Here's the alternate version of this that I have found quite effective. I have a cell phone, but it remains in "manner mode" (vibrate) all the time and I never answer it...never. If the call was important, you'll leave a message, I can choose whether or not to pick up the voice mail. If it was an important call, I can choose to call back. Just because you have a cell phone doesn't mean that you have to answer it. I found I was paying upwards of $35 a month for a land line...and I rarely used it. With a cell phone, yeah, I pay a little more per month, but the phone goes where I go. I found Ameritech's service FAR more dissatisfying than the service I've received from Verizon so far (not saying much, but I did vote with my wallet).
That all being said, my point is you can have a cell phone AND have a life, you just have to live life on your terms and not the everyone else's.
So here's a question then. What would your take on Volkswagon be? They manufacture several vehicles off of the same platform to meet different needs. Most of the R&D costs are shared between models. Most of the basic mechanics of the models are all shared. A lot of the assembly is shared between models too. But they sell at different price points and are aimed at different buyers.
Heck, a lot of car companies do this. They build off a standard frame/engine package and then put a body on top that fits the need of that particular market that they are aiming for.
What's wrong with that? That's basically all Apple did. They pooled the r&d (coding), put a different body on top of it and sold it (at zero cost) to a different market.
I'm not sure where this is bad. If anything, it's good because most people would have had to purchase the more expensive version, now some of them can just get a free version that is good enough for their needs. Where's the foul?
Seems to me that Apple sells hardware because of it's great software and non-apple hardware doesn't sell because they haven't made good software for their drives. Again, I fail to see anything wrong. If a company fails to write good or *any* software for their drive, how is that Apple's fault?
I can tell you this for certain. Greenspan may use Excel for his personal finance and some neat presentation stuff. But Excel is NO WHERE near up to the task of full statistical regressions needed to do quality economics in today's world. Having been forced by a professor to use Excel for a thesis project, I can only state that if Greenspan does use Excel for his econ, he's a hell of a lot less smart than I ever thought he was.
Well, I am having difficulty following your example. But let me further elaborate on mine, maybe that will clear things up.
If you are suing and could have won $10 with court costs of $5, in a normal case you would see $5 of return.
$10 (awards) - $5 (costs) = $5 (final)
If you lose the case you are just out the $5 for your court costs.
So, in this case. Win = + $5 Lose = - $5
In the case of "loser pays" court cases, the costs are still $5 to you. We assume that the costs are $5 to your opponent for simplicity. We then assume that you could still win $10 for damages. You could win $10 and also $5 for your court costs, but you would lose $5 for your costs. For a net result of $10 gain.
However, if I am reading your example correctly, you speak of only winning $2.5 but having costs of $5. In that case, you wouldn't sue, because if you won, you would lose money. Not economically a good idea.
One thing to note, this is a "loser pays" system, not a punitive system for frivolous lawsuits. A frivolous lawsuit system would entail a lot more to it.
Hope that helps.
P.S. After rereading my post, I did find a small error, sorry if that confused things.
Actually, this is not necessarily the case. If the losing party pays both sides legal fees, it doesn't discourage lawsuits or encourage lawsuits, it just makes them more risky.
Imagine that court costs to each party are $5. If I feel that I need to be compensated $10 for an injustice, previously I would think "Hey, I'll pay $5 to win $10! But I could lose $5 and not gain $10 at all." You weigh your options and sue.
Now, you could win $10 for the suit and $5 for your fees, but you could also lose $5 for your cost and $5 for their cost. New upside is $15, more incentive to sue. New downside is a lose of $10. Less incentive to sue.
There are huge amounts of economic research on this. Check out the works of Coase. Extensive economic research in regards to law.
Anyway, end result, nothing really changes except it makes suing a more risky venture. (which one could argue rich people would undertake more often because they can afford to lose, but that opens a whole huge other economic debate)
Yeah, works for me. My entire knowledge of cars comes from the Gran Tourismo series, so what the hell do I know? Not much obviously. Wait, what the hell are we talking about here anyway? Wasnt' this a discussion about cameras at one point?
Look at the accounting reports for Ford. You'll see Jaguar (unless they were done by Anderson, then who knows). Sticker, quarterly report, etc...who cares. If you'd like I will revise my post to say Infinity if you'd like. Would that bring your planets into alignment better?
Yes, but from the point of a consumer...wait, Lexus is NOT Toyota. Toyota may own Lexus, but it isn't Toyota. If it was, it would be called Toyota. Welcome to the wonderful world of branding. Just as Jaguar is owned by Ford and we don't say "Hey, nice new Ford X-class." Although...now that I think about it, they do look a bit like Ford Tempos these days. Anyway, you get my point.
