No transactions whatsoever are "even swaps of goods or services". A values what B has more than what A has and B values what A has more than what B has, no matter what it is that is exchanged.. Trade occurs because what is received is valued MORE than what is given away in exchange. Nothing is taken; no trade deficit. Nothing is forced; no trade deficit. Everything which exists in the entire world reality before the trade exists in the entire world reality after the trade; no trade deficit.
Using the terminology "trade deficit" is an absurdity. And it's an absurdity, as the many posts on this thread show, that leads massive confusion and false prognostications. It would be like calling ever hour of work a person did a 1 hour labor deficit because they traded away 1 hour of labor for something else; an absurdity. It would be like calling ever purchase every individual ever made whereby they exchange currency for another good (no matter what imaginary arbitrary borderlines are fudged) a currency deficit. That's absurd! The same amount of currency which existed before the trade exists after the trade. It would be like calling the entire division of labor structure which exists so that people specialize and trade away their excess production as causing a "trade deficit", i.e. the farmer who grows hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat incurs "trade deficits" by exchanging the most marginal of his production away. A total absurdity.
And both parties only traded in the first place because the exchange increased both of their respective profit wealth. Nations don't trade; only individuals trade. There is no difference whatsoever if the goods moved around are moved around in one artificial border "country" or moved around elsewhere. All individuals involved in all trade benefit, no matter where they are arbitrarily defined to reside.
Just because governments can't short term pretend currency is real and not monopoly money (by forcefully and coercively establishing it as "legal tender" fiat currency) does not remove the laws of economics. But it's amazing how many otherwise bright people are utterly bamboozled when they start talking about "international trade" involving different currencies.
If you don't like it, make up a better term to describe the same thing. "Net cash outflow after all trades" to describe a trade deficit or "Net cash inflow after all trades" to describe a trade surplus seem a bit unwieldy.
That's absurd also. Both sides of the exchange increase their wealth by trading away a marginal surplus of something less wanted. Cash is just as subjectively valued as any other good or service. Drop some $100 bills on the ground and observe if anyone picks them up. Leave a box of donuts next to the coffee machine and observe if anyone helps themselves to some donuts. Credit is just as subjectively valued as food. That's why identity thieves steal people's identity to steal their credit. Promises are just as subjectively valued as electronics. That's why people borrow and lend with various terms. Cash is a part of everyday trade. But it's just one element of total subjective wealth, not the entire element of subjective wealth.
The term "trade deficit" or "trade surplus" refers to the cash component of the trade: Kid A has a 10-cent trade deficit with respect to Kid B for this transaction. Kid B has a 10-cent trade surplus.
And as I've already shown, that is an economic absurdity to call something a deficit which by definition increased subjective wealth and by definition still exists in reality. Nobody trades to be worse off. People only trade because they value what the other guy has MORE than what they have. The laws of economics don't cease to exist when you introduce imaginary borders. That's as unscientific as claiming the laws of physics or mathematics change from country to country.
Again, THERE IS NO DEFICIT WHICH RESULTS FROM ANY TRADE! Let the general reader note the vehement objections such a simple demonstration incurs. That's
By "buy" you mean US currency holders will trade US currency to US citizens and US citizens will trade land to US currency holders. And that will only occur if US citizens increase their material wealth by trading their land for US currency and vice versa. If the subjective value of US dollars declines or becomes worthless in the future, US citizens won't trade anything for that US currency, no matter who holds it. So who cares if "there is nothing that all these US currency holders want to buy that the US makes"? The US makers of whatever may similarly not want to buy that US currency back. That changes nothing of the fact that both parties benefited from the trade at the time of the trade and both parties are subject to future unknown risks of changing future subjective valuations for all things which are traded.
In your scenario widgets + $100 is more valuable to person B, and Widget-drivers - $100 is more valuable to person A. Both profit from the transaction. There is no monetary "deficit", there is no wealth "deficit": the exact same things which existed before the trade exist after the trade. They merely have been transferred from one party to another party, and both parties are "ahead of the game". That's because trade generates net society wealth in absolutely every instance of transaction.
Of course, if the currency becomes worthless, or the widgets become worthless, or the widget drivers become worthless, that is a CHANGE IN SUBJECTIVE VALUATION, and has absolutely nothing to do with trade or the NONEXISTENT "trade deficit".
If Kid A trades two bananas to Kid B for 1 apple, Kid A does not incur a 1 banana "trade deficit" nor Kid B incur a 1 banana "trade surplus". The same amount of fruit exists after the trade as existed before the trade. The fruit has just been voluntarily re situated to a net societal wealth increasing voluntary distribution. Absolutely every example of trade will just be a variant of the most basic example. And it only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away.
By your logic, no one ever is on the losing end of a trade. Absolutely correct. Nobody voluntarily trades for something which makes them worse off.
Reality is full of counter examples. You're making the implicit assumption that people (or businesses) are perfectly rational actors with complete knowledge. They aren't - see the last 50 years or research in the social sciences. Nobody is omniscient, nobody has perfect knowledge. People still don't ever voluntarily trade for anything unless they are better off doing so. If they were theoretically worse off doing so, they wouldn't voluntarily trade in the first place.
Just to give you one example of how this is wrong... Material goods may depreciate at a different (faster?) rate than currency does. So if I give you cash for a car, that car will be worth at lot less in 5 years than the value I paid for it. You can't assume that somehow the use of that car balances out the difference, because the car depreciates EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT. New, better cars are on the market, and people buy those cars instead of your older model. Thus, people lose money in the trade... it happens all the time. If you borrowed to make your purchase in the first place, then you are doubly screwed. Nobody ever buys a car, trades cash or credit or whatever for a car, unless they are wealthier by doing so. You can't assume people are not more or less aware that value is not constant, and they trade in spite of the risks that future subjective valuations will change. At the time of any and all trade, however, both parties are by definition wealthier. If they weren't, they wouldn't do the trade.
