Comments on news posted 2009-07-08 16:10:28: Ok, sure, Charter Communications hasn't been profitable since the company went public in 1999, posted a $2. ..
What "system"...? are you saying that government should take over and run everything? .. THAT would be a system.
They, the government that is no longer 'we the people' can't even get it's own affairs in order.. I sure hope that you're suggesting the government be the ones to "fix" the allegedly broken system.
When a company fails, such as this one, someone will ultimately come in and buy up the remains and give it a shot.. that is the system that works.
The millions this guy gets paid, in my mind, is irrelevant. Part of what went wrong with Charter was not complete incompetence, rather, the way the "system/market" works and oh yea.. "competition".. with out going into a long explanation as to the why of what I just said, I'll leave it at this for now.. but if anything, even for boobs, I am NOT about the giver-ment coming in to limit pay salaries.. besides, it's probably un-constitutional anyway.
On a side note, if ANY system needs to be fixed, its the people themselves that should look with-in to the "self-collective system".. ie: the people are not taking an active role in their own government.. until people start to care, the "system" as you speak of, is going to remain broken.
Actually the people do take an active role in government, in the form of consumer groups and activists. It's the politicians who don't really care what those consumer groups have to say, as they depend on the money and support given to them by big corporations.
You can't expect a nation of hundreds of millions of voters to pay attention to every detail and elect only the perfect candidate. That's if there even is a "perfect" candidate, considering the usual 2 party system.
Competition didn't down Charter. They hardly face any real competition. All it requires is a minimal amount of basic management skills for a company in their position to be profitable. It truly was gross incompetence.
A good example of how incompetent these large ISPs are is Cogeco. Its attempts to go international utterly failed, as they were quickly driven out of the foreign market by much tougher competition in the form of competently run companies.
Most of these ISPs would go under very quickly with the massive overhead and bonuses they spend their finances on year after year if they actually had to face real competition.
People take a role in government? Um... I strongly disagree with you.. you may want to look up the number of eligible voters and how many of them actually show up to the polls to vote. Not to mention, it's more than just voting.. as for activists and consumer groups? ... or as I call them, special interests.. they think about themselves and the people that think like they do. All those groups do is usually cause more problems. Activists are THE worst.. any idea how much progress gets held up as we study the habits of the spotted tree frog before actually building up much needed infrustructure?
And - I DO expect voters to pay attention to detail.. that's part of the responsibility and privileged of voting.. however, people are idiots - plain and simple. They vote on the same wedge issues all the time. Remember the comment about clinging to guns and religion? ... that couldn't have been said better. People think that this country is going to be fine as soon as you keep the gays out of the way, stop unborn baby killing, keep prayer in schools, and social security - gotta keep the old people interested too.
Competition DID have a roll in Charters issues.. when you have satellite, which is competition, offering a service cheaper damn near over night, it quickly erodes an already off-guard cable operator such as charter who largely serves rural areas.
There is real competition in this country - maybe not in your view.. but there IS competition in this country.. competition and offerings are subjective to the environment around it. This country is NOT Japan, it's NOT South Korea or China, it's NOT any other country that Utopian's here want.. in the U.S., OUR system has competition when it comes to video - many people have three choices and they exercise them all the time.
You talk about running a company is being so simple.. I hope you never find yourself in that position becuase you'd be the next BBR article being bashed by every arm chair quarterback on the site. Running a corporation is not "simple".. its quite complicated.. and while the company went down on this guys' watch doesn't mean that he was an idiot..
"You can't expect a nation of hundreds of millions of voters to pay attention to every detail and elect only the perfect candidate. That's if there even is a "perfect" candidate, considering the usual 2 party system."
No, I may not be able to expect that, but I surely could expect that nation of millions to not be so stupid as to do something as stupid as electing dip shit Presidents like the most recent Bush twice or his dad even once!
There is just flat out so much corruption in the world, it will NEVER be right again, if it ever was!
You know... I read gorehound's post back about 7 times now... and I fail to find where he said "The systems needs to be fixed by the government!!". Perhaps you need a nice happy pill today???
Charter has a well earned reputation for paying large sums of money to complete morons that only excel at making things worse instead of better. On top of that, after they jack things up beyond belief, they get fired and paid millions. I'm glad I jumped off of that sinking ship years ago. Idiots at the wheel -- the Charter moto.
I don't know much about Charter, but from a general point of view I have to question what the f*ck this country has come to when we reward complete idiots for failure. What's next? People getting into the National Honor Society for a full semester of D's and F's?
It's not wonder things are so bad today when we have morons running the big corporations, morons running the small businesses, morons in the House and Senate, and morons in the White House.
First off, there is no "we" and no "country" that is rewarding these idiots for failure..
"This Country" doesn't employ CEO's.. well, until Obama came along in his quest to socialize everything.. and "WE" in the reward part of your message is not correct as "we" have nothing to do with how a business chooses to operate itself...
And to wrap it up and hit it home, the ONLY morons that are responsible for ANYTHING going on to this day are "we the people"... yes.. the PEOPLE are morons for putting "morons" in office and positions of power.. pretty sad when people fail to look at themselves for being a MAJOR part of the problem AND for blaming everyone else BUT themselves.
Corporations are still self operated. Small Business is none of your business. The house and senate and the white house.. That IS our business.
.. there were PLENTY of morons that put Bush into a second term.. start there.
It's not wonder things are so bad today when we have morons running the big corporations, morons running the small businesses, morons in the House and Senate, and morons in the White House.
You forgot And morons letting the shit happen.....
I'm glad I jumped off of that sinking ship years ago. Idiots at the wheel -- the Charter moto.
More like fired. Anyone who follows the Charter forum remembers you. No wonder you're here, in a Charter thread, like you always are, bashing them. You act like you know all the important people in Charter, when the only contact you ever had with someone of rank was your call center lead, or supervisor.
I'm glad I jumped off of that sinking ship years ago. Idiots at the wheel -- the Charter moto.
More like fired. Anyone who follows the Charter forum remembers you. No wonder you're here, in a Charter thread, like you always are, bashing them. You act like you know all the important people in Charter, when the only contact you ever had with someone of rank was your call center lead, or supervisor.
LOL I never did anything in the Charter forum here. I wasn't fired from Charter, I quit. I know several people in the corporate office and had felt the effects of the idiots that ran the place. Please stop being an idiot or post links of me and my "Charter bashing" that you seem to think I wrote. Also, how is it that you think I shouldnt have an opinion of the idiots that ran that company when I was one of many people that bore the burden of implementing their stupid policies?
I am glad that my Charter HSI has been flawless the last 18 months.
I am equally as glad AT&T is out in force today preparing UVerse which may not compete with DishNet ooooooooon the TV side but will give me options if Charter HSI starts that sucking sound again.
This is also true for Time Warner Cable. Their CEO's compensation was almost double that amount. During that time, the service and offerings went downhill fast. It seems the more of a MORON you are, the higher the salary you get. Welcome to America !!!!
As a consumer I have to agree that TW has been, and is run by complete morons. They currently have their bi weekly 3 day giveaway of service, thats where they try to increase sub numbers by giving away service. It is too bad there are still people who would buy stock in companies like this, then to have their money wiped out by mismanagement from the top down. Charter did this giveaway gimmick, as did adelphia just before they went under.
And who determines these salaries, other members of the board of directors that are on the compensation commitee. These other members usually are other senior exec's of other companies, so when they can pay someone this amount of money for failing they can go to their boards and say I'm worth a lot more then that, I didn't loose any money and they get it.
Of course this is the reason corporate apologists who argue for corporations' "rights" drive me nuts. An entity not recognized in the constitution, derived entirely through legislation at the federal level, which allows the individuals involved to be completely responsible-free if the company fails, does *not* have the "right" to make as much profit as possible at the expense of the consumer.
The whole purpose of creating corporations was to encourage investment, bold leadership, and intelligent risk taking that along with strong competition would jump-start innovation in nearly every industry. So much for the American dream.
actually if you look at the company sheet without the debt load, which was accrued long before Smit became CEO, Charter has done quite well. Smit was brought in to right the ship from an operating perspective and he done that. Payments on the debt is what caused Charter to file bankrupcy...nobody would have been able to overcome the type of drain on revenues while still rolling out new services and growing RGU's.
Man it must be awfully hard work losing that kind of money I wonder if they have a toilet in a fancy bathroom but you don't poop in it oh no you thrown 100's down the drain. maybe get side by side have races who's 100 goes down faster?
Man it must be awfully hard work losing that kind of money I wonder if they have a toilet in a fancy bathroom but you don't poop in it oh no you thrown 100's down the drain. maybe get side by side have races who's 100 goes down faster?