In Which, After A Prolonged Absence, I Expound On The Subject Of Cell Phones

AT&T and Verizon have both recently announced that they're introducing new phone plans. I love to compare, and do math, so let's play with some numbers, shall we?

Here's a breakdown of what the new Verizon "shared data" plan looks like, versus Family Mobile. Our example family: 4 smartphones, they want 8GB of data.

On Verizon's new plan, they'll pay $90 a month for 8GB data / unlimited minutes / unlimited text, plus $40 per phone "line access" fees. Total: $250 / month + tax. (Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/verizons-shared-data-plans-wont-save-solo-users-much-money/ )

On Family Mobile, they'll pay $150 a month for all 4 phones unlimited data / unlimited minutes / unlimited text. For 8GB of high-speed data, they'll add $40 per month. Total: $190 / month + tax. (Source: http://www.myfamilymobile.com/ )

There's another crucial difference, though. If they go over their 8GB data allowance on Verizon, they will be charged stupendous overages. This is because, as Verizon spokespeople will happily tell you, "unlimited data is not something that we think is sustainable in the long run." (Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57450763-94/verizon-unveils-share-everything-family-plans-for-data/ )

On Family Mobile, however, if they exceed their 8GB data allowance, their data speed slows down, but they get no additional charges. (Source: https://www.myfamilymobile.com/Support/DeviceSupport/DeviceSupport.aspx?supporttype=RATEPLANS#GeneralFAQ-Answer5 )

AT&T is close to releasing a plan similar to Verizon's; they're already planning to, they're just finalizing details. (Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-57429659-10356022/at-t-mobility-ceo-family-data-plan-coming-soon-scoop/?tag=mncol;txt )

I wonder how long it's going to take people to figure out that if they buy their phones outright, they more than earn back the cost of the phone over the first two years ($600 for a really nice phone; $60 / month savings = 10 months to breaking even versus a contract = 14 months of straight-up savings at $60 / month = $840 dollars saved over the life of a standard two-year contract.)

Now, I used Family Mobile as an example; Straight Talk, Simple Mobile, US Cellular, Cricket, and boatloads of other low-cost, no-contract carriers are doing the same thing Family Mobile is.

I gotta admit, though, I think it's funny: the two biggest carriers in the country, AT&T and Verizon, are both advertising like mad to get people to come on their networks based on how fast their data service is, while simultaneously designing plans specifically to discourage heavy data use. And so, so many people will use the argument that they shouldn't be providing unlimited data anyway because "hardly anyone uses it."

Mkay, then, if few users actually use outlandish amounts of data, how does it hurt the company - or cost them anything - to offer unlimited data? It gives the customer the convenience of knowing that - for example - if they go on a vacation and will be taking, and uploading, lots of pictures, they don't have to change a thing. Kinda like, say, on Sprint, T-Mobile (Source: http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57438540-85/t-mobile-wont-join-the-shared-data-party/ ,) Family Mobile, or any of the no-contract carriers.

So... Who's up for ditching Verizon and AT&T stock?

A Brief Digression

I was reading over a couple of my own older posts, and I noticed that I had done something that got Texas Governor (and briefly, Presidential candidate) Rick Perry, otherwise known as Governor Haircut, roundly mocked by the media: I called Social Security a Ponzi scheme.

It occurred to me, reading that, that some few of you might not understand why Social Security IS a Ponzi scheme, because you may not know what, precisely, a Ponzi scheme actually is, other than "illegal and therefore obviously not like Social Security."

So, since I am in a mood, I will take it upon myself to educate you in the sordid history of good ol' Carlo Pietro, and why (for once) Governor Haircut was entirely, absolutely, unadulteratedly correct.

Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi was an Italian immigrant. (Charles Ponzi being the Americanization of his lengthy real name.) He was born in 1882, and gained his reputation as a con man in the 1920s.

The now eponymous scheme was very simple, and very effective. Ponzi found investors, and promised them fabulous profits - 50% profits on the initial investment in 45 days, or 100% profits in 90 days - using a perfectly legal method of earning money called arbitrage, in which you buy a discounted or cheap product or security in one market and immediately sell it in a market in which it has a higher valuation.

In this case, he was using international reply coupons - a postal trick, in which basically he bought IRCs in Europe at dirt-cheap wartime profits, used them in the US to buy stamps, and then sold the stamps for significant profits.

