The SoapBoxers

Our continuing, albeit erratically paced, series of interviews with other bloggers sends reporter Scoop Chevelle to the wilds of Philadelphia in search of Kelly Whalen of The Centsible Life.

Scoop: Hello, folks. I’ve just flown to Pennsylvania and boy am I tired. Being chased by an angry mob can really wear you out. Apparently the Liberty Bell is only for decoration and is NOT to be actually rung. What’s the point of having a bell, then? Well, I digress. Today, I come to you from the Steel City, home of the reigning Super Bowl champion Steelers.

Guy on the street: Dude, Pittsburgh is the Steel City. You’re in Philadelphia.

Scoop: Oh. Is Philadelphia a suburb of Pittsburgh, then?

Guy on the street: Are you crazy? Philly’s bigger than Pittsburgh – and Pittsburgh’s clear on the other side of the
state!

Scoop: OK, then. Today, we come to you from Philadelphia, which is famous for not being the home of the Super Bowl champion Steelers.

Guy on the street: (grumbling in disgust): Yeah.  That’s what we’re famous for. Not the constitutional convention, cheese steaks, or Rocky. We’re known for not being home to the Steelers. Knucklehead.

Scoop: (completely oblivious): Today, we come to you from the living room of Ms. Kelly Whalen. Good morning, Kelly.

Kelly: Welcome.

Scoop: In the last several months, you have been nearly impossible to ignore in the media. You have been featured on the Today show alongside Jean Chatzky, as well as appearances in local media outlets. You’ve also picked up gigs writing for Consumerism Commentary and Moolanomy, in addition to your work on The Centsible Life. It seems like everything you’ve touched during the last year has turned to gold.What’s the secret to your success?

Kelly: Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Scoop: How did you come up with the name for The Centsible Life? Did you consider the Dollarsible Life, since that name would have 100 times the value?

Kelly: I wanted something that was a play on words. Of course I didn’t think that it might be difficult to spell. Dollarsible isn’t a word, Scoop.

Scoop: With 4 kids and the responsibility of running a household, when do you have the time to write articles for three different web sites? Are you one of those zombie types of people who only need a couple hours of sleep every night? Do you write articles while you’re in the checkout line at the grocery store?

Kelly: I find pockets of time when the kids are playing nicely, or after they go to bed, or occasionally I leave Mr. Centsible in charge and head to Starbucks.

Scoop: Of all the articles you have written, are there a few special ones that stand out?

Kelly: I have 3 favorite articles. This article talks about the balance between being a mom and doing what you love. I wrote a guest post for Bargaineering about daycare from a stay at home mom’s perspective. And my most heavily visited article is Kids and Allowance, where I tackle how not to go broke when you have kids.

Scoop: What lies ahead for you in 2010? Do you have any advice for bloggers who are just getting started?

Kelly: I’m currently celebrating my one year blogiversary at The Centsible Life; with a ton of giveaways. I expect 2010 will be a big year, and have plans to create an exclusive newsletter, and start writing an e-book. For bloggers who are just getting started I recommend following people you admire, basically stalking them. In hindsight I wish I had thought more about my goals with my blog versus jumping in with both feet.

Scoop: They call Pennsylvania the Keystone State, but really, I see as much Budweiser and Miller in stores as Keystone. Also it seems a bit silly to nickname your state after a beer. Hey, I like a beer in a can that tastes like beer in a bottle, but I wouldn’t name my state after it. So what’s up with the moniker?

Kelly: I don’t know. I prefer wine anyway.

Scoop: Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers of The Soap Boxers?

Kelly: Thanks for having me!

Scoop: Thank you for your time, Kelly.