And money can depreciate too, EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT. That's what non-constant subjective valuation means. All risk factors are in spite of taken into account with everyone's more or less imperfect knowledge comprehension of risks of changing future subjective valuations, AT THE MOMENT OF TRADE. And yet, you and absolutely nobody else ever voluntarily traded for anything that did not increase your wealth at that moment of exchange. You wouldn't trade for food, you wouldn't eat food rather than keep it in storage, unless it by definition made you better off at the moment you did the action.
No, it does matter what the goods traded for are, even if one of those goods are promises, IOUs, paper, "book money", "currency", or all the other "material" goods (they are all valued SUBJECTIVELY), nobody will trade one thing for another thing, unless by definition they are better off wealthier for doing so. If that wasn't necessarily true, why would you accept "money", or "paychecks" for you labor services? No exchange ever occurs unless it is voluntary. No voluntary exchange occurs (no matter what is it exchanged), unless that which is received is valued more than that which is given away, EVEN IF one of those things is that which you call "paper".
but what I actually meant was that you are trading a material good for something with no inherent value Absolutely nothing has inherent objective value. Everything is extrinsically valued by human actors. This is a founding principle of the modern science of economics. What you speak of is what perplexed the ancient Greeks, who couldn't figure out why a diamond could be worth more than a glass of water.
Nobody is forcing the other party to accept "something with no inherent value" (a false contradiction, by definition). It is voluntarily accepted in exchange. It wouldn't be voluntarily accepted exchange unless the person accepting it was by definition wealthier by accepting it for whatever good he gives away.
And your promise of future exchange? If you fail to keep that promise, then what? Then the subjective value of that promise changes to a lower value than it had in the past (present tense) at the time the trade occurred. That's why free market institutions such as credit ratings agencies, down payments, collateral, clearing houses, etc. evolved, because promises have risk, and are not constantly valued the same, just as nothing is constantly valued the same.
Claiming that trade is always possible by waving around some stale economic pseudoscience doesn't make it true. You can spend all day arguing about things like comparative advantage, but if Country A's best product is polished turds nobody wants, they're going to have to learn to make something else. No, no TRADE, will ever occur unless *by definition* both person A and person B increase their wealth at the time good A is exchanged for good B. It doesn't matter what good A or good B are. Absolutely everything is extrinsically subjectively valued, and is never constant. What's subjectively valued as "gold" one minute can be subjectively valued as "polished turds nobody wants" the next minute. Trade only occurs when each parties values the other party's good more than their own, no matter what the goods are. Trade will never ever occur otherwise.
Capitalizing random words does not magically make the shortcomings of your economic model disappear (namely, where the hell are you going to find a rational person on this planet?) Just trying to emphasize indisputable full set possibility PROOF. There is no other existing possibility. And absolutely every person acts with imperfect knowledge. Nobody is omniscient.
Trade only occurs because that which is received is valued MORE than that which is given away in exchange. Any other possible explanation would be a nonsensical absurdity. QED. There's no "economic" model involved in this. This is strict epistemological elucidation.
Here's a question, if you get a cheap $25 dvd player, are you actually wealthier? Of course you are wealthier! If buying a $25 dvd player didn't make you wealthier, you wouldn't off traded $25 for the dvd player, you would have been better off keeping your $25. By definition you are better off with the dvd player, otherwise you wouldn't have voluntarily exchanged the $25 for it.
You may have obtained an object that you might be able to get $5 for at a pawn shop, but what's the opportunity cost of having $25 cash vs. having a DVD player? Subjective value is subjective and non-constant for every person. Trade only occurs precisely because people subjectively value things DIFFERENTLY.
No, there's no such thing as a trade deficit, EVER! They are not a problem because they don't exist, EVER! They aren't symptoms either, because they don't exist, EVER! If there was any negative "deficit" which could theoretically result from trade at the time of trade, people would not *voluntarily* trade thing A for thing B, EVER! Trade always and only voluntarily occurs, and it only occurs because both sides increase their wealth by trading, ALWAYS!
By definition of trade, something is given away and something is received in exchange. There is no deficit whatsoever that occurs from any single instance of trade, even if that trade involves promises to repay at a future time. Also, trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. Thus, both parties *profit* from every instance of trade, at the moment of trade. That's the only reason trade occurs.
Talk of "trade deficits" is political manipulation designed to bamboozle the uninformed. Anyone who believes "deficits" result from trade is as gullible as the Emperor's New Clothes.
All things are extrinsically subjectively valued. Nothing is intrinsically objectively valued. 'Tis why the ancient Greeks couldn't figure out why a diamond could be worth more than a glass of water. All claims of prediction algorithms will just be various derivatives of the false Marxist labor theory of value.
All action only occurs for the purpose of going from a state of greater dissatisfaction to a state of lesser dissatisfaction. People only act because they are in a state of dissatisfaction.
Subjective value is never constant. Only the most valuable actions are done at the time of action, by definition of the opportunity cost of other actions which could have been chosen being forsaken.
As subjective value is never constant for the same things by everyone or even within the same person through time, prediction is as impossible to determine as future subjective valuations. They can only be observed in present tense. QED. Nobel Prize in Economics #24. Rack it.
No mathematical formula imaginable can predict, let alone accurately depict even in past tense analysis, any numerical degree to which profit occurs from any action, or to which numerical extent the most profitable action which by definition is always chosen (given limited imperfect knowledge, which is always the case) is profitable over the next most profitable action which would have been chosen but is forsaken in present tense action.
Therefore, 'tis proved the DARPA patent application is bogus and the claim false.
Mainstream economics has wasted a century on game theory and mathematical formulas. But it's funny to watch other scientific branches adopt shaky (read: unproved and false) "principles" into their fields without checking the methodological evolution of the ideas and "formulas". Modern economics only began in the 1860s with marginal utility.
I'm also dubious of the widespread adoption of statistics methodology in a whole host of academic fields. Statistics does not establish the validity of statistics. Statistics is derived from proved mathematical principles. But none the less we have legions of library basements filled with mostly garbage plug in data into plays for sure statistical academic "research". I suppose every welfare distribution program needs day workers to dig ditches and night workers to fill in the ditches, because by definition redistributing wealth violently away from voluntarily chosen trade by definition results in a net less wealthy society in absolutely every instance (since by definition it is philosophically proved that trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange). And academia is about as corrupted as the legal profession with the massive financial "assistance" (read: plunder) they are beholden to from government redistribution coffers. Better for them to justify their fat growing 6-7 figure administration and professor salaries by throwing as much junk "research" as possible for as little effort as possible. Work less, make more, is not just a Union motto, it's a principle of economic efficiency, even for the various forms of Mafioso organizations.
