I started subscribing to The Economist (a UK weekly publication) over 30 years ago while I was at the Harvard Business School getting my MBA and was offered a heavily discounted student subscription.  I have subscribed ever since and every week, this ‘must read’ magazine drops into my mail box.  A fervent advocate of free-markets and competition, I love the way The Economist (from my experience) practices what it preaches.  When I graduated from Harvard I received a subscription renewal form indicating that as I was no longer a full time student, I would need to renew at the standard rate.  I responded that although I was leaving Harvard, I was joining the “university of life” and would only renew my subscription at the student rate.  A quarter of a century later, I still get the magazine at student rates!  That’s putting your money where you mouth is....

Today’s the day when broadband access became FREE!    Yes – FREE!!! 

Quite a joke really – it’s not broadband (in the proper use of the world i.e. 2 Mbit/s both ways) and it’s certainly not FREE.  But that’s what the clever marketing guys and gals at The Carphone Warehouse in the UK have come up with.   “Free Broadband … forever”.  And this magnificent ‘free’ offer only costs a UK consumer £20.99 a month.   You can’t get much ‘free-er’ than this in this days of high living costs!   It’s like taxis promoting themselves by offering “free petrol”.  Everything is ‘free’ if you pay for it as part of something else.  ...

 Surprise, surprise!   I hate saying, “I told you so!”, but when on 5^th April the US lawmakers refused to agree that the government should take steps to prevent telephone companies from establishing a two-tiered Internet by charging large content providers extra money for higher-speed delivery, it confirmed a number of things which I have been proclaiming for a very long time....