Kelly is a long time friend of The Soap Boxers. Be sure to check out her blog at www.thecentsiblelife.com

If you visited The Soap Boxers just to see the interview with Baker, feel free to look around a bit. Browse the archives, subscribe to the RSS feed, or simply come back again tomorrow. We offer a full money back guarantee. If you read us for a week and don’t like the content, we will refund 100% of the purchase price. RSS subscribers gain access to my two fiction eBooks – look for the “free ebook of short stories” link in the RSS footer (just to the left of the copyright information).

I really hate winter.  Let me count the ways.

1. I hate cold weather.
2. I miss the sun.
3. Driving on ice sucks.
4. I hate shoveling show.
5. The winter sports pale in comparison to the grand sport of summer – baseball.

Thus, each winter, I typically bump into a bit of a case of the winter blahs.  During the last few years, I have found myself better equipped to fight it off.  How?  A couple of ways.

Mitigate the misery

Shoveling snow is a winter task that I hate.  I keep putting off the purchase of a snow blower for a few reasons.  First, I keep telling myself that the last few winters have been atypical, and that it really doesn’t snow in Iowa much.  Second, it seems that many times ice is the main culprit, and snow blowers don’t handle ice very well.  Third, they’re a bit pricey (although possibly cheaper than the chiropractor bills some years).

So, each year, I spend too much time outside in cold weather shoveling snow.  To make the experience a bit better, I grab my wireless headphones, fire up the downstairs DVR, and listen to one or two TV shows while I shovel (depending on the length of the show and the amount of snow).  Left to my own devices, I rarely watch non-sports TV, so this does give me a chance to catch up on the couple of shows that I care enough about to record.  In the last few weeks, I have greatly reduced my backlog of NCIS and The Office.  I grew up listening to baseball on AM radio for much of my entertainment, so I can get significant entertainment value out of a TV program even when the video portion is absent.

If you enjoy reading, winter can also be a good time to catch up.  The weather sucks for outdoor activities, so why not stay indoors a bit more.  If you’re looking for recommendations of some good authors, I have a list.

Set Intermediate Milestones

Years ago, I would sigh deeply when the first snowflakes hit the ground and start counting down the days until spring.  This made for a very long winter.  In the last few years, I have started to look forward to winter milestones.  This helps reduce the wait a bit by breaking it into manageable chunks.

A major milestone for me is the date that spring training begins.  This is mid-February each year – a full month (or more) before spring begins in the midwest.  However, when the first pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona, I know that there will significant baseball news every day until November (my threshold for “significant baseball news” is probably a bit lower than most people’s.)

In 2010, there is another wonderful milestone – the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  I absolutely love the Olympics.  At some point during the Olympics, I will know person details about athletes from dozens of countries from sports that I pay little attention to outside of the Olympics.  Then, of course, there is luge.  I fully intend to DVR ever possible bit of luge coverage in order to satisfy my desire for the sports for the next four years.

In closing, I would like to point out the fact that there is a big difference between a mere case of the winter blahs and the more serious condition of depression.  If you feel that you are experiencing depression, I urge you to seek proper medical attention, just as you would for any other ailment.

Back on April 15, when the Dow was at 7920.18, I launched a stock market contest between a team of three personal finance bloggers (team Goliath) and a team of folks who, while they were intelligent, did not immerse themselves into finance at quite the same level (team David).

So, who won? Team David, of course. Don’t you people read the bible?

Every participant was at least somewhat bullish, with the lowest guess being 8232. Peter Rabbit of Team David (who would later join the staff of The Soap Boxers) was the closest, but even his guess of 9500 was more than 900 points below the actual December 31 close of 10428.05.

Everyone on Team David had a guess of at least 8492.48, while the highest guess from Team Goliath was 8400 (Team Goliath had a very tight spread in their guesses). Thus, Team David slays Team Goliath … and it wasn’t even close.

For your reading pleasure, I present the original article below, in its entirety.

The rules:
Each player predicts the closing value of the Dow Jones industrial average at the close of day on December 31, 2009. Points are awarded on a 12-10-8-6-4-2-0 basis for being closest to the actual closing value. The score of all players on each team are added together, and the best team score wins.

