has a similar TV licence fee arrangement to the UK.

Regards,

--
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

I suspect UK imposes a user fee to fund the BBC.

In the USA, "The airwaves are free".

But at least most of the 50 "states" tax motor vehicles with annual registration fees.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

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