What's up with the "Don't call" list???

Should every irritating job be eliminated by the government?

I know how annoying these calls are but, as a former telemarketer myself, believe me, it's hard enough without being abused or getting cussed out. I simply say "I'm not interested but thanks for calling" and leave it at that. I hang up on the persisitent ones but not without a civil thank you.
Caller ID is wonderful.

I think that the government should regulate a Do Not Solicit list for television commercials.

Commercials are invading my space when I'm trying to watch TV and they are irritating. There should be a list can sign up for that would keep advertisers from being allowed to show their ads on my TV.

Too bad. It's invasive by definition. Perhaps you are inured to that. I don't pretend anything.

Use the same solution I use. Don't watch TV.

I do agree though. I'd love to have a Do Not Mail list so that all the junk bulk mail is not stuffed into my mailbox. I've stopped all the catalogs that I don't want to see, but the box still gets crammed full of Pennysavers and other newsprint flyers I have no interest in seeing.

The companies pay for it therefore the cycle continues. They pay for the junk, the post office delivers the junk, I throw the junk in the trash, the trash guy hauls it to the recycler, the printing company makes more newsprint from it so that the original company can pay for the print job again so that the post office can deliver it, etc.

At some point, someone somewhere has to stop and say, this is not making sense. There has to be a better way to make use of this money and these resources.

Same thing is happening with the Do Not Call list and telemarketing.

Television commercials pay for the broadcast. I would be much more tolerant of telemarketers if they would pick up my phone bill.

In a sense they do roger...do you realize how much of today's infrastructure has been paid for by corporate phone bills? If there weren't telemarketing corporations paying a huge portion of AT&T's expenses, your bill would be much higher.

My company probably made over 40,000,000 phone calls last month alone; you can imagine what our phone bill looks like (not to mention the hardware we've bought from AT&T/Sprint/etc)

You're kidding, right?

No, that probably would have been made more clear by the use of a smiley or something.

You're kidding, right?

Sounds a lot like the same reasoning given when people talk about eliminating bulk junk mail. We can't do that! The post office wouldn't exist without it! Those printers wouldn't exist without it! We wouldn't have home mail delivery if it wasn't for the bulk mailers.

Maybe it is time to re-evaluate the need or method rather than keep perpetuating it because we can't be bothered to come up with a better way.

Isn't that the rallying cry when it comes to government entitlements? Why shouldn't it also be true of corporate entitlements that are based on a similar tradition of circular dependency?

Corporate entitlements?

What are you talking about?

There is something I had found to eliminate or minimize junk mail - something like a do not call list. If I can find the info - I will post.

One other way to get rid of it (at least things like credit card and other stuff with postage paid return envelopes) - rid up the junk and stuff in the return envelope and send it back.

Bonus - it helps keep the postal workers employed as you discussed is a concern for some.