Note that doing this is perfectly legal. Unless there's some sort of seller's contract preventing immediate sale, arbitrage of commodities is exactly what every single merchant who's ever lived seeks to do - make a profit on every transaction.

The problem was that he wasn't making ENOUGH perfectly legal money to actually pay the outlandish profit margins he promised his investors.

But he had a fantastic idea, which worked immediately; as he got new investors, he used their funds to pay off the original investors, at the profit levels he promised.

They told their friends, who invested, and were in turn paid off by later waves of investors. Many of the investors turned their profits around and reinvested them, which allowed him to keep this chain going for quite a long time, and turn over staggering sums of money.

At the high point of his run, Ponzi was making $250,000 a day; in 2008 dollars, that's roughly $2.7 million a day.

But here's the thing. Reporters figured out that in order for his business to actually have the capacity to generate that much income through legitimate means, there would need to be over 16 million postal reply coupons in circulation - and at the time, there were only about 27,000 actually in circulation. Based on that, his business was impossible.

Breaking that news caused the collapse of the scheme, as thousands of investors immediately demanded the withdrawal of their funds.

But the important factor there is that even had that news not broken, even had there not been a run on his funds, the scheme would still have ultimately collapsed - as soon as a generation of investors signed up that was too small to pay off successfully for the previous, larger generation of investors.

So.

Some news was made a couple of years ago about the fact that the revenue paying into Social Security had, finally and officially, become smaller than the benefits from it.

The reason that's important is the same reason that it was important to Carlo Pietro.

There's a myth in the media that s "trust fund" exists for Social Security, sort of a Scrooge McDuck-style vault somewhere filled with the massive funds needed for Social Security benefits to keep getting paid.

It's not true. No such thing exists. There's a legal fiction, but in fact the funds for Social Security benefits are authorized and paid, every year, by Congress, as part of the annual budget.

Remember not too long ago when the debt ceiling brouhaha threatened us with a government shutdown, and Obama immediately claimed that a shutdown could stop Social Security benefit payments?

But... How could that happen, if there's a trust fund? Wouldn't the funds in the trust remain intact, and unaffected by the shutdown?

Yes they would, if there WAS a trust fund, but there isn't. And because there isn't, a government shutdown COULD jeopardize Social Security benefit payments, because the government wouldn't have any funds to pay them with.

See, the way Social Security is structured, the government takes funds from the paycheck of every working American...

...And immediately uses them to pay the benefits for every retired American.

There's no trust fund, because the rest of those funds are immediately folded into the federal budget as revenue, and spent on projects like Solyndra.

So, now that the number of working Americans - new investors - is smaller than the number of retired Americans - dividend recipients - the government goes a bit further into debt every year, to continue to pay benefits to those retired Americans.

*CoughcoughHRM* Ponzi scheme.

At some point, the government will be so far in debt that it either is unable to borrow more money, in which case Social Security collapses, or the government itself will collapse, in which case we have bigger worries on our collective plate than ongoing transfer payments to the retirees.

But either way, the sole, solitary difference between Social Security on the one hand and a Ponzi scheme on the other...

...Is that as a government program, Social Security is perfectly legal, while Ponzi schemes are not.

They are structured in identical ways, they are inherently doomed to bring financial ruin to those investing in it, they are identical in every way but that one; one is run by the government, and the other was run by an Italian immigrant.

You know what my dad always used to tell me?

"Son, if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it's a fucking duck."

And Social Security IS a Ponzi scheme.

Everyone's Getting These Issues Wrong, Part 2: Drill, Baby, Drill!

So, another topic for discussion during elections is always energy. Specifically, how to make more of it, both for transportation, and for use to maintain our standard of living, which almost entirely depends on electricity.

Electricity, of course, can be generated in a myriad of ways, some of which are more economical than others, and some of which are dangerous and downright stupid.

Transportation, as well, can be managed in a myriad of ways, some of which are more economical than others, and some which are utterly fucking retarded money pits.

So, let's talk about these things, and maybe I can point out some things you may not have thought about before.

Now, as I am right in my predictions of the future 83.3% of the time - that's just science, folks - I am justifiably proud of my win/loss ratio. So it warms my heart to see Thorium reactors making the news recently, since I was bloviating about them waaaaaay back in 2008.

