Anyone reading this post at home is dependent on an internet service provider that is probably charging you too much money for inferior service.
"In Japan, broadband service running at 150 megabits per second (Mbps) costs $60 a month. The fastest service available now in the United States is 50 Mbps at a price of $90 to $150 a month. "
"In London, $9 a month buys 8 Mbps service. In New York, broadband starts at $20 per month, for 1 Mbps. "
"In Iceland, 83 percent of the households are connected to broadband. In the United States, the adoption rate is 59 percent."
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/10...Part of the problem is that cable companies have become monopolies. There are only 4-5 companies out there and they make certain that they divide up service to communities so they don't compete very much. With monopolies they can charge anything they want, because consumers have no other options.
America, the nation that invented the internet is now ranked 16th in internet speed and service. Why is that? The nations that have the best service, broke up the monopolies and forced the corporations to have more competition.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-i...In America we are going in the other direction. Conservatives think that the government shouldn't get involved and that businesses and the free market system will come up with the best system for their customers. In fact they have found the best way to screw the consumers while making the most money with the worst service.
But is it true that the free market and huge corporations do what is best for the people? Corporations by law must maximize profits. That generally means charging the maximum for minimum services. If a community got its people together, they could lay their own cable and get the fastest internet possible and they would only have to pay for the equipment, installation and maintenance. Community Internet is much cheaper and much faster than the commercial ISP's.
Communities can provide the same service at cost to the citizens at one fifth what the commercial internet providers offer.
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascount...Unfortunately because of the lobbying and the big bucks the cable corporations use to bribe lawmakers, many states are passing laws which forbids communities from providing internet service. The result of more anti government, business is always better propaganda.
The same is happening in the banking community. The big banks are finding ever more creative ways to charge fees for using your own money. At the same time they are refusing to do their jobs and lend money to small business to expand or start up, and they are actually making it harder to buy homes or renegotiate upside down mortgages.
People can get together and do the same thing that is happening with the internet. They can create their own banks that lend money for small businesses or homes, and they will renegotiate upside down mortgages so people can keep their homes.
Most states are in economic trouble now but one state North Dakota has a State Bank, that works to help the people not the shareholders. Instead of giving multimillion dollar bonuses to the bankers the bank of North Dakota is owned by the people and the profits go to the people.
As a result the state has boasted large surpluses and the state bank has made record profits. Of course the huge oil boom is responsible for much of the surpluses but the bank helped too.
"Inspired by North Dakota's example, twelve states have now introduced bills to form state-owned banks or to study their feasibility. Eight of these bills have been introduced just since January, including in Oregon, Washington State, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maryland, New Mexico, Maine and California. Illinois, Virginia, Hawaii and Louisiana introduced similar bills in 2010."
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/feds_s...Can this model of success be transferred to other areas? Why not? If there is a need, if people pooled their resources and provided the service at cost, it will be more economical than commercial service providers. If the profits are shared between the people served, if the companies are worker owned, instead of all of the profits going to rich shareholders who live in other states or nations, then the workers will have the incentive to provide better service.
Look at Health Care. The private insurance companies make 30% profits. They spend 30% on administration costs, mainly trying to find ways to avoid caring for patients, and they would deny service to 1/3rd of the people in the nation for pre-existing conditions. Medicare for all would cost half as much, it would cover everyone, and if it would concentrate on prevention and computerized databases would be much safer and efficient.
Corporations give hundreds of millions in compensation to CEO's that don't provide any better service than a managers paid a fraction of that pay. All of those millions of wasted dollars could go towards hiring hundreds of other workers, It could be used for research or for upgrading equipment, which would make the corporations more efficient.
http://heritageinstitute.com/governance/...Most corporations by law must maximize profits. It is the nature of the free market system that these corporations can make more money if they move their operations overseas where they can find workers that work for pennies. That harms the communities that used to house those corporations. They harm the millions of workers who loose those jobs and that is the major cause of our economic problems in America today.
It is possible to form corporations that work for the benefit of the communities. It is possible to form corporations owned by the workers. If workers determined wages they certainly wouldn't be giving the CEO's 300 times what they themselves make, and they certainly wouldn't give them golden parachutes of hundreds of millions of dollars when they harm the company and are fired.
We need a new business model that works to help the community and the workers, not just the rich shareholders. The old business models only benefited the 1%, and was driven by greed. The old business model destroyed the economy and the nation.
There should be a new business model for the other 99% of the nation. Fortunately there is a new type of business called Benefit Corporations, or B Corps.
http://heritageinstitute.com/governance/...Here are 16 ideas that can help get our nation's businesses back on track, helping the vast majority of the people - the 99%, not just the 1%.
http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/16121...