Cable has risen 2.6 times faster than the cost of living since 1995. Why do we get less and pay more?
- Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play package—phone, cable TV and Internet—at an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.
- The French get global free calling and worldwide live television. Their Internet is also 10 times faster at downloading information and 20 times faster uploading it.
- America has gone from #1 in Internet speed (when we invented it) to 29th in the world and falling.
- Bulgaria is among the countries with faster Internet service.
- Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data.
An army of lobbyists have succeeded in the corporate capture of our government. The result is laws and regulations that favor companies over consumers. And it's true for more than just the cable company, of course; many industries are just the same: healthcare, prescription drugs, telephone service...
The American middle class is being squeezed out of existence by higher real costs for everything even as real wages have stagnated. Meanwhile, the assault on labor continues with a concerted effort to break unions, terminate pension plans, cut benefits and even extract wage concessions. All this while top executive pay continues to balloon and corporations bank record profits and sit on record amounts of cash.
When did extracting all possible wealth from consumers become the dominant business model?
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