At any rate, guessing is not prediction, even if it is couched in phony statistical anyalysis guess intervals. It may be a better form of guessing than pure randomization, but its still guessing, and not prediction.
Subjective valuation prices only arise from voluntary trade and only send signals for more of this, less of that. That's why socialism and communism by definition fail; precisely because they prohibit and inhibit voluntary trade which sends pricing signals.
Perhaps DARPA should delve into the USSR archives for failed examples of prediction and production algorithms. It would be a much more fruitful endeavor.
For fuck's sake, does anyone on Slashdot look at a dictionary? From M-W, censor (verb):
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable And that's an everyday normal occurrence by everyone. By definition everything which you do not choose to see or do or hear at the time you choose something else to see or do or hear is censored. When you choose one person to marry, you censor all other persons you could have married in your marriage. And nobody is suppressed in voluntary censorship. Just like if you change the cable news channel from Fox News to CNN you are censoring Fox News and vice versa. If you voluntarily bleep out bad words on your own copies of purchased music it's censored, but nobody is suppressed. So that dictionary definition is FALSE. Suppression only occurs when you violently force someone to do something they don't want to do or you violently prevent them from doing something they want to do.
And voting to tax the rich at a higher tax rate is absolutely no different a form of censorship than voting to impose mandatory Christian school prayer is absolutely no different a form of censorship than voting a Decency Czar with total power to delete all "bad" things from content. It is actually the Progressive victory paths which have paved the way for a reverse stacking of the SC to uniformly impose decrees which new groups can find objectionable. But don't forget when you vote to raise your neighbor's property taxes you have CENSORED (and by using democratic violence at that) his use of his funds, have prohibited, have stolen, what would have voluntarily been chosen. If you have no objection to that type of taxation occurrence, then you have no ethical, moral, or philosophical basis upon which to object to somebody censoring all "bad" content you possess, even against your will.
I can't believe that people see the legal right to choose as being somehow oppressive just because it's not the choice that they would have made. This is a big reason for the general erosion of freedom which was brought by the political "left" side of the aisle. They don't want the government spying on your phones calls and tracking your emails but they want the government to collect your personal financial information and deduct from your paycheck. They don't want the government banning products but they want the government to redistribute wealth.
They've been "confused" for a long time, and it's good to see so many pointing out the hypocrisy. You voluntarily "censor" who and whom you associate with, whether it's a corporation, a spouse, or friends. The only time "bad" censorship can occur is when violence is used to prohibit consensual transactions and behavior. Consent is a two way street, not a one way street. And it is the height of all ironies that those who would decry Walmart choosing to sell clean versions of lyrics are the first ones in lines with pitchforks to share your paycheck. You don't have the right to enter someone's house and repeat the F word in their ear all day long if they don't want to let you enter their house and repeat the F word in their ear all day long.
And really, stop hypocritically censoring people by voting for excessive taxation for government programs that violently force other to "contribute", even if they are a minority who doesn't agree with the majority. It's actually a worse form of censorship than if religious zealots broke into your house and bleeped out "bad" words on your music.
Contracts do not have to be witnessed -- their existence can be proved circumstantially. Heck, people don't even need to meet: I could put a sign in my yard that says "$20 to the first person who cuts my grass" and, when somebody started cutting, there would be a contract. And, a fairly easy one to prove. "We estimate by mowing your lawn we cut 3,000,000 blades of grass and are billing you for $60 million. Failure to remit payment will result in you spending hundreds of thousands in legal fees, so we are prepared to settle for a limited time for the paltry sum of $50,000. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and please, enjoy your exquisitely manicured lawn. Signed, MOWIAA Lawn Care Services"
That's exactly right, and that fact of more relatively free market competition is pulling society toward an elimination of pretend IP. It's a real world case of literal Emperor's Clothes. Artificial value is pretended to exist by violently causing scarcity, by prohibiting people from transforming their own material property to copy the different material property of others. Violence also upholds a coming calamitous collapse of world-wide pretend "monopoly money" fiat currencies. Ideas and methods are not scarce. Pretending they are through massively inefficient IP laws is nothing less than a pure Emperor's Clothes bubble which will pop sooner or later. And it's already started, as pop music songs are valued far less than ever before. The reality is ideas are not scarce property which only a limited number of persons can inhabit. Pretending like they are though IP laws is a complete waste of resources by fools.
No no, that's exactly it. And apparently Random House thinks it's fine for them to bind pages together in this thing called a "book", even though they didn't invent this thing called a "book". They just copied the form of this thing called a "book" for no other reason than they felt it would profit themselves to copy the form of this thing called a "book".
But clearly, copyrights violate the property use of other people's property. Making laws against any form of copying will always be hypocritically absurd. That's the point. There isn't anyone alive that does not copy. You can only violently attempt to prohibit people from copying. Therefore, any laws prohibiting copying are null and void violations of the right to life and the pursuit of happiness. And they also inhibit the advancement of science and the arts.
Coupons are in this case inefficient discriminatory pricing mechanisms. Who invented the coupon and what for? Why not just lower the price across the board for everyone, or keep the price uniformly the same? Discriminatory pricing only enables (by the action of the issuer) middleman arbitrage profit opportunities.
It's also illegal to use a copying machine if you're using it to duplicate $20 bills. Not if you're specific individuals who work for the US government Federal Reserve or Department of the Treasury it isn't. They can print as many as they want, and frequently do so, to pay their bills and buy stuff, and force them to be accepted as "legal tender" payment as well.
What's the benefit of a watermark-free song? Privacy. People seem to value privacy. It won't be too long before the major search engines start competing against each other and against future competitors on quality, one of the aspects of quality being privacy. This can also be regarded as general security. Encryption is security is privacy.
People get angry, negatively value, when their personal information is sold to third party advertisers and telemarketers.
