My final rant of the year

How do you know it's the end of the year?  Because a cable provider is threatening to drop a popular channel or two.  This time the feud is between Time Warner Cable (big shock) and the MSG network in New York.   Last year, cable subscribers in many areas were in danger of losing all Fox networks.   These contracts expire on December 31st.  And invariably there is an impasse, threats, ads taken out, more threats, and the two sides settle at the last minute.

So why can't the same deal be struck December 4th?   Think of all the money everyone would save on ads!  Think of the good will.  Every player in this game is a giant conglomerate.  All these public feuds do is get us to decide which of you two major behemoths we hate more.

Then you're forced to spend millions on advertising campaigns trying to convince us you're just plain folks looking out for our best interests.  Even village idiots don't buy that anymore.

The just plain folks at Verizon thought they could slip this one by us:  Without any announcement, they just started charging customers an additional $2 to pay their bill.  Taking your money isn't free, y'know!  It only took one day of customers going postal for Verizon to back off of that policy.   You're telling me that not one executive up in the Verizon board room figured this might be the reaction?   Not a single over-paid suit said, "I'm not sure this is the best move, PR-wise"?

"Can you hear me now?   You're SCUMBAGS!!"

When Sirius merged with XM and Congress was leery they assured the government they would not raise rates.  But I guess that was before they could.   Yesterday I got a lovely email from Sirius/XM CEO Mel Karmazin informing me he's raising subscription rates.  But here's his spin:

As we continue to add exciting new content and find more ways for you to enjoy our programming, we will work hard to control costs and create efficiencies to ensure SiriusXM continues to be the best value for your entertainment dollar.

"Create efficiencies".  Isn't that a lovely term?  What could that possibly mean other than firing people?  You've already fired a bunch of people. And your "unparalleled" programming has suffered as a result.  And it's "unparalleled" not because it's the best but because you're a monopoly.

This was another banner year for big business.   2011 gave us the Chevy Volt, Qwikster, the HTC Status Phone, the Playbook, the Fiat 500, and the $175 million dollar Disney spectacular, MARS NEEDS MOMS.

As we head into 2012 I ask this simple question:  Shouldn't we find someone other than Charles Montgomery Burns to run America?

Okay.  I'll stop ranting now.  I don't know why I'm getting so worked up.  I can't even get MSG here in Los Angeles.