> Jarlstrom was informed that he wasn't entitled to hold himself out as an engineer and agreed not to do so. The reasons not to do that are valid, for the simple reason that it pretends to a level of expertise he does not have, when trying to influence how public infrastructure is run.
Actually, from the documents provided, he initially made the claim that he held an engineering degree in electronics, which is hardly holding himself out as a registered engineer in the state of Oregon. In a later email he commented to the board that he was an excellent engineer, which may in fact be the case given that he held a degree in engineering. Again, there is no attempt to misrepresent himself as licensed in Oregon.
The first incident is a huge stretch to say he was attempting to mislead the public that he was a registered professional engineer. In fact, if he was a Swedish engineer, regardless of whether they regulate the industry or not, it is a factual statement to say he is a Swedish engineer and is not an attempt to make false claims of his credentials. The are arguing that he cannot speak of his occupation in another country and perform engineering calculations in the state of Oregon. That is clearly a violation of his free speech.
The second statement that he was an excellent engineer is a little more vague, but it is also a factual statement that he is an engineer. He does not ever claim to be a registered professional engineer in the state of Oregon and it is a valid argument that they cannot prevent him from stating his background in engineering.
If he was a doctor in Sweden, it would be perfectly if he still called himself a doctor in Oregon without implying that he was licensed to practice medicine. He would in fact be, after all, a doctor. Essentially what they are doing is equating the performing of engineering calculations (to back up his theory and present to actual engineers) with the practice of medicine. They are attempting to bolster that with two weak (but possibly valid) claims that he was representing himself as a registered professional engineer in Oregon in the process.
The fact is that the laws in this case are vague enough that they could be used to keep someone quiet for whatever reason--perhaps they didn't like the media making them look bad. Ultimately, that would be up to a judge to decide if they are in fact infringing on his first amendment rights.
> I am a bit depressed to see how easily people are taken in, and abandon reason in favor of their emotional reaction to a piece of obscure public policy
I don't see how, all the documents are right there in the article. And seriously, I have read well over thirty condescending comments from you in this thread with your fake intellectualism and it is a bit much. But hey, why don't you refer me to an essay or something.
That doesn't make it any less of a hustle and probably why rent-to-own places still get customers. So yeah if you have to have the most expensive phones but can't afford them you will do this.
The thing is they are pretty much forcing everyone into these plans by almost doubling the old plan prices. Plus the old family plans are no longer cheaper if you don't have a smartphone and don't use data--you pay the same price for all phones.
Still not quite understanding your use of this word. How can the deal be a fraud or swindle if the terms are given up front? Let's set aside the argument about whether you think it's a good deal or not, as that is not the meaning of the word "hustle".
They're not intentionally selling you a defective product masked as a new one.
They're not signing you up for something and then changing the terms.
As far as I can tell, the word hustle is being used here to mean "trying to convince people that a product is a better deal than it is." But again, this is a matter of opinion and situation. What is a good deal for you may not be available to others because of the up front cost
And here again, the math behind the swindle claim doesn't add up. You are still paying the retail price of the phone whether you sign up for two years contract or with Next. AT&T does not lose money on either contract.
intentionally selling you a defective product masked as a new one.
signing you up for something and then changing the terms. - fraud
And here again, the math behind the swindle claim doesn't add up. You are still paying the retail price of the phone whether you sign up for two years contract or with Next. AT&T does not lose money on either contract. - hustle
I've paid $175/month for 3 lines (2 are unlimited data and 1 is 2gb) for over 8 years now and I've always bought the $199 iPhone (with upgrade). A comparable plan with high-capped data (closest you can get to unlimited) runs only a little bit more ($185-190) for 3 lines. When I recently went to upgrade I was offered Next and the monthly cost wouldn't have been any cheaper for the lines yet I'd have had to pay an extra $2X.XX/month for the phone. Trying to persuade me that this is a better deal when it is not qualifies as a hustle. It isn't fraud since there's no bait and switch. They're just bullshitting.
intopieces - I can't reply to your comment so I'll post my reply here. There are different terms and benefits. They're not exactly alike. What you're saying is, essentially, "The salesman tried to sell me something I don't want and that's dishonest." This is patently false and not what I said or meant. What is the hustle about this is trying to persuade me that their deal is better when it is in fact, not.
Lots of people find value in the ability to upgrade their phone without having to pay the entire ETF, choosing instead to give back their phone. That you don't find this valuable does not make it dishonest.You would have a case if the two deals (2 year contract or Next) were precisely the same. They are not. In fact, you summarily ignore the main feature of the offer to make your point! My point is that the deals are as close as they can and they were trying to A. persuade me to pay more money, B. persuade me to give up my unlimited data and C. persuade me to pay full price for my phone when I normally don't.