Being principled when it's easy means little. Being princpled when it takes sacrifice is the only measure of ethics. Not so. Society exists because by definition people benefit from voluntary consensual trade. This is not "sacrifice", but mutual profit. Those who produce "copyrighted" works, produce those copyrighted works by copying others. And everyone benefits. Nobody can produce more new original content than they receive in return, just by the sheer volume of the number of people who have spent lifetimes producing content.
Even if you were to mean the hypocritical artists and the hypocritical scientists need to sacrifice from shortsightedly tying their bogus chains of intellectual property to the freedom of others to also freely copy, it will still not accurately reflect the reality that those artists and scientists are copying others. And those artists and scientists are themselves net poorer than they otherwise would be without copyright. It's just that all the derivative works which could have and would have been produced, have violently been prevented from being produced. And they are still even in a lower material wealth state better off because they copy (whether because artificial time copyright periods have expired or arbitrary restrictions on employing ideas don't exist), just as you are better off when you copy, whether it's learning how to read and write, employing medicinal remedies discovered by others to cure your ailments, or copying some music you heard. And you wouldn't even be copying some music you heard if those artists themselves also didn't copy some other music they heard.
There's no sacrifice to principled ethics. That's shortsighted. Principled ethics exist, evolve, because they increase material wealth prosperity and survive, while those principles or non-principles which cause poverty, die out in strict Darwinian evolutionary fashion. Sacrifice is death. Easy mutually beneficial profit is life.
I'll simply adopt the viewpoint that you get involved with cretins like the RIAA at your own risk and by so doing I'll have no qualms stealing from you. Nor should you have any qualms because "artists" are themselves "stealing" musical tools they didn't invent or create to build musical compositions they then claim copyright on. If they didn't "steal" those tools by going to schools like Juliard to learn by copying (or on their own), they would never have even become musicians in the first place. That's the dirty little secret. In order to even become musicians, those musicians must "download" musical tools into their brains and muscle memory. They accomplish this by copying and practicing previously existing ideas. And they sure as hell ain't writing any checks or deducting their paypal accounts to do so either.
You'd be a fool to pay anyone for polluting the airwaves with sound waves. But if you really want to support an artist you can pay them by buying a ticket to a private property venue performance, or voluntarily donate to them personally. Otherwise you might as well be encouraging aggressive bioengineered crops to wipe out naturally existing food crops whilst those corporations can then extort 3rd world farmers to pay them for growing food strains on lands which bioengineered seeds aggressed upon. And of course pharmaceutical company scientists "steal" scientific methods as well when they went to school to learn by copying the methods and ideas of others. Yup, there is never a time where copying does not by definition increase net societal material wealth and increase the rate of technological and artistic advancement. Universities charge 6 figures to teach you how to copy. That's why it's called education, and not some new unknown shit.
That's what the music industry does today, flood the airwaves with their product (and even payola for that pollution too) and attempt to extort you for using your ears or other faculties by which you may shape your own person and property. Any artists who are signed with RIAA labels, or even any artists which even claim copyright, are complicit parasites, who are stealing from you, stealing your ability, stealing your right, to copy, whilst they themselves have only made their creations through copying others. Starving all of them into getting real jobs and learning non-violent cooperative respect would only benefit peaceful cooperative society. And by exposing yourself to more musical ideas by copying whatever you feel like copying whenever you feel like copying it, will only make you a better musical connoisseur, better than if you were arbitrarily limited by fake violently imposed economic cost means of paying to hear sound waves which freely inhabit the earth.
Salute the brave uploaders who liberate content. Salute those who grease the anonymous facilitations of cultural exchange. Salute the cheapening technological and economic costs of transmitting all the content ever created for cheaper and faster. And fuck the RIAA.:P
The problem is why should UK taxpayers pay for people in other countries to have free media that they didn't pay for? And why should the BBC get to copy and copyright content they didn't create or pay for either? Please make sure they "bleep" out every use of a public domain language word on their copyrighted broadcasts, or remove any and all claims of copyright for every segment employing public domain language. Yes, it should play exactly like "this is an actually emergency of the emergency broadcast system. This is not a test. If this was only a test, you would hear and see information on your screen. Bllleeeeeeeepppp...... Bleep, bleep, bleeep." Please also in the future send any "cease and desist" legal requests in proprietary owned and understood language so as not to be hypocritical. Remove the video as well, as it is merely copying previously existing naturally endowed technology of sight. Thank you for your cooperation, and have a nice day.
Uh no. There always is the information imperfectly spread as it is, no matter what "system" there is or is not. Nothing comes close to the free flow of information and market prices then free market transactions. Prices only occur when voluntary trade occurs. Nobody voluntarily trades unless that which they receive is valued more than that which they give away in exchange, given all imperfect information and risks. There's no enforcement problem with trade whatsoever, because it only occurs voluntarily. There's only a problem with violent theft.
Legal and economic scholars wrongly emphasized enforcement of contracts rather than emphasize non-interference with trade.
Even promises to trade at a future times (contracts) have always had associated risks. This is why free market institutions to hedge credit risks evolved: credit ratings, margin, down payments, clearing houses, insurance, etc.) That's because changing one's mind in the future is not necessarily theft. If it was, divorce would be illegal. There's a free market balance which evolves. It's why people usually aren't paid a year in advance for work for the coming year, nor are they paid at the end of a year's work. It's also why people can be fired, and people can quit, without any "theft" contract violation.
Rape, for example, is good for promoting natural selection, And highlighting fundamental philosophical errors of the previous near generations, if it was naturally selected it wouldn't be rape, there wouldn't be any resistance. It would be voluntary willing sought after consensual sex. But let everyone take note of the monstrous errors made by those of various socialist ideologies. So submit your papers to the feminist journals on how all rape is really voluntary sex, asking for it behavior. Call it "Univeral Healthcare", like every single other violent theft world-wide has a friendly nazified redistributive obfuscation. That's P, with a 'W'-'N'.
Your analysis is good. What can they do to "cover these gaping holes"? Spend a few dollars and conduct an actual investigation? Naaaahhhhhh... And don't forget to include that in the negative wasted effort red ink section of net societal value. Irrefutably, that's money, time, and effort spent on legal shenanigans that could have instead been invested in developing new music. Defining copying as "piracy" has costs, enormous violent costs which dwarf the costs of voluntary creative work.
