Regardless of your political affiliation, you have to acknowledge how right Donald Trump has been regarding the US being suckers thanks to our leaders making bad deals. The matter is a lot more complicated than that of course but look at the reality – millions of jobs have fled the US for China, India and Mexico. Millions more low-skilled jobs have been taken by illegal aliens thanks to an open border.
The US government actually makes it cheaper to hire workers overseas by charging employers hiring domestically myriad taxes and fees. Then there is the regulatory framework in the US – the costs to comply in the US is much higher than elsewhere thanks to the NLRB and many other agencies spewing regulations by the thousand.
While Trump has focused on the incompetence of government, the US also gets the short end of the stick when it comes to prescriptions – our drug costs are higher than most every other country… Even though most drugs are developed in the US! Our cell phone bills were higher until recently because of the two-year contracts we were once forced into. Our cable bills are higher thanks to forced bundling. Our TCO print costs are higher thanks to subsidized printers and excessively-priced print cartridges.
Thankfully things are changing. T-Mobile helped end the forced two-year contract with Verizon being the most recent company to change its plans to be in line with Europe and elsewhere. Moreover, Epson is doing away with ink cartridges in its printers – a technology which it brought over from successful implementation in Europe.
Epson’s new EcoTank printers could save frequent printers hundreds of dollars in fact and be available in September.
Its interesting – for a country which prides itself on freedom – until recently, we weren’t even free to buy ink-based printers without cartridges or cell phones with annual contracts. One of the few remaining areas of eventual freedom will likely be cable channel unbundling. I for one will be happy to wear the famous Donald Trump hat if he were to get behind this cause – because this is a sure-fire way to make America Great again!
Until then – like many of you, I feel like a sucker, every time I write a big check to a cable company for dozens and dozens of channels I have never watched.