In addition, I've never paid an ETF as ETF means Early Termination Fee and since I clearly stated I complete the full contract then there would not be any ETF.
Summary: AT&T Next is a hustle for most of their customers.
>A. persuade me to pay more money
>C. persuade me to pay full price for my phone when I normally don't.
Now we've gotten to the real hustle -- you think that when you buy your phone from AT&T on contract, that you don't pay the full price of the phone. You do, actually. Remember the fee they waive if you do AT&T Next? That's the part that pays for the phone.
>B. persuade me to give up my unlimited data
Here's where we get to your real complaint. This whole time, you've been hiding this beef behind the AT&T Next Plan. Your actual issue is that they don't offer unlimited Data anymore -- fair enough, but that's not what we're talking about here.
: money that is paid usually by a government to keep the price of a product or service low or to help a business or organization to continue to function
: a grant or gift of money: as
a : a sum of money formerly granted by the British Parliament to the crown and raised by special taxation
b : money granted by one state to another
c : a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public
Remember the fee they waive if you do AT&T Next? That's the part that pays for the phone. What about before AT&T Next? I think what you're missing is the contract price doesn't magically drop after you "pay off" the phone if it is subsidized. Therefore if it doesn't drop then it was never really increased seeing as the plan prices are the same whether you buy a phone or not (at least they are/were every time I've upgraded). That is the subsidized part that I'm talking about.
In closing, the subsidized cost of my phone was not paid back by me to AT&T as evidenced by the fact that my bill is the same whether I signed a 2 year agreement and bought a phone or not.
This whole time, you've been hiding this beef behind the AT&T Next Plan. Your actual issue is that they don't offer unlimited Data anymore -- fair enough, but that's not what we're talking about here. I haven't been hiding any beef with AT&T about unlimited data since they still grandfather both of my unlimited data lines. My beef is with them trying to hustle me into a worse plan at a higher cost. Why would I care if they offer unlimited data any more if I already have it? Unlimited data or any amount of data for that matter, Next still, in the most literal sense, costs me more money.
>Trying to persuade me that this is a better deal when it is not qualifies as a hustle.
There are different terms and benefits. They're not exactly alike. What you're saying is, essentially, "The salesman tried to sell me something I don't want and that's dishonest." Well, no, not really. Lots of people find value in the ability to upgrade their phone without having to pay the entire ETF, choosing instead to give back their phone. That you don't find this valuable does not make it dishonest.
You would have a case if the two deals (2 year contract or Next) were precisely the same. They are not. In fact, you summarily ignore the main feature of the offer to make your point!
It seems what AT&T are trying to do is stop losing money to subsidizing phones since other carriers (T-mobile, for example) are doing this. If this is the case then why not just discontinue the subsidization of phones at the $199, $299, etc. price points and just allow you to buy it at 0% interest if you agree to a 2-year contract. They still get their customer locked in for 2 years and they recover the full cost of the phone and the customer most likely stays loyal since they aren't feeling ripped off. Otherwise, what is keeping them from jumping ship to another carrier if the waters are muddied enough that the phone and the plan become commodities?
hustle - verb (used without object), hustled, hustling.
3. to be aggressive, especially in business or other financial dealings.
4. Slang. to earn one's living by illicit or unethical means.
The hustle part of what I said has to do with the pushyness of the salespeople at AT&T and the unethical part of lying about the pricing (to me when this deal was not better for me even though perhaps it may be better for someone else).
I think this meets the prima facie definition of hustle. Hustle doesn't have to mean fraudulent but it can mean shady, unscrupulous or sneaky.
Another aspect of this is that they make the regular contract plans cost more than twice what they did before, even with a non-smartphone, essentially pushing you into the Next plan.
Can they really do this if you're just upgrading the phone and signing a new contract since you're not required to choose a new plan? If you were absolutely required to choose a new plan when you upgradethen how can people with unlimited data still be grandfathered in?
Yes except you are paying a high retail price for the phone. I paid $100 for a top-of-the-line phone and the rest was subsidized in my contract price, I didn't have to pay an installment plan. Yeah, if the phone lasted more than two years it would be an okay deal but how often does a smartphone ever last that long without being lost, broken, or obsolete?
You are better off buying it somewhere else--even on a credit card--and staying on the old $15/mo contract.
It's actually worse than this article states. If you get the "AT&T Next 24" plan that just means you can upgrade to a new phone after 24 months. You are actually agreeing to make 30 payments so you end up with $56 tax plus $29 x 30 or $926.
Edit: Also note that you are only eligible for upgrading after 24 months if your phone is in good condition--no cracks, chips, etc. If your phone breaks not only do you have to buy a new one, but you have to keep paying for the old one for 30 months!