I will update the contest every month, focusing on the actual rate of Dow rise or fall compared to the guesses. For example, if a player guesses a 850 point increase and the Dow increased 100 points in the first month, they would be on target. This relies on a false assumption that the market will move similarly in each month.

Note: this contest is for entertainment purposes only and is not to be construed as investment advice.

The predictions:

Team Goliath

Team Goliath consists of three people who write blogs related to personal finance.

Trevor of Financial Nut
Why do I choose 8,400? Though I do not necessarily agree with Keynesian economic theory, I do feel that some of this spending is going to create some jobs and allow for money to be injected back into the economy. By this time I would imagine that many of the Obama Administration’s plans to deal with all of these “toxic assets” and to create employment in an increasingly dying economy will be in place. Right now the plans are only being discussed and just barely being implemented.

In addition, recessions in the past haven’t lasted much longer than what we’ve had. This one is, however, very unique and may be longer.

But at the end of the day, who really knows?! 🙂

Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money
Although some suggest that much of the recent drop is psychological, I think that much can be explained by the large amounts of credit that were extended over the last 10-15 years. More money in the system allows earnings to rise – which results in a lower P/E ratio – making it easier for buyers to justify higher prices.

We’ll see what happens in a bad economy where the earnings drop not just due to the lack of buyers, but the lack of easy credit.

I do, however, think much of the damage is priced in now. Although I am not a currency expert, I think it will be important to watch the impact of the stimulus package on the dollar in the next 8+ months.

Heidi of Bankergirl brings a bit of sugar and spice to a group filled with snails and puppy dog tails.
Based on historical data, we have yet to hit the low for this economic cycle. I think that sometime in the second quarter (or possibly early Q3) of 2009, the dow is going to hit its low. It will recover throughout late Q3 and into Q4, but it will land around the low-to-mid 8000 mark.

Hope I’m wrong – my job is much more secure once we are back up to around 10,000.

Team David

Team David consists of three people who have ordinary jobs and do not write about personal finance.

Peter Rabbit is an IT Auditor.
The last few reports on housing and the purchase of durable goods were very encouraging. These are lagging indicators when we enter a recession as well as when we come out of one. This signals to me that the worst may be behind us. By no means are we in a period of growth but we may have stabilized. Basically, I am betting that we have about 4 more days of 500 point gains sprinkled in the next few months. But otherwise you will see a lot of +100 and -100 point days that just pass time and wash each other out.

Phil Ossifer is a computer systems analyst and has recently launched the (not finance) blog Chunga Goes Wild
Stocks WON’T perform like they did over the last 80 years. Unique circumstances of that period are unrepeatable, e.g., post-Industrial Revolutionary growth, outcome from wars, political/demographic changes, etc.

Monetary policy will float us for a while, but also leads us toward a serious, long-term decline. We now have more debt than any nation; we have a negative savings rate – and yet we look to more spending for the answer. Over-consuming and under-producing is not sustainable!

Finally, analysis based on a few known factors like bad mortagages, trade deficits, and economic cycles are short-sighted. We are now in a complex, unpredictable, global system (think: Chaos theory). Cheers!

Black Hole is where logic goes to die. Fittingly, he works in human resources.
In the past month, the Dow has been on the incline, and I think it will be up and down (in small variances) throughout the year, but I think towards the end of the year it will climb a little more steadily. Banks will become more stable than they are now, and the economy is receiving such a boost monetarily that it will definitely turn around and quicker than other “recessions”.

Free agent
The Soap Boxers will not be a member of a team, but I will be awarded points on the basis of my finish. Thus, a good showing by TCO can serve as a spoiler for one of the teams. Think of me as the guy in the middle of a game of “keep away”.
I personally believe that much of the recent drop in the market is due to psychological factors. A lot of really good stocks are getting beaten up. When the Dow was hovering around 6500, P/E ratios were at five year lows. This is a time to snap up some solid blue chip stocks at good prices. I think that there will be some slight corrections in the near future, but that we have hit bottom and that the market will turn the corner once spring is in full bloom. The positive energy of spring will improve the mindset of potential investors.

