Billions in debt, disappointing quarterly results, habitual refinancing of debt, ridiculous charges, and technical support staff you cannot understand are a few attributes Charter perpetually drags around like luggage.

There is one attribute Charter consistently does correct.  That is broadband.  Charter is upping the speed to their broadband service.  The speeds are extremely fast and watching movie downloads is no problem.

If Charter can address all the other problems, then the service may actually stick.

Despite the fact Charter Communications only knows how to stay in debt, it theoretically has come out of bankruptcy. The company has reduced it’s total debt by 40% which converts to $8 billion leaving $13 billion owed to creditors.

The company has carried debt for over a decade, robbing the shareholders and bondholders, yet emerges as a better company that will continue in debt. This is truly a head scratcher.

Every company is offered the same legal opportunities to restructure and to seek legal protection. However, my beef has always been with the CEO, Paul Allen. He is the largest shareholder and he sought bankruptcy in February 2009 to reduce the company’s debt by $8 billion and received exactly what he wanted. Do you see something wrong here?

If Paul Allen has run the company for a decade in debt, successfully reduces the debt, and comes out of bankruptcy, then he earns his place as CEO. Obviously, it is difficult to do much since he is the largest shareholder.

Paul, do your shareholders a favor, quit.

While HD televisions are rolling out of the big-box stores, meeting the June deadline for HDTV, another technology is slowly brewing in the background that will affect how you experience entertainment and media in the near future.

Currently HDTV signals must transmit through HDMI cable.  HDMI cables will kill your wallet.  If you get one longer than three-foot you will go bankrupt.  HDMI averages about about $12.95 per foot.  Although there are cheaper cables out there, be forewarned they will degrade the signal enough that your money is essentially wasted.  There are no shortcuts to HDMI cabling.  Quality is proportional to the cost.

The growing trend is to install your DVD, BluRay, computer and receiver in an alternate location rather than next to your TV.  More flat-screen TVs are now mounted on the wall leaving the equipment looking odd sitting over on a table.  This explains the trend for longer HDMI cables.

There are diehard media fans that will not compromise quality by going wireless, so they think.  This is respectable as until you see the wireless you won’t believe the quality of the signal.  Growing up my Father told me “don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see (forgive me..I’m from Missouri).”  Rather pessimistic I guess, but when it comes to technology it is actually a good approach.  So, for you hardcore media fans go ahead and wait.

Wireless HDMI will not be cheap either, but who wants to run cable.  I sure don’t and I work in the IT industry here in St. Louis doing this stuff all the time.  Call me lazy.  As soon as a unit is released I will “roller-blade” to the nearest store to pick-up one of these wireless babies.

Sometimes you have to wonder how some companies ever made it. A good example is Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. The US government guarantees these two companies solvency at the tax payer’s expense to the tune of $200 billion dollars. So, in this deal both the tax payer and the stock owners lose. In addition to that, we have the “wing nut” banks that have mortgaged millions of homes to borrowers who couldn’t afford the mortgage in the first place.

Another fine example of “what were they thinking” is Charter Communications. This company needs a serious shake-up. Charter Communications is headed towards bankruptcy. They will file chapter 11 in due time.

Charter’s current debt load is twenty-two billion dollars and less than one billion in revenue. You would think the United States Congress was managing Charter Communications with the amount of debt it carries. The ironic part for Charter is Paul Allen is the CEO and owns 28,531,77 shares as of April 2008. Paul Allen was the cofounder of Microsoft.

Charter is headquartered in St. Louis, MO and grew from a regional cable company into the third largest cable company in the U.S. The growth represents much of the debt for the purchase of other smaller cable companies. Unfortunately, due to the bad judgment of investment the company is headed to the collectors.

The saddest part of this story is the loser. The losers are the current shareholders of the stock CHTR. After an entity files for bankruptcy the shareholders are always last in line for recovery of any (if any) cash. Charter was recently delisted from Nasdaq. Nasdaq delists stock that falls below the value of one dollar.