| reply to Karl Bode
Re: I can already hear the conversation said by Karl Bode:How many of those 750,000 do you really believe conciously understand that they're paying insane amounts of money to lease sub-par technology? She had children and grand children to assist her in a better decision. I make sure my parents(in their 80's) aren't getting ripped off. It isn't the job of a business to be a welfare agency for people who make bad decisions.
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| quote:
It isn't the job of a business to be a welfare agency for people who make bad decisions.
But it is their job to take advantage of the elderly by over-charging them for services? I guess that's where we differ. I like justice. |
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| said by Karl Bode: quote:
It isn't the job of a business to be a welfare agency for people who make bad decisions.
I like justice. No, I believe what you like is a paternalistic, socialist state where the government makes all the important decisions for people and protects them from themselves. A state where prices are determined by the government. A state that is anti-capitalist. A state like Cuba and now Venezuela; states that are in the economic toilet or rapidly going there.
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| quote:
No, I believe what you like is a paternalistic, socialist state where the government makes all the important decisions for people and protects them from themselves.
Wow. There you go with the extremes again. I'd like just a functional uncompromised regulatory authority that held corporations accountable for sleazy activity.
Going from that to Cuba is a bridge you're building in your head. |
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 OmegaDisplaced OhioanPremium
join:2002-07-30
Cheyenne, WY | reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode: quote:
It isn't the job of a business to be a welfare agency for people who make bad decisions.
But it is their job to take advantage of the elderly by over-charging them for services? I guess that's where we differ. I like justice. 61 years of age in 1985.
Hardly elderly. (even in 1985).
She simply isn't a smart shopper. It is her fault, let her pay.
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1 edit | Assume she wasn't senile, she was simply foolish. That advocates taking advantage of idiots. I don't support that either, though this entire country is founded on it and many here apparently applaud it as a virtue.
How unfashionable pointing out right and wrong has become. |
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RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | How gratuitous your insults have become. |
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 John GaltForward, MarchPremium
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kudos:3 | reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode:How unfashionable pointing out right and wrong has become. I am fascinated by what you consider to be "wrong"...
A legally operating for-profit company provides a service at a clearly specified price that a customer willingly subscribes to and is free to discontinue at ANY time with no penalty...and this is somehow wrong.
Maybe she LIKED the phone...eh?
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1 edit | quote:
I am fascinated by what you consider to be "wrong"...
Taking advantage of people is morally muddy to you, huh? |
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2 edits | reply to RadioDoc
Yeah I'm totally out of control. Sometimes I just flare up like a rash and start attacking people virtually, frequently for no reason. I think it's personally some kind of displaced aggression because I have serious emotional issues. I'm not sure. |
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John GaltForward, MarchPremium
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kudos:3 | reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode:Taking advantage of people is muddy to you, huh? You have failed to point out how she was "taken advantage of"...you have simply expressed your opinion.
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John GaltForward, MarchPremium
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kudos:3 | reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode:Yeah I'm totally out of control. Sometimes I just flare up like a rash and start attacking people virtually. I think it's personally some kind of displaced aggression because I have serious emotional issues. I'm not sure.
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1 edit | reply to John Galt
$14,000 being too much to charge old people for a rotary phone is not an "opinion". Discussing anything reasonably with free-marketeers and their endless moral relativism is like boxing clouds.
Companies could be selling puppy heads to the autistic as a cure for autism and you'd all be making excuses about how they deserved it. |
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John GaltForward, MarchPremium
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kudos:3 | said by Karl Bode:$14,000 being too much to charge old people for a rotary phone is not an "opinion". Discussing anything reasonably with free-marketeers and their endless moral relativism is like boxing clouds. It is really more about "free will"...she was free to do whatever she wanted, she did what she did and now there is a "big uproar".
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 Michieru2zzz zzz zzzPremium
join:2005-01-28
Miami, FL | reply to Karl Bode
Can you blame a stupid person? No
It just can't believe nobody told her to "just go buy a phone they come free with the plan."
Unless she is locked up in her home and has never seen the world or the street for that matter.
You can't blame a company for someone's ignorance. Taking advantage not likely it was a service they provided probably long ago and she still wants it. She never called and say "I want to cancel".
So if she had no problem with paying monthly for a phone, how can that be "taking advantage" of someone? |
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1 edit | reply to John Galt
"She" is one of 750,000. And I'm willing to bet that if we fleshed out the numbers and dug into backgrounds, we'd find a massive portion of them to be elderly people on fixed incomes whose bills get paid automatically.
There is a conscious effort to take advantage of this segment. Either it's right, or it's wrong.
I don't like it, you think it's neat-o. |
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1 edit | reply to Michieru2
quote:
You can't blame a company for someone's ignorance
When they take advantage of them, can I call it sleazy? Will I need a permission slip to do so? And I'd bet the 750,000 are a blend of senile and foolish. Am I to applaud the milking of them (And $14k for a rotary phone is milking) as some kind of pleasant success story? |
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John GaltForward, MarchPremium
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kudos:3 | reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode:I don't like it, you think it's neat-o. I think that it is up to them to do whatever they want to do...and if that includes "ignoring" something like the cost of the telephone, so be it.
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| So basically your position is: screw them. Good old American empathy.
And what if some of these 750,000 people are senile? |
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 N3OGHYo Soy Col. "Bat" GuanoPremium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
kudos:1 | reply to Karl Bode
said by Karl Bode:$14,000 being too much to charge old people for a rotary phone is not an "opinion". Discussing anything reasonably with free-marketeers and their endless moral relativism is like boxing clouds. Companies could be selling puppy heads to the autistic as a cure for autism and you'd all be making excuses about how they deserved it. I can see if she wasn't told she could buy her own phone from Wal-Mart, or wasn't given notice she could purchase her old rotary phone from the phone company, but I doubt that was the case.
My grandmother leased her old rotary wall phone from Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) until the day she died. We told her over and over again she could just buy the thing outright, and never pay the fee again.
She repeatedly refused. She liked the fact that if the phone ever broke, or needed to be replaced, the phone company would come out and fix it for "free". As much as we explained it to her (the fact that she was paying more than it would cost to replace the phone over and over again) she refused.
I hardly think my grandmother (and I'm not making this up) was taken advantage of. She made a choice to enjoy the "security" that came with leasing the equipment.
I'm gonna bet that if the government steeped in and told the phone company they had to give these phones to these "victims", some advocacy group would step in and say they're robbing these seniors of their "security blanket"
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