Well, you're right...no one considering a Camry would be swayed by a Lamborghini.
But Ferrari will have to drop because of Lamborghini...and Lotus will have to drop because of Ferrari...and Porsche will have to drop because of Lotus...and BMW will have to drop because of Porsche...and Lexus will drop because of BMW and Toyota will drop because of Lexus...etc
Doesn't seem like a huge leap of logic to me. But then again, I'm no car salesman.
How? I've been bothered by that for some time. I can get the clock to display the day of the week, but not the date. I know what day it is usually...well, ok, sometimes. But the date seems to eternally elude me.
What the hell? Since when did one programmer being an atheist make the whole damn OS an 'atheist-authored operating system'? And what they hell does that mean anyway? If 95% of the programmers where Catholic, does that make it a Catholic operating system? Then what if the other 5% were Satanists? And what about agnostics? They're not atheists, so what they heck do we do now?
And since when did 9-11 have anything at all to do with atheists? I thought we were all supposed to be bigoted and racist about muslims and arabs? No one sent me the memo to change my haywire beliefs. I feel left out.
I am constantly amazed at the sheer idiocy of some of the posts. Gah!
I think the point that is more important to take from this is not that vastly increasing the probability of arrest would result in a 'honest' society, but that leaving the probability constant would result in an honest society. The model does not suddenly up the enforcement rate at any given time. What occurs is enough people start committing crime that when they get caught, a large portion of the population can witness it and become 'informed' as to the fact that they will be arrested. It does not suggest that greatly increased probability of arrest will result in a 'honest' state more than a lower probability will, just that it would happen sooner.
Additionally, it does not suggest that all of the criminals are in jail, just that enough of them are in jail to make crime so rare that it extinguishes itself.
It seems that everyone caught the Matrix angle, but I missed that one.
I kept envisioning Elrond, in drag, riding on top of a big bus, drapped in a silver frock, sitting in a massive silver high heel shoe, in the middle of the dessert.
Go figure! I'm in the Middle Earth and I'm still plagued by Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert.
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Here's the alternate version of this that I have found quite effective. I have a cell phone, but it remains in "manner mode" (vibrate) all the time and I never answer it...never. If the call was important, you'll leave a message, I can choose whether or not to pick up the voice mail. If it was an important call, I can choose to call back. Just because you have a cell phone doesn't mean that you have to answer it. I found I was paying upwards of $35 a month for a land line...and I rarely used it. With a cell phone, yeah, I pay a little more per month, but the phone goes where I go. I found Ameritech's service FAR more dissatisfying than the service I've received from Verizon so far (not saying much, but I did vote with my wallet).
That all being said, my point is you can have a cell phone AND have a life, you just have to live life on your terms and not the everyone else's.
So here's a question then. What would your take on Volkswagon be? They manufacture several vehicles off of the same platform to meet different needs. Most of the R&D costs are shared between models. Most of the basic mechanics of the models are all shared. A lot of the assembly is shared between models too. But they sell at different price points and are aimed at different buyers.
Heck, a lot of car companies do this. They build off a standard frame/engine package and then put a body on top that fits the need of that particular market that they are aiming for.
What's wrong with that? That's basically all Apple did. They pooled the r&d (coding), put a different body on top of it and sold it (at zero cost) to a different market.
I'm not sure where this is bad. If anything, it's good because most people would have had to purchase the more expensive version, now some of them can just get a free version that is good enough for their needs. Where's the foul?
Seems to me that Apple sells hardware because of it's great software and non-apple hardware doesn't sell because they haven't made good software for their drives. Again, I fail to see anything wrong. If a company fails to write good or *any* software for their drive, how is that Apple's fault?
I can tell you this for certain. Greenspan may use Excel for his personal finance and some neat presentation stuff. But Excel is NO WHERE near up to the task of full statistical regressions needed to do quality economics in today's world. Having been forced by a professor to use Excel for a thesis project, I can only state that if Greenspan does use Excel for his econ, he's a hell of a lot less smart than I ever thought he was.
Well, I am having difficulty following your example. But let me further elaborate on mine, maybe that will clear things up.
If you are suing and could have won $10 with court costs of $5, in a normal case you would see $5 of return.
$10 (awards) - $5 (costs) = $5 (final)
If you lose the case you are just out the $5 for your court costs.
So, in this case.
Win = + $5
Lose = - $5
In the case of "loser pays" court cases, the costs are still $5 to you. We assume that the costs are $5 to your opponent for simplicity. We then assume that you could still win $10 for damages. You could win $10 and also $5 for your court costs, but you would lose $5 for your costs. For a net result of $10 gain.