I will come back to that at greater length.

Everyone's Getting These Issues Wrong, Part 1: Gay Marriage

You can tell from the title that despite my long absence, I haven't become the cuddles-and-teddybears Xeno everyone seems to keep hoping for.

That's ok.

So here's where I'm going with this.

This is an election year, and as in every election, people are using issues to decide which candidates to support. And as in every election year, even when the candidates manage to say things their intended audience likes, they're not giving the answers that really matter. Answers that demonstrate actual thought given to those issues and the moral and ethical decisions pertaining to them.

So, in an effort to motivate myself to further bloviating, in an election year in which I, quite literally, have no-one to vote for that I like at all, I am going to begin discussing the issues, one at a time.

Hopefully, it'll work.

So, without further addenda, here we go.

Everyone - EVERYONE - talking about the issue of gay marriage is missing something. They're missing different things, depending on who's talking, of course, but they're all missing things.

The Democrats - the party of the ongoing spendathon and ever bigger government - thinks gay people should be able to get married.

Awesome.

They want the government to take care of that.

Not awesome.

The Republicans - the party of small government - *AHEM* ok, sorry, I couldn't actually say that with a straight face. Let's try that again.

The Republicans - the party which pays lip service to the idea of small government, thus making their constituents happy, while practicing business as usual in Washington - says gay people should be denied the right to get married because, errr, something. But individual liberty!

Right. I'm going to tackle the Republicans first, because I want to bloviate on something not immediately obvious about the Democrats' stance, and it may take a while.

Republicans, listen up.

You should be goddamned ashamed of yourselves.

You cannot claim to be the party of personal responsibility and individual liberty on one hand, and deny thinking, rational adults the right to make their own choices - choices that do not affect you one tiny little bit - on the other. To do so is the rankest hypocrisy.

"Your right to swing your arm is infinite, so long as it stops short of my nose."

Mark Twain - Samuel Clemens - said that, and it is the simplest, best expression of morally correct individual liberty I have ever found.

So.

Leave everything else at the door; give me a simple answer, to a simple question.

In what way does it bump your nose - in what EXACT, SPECIFIC way does it affect you, directly and personally - if gay people choose to get married?

If you have to sit and think for more than five seconds about this, you don't have a good answer. Gay marriage doesn't mean gay people will teleport into your living room and have sex on your rug. It does not, in strict point of fact, affect you at all.

And what that means, if your belief in personal liberty and individual freedom has any moral basis, any integrity, whatsoever, is that gay marriage, rightly and properly, is NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS.

It is also, for Constitutional reasons I have detailed in past blog posts, none of the federal government's business either.

But mostly, the important issue is that YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO CARE ABOUT THIS.

One hundred percent of the people who have a right to be concerned with this issue are people directly affected by it; in other words, gay people. If you're not gay, it is something which inherently cannot concern you directly, period fucking dot. Full stop.

And if it does not concern you directly, you don't have any business trying to pass laws against it.

Now, I hear - often - religionists of various stripes blathering at length about how gay marriage is against God.

Awesome. You know what? We have the right, protected by the Constitution of this country, to believe whatever the fuck we want to, as long as you don't hurt anyone else.

So you can BELIEVE gay marriage is against God all you want. Personally, I don't; God has enough on his plate, to my way of thinking, and most likely is more concerned with whether a relationship is healthy for both individuals, and they both become better people because of it, than he is about the respective genders of the partners.

But either way, you have no right to try to pass laws forbidding it; passing a law enshrining your definition of marriage as the One True Way denies everyone else their right to freedom of worship, and again, if your belief in individual liberty and freedom has any integrity, you should be fucking well ashamed of yourselves for thinking you have any say in this at all.

So drop it. It's not your issue, end of story.

Stop supporting people who say, loudly, that they will happily take away the rights and freedoms of others; they'll do the same to you, given half a chance, or didn't you pay attention in history class?

Also, while I'm at it, if gay people are automatically against the laws of God, why'd he make so fucking many of them?

Now, on to offending the Democrats, as well. (Take as given, here, that everything I say referring to male homosexuals applies to female homosexuals as well unless otherwise noted.)

