I didn't like how the humans were arbitrarially bad, but I can understand that it can happen, and has happened.
This meant that almost all the way through the movie I felt sympathetic towards the smurfs...... until colonel bad ass jumped in the mech suit and fucking stabbed that giant cat like thing! HOW FUCKING AWESOME WAS THAT! I JUST SAT THERE THINKING "HUMANS... FUCK YEAH"!
I'd like to see a spin off of this movie, where colonel bad ass goes around doing awesome things, like stabbing giant cat things with a mech suit.
"It is clear from this Figure that known uranium resources have increased threefold since 1975, in line with expenditure on uranium exploration. (The decrease in the decade 1983-93 is due to some countries tightening their criteria for reporting. If this were carried back two decades, the lines would fit even more closely.) Increased exploration expenditure in the future is likely to result in a corresponding increase in known resources."
"Widespread use of the fast breeder reactor could increase the utilisation of uranium 50-fold or more. This type of reactor can be started up on plutonium derived from conventional reactors and operated in closed circuit with its reprocessing plant. Such a reactor, supplied with natural or depleted uranium for its "fertile blanket", can be operated so that each tonne of ore yields 60 times more energy than in a conventional reactor."
I think, most people, but especially the nerd crowd, have way too high a locus of control and perhaps too little an understanding of personality and psychology.
The amount of parents who I have known in IT or similar engineering fields, who attempted to control/engineer their childs future which ended in disaster is staggering. When you attempt to control and force your children into doing something, they don't want to do, over time, you're likely to see them act out more.
These people need to become a lot more zen, and realize there is no good or bad (within reasonable limits), and that they actually have little control. Instead by exercising less control, they are more likely to attain the results they were hoping to achieve in the first place.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't guide, just that it should not be with a heavy hand, and instead perhaps you should let them guide you.
Just looking for someone who has any idea on what the state of adoption of IPv6 is at?
Is there anyway for me to tell if my ISP and similar has adopted it?
Are there gateways which translate IPv6 to IPv4, so users can adopt ONLY IPv6 while maintaining backwards compatibility at the ISP level?
One impediment to adoption is that, even nerds like me, who are interested in it, but aren't die hard fans, don't know much about it. The best thing I see from it, is having an address space that is public and under my control. Looking forward to that!
I can see how you've applied that logic, but it's not a tragedy of the commons. Since these properties are private, and any adverts which are placed have the consent of both parties, and each attempts to price the benefit/loss from this exchange.
You might be considering yourself to have a stake in the website, and as such are seeing it as a common good, but it isn't.
As such we can't model the problem as a situation where people can't be excluded from using it (nonexcludable) and one persons usage of it reduces anothers (rival), which is what we would need to assume to model it as a common good. Instead, we know that it is excludable (roughly) and non-rival, which is just a private good with economies of scale (a natural monopoly).
In which case, the customers of this site will decide to take it or leave it, and the site will have to decide on how much advertising to supply, knowing it may reduce the quality of their site.
As such we can see this is not a tragedy of the commons situation.
There are also more women in HR, Payroll and Marketing. These are female dominated areas of business. There's a 50/50 split (roughly) in accounting and similar.
I don't know why people have this unrealistic view of equality meaning "everybody is equally distributed amongst everything", whether it's wealth, skill, or employment.
It's completely unrealistic and when they attempt to achieve these goals through policies (communism, no child left behind, equal opportunity laws, respectively), they fail dismally.
Don't worry about when or how it will change, since it doesn't matter if it doesn't. Sure, it means we MIGHT subjectively operate sub-optimally however, we needn't worry about that, and any attempt to change that would likely have us directing our energy at something which won't benefit us much and may cost us heaps.
So instead, be content with the fact that you're right. Use this information to exploit opportunities, build a network of people who understand this, and use this network to further your thought and progress.
This is what I find I have done instinctively.
Overall, nothing really matters, so do what you want.
This is the problem with relativistic and economic policy thinking, you inevitably find yourself dealing with matters of philosophy.
Hooray, we go forward in one direction and backwards in another direction.
Today it was announced that the report on mandatory web filtering was a success, and so the government will be going ahead with the implementation of the Great Firewall of China.
The problem comes in regulating the monopoly. What pricing rule will you maintain? A marginal cost pricing rule? An average cost pricing rule? Or perhaps a rule based on the prices of other markets? Each of these methods is fraught with problems, many of which will far outweigh the benefits in the long run.