$10 (award) - $5 (court costs) + $5 (loser reimbursement) = $10 (end)
Now if you lose, you will be out $5 for court costs and out $5 for their court cost.
- $5 (court costs) - $5 (reimbursing winner) = - $10 (end)
So in loser pays:
win = $10
lose = - $10
However, if I am reading your example correctly, you speak of only winning $2.5 but having costs of $5. In that case, you wouldn't sue, because if you won, you would lose money. Not economically a good idea.
One thing to note, this is a "loser pays" system, not a punitive system for frivolous lawsuits. A frivolous lawsuit system would entail a lot more to it.
Hope that helps.
P.S. After rereading my post, I did find a small error, sorry if that confused things.
Actually, this is not necessarily the case. If the losing party pays both sides legal fees, it doesn't discourage lawsuits or encourage lawsuits, it just makes them more risky.
Imagine that court costs to each party are $5. If I feel that I need to be compensated $10 for an injustice, previously I would think "Hey, I'll pay $5 to win $10! But I could lose $5 and not gain $10 at all." You weigh your options and sue.
Now, you could win $10 for the suit and $5 for your fees, but you could also lose $5 for your cost and $5 for their cost. New upside is $15, more incentive to sue. New downside is a lose of $10. Less incentive to sue.
There are huge amounts of economic research on this. Check out the works of Coase. Extensive economic research in regards to law.
Anyway, end result, nothing really changes except it makes suing a more risky venture. (which one could argue rich people would undertake more often because they can afford to lose, but that opens a whole huge other economic debate)
Yeah, works for me. My entire knowledge of cars comes from the Gran Tourismo series, so what the hell do I know? Not much obviously. Wait, what the hell are we talking about here anyway? Wasnt' this a discussion about cameras at one point?
Look at the accounting reports for Ford. You'll see Jaguar (unless they were done by Anderson, then who knows). Sticker, quarterly report, etc...who cares. If you'd like I will revise my post to say Infinity if you'd like. Would that bring your planets into alignment better?
Yes, but from the point of a consumer...wait, Lexus is NOT Toyota. Toyota may own Lexus, but it isn't Toyota. If it was, it would be called Toyota. Welcome to the wonderful world of branding. Just as Jaguar is owned by Ford and we don't say "Hey, nice new Ford X-class." Although...now that I think about it, they do look a bit like Ford Tempos these days. Anyway, you get my point.
Well, you're right...no one considering a Camry would be swayed by a Lamborghini.
But Ferrari will have to drop because of Lamborghini...and Lotus will have to drop because of Ferrari...and Porsche will have to drop because of Lotus...and BMW will have to drop because of Porsche...and Lexus will drop because of BMW and Toyota will drop because of Lexus...etc
Doesn't seem like a huge leap of logic to me. But then again, I'm no car salesman.
How? I've been bothered by that for some time. I can get the clock to display the day of the week, but not the date. I know what day it is usually...well, ok, sometimes. But the date seems to eternally elude me.
What the hell? Since when did one programmer being an atheist make the whole damn OS an 'atheist-authored operating system'? And what they hell does that mean anyway? If 95% of the programmers where Catholic, does that make it a Catholic operating system? Then what if the other 5% were Satanists? And what about agnostics? They're not atheists, so what they heck do we do now?
And since when did 9-11 have anything at all to do with atheists? I thought we were all supposed to be bigoted and racist about muslims and arabs? No one sent me the memo to change my haywire beliefs. I feel left out.
I am constantly amazed at the sheer idiocy of some of the posts. Gah!
I think the point that is more important to take from this is not that vastly increasing the probability of arrest would result in a 'honest' society, but that leaving the probability constant would result in an honest society. The model does not suddenly up the enforcement rate at any given time. What occurs is enough people start committing crime that when they get caught, a large portion of the population can witness it and become 'informed' as to the fact that they will be arrested. It does not suggest that greatly increased probability of arrest will result in a 'honest' state more than a lower probability will, just that it would happen sooner.
Additionally, it does not suggest that all of the criminals are in jail, just that enough of them are in jail to make crime so rare that it extinguishes itself.
"Look everybody! It's Enrico Pulatzo!"
Couldn't resist.
It seems that everyone caught the Matrix angle, but I missed that one.
I kept envisioning Elrond, in drag, riding on top of a big bus, drapped in a silver frock, sitting in a massive silver high heel shoe, in the middle of the dessert.
Go figure! I'm in the Middle Earth and I'm still plagued by Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert.