mercurious

Update

Since writing this post, it appears that AT&T has disabled the USSD service reminder messages for Medianet prepaid data packages. Icing on the cake: they also opened the 3G faucet. Considering these significant improvements to the value proposition of GoPhone, we’re down to 3 reasons.

One can only surmise that executives schemed these crippling aspects to AT&T’s GoPhone prepaid offerings to exploit every inducement towards a “postpaid” (ie. 2 year contract) plan.

I’ve been trying to equip unlocked Nokia devices with prepaid data accounts for benevolent design research purposes integral to my work at Parsons on mobile media design work for grant funded projects.

1. Relentless balance reminders. Even with a $20 100MB package for a month’s worth of data access, you are barraged with irritating and intrusive balance reminder service messages, after every single use. You’ll need to click to dismiss the message after every text message and every data connection, and certainly when data intensive apps are running in the background, such as Google Maps with Latitude. These USSD messages, apparently, cannot be disabled by a customer service representative. Clearly, they are an intentional annoyance disguised as a customer service to coerce you into a 2 year contract, or flee to a competitor.
   Update ISSUE RESOLVED

   

2. No 3G data support. Online chatter can be found espousing the merits of enjoying pre-paid 3G data, but the phone company was listening. These comments remain mythical and historical musings, as GoPhone data only supports 2G (EDGE GPRS only), as of this writing, no matter how much you’d be willing to pay. Again, they’ll be happy to convert your account to a “postpaid” commitment in order to subscribe to 3G data.
   Update ISSUE RESOLVED
3. No unlimited data offering. The same online whispers that spoiled the party on 3G prepaid data probably cued AT&T to cap its data offering to 1MB and 100MB denominations. Of course, this never implied tethering, although many forumistas falsely claim that prepay is the ultimate loophole.
4. No visual voicemail on iPhone. At least without doing naughty things like jailbreaking, it is reported that visual voicemail is not supported on a pre-pay GoPhone plan and SIM in an iPhone. To not have visual voicemail on an iPhone is like having a PBJ without the first ingredient. Apparently, the executives responsible for upholding the 2 year contract conspiracy agree.
5. No international roaming (beyond Mexico). Although the prepaid target market is clearly revealed by this sales policy, it dissolves the possibility of being able to keep a prepaid globetrotter number and bounce around the Earth’s sublime GSM network based on the à la carte reality of travel — it’s occasional and ad-hoc, not a feature to add to a monthly plan.

Research suggests that T-Mobile is the better choice for prepaid services in the United States. At the minimum, they do not employ the dealbreaker balance reminders, which is enough reason for me to expend my remaining balance and get a new number from the local German provider of mobile telephony. Those Europeans sure know a thing or two about running a mobile phone infrastructure. But there are so many reasons why telecom (and law enforcement, for that matter) will always keep prepaid mobile telephony a stinky deal.

A Simple, Radical Solution to the Financial Crisis

Could we fix systemic flaws simply by printing a new denomination with a picture of a mag-lev train riding through a wind farm on the back of the bill?

The Preamble

I’m not an economist or an expert on currency markets. But I am a designer. When designers are presented with problems, they instinctively imagine design solutions. This is my proposal to work towards solving the current financial crisis and restore the greatness of the United States of America. It is inspired by the three previous attempts of Presidents Lincoln, Jackson and Kennedy to re-nationalize our currency. Most people don’t realize that our currency is based on the Treasury Department selling debt to an international banking cartel that funds the Federal Reserve Bank. When you really try to figure out what the Fed is, you realize that it’s not really Federal (beyond the appointment of leadership positions by government) and it’s not really a Reserve either. And it’s certainly not the purest form of a United States currency. We’ve tried issuing a non-fiat currency of US Notes in the past, often nicknamed the greenback. According to economist, S.G. Fisher, ‘the Greenbacks were the best currency that ever a Nation had.’¹ Naturally, banks hate this kind of currency as it diminishes the role of debt in a financial system, which is how they get to make money out of thin air.

The Problem

The Federal Reserve is far too powerful; above the authority of Congress² and probably above the President.³

Our Lender of Last Resort is now so mired in debt and inflationary triggers that it’s hard to imagine its capacity to finance a green economy revolution. The Fed is stuck with financing the bailouts and an exponential debt that now equals the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and has doubled the amount of money in circulation. In other words, the international financiers that actually supply the Fed with loans to issue Federal Reserve Note dollars have not only doubled their investment, but also crafted the conditions to cause devastating inflation down the road, which will invariably benefit them with more and more indentured servitude to their unquenchable money making.