You seem to, for example, completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for their artistic works.
You seem to completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for anything they do whatsoever, whether it's creating an artistic work, or taking a dump. Art my friend, may I introduce Piero Manzoni from 1960s Italy:
They would be forced to pay for their music production out of their own pocket (since there would be no corporate interest), and to take the time out of their free time, which is rather limited for those earning good enough money to sustain a music career on the side.
Just like everybody who posts to this site is "forced" (false dichotomy, as by definition it is always voluntary), to "pay" out of their own time, out of their own opportunity cost, as they could have done something else than what they did at the time they did that. Yet people still talk. How do you explain that? Blah blah blah good enough money and musical careers are above and beyond fundamental choice, and the luxury free time provided by the excess wealth of society, above and beyond nutrition, to allow the division of labor support of "art".
This makes for a large financial hurdle that will discourage the creation of copyrighted works
Total *unproved* B.S. statement sneaked into the middle of a paragraph. But of course, if copyright is banned, the incentive to produce copyrighted works, won't just be a hurdle, but a Greek mythological impassible barrier. But people still talk, even though they can't "copyright" their talk. *Why*?
But even if artist could be magically paid from a free sharing model, could you guarantee that if an artist had unlimited access to all art known to man, they would still feel the need to create their own artwork?
Guarantee? I don't bandy a word like that about, unless I can irrefutably prove it so. And if a linguist had access to all words and combinations of words, would they not talk? Ahahaha, all "art", all "science" is by definition designed to "talk".
Would the passion and the purpose for creating such art be lost between the multitudes of similar artworks?
Well since there is no new artwork which has not ripped off elemental ideas of old artwork, the correct answer is, NO. Meaning of undefined unestablished concepts is amorphous. For true "artists", it never was about the "money", in a net social valuing sense, but always about the "money" on a better off personal level. It was and always will be, literally, the thought that counted.
Again, you've confused me. What free trade are you talking about? Surely you aren't referring to the trade between artist and consumers, because in your model, the artist trades their music for nothing economic
They choose to be artists rather than ditch diggers. It doesn't get any more *economic* than that. Just as everyone chooses to speak rather than remain silent. I am serious. And stop calling me surely.
Perhaps you refer to the trade of ideas? Then you are applying economic principles to something that has nothing to do with economics, which would explain why your theories don't seem to apply in practise.
If you mean there is no colloquial scarcity in the sense that everyone breathes air for free, then absolutely. That's the point. There is no choice of trade in regard to ideas. If you don't COPY, you don't play music, you *aren't* a musician. Fuck theories. I prove everything in simple black and white. Exhibit A: Knowledge, in so far as it exists, is absolutely known. Anyone who says otherwise, necessarily declares all that which they say is meaningless gibberish to be ignored. Q.E.D.
Action, choices, human movement, has everything to do with economics, no matter what the subtext, business plans or making m
He's right that the market does not value mp3s at more than $0.25, because the market price will be the price where supply and demand maximize revenues. And that's probably somewhere in the $0.10 - $0.25 range. At $0.99 1,000,000 people may demand the product for a $990,000 clearing revenue. At $0.25, 100,000,000 may demand the product for a $25,000,000 clearing revenue. At at $14.99 for the CD + filler songs 10,000 people may demand the product for a $149,900 clearing revenue. It's just too bad if in the old days 1,000,000 people demanded the product at $13.99 for a clearing revenue of $13,900,000, and that demand has now vaporized.
It's simple supply and demand. The supply of music constantly increases by every new song and never disappears and competes with the supply of every previously existing song which also never disappears. The market now values 320 DRM-free quality in the $0.10 - $0.25 range. Cost doesn't matter if people don't value the product at or above the cost. And there's more and more content created all the time that is not music which competes with music for the content entertainment dollar.
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Using the terminology "trade deficit" is an absurdity. And it's an absurdity, as the many posts on this thread show, that leads massive confusion and false prognostications. It would be like calling ever hour of work a person did a 1 hour labor deficit because they traded away 1 hour of labor for something else; an absurdity. It would be like calling ever purchase every individual ever made whereby they exchange currency for another good (no matter what imaginary arbitrary borderlines are fudged) a currency deficit. That's absurd! The same amount of currency which existed before the trade exists after the trade. It would be like calling the entire division of labor structure which exists so that people specialize and trade away their excess production as causing a "trade deficit", i.e. the farmer who grows hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat incurs "trade deficits" by exchanging the most marginal of his production away. A total absurdity.
And both parties only traded in the first place because the exchange increased both of their respective profit wealth. Nations don't trade; only individuals trade. There is no difference whatsoever if the goods moved around are moved around in one artificial border "country" or moved around elsewhere. All individuals involved in all trade benefit, no matter where they are arbitrarily defined to reside.
Just because governments can't short term pretend currency is real and not monopoly money (by forcefully and coercively establishing it as "legal tender" fiat currency) does not remove the laws of economics. But it's amazing how many otherwise bright people are utterly bamboozled when they start talking about "international trade" involving different currencies.
If you don't like it, make up a better term to describe the same thing. "Net cash outflow after all trades" to describe a trade deficit or "Net cash inflow after all trades" to describe a trade surplus seem a bit unwieldy.
That's absurd also. Both sides of the exchange increase their wealth by trading away a marginal surplus of something less wanted. Cash is just as subjectively valued as any other good or service. Drop some $100 bills on the ground and observe if anyone picks them up. Leave a box of donuts next to the coffee machine and observe if anyone helps themselves to some donuts. Credit is just as subjectively valued as food. That's why identity thieves steal people's identity to steal their credit. Promises are just as subjectively valued as electronics. That's why people borrow and lend with various terms. Cash is a part of everyday trade. But it's just one element of total subjective wealth, not the entire element of subjective wealth.
The term "trade deficit" or "trade surplus" refers to the cash component of the trade: Kid A has a 10-cent trade deficit with respect to Kid B for this transaction. Kid B has a 10-cent trade surplus.
