Tue, 10/20/2009 - 8:35pm — lambert
The telcos want to set up tiers so they can charge some people more than others, i.e. introduce a class system to the ‘Net, because some people don’t like to have their important content treated the same way as Friday Cat Blogging.
The real problem is that telcos have been pulling in subscribers with promises of unlimited bandwidth, and discovered they are going to need to spend money on improvements to the infrastructure to provide it, rather than just milking the existing system for profits, which is what they had in mind.
And yet again....
It all comes down to economic rents!
The vig!
The rake!
The house cut!
The percentage!
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I like the word "rent," but
none of these terms have widespread sticking power. I think we need to use the word "tax": corporate tax, company tax, something that hammers home that private interests exact taxes just as much as governments do. People understand "tax," and it makes their blood boil. Look how effective "death tax" was.
bloodsucker tax?
gouger tax?
Big Money tax?
Big Business tax?
privateer tax?
"Death tax" example is great...
... but it also shows how the right is working on ground that is, so to speak, prepared for them. "Tax" is not available to us (yes? No?) and the alternative has yet to emerge.
Bankster tax.
Life tax....
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world...
the Finns are guaranteeing all citizens broadband access now, at low rates, and with a promise of guaranteed 100 megabit connections for all to come. Via Partizane.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”
The Percentage
Everybody with a credit card balance knows what that means. And Bankster games jacking up rates have prepared the ground.