Debt mess

Recent polls show President Obama's approval ratings are taking a beating over the debt mess. I'm more upset with Congress, especially the tea baggers. Their idea of negotiating is putting a gun to the economy's head and tell us they'll shoot if they don't get their way. I don't think it's a coincidence that the recovery, which was barely starting, has stopped completely since those lying (notice how they have managed to put the mess from the time they ran both the executive and legislative branches onto the President's back) economic terrorists took power.

The Republicans do not represent the majority of Americans, and the Tea Party freshmen represent an even smaller faction. The Tea Partiers don't control the Senate. They don't control the executive branch. But they are willing to abuse their control of the House of Representatives to try to force the American people to accept cuts in Social Security and Medicare that the American people have soundly rejected. Americans know the current system is unsustainable, but it can't be fixed on spending cuts alone.

I'm a 43 year old, upper middle class white male. I am generally fiscally conservative. I should be smack in the GOP's demographic. Yet every year I feel they are moving further from me and my beliefs. I listen to them and all I think is how hard they want to make it for the middle class to survive as a middle class.

To paraphrase Ronald Regan, I didn't leave the GOP, they left me. They have managed to convince enough voters to blame President Obama for this mess that the Republicans and Wall Street have created. They have managed to convince Americans that taxing the rich is unfair when almost have the country doesn't pay federal income taxes, ignoring that the rich (however you want to define them) got most of the economic gains the last few decades while the majority of those who don't pay federal income taxes barely make any money to be taxed. However, I'm not easily fooled and know who to hold accountable (not that the Democats get off in my book, the debt was a bipartisian mess). I'm not going to forget all this hate from the GOP, from the birthers, the race baiters and the muslim haters all trying to destroy the President because of who he is and not what he has done, to those who want to turn the country into an uneducated third world country with little infrastructure. Come the next election it will be time to save the country from the evil that has taken over Washington.

Blame the victim or cars rule, pedestrians drool

I just read this sad article where the pedestrian mother of a 4 year old child was convicted of vehicular homicide when he was run down by a hit and run driver because he darted into traffic while attempting to cross the road at an intersection without a crosswalk due, in part, to a lack of safe crossings on the road. Worse, she can now spend more time in jail then the driver -- all because she tried to cross the street in front of her home in lieu of walking a half mile in both directions. Who knew walking one minute in lieu of at least 20 minutes could get you 36 months if you are poor enough to live on a poorly designed road?

From this article, it sounds as if the child ran out into the road while they were waiting for traffic to clear (don't know how long the pedestrian signal is, but I know of plenty of wide roads where slower pedestrians need to wait in the middle on a traffic island for a second signal change to complete the crossing). Would it have made a difference if the child had darted out into traffic in front of the drunk driver at the crosswalk while waiting for the light (I'm assuming there was one there, the article doesn't say though I think I found it on Google maps and saw there was a light) to change? If so, why?

In this case, it sounds like no one should be legally blamed. The child probably would have been run down even by a sober driver and the mother could just as easily have lost control of him at the crosswalk.

I feel for the mother. Maybe it is because I live in an area where the fairly well to do also take mass transit to work in NYC and live in an area where we have bus stops at a similar location as in the story. When my neighborhood was built the bus stop was on a fairly quiet 2 lane road and the bus stop at a full intersection. Today, the NJ Transit commuter bus, in the same location, picks up/leaves people on a 55MPH (in theory) divided roadway at stops where the nearest crosswalk is a 1/4 mile up the road. When I took the bus I never came close to having a car run into me while illegally crossing Rt 9 in the evening. Ironically, there were a few close calls in the crosswalks from drivers turning right & not paying attention (at least NJ has stepped up ticketing drivers like that). A real jury of her peers would have been fellow mass transit riders, no matter the race, parenting ability or income level. I also question what was not said in the article to make the prosecutor's decision to charge her seem so mean spirited.

#DearNetflix

Dear Netflix, particularly the person who drafted your recent customer letter informing customers of your 60% price increase and the boneheaded bean counters who thought up this price increase:

Are you a bunch of idiots?! For all intents and purposes you killed Blockbuster. Redbox and other competitors were desperately trying to catch up. You practically had the video market cornered with your DVD/streaming combo service. Netflix equaled family fun in many Americans' eyes. The future was yours and what do you do? You open the door back up for short term profit gains and allow competitors to slip back in. What are you, on dope?

While it is obvious that the studios will be requiring more money (as the missing online Sony content demonstrated) for online rights making a price increase inevitable when contracts expire, you, Netflix , at the least, seemed to have not taken human emotion into account when announcing your price increase. For example, people love a bargain. If you really wanted more money, you could have raised streaming or DVD only to $11.99 and then said for just $4 more you can get the other service. Instead, by making both streaming and DVD the same price, you have made it much easier for people to drop one service and thereby give Netflix less money and open the door for competitors (Redbox, Amazon Prime etc) to come in.

You, Netflix, may give me more then anyone else but I, like many, don't need more. I don't have enough time in a month to watch the 8 DVDs (still have cable) we'd have to consume to be competitive with Redbox, located just across the road in my supermarket. I've been having a blast watching old TV shows and movies via streaming, especially the TV shows, which fit nicely into my free hour or so in the evening (blessings of parenthood). We only ordered DVDs, which tended to hang around for weeks until we opened them, for movies not available on streaming (and the more annoying missing episode from a TV series available via streaming). Now Redbox will be getting the $2 from my price decrease for the one or two DVDs we watch a month. Additionally, now that I will no longer be tethered to Netflix for DVDs, I may it find it more economical to go to one of their online competitors if I find their prices and content to be more to my flavor (even if I just cancel Netflix for a few months and then go back).A $4 difference in price for keeping both services may have kept me more loyal.

Then, finally, there is the backlash factor. While, again, I could understand a price increase, whoever composed that initial letter stating that the same price for both services is a teriffic deal insults the intelligence of Netflix's customers. I think most of us are savvy enough to read between the corporate lines. You don't think we can't do math (probably not a bad assumption given education standards in some parts of the nation but that's another blog)? Come on! How about a little honesty like we need more money for our studios or online rights. Heck, I may have settled for a we need more money for our stockholders to continue to grow our business. But that letter was so insulting.

Many times, when I have been insulted by a business, my reaction is to drop a service that thinks so little of me, even if they do remain superior to the alternatives. I suspect that much of the outrage we've read are from people who feel the same. Your dividing of the DVD/online services reeks of corporate greed, which is your right in this capitalistic society. However, capitalism works both ways. Hope your bean counters planned what that might do to the Netflix stock price.

In summary, you may not owe me cheap movies, but I don't owe you my continued business. Perhaps this is your way of forcing the studios to step up and increase the quality and quantity of materials available for online streaming sooner rather than later, making them kill the DVD early in lieu of letting them die naturally like the 3.5 inch floppy disk, music CD or VCR tape. If so, angering your customers in this way while killing your golden goose seems a strange way to accomplish your goal. Speak to you again around August 31st when I cancel my DVD service.

Damaged Dude

PS - Hello Redbox. It's been a long time.