I really hope nobody is still leasing land line phones... But according to that article as of 2007 there were still about 580,000 mostly older or elderly people leasing land line phones.

If you have a parent or grandparent, maybe you can help them get out of one of these leases... seriously: take a look at what your grandma (or someone's grandma) is still paying every month on her phone

• Traditional Rotary - Monthly Lease Rate: $4.45
• Traditional TouchTone - Monthly Lease Rate: $5.95 (now we are getting fancy)
• Trimline® Rotary - Monthly Lease Rate: $5.25
• Trimline® Touch Tone - Monthly Lease Rate: $6.45 (Currently the equivalent style phone is selling on Amazon for less than $10)
• And it goes on. Basically the equivalent of most of these phones can be purchased for less than a few months of what they charge for a lease, but their customer service will convince your grandparents that they are still living in the 1960s and they need to continue to lease their phone in order to keep phone service.

Current immigration policy in the US, whether or not it was intended to do so, treats the citizen as having too good of a position in the world. Businesses read that as citizenship being business-hostile (unless it's their own).

By "non-interference" I think what you really mean is regulatory capture in order to increase the regulatory burden on new market entrants. If you look at the numerous attempts to set up local non-profit or municipal WiFi or Fiber networks you will see an army of lawyers and lobbyists from the big telecom monopolies arguing at the state, local and federal levels that "the market" needs protection from all that chaos which would be caused by people getting better service at cheaper rates. It is absurd to even remotely suggest that we have somehow naturally arrived to this point with these big telecom monopolies through a free market.

Unfortunately, disparate impact can change that statement.

Only if citizens are not given their proper prioritization above non-citizens.

That's an even bigger problem since it presumes that a US citizen is never competent enough.

Exception case of someone doing well in a unstable environment designed to be bad for most - versus a system of good pay & security that is better for most.

Not only do you get to deal with the increased costs (which claw back any increases), you also have an increased lack of stability for when things go wrong (which they will).

You're disposable, so they like you - which is the problem at hand.

You get the rarity of job security with the budget of a large company.

Which means that you move to something with the stability of a tsunami-hit nuclear reactor, which is none.

The saner move.

FTFY.

Which only justifies a greater push to kill off age discrimination to allow competent people their day. If it really was about competence, a whole lot of problems in finding people would simply not exist (especially with guest workers).

You presume that all should have that ability while not recognizing the good value of those that do not.

Thank the Mackinac Institute/ALEC-run government for the final push. Not only did they establish one line of control of Detroit (state takeover that effectively nullified elections), but that they rushed through a bankruptcy filing to gain another. That, and the entities that take over the state call themselves *conservatives* for doing that.

Only if your state isn't under the control of ALEC(read: MI/WI/IN/KS/PA and lighter controls under OH). Such states have gone all out against those working for state agencies.

XKCD would like to have a word with you on matters regarding sheep.