Submit your own guess in the comments sections. Invite your friends to compete against you. I will also track the guesses of commenters in the monthly update. Only guesses made before April 30 will be included in the monthly updates (sorry, had to make the cutoff somewhere).

Ignorant. Stupid. Naive. Reckless.

These are just a few words I think of when I consider Barack Obama’s decision to continue with the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. It’s been said by many Homeland Security and terrorism officials that Yemen is the new Afghanistan. This means that the new terrorism training location and the safe haven that terrorists (Al-Qaeda) are currently residing in is Yemen. The attempted airline attack on Christmas Day by Abdul Mudallad has ties to both Al-Qaeda and Yemen.

Let’s consider Guantanamo Bay for a moment. There were roughly 100 Yemini detainees at Gitmo. I remind you that Gitmo has been reserved for prisoners that are the “most dangerous of the dangerous”. We have already released roughly 20 of these prisoners to YEMEN. There are around 10-15 that are expected to go to trial (in the US) which leaves about 70 prisoners that could very well be released back to Yemen.

I’m a layman regarding this subject. However, this layman would like to apply some common sense to this subject. How stupid is it to release potentially 100 prisoners back to the hot spot for terrorist training? Why would we ever dream of strengthening the enemy by sending reinforcements to them? Meanwhile, the other countries of the world are pointing and laughing at us because we act weak. We focus on getting H1N1 shots to the Gitmo detainees while our own citizens do without. In countries like Switzerland they are making stand against Islam by banning any new Minarets in their country. Why are we (in the United States) so focused on being politically correct that we help Islam grow while other countries try to stifle that same epidemic growth?

What about keeping us safe while we are flying? How many of the terrorists in Gitmo and in the terrorist attacks fit a certain profile? [Pause for reflection] When are we going to wake up and use the intelligence and knowledge that we have? If we know that people traveling from specific countries or that have lived in specific countries have a higher potential to be terrorists why not use that information? If we know that Muslim males between the ages of 15-40 are more likely to carry out Jihad on us, why not use that information? Yes, I’m talking about profiling. No holds barred profiling.

Is it so bad to profile that liberals would rather see hundreds of lives lost instead of inconveniencing a few Muslims to extra searches? Have we become a country that is so politically correct that we’re willing to put aside all common sense so that we don’t offend someone?

Conservatives speak up. Liberals wake up. The time has come for all of us to get back to the way we thought on 9/12. Remember the Towers falling and people jumping. We need to do all we can to keep our citizens safe. The failed Christmas Day bombing by Abdul Mudallad was one of luck—–luck that Abdul either cracked under pressure unable to make his bomb work or luck that the bomb maker did a poor job to start with. Either way, I believe that we have been spared massive loss of life purely by the Grace of God.

I hope that 12/25 was a wakeup call for the USA.
I hope that the closing of Gitmo will be stopped or at least paused so that terrorists are not brought onto US soil or released to receive more training. Our leaders need to evaluate this threat more before simply trying to appease their constituents by fulfilling a campaign promise that was founded on lack of information

I hope that the US Agencies will work together better and share information.

I hope that we will all finally wake up and be willing to call a spade a spade and a terrorist a terrorist. If that means profiling, so be it. My family, friends, neighbors and coworkers are worth it to me.

Squeaky…

It may be a harsh statement on my part but I believe that the United Kingdom can no longer call itself a legitimate country in terms of being a relevant world power or relevant to the fight on terror.  The fall of the British empire is well documented as the United States took its place as the primary world power a long time ago but this article is more about the legitimacy of the UK as a country to be considered a voice of reason in the world and someone to ally ourselves with when solving world problems.