It's nowhere near being "worse" than the article states. The Next plans are literally just $0 down, 0% interest installment plans. It's exactly what T-Mobile is doing, except AT&T does a really shitty job of explaining how it works and, instead of having you pay $10 for Jump to trade-in whenever you want, you can opt to trade it in a few months before the payments finish.
My friend's T-Mobile phone broke halfway through her installment plan. She had to buy a new one and still pay for her old, broken one for the next year.
It actually is worse than the article states because he calculated it at 24 months but he should have calculated it at 30 months. And if you lose, break, or even crack your phone before the 30 months--which isn't at all uncommon--you still have to pay for the old one and a new one.
If you are not a terrorist or a foreign government official or work for a large corporation or bank or travel or communicate with people in certain countries or use certain keywords in your communications you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Sure. It's called voting. But you don't get to pretend that you have no say in what the government is allowed to do just because the majority of voters don't care about your pet issues.
My mom doesn't care about electronic surveillance. Neither does my dad, or my wife. The vast majority of my friends (mostly non-techies), don't care. Just look at the success of Facebook and Google. People don't care about electronic privacy in general, and most don't try to draw strained distinctions between data they freely share with big corporations and data they think is okay for the government to have. A lot of them do care about preventing terrorism, however. So how can you sit there and pretend the will of the people isn't being served?
Demand personal privacy protection legislation from your Congressional representatives. The only things preventing them from siphoning everything are some guideline-quality laws and PR kerfuffles.
The problem with what this doctor and other Obamacare opponents are saying is that it will not massively increase the number of people who get free healthcare. If someone simply cannot afford healthcare, they should he covered by the number of federal, state, and private programs already available.
The biggest increase will be from people who do not have insurance available to them through work and those who cannot get coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Yes there will be people in that group who also cannot afford the coverage but currently make too much to qualify for other programs such as medicaid, but that will be a minor segment.
As for me, I have been self-employed for 15 years and have several significant pre-existing conditions. I have been turned down numerous times when trying to purchase insurance. Even my wife has been turned down simply for having seen a doctor about headaches. The thing is I could afford even the outrageous non-group rates but no insurance company would have me.
Now they can't do that. I am able to purchase insurance coverage from a private company with my own money and pay my own co-pays and deductibles. To a doctor me and millions of other people are no different than any other patient with private insurance.
It is extremely misleading to say that Obamacare is all about giving out health care for free. It is mostly about giving us the right to purchase insurance with our own money. Even those who get payment assistance from the government will often still be purchasing their insurance from private companies so there won't be anyone other than the same insurance companies dictating how much a doctor gets paid.
In fact, one of the greatest (non-imaginary) shortcomings of Obamacare is that there is nothing in there to keep doctors from pushing fees higher, abusing the fact that everyone will now have insurance. When doctors already charge 2-3 times as much when a patient has insurance, this sounds like a major windfall for everyone in the medical profession.
This doctor clearly does not understand Obamacare and apparently this article is more about expressing political views than anything else.
Actually, from the documents provided, he initially made the claim that he held an engineering degree in electronics, which is hardly holding himself out as a registered engineer in the state of Oregon. In a later email he commented to the board that he was an excellent engineer, which may in fact be the case given that he held a degree in engineering. Again, there is no attempt to misrepresent himself as licensed in Oregon.
The first incident is a huge stretch to say he was attempting to mislead the public that he was a registered professional engineer. In fact, if he was a Swedish engineer, regardless of whether they regulate the industry or not, it is a factual statement to say he is a Swedish engineer and is not an attempt to make false claims of his credentials. The are arguing that he cannot speak of his occupation in another country and perform engineering calculations in the state of Oregon. That is clearly a violation of his free speech.
The second statement that he was an excellent engineer is a little more vague, but it is also a factual statement that he is an engineer. He does not ever claim to be a registered professional engineer in the state of Oregon and it is a valid argument that they cannot prevent him from stating his background in engineering.
If he was a doctor in Sweden, it would be perfectly if he still called himself a doctor in Oregon without implying that he was licensed to practice medicine. He would in fact be, after all, a doctor. Essentially what they are doing is equating the performing of engineering calculations (to back up his theory and present to actual engineers) with the practice of medicine. They are attempting to bolster that with two weak (but possibly valid) claims that he was representing himself as a registered professional engineer in Oregon in the process.
The fact is that the laws in this case are vague enough that they could be used to keep someone quiet for whatever reason--perhaps they didn't like the media making them look bad. Ultimately, that would be up to a judge to decide if they are in fact infringing on his first amendment rights.
> I am a bit depressed to see how easily people are taken in, and abandon reason in favor of their emotional reaction to a piece of obscure public policy
I don't see how, all the documents are right there in the article. And seriously, I have read well over thirty condescending comments from you in this thread with your fake intellectualism and it is a bit much. But hey, why don't you refer me to an essay or something.