79-02-A1
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Phone[edit]
Transcript[edit]Before getting into today's commentary, I'd like to add a p.s. to a broadcast of a few days ago. I reminded you of Jim Hendricks, the paraplegic cowboy and his horse Calvin, and gave his address because many of you had inquired about it and expressed a desire to lend a hand. Well, everything in the address was correct except the name of the town. I had been told it was Bridgetown. It isn't. Jim lives in Beardstown, Illinois. Now, on with the commentary which has to do with that government regulated, private monopoly, the telephone company, and that government owned monopoly, the post office. What with busy signals, wrong numbers, and so forth, it's easy to have a grudge against "Ma Bell". Truth is, the old girl deserves a big thank you from all of us. For one thing, here is a major service none of us feel we can do without. Yet, in this age of continual inflation, that service keeps dropping in cost. Back in the 1930's a long distance call across country cost $9.50. That was 300 times as much as it costs to send a letter. Now that phone call is only nine times as expensive as a letter -- $1.30, while stamps have gone up to 15 cents. And the ratio is even lower if your call takes one minute; then the price is 54 cents. And remember, 15 cents isn't the total cost of a postage stamp; taxes pay the difference between the price of the stamp and what it really costs to deliver the letter. In 1977 the postal deficit was $1.4 billion. By contrast, American Telephone and Telegraph in 1977 paid $6.5 billion in taxes and only $2.8 billion in dividends to its shareholders. Not only has the telephone company lowered costs because it has continued to increase productivity, it has offered fantastic improvements that would have boggled the mind of Alexander Graham Bell. Not too long ago the phone was a pretty hefty piece of machinery mounted on the wall. To call, you removed the receiver from its cradle with one hand, spun the crank handle -- which rang a bell -- with the other, and waited for the operator to ask "Number please". You told her the number and she then plugged a cord into the proper jack on the switchboard and, if everything went well, your call was completed. Of course most of us could only afford party lines and we each had a particular ring by which we knew if the call was for us -- for example, two longs and two shorts. Everybody on the line knew everyone else's ring and the result was a total lack of privacy because everyone could listen in simply by lifting the receiver. Today, the miracles we already have are going to be topped by video phone; there are recorder gadgets to take phone calls and messages when you are absent, and now they talk of electronic mail. If the cost differential continues at the present rate, it is possible the telephone may put the post office out of business within the next 10 to 20 years. Do you suppose that's why the government is suing the phone company? This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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