Your experiences sound bad, but don't erroneously attribute it to privatization, the question of service quality in the energy market is much more complex than, is it private or public. I for instance live where electricity is supplied by a government monopoly, I have daily micro blackouts (enough to reset a computer), so I have UPS's to smooth out those, I have monthly long black outs (black outs which last for approximately 2 hours or so) and I get rolling black outs in summer due to a lack of power supply.
Most of the problems economists find with monopolies is due to the regulation which allows them to maintain their monopoly status. While natural monopolies do occur, they generally aren't as bad as the regulated monopolies government creates. This is because they are subjected to entry pressure from others that would capitalize if the company doesn't supply a high enough quality.
For instance, I live in an urban region where the government water company and sewage company does not supply services to certain roads. Instead they use other systems, such as better septic tanks, septic pump & transportation vehicles and water trucks which deliver these services for a relatively small cost. Though some of these services use infrastructure provided by the public companies, others don't. They seek whatever the best method is for the situation.
We don't need regulation. If we want to create a public company, we can via other methods, such as a non-profit company. Regulation on stifles innovation, cost reduction and competition, which hurts us by imposing hidden costs in the short run, and direct costs in the long run.
Since you know "basic economics" it's a worry that you've assumed that these economic actors are entirely rational and that their subjective demand schedule consists of only "revenue" and has no intangible component. This means that people who invest in these sorts of investments can do so, at a accounting loss (but economic profit or at least normal profit), and still be happy.
I'm pretty sure they teach that in intro micro.
But the rest of your modeling is sound, and you're right, we don't have to worry that without copyright acting will die. It won't, because of those intangibles and because it is valuable.
If you're going to make this argument, please use words precisely. What you mean when you say ""buy" is actually "donate"" you're wrong. There is a transaction of one good for another. This is buying or selling.
Especially when you consider that most of these generate their income through up selling or similar. For a reference, please refer to the various business model's used by everyone who has offered their music for free. There is always something more.
"This isn't necessarily a bad model - as you point out, it has worked before. But it resulted in a stifling and uninnovative musical environment" please cite your source for this. Also please consider that the world has not been as prosperous as it is today, and as such could not support a "musical environment" as much as we can today.
"If a child ever says, "when I grow up I'm going to be a musician", we need to tell them - no you're not. Being a musician is a hobby that you do in your spare time.", you don't hang around with many musicians do you? Well my parents are in bands, their friends are, their friends friends, and so on. All in all, I know far too many musicians, from writers, to performers, to producers and managers. They perform original works to covers. Even 20-30 years ago, "Being a musician is a hobby that you do in your spare time". This hasn't changed. Although some of the musicians I know have seen varying success, every single one performs in a 'pay to play' way. They spend more money, than they make, yet they keep on performing for 10s of years. Every one of them has a real job and their fun job. Just like programmers who program for no money, but for the fun of creation.
Why do they keep performing? Because of the intangibles, they benefit from making and performing. They love it. Regardless of the money.
"For instance, if that child says "oh well. in that case I want to make video games!" - same thing. No you're not. You will get a job where you are paid per hour of your labor like the rest of the world." seriously it's like you don't know anyone in the industries you're talking about. I attempted to get into this industry, starting from a young age, making simple games, to eventually using other peoples engines, and I've several friends who had varying success, though. This is the current state of the industry. However, we keep making games. Why? Because we love to!
"Ditto for movies, books.... who knows what else in future." this is a joke.
I think you are only exposed to the 1 in a million who make it. You don't seem to realize that, people are not only driven by economic incentives. There is more to people than that, and we're not purely rational. These works will be produced, especially if we have the comfort we do these days, which allows us to spend this time.
I do concur that we should be consistent and wipe out any copyright (and yes I know the repercussions, I'm an economist these days). These are positive consumption externalities, and they are great, because we can reach the quantity produced at the intersection of Marginal Private Cost and Marginal Social Benefit through price discrimination, without imposing any extra costs on the producer. It's a marvelous thing that we should embrace, as it only makes our economies more efficient and more prosperous.
And that is why I think you don't know the topic you're talking about.
You've brought up some of the common arguments for licensing, however you've missed quite a lot in your argument. Given this is an economics topic you're talking about, you need to analyze the situation using it, else you're just ignoring a large body of study on the very topic you're talking about.
What you're talking about here are positive externalities. You believe that these organizations benefit from the works of the artists, yet they do not have to pay for the production of these works. This means they benefit from the surplus generated by the artists, yet bare none of the cost. That's fine, however you're missing an understanding of the larger market and the complexities in pricing an externality.