The forces of globalism naturally seek a more stable currency, one that is more protected from the boom-bust cycles that work out great for the international banking cartel. Just consider how unbelievably profitable the housing-bubble collapse and ensuing bailouts have been to JP Morgan and Goldman-Sachs.

In addition, a Central Bank system thwarts pure capitalism and fuels crony capitalism by centering monetary policy in the hands of a winner-take-all few. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve is widely regarded as the most powerful man in the world economy. And this is good? The US campaign finance and lobby system only worsens the situation, nurturing a corrupt partnership between the corporate person and legislators.

Whether your political perspective is leftist or rightist, it’s pretty easy to accept that the Federal Reserve just might be the source of all economic evil. Libertarians hate it. Liberals should hate it for epitomizing the secret subversion of government and a blatant conspiracy to enrich private interests at the expense of the state and the public common good. The only people who really support the idea of the Federal Reserve are Centrists, who by nature, don’t want to rock the boat. And dissolving the Fed is a truly radical idea, Titanic Big, maybe bigger.

The Solution

Launch a parallel, alternate US NOTE greenback dollar in the spirit of a national project, such as financing a war or major sci-tech project. Like JFK’s proposal, Treasury could issue $30 and $200 US “green” notes. The New Greenback’s value would be directly coupled to Green bonds to fund new eco-economy projects (renewables, mag-lev trains, smart electric vehicles). The value derived from the presumed economic strength of a “free” energy grid that fuels a “clean” transportation network promises a staggering profit potential once initial outlay is capitalized. The Greenback 2.0 captures our national economic potential as an alternative to the petroleum economy. Big Oil is completely tethered to Fed notes and the entrenched oligarchy.

New Greenbacks would likely have restrictions like the original US fiat currencies: maybe you couldn’t pay your income tax with them, or buy gasoline. Instead, they would be used to buy green energy and transportation, as well as acceptable goods and services. We would use New Greenbacks to buy clean energy from wind/solar/tidal farms, pay fares on mag-lev trains, purchase leases on electric smart vehicles and debit tolls on smart highways (with EZPass 2.0 powered by Greenbacks). Commercial business would be free to accept Greenbacks for everyday transactions based on a market-derived exchange rate against Fed Note dollars. Banks and other financial institutions would probably disparage this currency since they’re in on the Federal Reserve cartel.

The Result

Greenbacks (US Notes) would compete in the marketplace with Federal Reserve Notes to diminish the international banking cartel’s grip on our government, economy and monetary policy.

Greenbacks would buffer against inevitable Federal Reserve Note inflation while providing a means to exchange value based on the assets of environmentally sound, renewable, basically unlimited energy sources and the subsequent transportation capabilities that would drive a new 21st century marketplace towards a future without debt.

Instead of making money out of thin air through the Fractional Reserve System, an alternate US Note currency would make money out of an ambitious, game-changing clean-and-green energy and transportation system.

Footnotes

1. This is an awesome quote and S.G. Fisher is an awesome name, but I’m having trouble fact-checking this person and attribution beyond the Wikipedia entry where I found it. [↩]
2. According to the Accounting and Auditing Act of 1950, section, 31 USC 714(b), congressional audits of the Federal Reserve may not include “deliberations, decisions and actions on monetary policy matters.” According to the law, in other words, the Fed simply cannot be audited by Congress. Or by anyone else, for that matter. [↩]
3. Conspiracy Theory: In 1963, President Kennedy had tried to circumvent the private Federal Reserve banking cartel by issuing legal tender notes in $2 United States Notes denominations. Many speculate that this cost him his life as all the notes were recalled days after his assassination. Andrew Jackson killed the Federal Reserve, but we don’t really know the whole story. Some say it was just a shallow personal vendetta against the bankers that ran it. Others say Jackson was sincere. Abraham Lincoln used US Notes to help finance the Civil War, also assassinated. Call it coincidence or assume the banking cartel operates above the law as it has every reason to and has gotten away with it for more than a hundred years. [↩]

Two significant events occurred since the last post.

1. O8AMA
2. K8TLYN¹

We hope this helps explain the hiatus. These two projects consumed all of my extra time. I’m just catching my breath now. A new semester brings new potential.