You guys suck at marketing.

Yes, personal freedom and individual responsibility. Three cheers! You get a gold star.

But you're still fucking idiots.

See, if I go to work wearing a shirt that says "I fuck GIRLS!" I get arrested, most likely. Certainly fired.

Sexual harassment, hostile work environment, that.

Right.

In fact, as a straight male, if I go to work and say ANYTHING AT ALL about my sexuality, I am wrong, according to the sexual harassment laws.

Because no-one wants that shoved in their faces.

So, you morons throw GODDAMN PARADES for men to wear shirts proudly saying they fuck other men.

Guess what?

No-one wants that shoved in their faces.

Well, except for other gay guys, I guess. But I digress.

Right-wingers - indeed, most of the population - consider bedroom matters solely appropriate in the bedroom. They don't want to talk about it, they don't want to hear about your bedroom activities, they certainly don't want to have 30 channels on TV broadcasting coverage of a parade for people whose sole common factor is their sexual practices.

Most people don't WANT to have to explain gay marriage to their kids before their kids are old enough to start asking those kinds of questions themselves.

So, guess what?

When you throw a rally, or a parade, and it's all GAY PRIDE, what it really is is a massive, organized, sexual harassment of the general populace.

And they're annoyed by it.

Hell, I'M annoyed by it.

You're gay, awesome for you. I don't want to hear about it. Just like I wouldn't invite you to my house so you could have sex on my rug. Do that in your own stinkin' house. It's none of my business, and I'd rather you didn't make it so.

Also, I suspect most Americans resent the fact that they are constantly having to watch their every word and gesture at work, to avoid even the appearance of any sexual content in the workplace, while you get to wear "I FUCK BOYS" T-shirts.

Shut the fuck UP already.

You want to achieve legalization of gay marriage?

Guess what; most states have it already. Marriage is legal, and they have no legal right - unless they directly and specifically pass a law against it - to deny you the ability to get married.

If they try to, they have to have the balls to come right out and say it to your face: "No, you can't get married, because we don't approve of your choice of a partner."

Most people don't.

But even so, what you DON'T want to do - yet seem determined to manage nonetheless - is offend the people who have to put the legal stamp on your documentation.

Here's an idea.

Stop the parades. Show some decorum. Keep bedroom things where they belong - in the bedroom.

Let the hoopla die down.

Six months or a year from now, get your State Senator to introduce a bill to your state.

A bill which defines marriage as "a legally binding union between two consenting adults, recognized by the state as valid for purposes of medical visitation and decision, inheritance, next of kin, and all other such functions as rightly pertain to any such union."

Guess what?

If you're consenting adults, you just got your gay marriage legalized.

And since you did it without rubbing anyone's nose in the specific, exact things you do in the privacy of your own bedroom (kitchen, bath, shower, closet, hallway, living room, what have you, be creative) they are both far less likely to object - and far more likely to support it as something covered by individual liberty and personal freedom.

No doubt you will still have brainless derpathons like the Westboro Baptist Collection Of Fucktards to scream and wave banners, but guess what? That leaves THEM the only ones sexually harassing the public at large, and then they look like the bad guys, not you.

By acting with total disregard to public decorum, and loudly ranting (endlessly) about your personal sexual practices, you make it look like those drooling jackasses have a point, and that's a perversion of all that is decent and good in the universe. Stop giving them credibility by association, damn it. They don't deserve it.

And if you're "just trying to be citizens like everyone else," then DO THAT. Normal citizens don't march with fucking banners loudly proclaiming their sexual choices to the world. And it offends people who would otherwise support you when you do.

Think of it like this; as a minority, who is being discriminated against, you are asking the majority, who don't do the things that you do, to vote to enshrine the things you do into the law as permissible.

And you are acting as creepy as the Burger King about it. They're not all that inclined to vote for your ideas, if they feel like it means you WILL come to their houses and have sex on their rug. No-one wants to pay for the steam cleaning, mkay? And that's exactly what your current advertising - and don't delude yourself that it's anything other than advertising - says.

Just like the old BK ads made you feel like you could be walking down the street one day and suddenly a creepy stalker wearing a mask could descend upon you and threaten you with violence if you didn't try his burger - and who knows where that thing has been, anyway?

You may commence the angry comments.