Given you opt for regulation, the regulator essentially becomes a monopoly which has control over the distribution of these works. This means the regulator can set the price of the externality and the quantity supplied, which drives up the cost for these businesses. Since the regulator does not operate in a market (there might be some faux market, such as buying credits or similar, I'm unsure in this instance), it has no competition, nor does it have the price mechanism to discover the price of this good. This results in the regulator arbitrarily setting the price, given people don't break the law (most would), then we would see less of these works being distributed, and a higher price being paid. This means the regulator would be able to apply downward pressure on the price paid to it's clients, and take a larger amount of the surplus.
I'm going to leave it there, since it's a much larger topic and ridiculously more complex than I've put it. Especially since there is a market for regulation and it would require us to take into account rent seeking, which includes lobbying. However, we can see that this organization would be granted an extreme amount of control on the music industry, where it could (and would) be able to maximize its own revenue at the sake of the businesses which consume the benefit and the businesses which produce it.
Lets look at it from the other side. You've said songwriters aren't a particularly wealthy lot and you're right. Yet they exist, why is that? Well, song writing has a large amount of intangible benefits, from being associated with it, to sharing your creative works, etc. This means that although it may cost you, you'll still do it, because it still provides benefit to you. Additionally, it can take you $0 to write a song and very little to make it. As distribution, production and marketing costs continue to plummet, we're likely to see less and less money made by these artists, as they assume barley any risk and have a large intangible up side. I hang around a fair few musicians and song writers, most of whom do not make money from it, despite the fact that they are always performing. They call this "Pay to play", where you essentially do it for the fun, excitement and similar.
In a regulated market like this, the businesses which consume the benefit (supermarkets, radio stations, etc) have imposed on them large costs, and the businesses which produce the benefit (musicians, songwriters, etc) receive small benefits from it (due to the downward pressure from the monopolist). This means if businesses which consume the benefit want to stay in business, they need to find revenue streams which are more profitable, as no matter what, they have these costs imposed on them. In this case businesses who produce this benefit and are confident in their ability to generate returns, have an incentive to offset these costs. This means they spend on advertising through the organization, perhaps pay them to play the song, or similar. This means that only larger organizations which are willing to take on the risk that they won't receive enough returns to offset this cost, are the ones who get played the most. Additionally, since we know that these artists aren't "a particularly wealthy lot", we know that these people are going to seek financing to get their music made. Thi
I doubt this is a hoax. This happens quite a lot in Australia, but it doesn't usually get quite so much publicity, and it usually happens to night clubs, pubs, private halls, radio stations and similar.
The regulatory body over here which primarially deals with this is called the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), basically if you want to perform a copy righted work, you need to obtain licensing.
For instance I work for a small organization which uses some of it's land for small private concerts, of a maximum of 20 people, generally playing classical works, though occasionally other stuff. Under Australian law we had to obtain licensing through APRA for us to be able to hold these private events.
A friend of the family used to work for them and although they believed in what they were doing (They saw it as standing up for the rights of the artists against profiteering companies), they did have stories on how some businesses couldn't/wouldn't pay the licensing fees, so they monitored the events closely and pursed legal action. Though in most cases the businesses just give up. Though they did have stories of how they omnipotently gave the licensing, regardless of the businesses right to pay, for the good of the people. Both of which made me sick.
Anyhow, I took this person to task on the topic one night and suffice to say we're not family friends with them anymore.
I believe that although it is secured by the borrowers commitment to pay, this does not constitute being secured, as there is no second entity providing the security.
For instance, if a borrower could secure his own loan by promising to pay it, and promising that their income will be adequate, then every loan would be considered secured.
When their is an asset or an organization which is underwriting the loan, then the security is separate from the original and implied agreement to repay the loan.
Now, a student loan is secured by an income stream, you're correct, however since this is no more secure than the original promise to repay, then it would be treated no different. Given that, we can see that the interest rate, would have this "security" implied in it, and would reflect the risk the lender is assuming. Though it would deviate somewhat, as this is a market and so the cost of this capital would be found through the pricing mechanism. In which case the interest rate could be above or below the risk of the market, though the equilibrium should tend towards it.
Anyhow, the answer is not to distort the market further, if it is an imperative, I'd suggest removing entry barriers, decreasing their taxation and regulatory requirements, perhaps securitize these loans and market them on the intangible benefits of providing education to the future generations while making a return.