In case you have not been to London lately you really should make a trip as it does not feel like the London of 10 years ago.  While all of the wonderful historical sites are still around the chemical makeup of the city and the country has changed.  The UK is now under heavy Muslim influence and in many cases under the influence of Muslim radicals.  The concern that many European countries are now having with the influx of Muslim immigrants has already manifested itself in the UK.  While most of the European countries have historically had strong religious ties they typically have operated in a similar fashion to the United States in that church and state were separate when making policy decisions.  At least in the UK this line is being blurred but the odd thing is the religious beliefs that are blurring them are not the historical religion of the UK but Islam.

The point of attack for the Muslims in the UK has squarely been Israel.  Most of this started with the normal rallies and boycotts of Israeli products and while these are obviously damaging they don’t necessarily reflect the tone of the government.  The event that I believe has now squarely moved this from being just a statement from some radical groups to being a statement of the government is the issuing of arrest warrants for former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.  The Muslim radicals in the UK are leveraging the preposterous report from the UN regarding the last military engagement by Israel to declare Israeli officials as war criminals.  This has prompted Israel to cancel trips for its diplomats and even IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers for fear of being placed under arrest.

For those that have not grasped my point here you have to look at this in perspective.  We are discussing the UK which most Americans probably consider closest to us in ideology after Canada.  This is not supposed to be a backwards country or a supporter of Muslim terrorists movements but how can you explain the weakness in their government regarding policy toward Israel?  I am guessing it can only be explained in the same manner that all crazy political moves can be explained, votes.  As the Muslim population sky rockets, growth of 500,000 in the last 4 years as the number of Christians shrunk by 2 million, the politicians have a new voting base they need to appease.

As a final thought, in case you still do not grasp the lunacy of the issuance of this arrest warrant consider how you would feel if the same warrant was issued for US General David Petraeus as many of the things that Israel is accused of are the same things the US is accused.  Appeasement of Muslim radicals will be the downfall of society.

This is my first live article in about a week. The newest member of the Observer family was welcomed into the world last Tuesday. It was a bit earlier than planned, but we’re happy he decided to join us. We’ll be even happier once he figures out the difference between day and night.

With a new baby in the house, I have understandably been a bit behind on sports news. That’s a bit of a shame, since it has been a pretty newsworthy week.

There are reports that Matt Holliday is closed to signing a deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. I’d love to see this happen. If the Rockies can’t have Holliday (and it appears that they can’t) then the Cardinals would probably be my second favorite landing spot, since they are currently my second favorite baseball team.  One of the rumors sets the terms of the contract at $112 million over 7 years – an average of $16 million per year.  This would be comparable to the deal that Jason Bay signed with the Mets (worth up to $80 million over 5 years if his option vests).  A key point is the length of the contract – a 7 year deal would be a nice coup for agent Scott Boras.  Holliday and Bay are often regarded as being comparably productive offensively, with Holliday deemed the better defender.

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who led the Red Raiders to the brink of an undefeated seasons in 2008, was summarily dismissed by the team.  The school says that Leach mistreated a player by forcing him to stay in a dark shed near the practice field when the player had suffered a concussion in a previous practice.  The school then fired Leach for refusing to apologize to the player.  I’ll admit that I haven’t been getting all of the sports news lately, but this seems to be just a fraction of the story.  I find it difficult to believe that a school would fire a winning coach over an incident with one player.  On the other hand, there is a renewed focus on concussions recently, as well as a few firings of coaches who were deemed to be abusive.

Iowa State hung on in the Insight Bowl to pick up a 14-13 victory over their northern neighbors, the Minnesota Golden Gophers.  The Cyclones finished the season with 7 wins, up from just two wins in 2008.  At the end of 2008, I was cautiously optimistic for this year, as I felt that the team had been more competitive than in 2007.  However, I did not expected new head coach Paul Rhoads to take the team to a bowl game quite yet.  The team was just a couple of bad breaks away from having 8 or 9 wins.  The best win of the year?  The 9-7 victory over Nebraska – courtesy of 8 turnovers by the eventual Big XII North champion Cornhuskers.