And as I've already shown, that is an economic absurdity to call something a deficit which by definition increased subjective wealth and by definition still exists in reality. Nobody trades to be worse off. People only trade because they value what the other guy has MORE than what they have. The laws of economics don't cease to exist when you introduce imaginary borders. That's as unscientific as claiming the laws of physics or mathematics change from country to country.
Again, THERE IS NO DEFICIT WHICH RESULTS FROM ANY TRADE! Let the general reader note the vehement objections such a simple demonstration incurs. That's
By "buy" you mean US currency holders will trade US currency to US citizens and US citizens will trade land to US currency holders. And that will only occur if US citizens increase their material wealth by trading their land for US currency and vice versa. If the subjective value of US dollars declines or becomes worthless in the future, US citizens won't trade anything for that US currency, no matter who holds it. So who cares if "there is nothing that all these US currency holders want to buy that the US makes"? The US makers of whatever may similarly not want to buy that US currency back. That changes nothing of the fact that both parties benefited from the trade at the time of the trade and both parties are subject to future unknown risks of changing future subjective valuations for all things which are traded.
In your scenario widgets + $100 is more valuable to person B, and Widget-drivers - $100 is more valuable to person A. Both profit from the transaction. There is no monetary "deficit", there is no wealth "deficit": the exact same things which existed before the trade exist after the trade. They merely have been transferred from one party to another party, and both parties are "ahead of the game". That's because trade generates net society wealth in absolutely every instance of transaction.
Of course, if the currency becomes worthless, or the widgets become worthless, or the widget drivers become worthless, that is a CHANGE IN SUBJECTIVE VALUATION, and has absolutely nothing to do with trade or the NONEXISTENT "trade deficit".
If Kid A trades two bananas to Kid B for 1 apple, Kid A does not incur a 1 banana "trade deficit" nor Kid B incur a 1 banana "trade surplus". The same amount of fruit exists after the trade as existed before the trade. The fruit has just been voluntarily re situated to a net societal wealth increasing voluntary distribution. Absolutely every example of trade will just be a variant of the most basic example. And it only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away.
And money can depreciate too, EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT. That's what non-constant subjective valuation means. All risk factors are in spite of taken into account with everyone's more or less imperfect knowledge comprehension of risks of changing future subjective valuations, AT THE MOMENT OF TRADE. And yet, you and absolutely nobody else ever voluntarily traded for anything that did not increase your wealth at that moment of exchange. You wouldn't trade for food, you wouldn't eat food rather than keep it in storage, unless it by definition made you better off at the moment you did the action.
Nobody is forcing the other party to accept "something with no inherent value" (a false contradiction, by definition). It is voluntarily accepted in exchange. It wouldn't be voluntarily accepted exchange unless the person accepting it was by definition wealthier by accepting it for whatever good he gives away.
Trade only occurs because that which is received is valued MORE than that which is given away in exchange. Any other possible explanation would be a nonsensical absurdity. QED. There's no "economic" model involved in this. This is strict epistemological elucidation. Here's a question, if you get a cheap $25 dvd player, are you actually wealthier? Of course you are wealthier! If buying a $25 dvd player didn't make you wealthier, you wouldn't off traded $25 for the dvd player, you would have been better off keeping your $25. By definition you are better off with the dvd player, otherwise you wouldn't have voluntarily exchanged the $25 for it. You may have obtained an object that you might be able to get $5 for at a pawn shop, but what's the opportunity cost of having $25 cash vs. having a DVD player? Subjective value is subjective and non-constant for every person. Trade only occurs precisely because people subjectively value things DIFFERENTLY.
No, there's no such thing as a trade deficit, EVER! They are not a problem because they don't exist, EVER! They aren't symptoms either, because they don't exist, EVER! If there was any negative "deficit" which could theoretically result from trade at the time of trade, people would not *voluntarily* trade thing A for thing B, EVER! Trade always and only voluntarily occurs, and it only occurs because both sides increase their wealth by trading, ALWAYS!
By definition of trade, something is given away and something is received in exchange. There is no deficit whatsoever that occurs from any single instance of trade, even if that trade involves promises to repay at a future time. Also, trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. Thus, both parties *profit* from every instance of trade, at the moment of trade. That's the only reason trade occurs.
Talk of "trade deficits" is political manipulation designed to bamboozle the uninformed. Anyone who believes "deficits" result from trade is as gullible as the Emperor's New Clothes.
All things are extrinsically subjectively valued. Nothing is intrinsically objectively valued. 'Tis why the ancient Greeks couldn't figure out why a diamond could be worth more than a glass of water. All claims of prediction algorithms will just be various derivatives of the false Marxist labor theory of value.
All action only occurs for the purpose of going from a state of greater dissatisfaction to a state of lesser dissatisfaction. People only act because they are in a state of dissatisfaction.
Subjective value is never constant. Only the most valuable actions are done at the time of action, by definition of the opportunity cost of other actions which could have been chosen being forsaken.
As subjective value is never constant for the same things by everyone or even within the same person through time, prediction is as impossible to determine as future subjective valuations. They can only be observed in present tense. QED. Nobel Prize in Economics #24. Rack it.
No mathematical formula imaginable can predict, let alone accurately depict even in past tense analysis, any numerical degree to which profit occurs from any action, or to which numerical extent the most profitable action which by definition is always chosen (given limited imperfect knowledge, which is always the case) is profitable over the next most profitable action which would have been chosen but is forsaken in present tense action.
Therefore, 'tis proved the DARPA patent application is bogus and the claim false.
Mainstream economics has wasted a century on game theory and mathematical formulas. But it's funny to watch other scientific branches adopt shaky (read: unproved and false) "principles" into their fields without checking the methodological evolution of the ideas and "formulas". Modern economics only began in the 1860s with marginal utility.