There are many ways to achieve this and most of which require less intervention, not more.
Either way, it's a far more complex topic than it has generally been summarized on this story. Not something which someone can think about for 5 seconds and come up with a better answer than the people spend their lives doing this.
Also, what did he study, and how well did he do at it?
I've just graduated with a lot of people, everyone I know who did a valuable subject (Something in commerce, Engineering, IT, or similar) has obtained a job straight out of Uni, even in this economy. Sure it was maybe a little more competitive, but if you've got a solid degree, and aren't beneath working in lower positions, or for less money, there's always work.
Though most of my friends have done well, and some have done awesomely (Damn Petroleum Engineers!).
You want an unsecured loan to have the same interest rate as a secured asset?
You want the country to take on more loans which might be riskier than they are priced at.
I know it's not as bad as housing loans being underwritten by the government, but it's similar. We need to get out of this ideology of removing risk for one party of a transaction for "the good of the people" when we are uncertain and can not accurately price those gains (the gains in this case are the externalities associated with having an educated population).
If the education is valuable, the person will be able to gain the returns required to invest this money. If they aren't, then it isn't.
Wow, I was ready to write this off as retarded, but it has an absurd amount of merit and I am thoroughly impressed.
I definitely see a lot of this happening in the work place, and it makes a lot of fucking sense. This definitely requires more research and thought, I know it will take a while for these ideas to sink in, before I have a better grasp of it. I am not sure yet exactly how this understanding can be exploited, as it seems to be more of a free market (or as it says Darwainism) approach to the organizational environment. I would be interested to see an analysis using this framework on how organizations with aggressive cultures with high burn out rates, are instinctively using this principle to cut out the clueless and possibly the over performing losers. Not that I am abdicating that such aggressive cultures are right for all organizations.
Under this classification, I'd be an under performing loser cum sociopath.
My background: Dip. Programming BEcon & BFin MBA CFA
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't like how the humans were arbitrarially bad, but I can understand that it can happen, and has happened.
This meant that almost all the way through the movie I felt sympathetic towards the smurfs... ... until colonel bad ass jumped in the mech suit and fucking stabbed that giant cat like thing! HOW FUCKING AWESOME WAS THAT! I JUST SAT THERE THINKING "HUMANS... FUCK YEAH"!
I'd like to see a spin off of this movie, where colonel bad ass goes around doing awesome things, like stabbing giant cat things with a mech suit.
Read more, type less.
Thank you, the first sensible response yet.
I think, most people, but especially the nerd crowd, have way too high a locus of control and perhaps too little an understanding of personality and psychology.
The amount of parents who I have known in IT or similar engineering fields, who attempted to control/engineer their childs future which ended in disaster is staggering. When you attempt to control and force your children into doing something, they don't want to do, over time, you're likely to see them act out more.
These people need to become a lot more zen, and realize there is no good or bad (within reasonable limits), and that they actually have little control. Instead by exercising less control, they are more likely to attain the results they were hoping to achieve in the first place.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't guide, just that it should not be with a heavy hand, and instead perhaps you should let them guide you.
Also, in Australia, we didn't think it was possible, but they sure showed us.
Hew Raymond Griffiths
Just looking for someone who has any idea on what the state of adoption of IPv6 is at?
Is there anyway for me to tell if my ISP and similar has adopted it?
Are there gateways which translate IPv6 to IPv4, so users can adopt ONLY IPv6 while maintaining backwards compatibility at the ISP level?
One impediment to adoption is that, even nerds like me, who are interested in it, but aren't die hard fans, don't know much about it. The best thing I see from it, is having an address space that is public and under my control. Looking forward to that!
I can see how you've applied that logic, but it's not a tragedy of the commons. Since these properties are private, and any adverts which are placed have the consent of both parties, and each attempts to price the benefit/loss from this exchange.
You might be considering yourself to have a stake in the website, and as such are seeing it as a common good, but it isn't.
As such we can't model the problem as a situation where people can't be excluded from using it (nonexcludable) and one persons usage of it reduces anothers (rival), which is what we would need to assume to model it as a common good. Instead, we know that it is excludable (roughly) and non-rival, which is just a private good with economies of scale (a natural monopoly).
In which case, the customers of this site will decide to take it or leave it, and the site will have to decide on how much advertising to supply, knowing it may reduce the quality of their site.
As such we can see this is not a tragedy of the commons situation.