And in the “what were they thinking” segment, Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton of the NBA’s Washington Wizards reportedly pulled guns on each other in a dispute over debts arising from card games.  It seems that we have a couple of issues here.  First, if you need to use a gun to settle a gambling debt, your elevator probably doesn’t go all the way to the top.  Second, if you’re incurring large enough gambling debts that would cause a teammate to pull a gun on you, you just might have a gambling problem.  Seriously, guys, you’re living the dream of millions of kids – making some serious coin for playing basketball.  Don’t mess it up with something stupid.

How do I keep up the pace? This is a question that many authors face, sometimes in their own heads, sometimes honestly and out in the open. Some people would suggest setting aside specific time. This is a great idea if you have that kind scheduling skill/flexibility. Establishing specific times, you could set yourself up for additional pressure, so be careful. Always approach writing as what you want to be doing right now, not something you have to be doing.

There are always opportunities to have extra time to write. Evenings when on travel are much better used writing than drinking, unless you are in sales. Take a lap top computer with you when ever your kids have activities. Take that lap top when shopping with your wife, especially at specialty stores that provide chairs for husbands. Sorry, I don’t have advice for our female readers, men’s shopping locations don’t usually have seating areas.

As far as setting a writing pace, this can be a good thing. Set your pace for an appropriate time scale. Look at a weekly rate, not daily or hourly. It is just like tracking your weight, checking too often will just get you twisted up with the numbers. If you have a bad day, you will eventually have a good day. When you are on a role, try not to stop. Staying up late is not a bad thing as long as it is productive. If you get all of your ideas down, you will sleep better.

Another way to keep your writing pace, don’t get tied down by a single story. If you get bogged down, start something else or try to go back to something you have put on hold. If you have having that much trouble, the creative juices for that story line have dried up. Let it go and the well will refill. Sometimes even just writing gibberish can help, odd but true. Try just writing down what you are currently hearing, like the conversation at the next table at the coffee shop. If you don’t have conversations around you, write descriptions of what is in your field of view. All of these efforts are to distract you from your block while keeping you writing.

Remember that all ideas are good, some are just better than others. The best way to keep your writing pace up is to keep writing. The goal is, of course, to complete the stories that are floating around in your head. The first step to reaching that goal is to get as many of the ideas down on paper (or in the computer) as possible. Do the math. If you don’t write anything, your pace is zero. Anything you write will be beneficial, even if you cannot see that benefit right now. Try your best and remember to

–KEEP WRITING–

During most of the more than 130 years that major league baseball has been played, the measurement of defensive excellence was done using one simple stat: errors. To this day, many who vote for gold glove winners make errors the major consideration (or, in some situation, they make the absurd choice to factor in the player’s offensive contributions).

Errors are a funny thing. First of all, an error is the judgment of the home team’s official scorer. All official scorers are not created equal – some are more kind to fielders than others. If you happen to play for a scorer who doesn’t call many errors, you’ll rack up fewer errors. The field itself can also contribute to the number of errors. Some fields produce a more consistent movement from the ball, while others are more prone to odd hops. A team can also choose to allow the grass to grow higher – with the result being that the ball is moving more slowly, thus giving the fielder more time to react (this does have the related effect of allowing batters to more easily beat out an infield hit).

So, what, then, should we use? Putouts and assists? These are just as bad. First of all, strikeouts can affects these numbers. A team whose pitchers rack up a lot of strikeouts will result in relatively few chances for fielders to make a play on the ball. Additionally, the quality of the other players also has an effect. Put a great defensive shortstop alongside a second baseman and third baseman who have limited range, and the shortstop is going to rack up some very impressive assist numbers, as he’ll suck up everything between second and third. On the other hand, put great defensive players and second base, shortstop, and third base, and it is likely that all of them will have strong statistics, but none of them will produce eye popping numbers. Why? Because regardless of how good this trio is, there are a finite number of balls that will be hit into this area – and they are competing with each other for the chances.