Footnotes

1. Reference to my daughter, Kaitlyn Carroll, born December 7, 2008. This girl is no mere footnote in history. Mark my word. [↩]

We present a collection of McCain/Palin supporters getting destroyed by the voices of reason:

Strategist Smackdown

A Democrat mouthpiece annihilates his Republican counterpart. Truly humiliating.

via YouTube

O’Reilly Hung Out To Dry by Donahue

Although a pathetic shout-match between partisan extremists, O’Reilly lost this bout.

via YouTube

McCain Utterly Destroyed by a Maine ABC Affiliate Anchor

If this reporter anchored a major news network, our country would be a better place.

via YouTube

Decision 2008 Convention Chatterbox

The party conventions have magnetized the polarities of choice for our next president. Indeed, historic moments on both sides of the aisle.

“Identity politics” aside, instead, let’s just stick to the real issues. Presidential Election 2008 will come down to this decision for the American people, in three talking points:

Talking Points

If you:

1. don’t mind oil, no matter the price¹
2. don’t mind the government legislating reproductive rights in the bedroom and religion in the classroom²
3. don’t mind trickle-down economics³

…then you should support McCain/Palin.

If you:

1. want to start getting off oil, no matter the price⁴
2. don’t want the government legislating any reproductive rights or injecting religion in science classes and libraries⁵
3. reject trickle-down economics⁶

…then you should support Obama/Biden.

Divide and Conquer

They’ve gone ahead and done it, in act of bleak desperation, and made the election about 3 stupid things
(oil/abortion/the-economy-stupid).

The selection of Gov. Palin as Vice President without a truly acceptable vetting process is a blatant act of sexist pandering by McCain and reflects his poor judgment, especially considering there are so many other qualified and tested party rank-and-file women to select from (Sec. Rice, Sen. Snowe, Gov. Whitman). If you have to be sexist and choose a woman, for tactical purposes only, at least be smart about it. Atrocious!

It’s an evil-genius move, that smells like Karl Rove took a dump all over it. Play the VP choice like a talent-pageant.

“America’s Next Vice President: So You Think You Can Run The Free World!” – Tonight on FOX

The American thirst for playing out the pretty girl story on TV is unquenchable. It’s a contagious addiction to “narrative” rather than any real substance. This reality-show amusement reflects our fractured sense of true reality in a national quest for impossible authenticities. The guilty pleasure of liking and disliking people for superficial reasons bleeds into the real voting process. In dystopian horror, our democracy seems to be punishing qualified candidates for being too elite through accusations of elites of the highest order. This tactic envelopes discourse into pure us vs. them categories where the mutual contempt between intellectual haves and have-nots collide. Is this an Idiocracy in the making? Why wouldn’t we want a deeply intelligent individual in the land’s highest office. The most elite candidate, please. The Founding Fathers were the most “cosmopolitan” men of their day. If it wasn’t for them, we’d have the monarchy that the GOP is intent on coronating.

A Czechoslovakia Problem

I’ve seen the propaganda reels of McCain’s senile gaffes and it ain’t pretty, even when you discount it all “being taken out of context.” He’s just not sharp these days. I want a sharp commander-in-chief.⁷

And then there’s the most spine-chilling propaganda reel about McCain that you will ever see, with the guy from Book TV, the last place you’d expect to find a kind of whistleblower…

“There’s gonna be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you. There’s gonna be other wars.”

Footnotes

1. McCain/Palin and GOP machine is all about more drilling, denying inconvenient truths, and stalling to be conservative. [↩]
2. McCain or Palin would likely appoint anti-abortion and possibly pro-creationist justices to the Supreme Court during their term(s). Palin gutted funding in a surplus state for Teen mom support services. [↩]
3. You’ll see no relief to the middle class, no penalties for big business to foot the bills of the nation’s financial crisis, and social security will be gutted and privatized. [↩]
4. Obama will dedicate towards truly solving the problem of oil. [↩]
5. Obama or Biden would never appoint an anti-abortion justice to the Supreme Court. Palin tried to have books banned in the library. [↩]
6. The middle-class would likely see some economic relief, the greed and corruption of unfettered big business would likely be assessed, and social security would be preserved and nurtured. [↩]
7. Especially one who has traveled the world. Palin’s travel history is atrocious. Executives need international travel experience. It’s a basic qualification. [↩]