SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 18
th, 2008 at 8:11pm:
I must beg to differ with the previous contributor. Ms Bowe, as a creature of Ofcom, is highly focussed on "consumerism", a principle which demands that the market be allowed to work in the alleged interests of all, with only "light-touch" intervention.
This is a definition of the word Consumerism only to be found in the personal dictionaries of Ofcom and SCV it would appear.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism Quote:The work of the Consumer Panel, under Ms Bowe's chairmanship (a gender neutral term), has been to press for the maximum opportunity for people to consume the greatest possible amount of telecommuncations products and services. That is true consumerism.
I think you mean that consumers have been given the maximum possible opportunity for the telecoms industry to charge them the highest possible prices for consuming their services and the least possible opportunity to actually realise the real total price they are paying for those services so that the normal principles of competitive markets no longer apply or exist.
Quote:This appointment does however cast a cloud over the absurd idea that the Ofcom Consumer Panel represented an independent view from that of Ofcom. This was said to be the basis for a decision not to absorb it into the National Consumer Council when this body was re-constituted earlier in the year.
On that point you and I can by exception agree.
Quote:What is totally lacking is any capacity to undertake the role of a one-eyed advocate considering only the consumer interest, quite separate from the holistic market view that Ofcom is required to take.
I applied for a job as a member of the Ofcom Consumer Panel on more than one occasion in an attempt to change it from within but perhaps my known previous form with Ofcom mysteriously ensured that I was not even called for an interview despite being excellently qualified for the role in many other ways. Of course Ofcom claimed that the appointment process was independent of Ofcom but I believe that to be a form of economy with the truth.
Quote:Ms Bowe will doubtless see her new role as nothing more than a continutation of the work that she has been doing
Since she has been a main board director of Ofcom for quite some time now since she gave up her role as Chairman of the Ofcom Consumer Panel they have no doubt had time to make sure that her thought processes do not contain any possible dangerous
consumerist strands.