Greed

As many people around the net have reported today, Apple has started selling songs using its variable pricing scheme. And unfortunately, it looks like Amazon may be following suit.

Now, I like DRM free music as much as the next guy. But for popular songs, I’m not jazzed about paying $0.30 more per track. For some reason, I’d rather be locked into the DRM than have to pay more. Apple was probably going to get less of my money when this scheme first came out as I was going to buy more songs from Amazon if they were staying at $0.99 / track. But I guess they too have seen the higher prices from the record industry and more cash in their pockets. I have a feeling that the record companies are the scape goat here and Amazon and Apple know that they can make more dough by doing this.

I got a letter in the mail the other day from my internet, phone and cable TV provider Mediacom. The letter stated that due to the higher costs of providing the service and the decreased demand, Mediacom would no longer be offering voice mail as part of my included service. That’s right, as a “triple play” subscriber, someone who is now paying well over $100/month with the company, they will no longer offer voice mail as a part of their voice package.

I have to say, I was a little shocked that the bailout plan failed today.

Not that I don’t think some version of it won’t pass in a few days. But there is outrage over this bill. People are pissed that our tax dollars, for generations to come, will be spent bailing out the greedy bastards on Wall Street. Apparently Congress was receiving calls from constituents at a rate of 9-1 disapproving of the bill. Congress failed to pass it, good for you. You listened to the people that are going to re-elect you.

I typically don’t read the Huffington Post. At least not on a regular basis anyway. But this article caught my eye on digg so I hoped over there.

First, read the article. Its rather shocking.

Then, contact your state Senators and Representatives and express the outrage you now have for the fact that the executive branch can spend 700 billion dollars of our money on bailing out their idiot friends.

I’m sure that there will be some people that may comment on if we don’t do this, we’ll have another depression. And that *may* happen. But I’m willing to bet that even after we bail out all these companies, most of them will still fail. And we’ll be screwed out of our money because in reality, they should fail.