There are advanced defensive metrics to measure the quality of the defense, but these aren’t something the casual fan is going to be able to measure easily. I would suggest a rather simple system for scoring at home. The system is based on the fact that the defensive player’s goal should not merely be to reduce the number of errors they make, but to minimize the number of base runners the teams allows.

• Error on a routine play: -1 points
• Error on what would have been a great play: 0 points
• Didn’t get to a ball he should have gotten to: -1 points
• Great defensive play: +1 points

What does this system do? First, it rewards a player for making an effort on a player that would typically go for a hit. Even if the player fails to make a play on the ball, he isn’t penalized. Indeed, why should he be penalized? If a player makes a great defensive play to get to a ball, and then pulls the first baseman off the bag with his throw, why treat him worse (by charging him with an error) than a player who never got to the ball in the first place?

The second thing the system does is penalize players who have deficient range. If I don’t get to a ball that 90% of players in the league would get to, this is just as bad as if I get to the ball and make an error – in either case, the runner reaches.

Use this system for a while and see what it tells you about player on your team. Maybe that error-prone defensive player is actually saving your team a ton of runs because he’s getting to balls that nobody else would lay a glove on (and occasionally making errors on those balls). Maybe that gold glove second baseball rarely makes an error because he has the range of a mannequin.

One internet battle I expect to be fought in 2010 is the battle over net (network) neutrality.  This is not a new battle, and has been on the radar for a few years now.  I am hoping that 2010 is the year when the government finally draws a line in the sand.

What is net neutrality?  It is the concept that all network traffic be treated the same.  The tiny email you send to your mother has the exact same priority as your neighbor’s multi-gigabyte Youtube downloads.  Internet service providers could relieve network congestion by throttling (intentionally slowing) heavy use such as downloads – but this would violate a principle of net neutrality.

It’s easy to see why users are largely in favor of net neutrality – nobody wants their internet experience degraded.  Users would much prefer to see internet service providers (ISPs) make their networks more robust.

On the flip side of the debate are the ISPs, who would like to be allowed to throttle or force big internet companies to pay them for the privilege of allowing access to their site.  The ISPs claim that certain companies are getting a free ride.  Specifically former SBC CEO (and current GM CEO) Ed Whitacre claimed that Google was getting a free ride.  The idea has become a key point for the ISPs.

Is there any merit to this?  No.  Google pays enormous costs for its infrastructure, as well as paying for the bandwidth that allows people to access and download data from them.  Do they pay for the bandwidth required for my ISP to send the data along to me?  Of course not.  That’s what I’m paying for when I pay my ISP bill.  If the ISPs want Google and other web companies to pay for their costs, when why should I have to pay anything?  This is a blatant attempt to double dip.  Further, it’s blatantly dishonest; an obvious attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of some people who might not fully understand the workings of the internet.

My general rule of thumb is that if you have to lie to make your point, your point probably isn’t valid.

So, then, if I’m not in favor of putting the ISPs on GoogleFare (like welfare, but taking money from Google instead) am I am least amenable to throttling?  No.  My data, regardless of size, is no more of less important than anyone else’s data.  No data should be subject to any artificial constraint, other than the published bandwidth limit.  (Interestingly, I’m not actually a very heavy user – but that doesn’t prevent me from feeling the pain of those who are).

If you want to place limits on usage, go ahead – but I believe you should be forced to disclose these limitations in a very obvious way in advertising and on contracts.  Will this make it appear as if you are providing service that is inferior to that of your competitors, allowing them to eat your lunch?  Yes … but it’s only fair, since you actually ARE providing inferior service.