I'm also dubious of the widespread adoption of statistics methodology in a whole host of academic fields. Statistics does not establish the validity of statistics. Statistics is derived from proved mathematical principles. But none the less we have legions of library basements filled with mostly garbage plug in data into plays for sure statistical academic "research". I suppose every welfare distribution program needs day workers to dig ditches and night workers to fill in the ditches, because by definition redistributing wealth violently away from voluntarily chosen trade by definition results in a net less wealthy society in absolutely every instance (since by definition it is philosophically proved that trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange). And academia is about as corrupted as the legal profession with the massive financial "assistance" (read: plunder) they are beholden to from government redistribution coffers. Better for them to justify their fat growing 6-7 figure administration and professor salaries by throwing as much junk "research" as possible for as little effort as possible. Work less, make more, is not just a Union motto, it's a principle of economic efficiency, even for the various forms of Mafioso organizations.
At any rate, guessing is not prediction, even if it is couched in phony statistical anyalysis guess intervals. It may be a better form of guessing than pure randomization, but its still guessing, and not prediction.
Subjective valuation prices only arise from voluntary trade and only send signals for more of this, less of that. That's why socialism and communism by definition fail; precisely because they prohibit and inhibit voluntary trade which sends pricing signals.
Perhaps DARPA should delve into the USSR archives for failed examples of prediction and production algorithms. It would be a much more fruitful endeavor.
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable And that's an everyday normal occurrence by everyone. By definition everything which you do not choose to see or do or hear at the time you choose something else to see or do or hear is censored. When you choose one person to marry, you censor all other persons you could have married in your marriage. And nobody is suppressed in voluntary censorship. Just like if you change the cable news channel from Fox News to CNN you are censoring Fox News and vice versa. If you voluntarily bleep out bad words on your own copies of purchased music it's censored, but nobody is suppressed. So that dictionary definition is FALSE. Suppression only occurs when you violently force someone to do something they don't want to do or you violently prevent them from doing something they want to do.
And voting to tax the rich at a higher tax rate is absolutely no different a form of censorship than voting to impose mandatory Christian school prayer is absolutely no different a form of censorship than voting a Decency Czar with total power to delete all "bad" things from content. It is actually the Progressive victory paths which have paved the way for a reverse stacking of the SC to uniformly impose decrees which new groups can find objectionable. But don't forget when you vote to raise your neighbor's property taxes you have CENSORED (and by using democratic violence at that) his use of his funds, have prohibited, have stolen, what would have voluntarily been chosen. If you have no objection to that type of taxation occurrence, then you have no ethical, moral, or philosophical basis upon which to object to somebody censoring all "bad" content you possess, even against your will.
They've been "confused" for a long time, and it's good to see so many pointing out the hypocrisy. You voluntarily "censor" who and whom you associate with, whether it's a corporation, a spouse, or friends. The only time "bad" censorship can occur is when violence is used to prohibit consensual transactions and behavior. Consent is a two way street, not a one way street. And it is the height of all ironies that those who would decry Walmart choosing to sell clean versions of lyrics are the first ones in lines with pitchforks to share your paycheck. You don't have the right to enter someone's house and repeat the F word in their ear all day long if they don't want to let you enter their house and repeat the F word in their ear all day long.
And really, stop hypocritically censoring people by voting for excessive taxation for government programs that violently force other to "contribute", even if they are a minority who doesn't agree with the majority. It's actually a worse form of censorship than if religious zealots broke into your house and bleeped out "bad" words on your music.
That's exactly right, and that fact of more relatively free market competition is pulling society toward an elimination of pretend IP. It's a real world case of literal Emperor's Clothes. Artificial value is pretended to exist by violently causing scarcity, by prohibiting people from transforming their own material property to copy the different material property of others. Violence also upholds a coming calamitous collapse of world-wide pretend "monopoly money" fiat currencies. Ideas and methods are not scarce. Pretending they are through massively inefficient IP laws is nothing less than a pure Emperor's Clothes bubble which will pop sooner or later. And it's already started, as pop music songs are valued far less than ever before. The reality is ideas are not scarce property which only a limited number of persons can inhabit. Pretending like they are though IP laws is a complete waste of resources by fools.
No no, that's exactly it. And apparently Random House thinks it's fine for them to bind pages together in this thing called a "book", even though they didn't invent this thing called a "book". They just copied the form of this thing called a "book" for no other reason than they felt it would profit themselves to copy the form of this thing called a "book".
But clearly, copyrights violate the property use of other people's property. Making laws against any form of copying will always be hypocritically absurd. That's the point. There isn't anyone alive that does not copy. You can only violently attempt to prohibit people from copying. Therefore, any laws prohibiting copying are null and void violations of the right to life and the pursuit of happiness. And they also inhibit the advancement of science and the arts.
Coupons are in this case inefficient discriminatory pricing mechanisms. Who invented the coupon and what for? Why not just lower the price across the board for everyone, or keep the price uniformly the same? Discriminatory pricing only enables (by the action of the issuer) middleman arbitrage profit opportunities.
People get angry, negatively value, when their personal information is sold to third party advertisers and telemarketers.
Even if you were to mean the hypocritical artists and the hypocritical scientists need to sacrifice from shortsightedly tying their bogus chains of intellectual property to the freedom of others to also freely copy, it will still not accurately reflect the reality that those artists and scientists are copying others. And those artists and scientists are themselves net poorer than they otherwise would be without copyright. It's just that all the derivative works which could have and would have been produced, have violently been prevented from being produced. And they are still even in a lower material wealth state better off because they copy (whether because artificial time copyright periods have expired or arbitrary restrictions on employing ideas don't exist), just as you are better off when you copy, whether it's learning how to read and write, employing medicinal remedies discovered by others to cure your ailments, or copying some music you heard. And you wouldn't even be copying some music you heard if those artists themselves also didn't copy some other music they heard.
There's no sacrifice to principled ethics. That's shortsighted. Principled ethics exist, evolve, because they increase material wealth prosperity and survive, while those principles or non-principles which cause poverty, die out in strict Darwinian evolutionary fashion. Sacrifice is death. Easy mutually beneficial profit is life.
You'd be a fool to pay anyone for polluting the airwaves with sound waves. But if you really want to support an artist you can pay them by buying a ticket to a private property venue performance, or voluntarily donate to them personally. Otherwise you might as well be encouraging aggressive bioengineered crops to wipe out naturally existing food crops whilst those corporations can then extort 3rd world farmers to pay them for growing food strains on lands which bioengineered seeds aggressed upon. And of course pharmaceutical company scientists "steal" scientific methods as well when they went to school to learn by copying the methods and ideas of others. Yup, there is never a time where copying does not by definition increase net societal material wealth and increase the rate of technological and artistic advancement. Universities charge 6 figures to teach you how to copy. That's why it's called education, and not some new unknown shit.
That's what the music industry does today, flood the airwaves with their product (and even payola for that pollution too) and attempt to extort you for using your ears or other faculties by which you may shape your own person and property. Any artists who are signed with RIAA labels, or even any artists which even claim copyright, are complicit parasites, who are stealing from you, stealing your ability, stealing your right, to copy, whilst they themselves have only made their creations through copying others. Starving all of them into getting real jobs and learning non-violent cooperative respect would only benefit peaceful cooperative society. And by exposing yourself to more musical ideas by copying whatever you feel like copying whenever you feel like copying it, will only make you a better musical connoisseur, better than if you were arbitrarily limited by fake violently imposed economic cost means of paying to hear sound waves which freely inhabit the earth.
Salute the brave uploaders who liberate content. Salute those who grease the anonymous facilitations of cultural exchange. Salute the cheapening technological and economic costs of transmitting all the content ever created for cheaper and faster. And fuck the RIAA.
Uh no. There always is the information imperfectly spread as it is, no matter what "system" there is or is not. Nothing comes close to the free flow of information and market prices then free market transactions. Prices only occur when voluntary trade occurs. Nobody voluntarily trades unless that which they receive is valued more than that which they give away in exchange, given all imperfect information and risks. There's no enforcement problem with trade whatsoever, because it only occurs voluntarily. There's only a problem with violent theft.
Legal and economic scholars wrongly emphasized enforcement of contracts rather than emphasize non-interference with trade.
Even promises to trade at a future times (contracts) have always had associated risks. This is why free market institutions to hedge credit risks evolved: credit ratings, margin, down payments, clearing houses, insurance, etc.) That's because changing one's mind in the future is not necessarily theft. If it was, divorce would be illegal. There's a free market balance which evolves. It's why people usually aren't paid a year in advance for work for the coming year, nor are they paid at the end of a year's work. It's also why people can be fired, and people can quit, without any "theft" contract violation.
You seem to, for example, completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for their artistic works.
You seem to completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for anything they do whatsoever, whether it's creating an artistic work, or taking a dump. Art my friend, may I introduce Piero Manzoni from 1960s Italy:
/art.html
http://www.poopreport.com/Intellectual/Content/Art
They would be forced to pay for their music production out of their own pocket (since there would be no corporate interest), and to take the time out of their free time, which is rather limited for those earning good enough money to sustain a music career on the side.
Just like everybody who posts to this site is "forced" (false dichotomy, as by definition it is always voluntary), to "pay" out of their own time, out of their own opportunity cost, as they could have done something else than what they did at the time they did that. Yet people still talk. How do you explain that? Blah blah blah good enough money and musical careers are above and beyond fundamental choice, and the luxury free time provided by the excess wealth of society, above and beyond nutrition, to allow the division of labor support of "art".
This makes for a large financial hurdle that will discourage the creation of copyrighted works
Total *unproved* B.S. statement sneaked into the middle of a paragraph. But of course, if copyright is banned, the incentive to produce copyrighted works, won't just be a hurdle, but a Greek mythological impassible barrier. But people still talk, even though they can't "copyright" their talk. *Why*?
But even if artist could be magically paid from a free sharing model, could you guarantee that if an artist had unlimited access to all art known to man, they would still feel the need to create their own artwork?
Guarantee? I don't bandy a word like that about, unless I can irrefutably prove it so. And if a linguist had access to all words and combinations of words, would they not talk? Ahahaha, all "art", all "science" is by definition designed to "talk".
Would the passion and the purpose for creating such art be lost between the multitudes of similar artworks?
Well since there is no new artwork which has not ripped off elemental ideas of old artwork, the correct answer is, NO. Meaning of undefined unestablished concepts is amorphous. For true "artists", it never was about the "money", in a net social valuing sense, but always about the "money" on a better off personal level. It was and always will be, literally, the thought that counted.
Again, you've confused me. What free trade are you talking about? Surely you aren't referring to the trade between artist and consumers, because in your model, the artist trades their music for nothing economic
They choose to be artists rather than ditch diggers. It doesn't get any more *economic* than that. Just as everyone chooses to speak rather than remain silent. I am serious. And stop calling me surely.
Perhaps you refer to the trade of ideas? Then you are applying economic principles to something that has nothing to do with economics, which would explain why your theories don't seem to apply in practise.
If you mean there is no colloquial scarcity in the sense that everyone breathes air for free, then absolutely. That's the point. There is no choice of trade in regard to ideas. If you don't COPY, you don't play music, you *aren't* a musician. Fuck theories. I prove everything in simple black and white. Exhibit A: Knowledge, in so far as it exists, is absolutely known. Anyone who says otherwise, necessarily declares all that which they say is meaningless gibberish to be ignored. Q.E.D.
Action, choices, human movement, has everything to do with economics, no matter what the subtext, business plans or making m
Your Post. Take 2. Marker.
He's right that the market does not value mp3s at more than $0.25, because the market price will be the price where supply and demand maximize revenues. And that's probably somewhere in the $0.10 - $0.25 range. At $0.99 1,000,000 people may demand the product for a $990,000 clearing revenue. At $0.25, 100,000,000 may demand the product for a $25,000,000 clearing revenue. At at $14.99 for the CD + filler songs 10,000 people may demand the product for a $149,900 clearing revenue. It's just too bad if in the old days 1,000,000 people demanded the product at $13.99 for a clearing revenue of $13,900,000, and that demand has now vaporized.
It's simple supply and demand. The supply of music constantly increases by every new song and never disappears and competes with the supply of every previously existing song which also never disappears. The market now values 320 DRM-free quality in the $0.10 - $0.25 range. Cost doesn't matter if people don't value the product at or above the cost. And there's more and more content created all the time that is not music which competes with music for the content entertainment dollar.