There are also more women in HR, Payroll and Marketing. These are female dominated areas of business. There's a 50/50 split (roughly) in accounting and similar.
I don't know why people have this unrealistic view of equality meaning "everybody is equally distributed amongst everything", whether it's wealth, skill, or employment.
It's completely unrealistic and when they attempt to achieve these goals through policies (communism, no child left behind, equal opportunity laws, respectively), they fail dismally.
Don't worry about when or how it will change, since it doesn't matter if it doesn't. Sure, it means we MIGHT subjectively operate sub-optimally however, we needn't worry about that, and any attempt to change that would likely have us directing our energy at something which won't benefit us much and may cost us heaps.
So instead, be content with the fact that you're right. Use this information to exploit opportunities, build a network of people who understand this, and use this network to further your thought and progress.
This is what I find I have done instinctively.
Overall, nothing really matters, so do what you want.
This is the problem with relativistic and economic policy thinking, you inevitably find yourself dealing with matters of philosophy.
Can it play Crysis with a high frame rate on maximum?
So Slashdotters went from living in their parents basement to underwater? FUCKING AWESOME!
For $50 I'll build you one that goes to 12.
Yeah, I hope it's something like that, is that would definitely be the lesser of two evils.
You work on a helpdesk?
Hooray, we go forward in one direction and backwards in another direction.
Today it was announced that the report on mandatory web filtering was a success, and so the government will be going ahead with the implementation of the Great Firewall of China.
http://whirlpool.net.au/news/?id=1852
You're right that it can, however it can also have hidden effects and cause other problems.
More so it creates a rationalization for the regulation of other drugs, since the same logic is used in regulating the original drug.
This eventually leads to the creation of the FDA, DEA and similar.
Regulation, or more so the rationalization behind it, is a slippery slope.
The problem comes in regulating the monopoly. What pricing rule will you maintain? A marginal cost pricing rule? An average cost pricing rule? Or perhaps a rule based on the prices of other markets? Each of these methods is fraught with problems, many of which will far outweigh the benefits in the long run.
Your experiences sound bad, but don't erroneously attribute it to privatization, the question of service quality in the energy market is much more complex than, is it private or public. I for instance live where electricity is supplied by a government monopoly, I have daily micro blackouts (enough to reset a computer), so I have UPS's to smooth out those, I have monthly long black outs (black outs which last for approximately 2 hours or so) and I get rolling black outs in summer due to a lack of power supply.
Most of the problems economists find with monopolies is due to the regulation which allows them to maintain their monopoly status. While natural monopolies do occur, they generally aren't as bad as the regulated monopolies government creates. This is because they are subjected to entry pressure from others that would capitalize if the company doesn't supply a high enough quality.
For instance, I live in an urban region where the government water company and sewage company does not supply services to certain roads. Instead they use other systems, such as better septic tanks, septic pump & transportation vehicles and water trucks which deliver these services for a relatively small cost. Though some of these services use infrastructure provided by the public companies, others don't. They seek whatever the best method is for the situation.
We don't need regulation. If we want to create a public company, we can via other methods, such as a non-profit company. Regulation on stifles innovation, cost reduction and competition, which hurts us by imposing hidden costs in the short run, and direct costs in the long run.
That's because Hollywood produces inferior goods. A double entendre if ever I've heard one.
Since you know "basic economics" it's a worry that you've assumed that these economic actors are entirely rational and that their subjective demand schedule consists of only "revenue" and has no intangible component. This means that people who invest in these sorts of investments can do so, at a accounting loss (but economic profit or at least normal profit), and still be happy.
I'm pretty sure they teach that in intro micro.
But the rest of your modeling is sound, and you're right, we don't have to worry that without copyright acting will die. It won't, because of those intangibles and because it is valuable.
If you're going to make this argument, please use words precisely. What you mean when you say ""buy" is actually "donate"" you're wrong. There is a transaction of one good for another. This is buying or selling.
Especially when you consider that most of these generate their income through up selling or similar. For a reference, please refer to the various business model's used by everyone who has offered their music for free. There is always something more.
"This isn't necessarily a bad model - as you point out, it has worked before. But it resulted in a stifling and uninnovative musical environment" please cite your source for this. Also please consider that the world has not been as prosperous as it is today, and as such could not support a "musical environment" as much as we can today.
"If a child ever says, "when I grow up I'm going to be a musician", we need to tell them - no you're not. Being a musician is a hobby that you do in your spare time.", you don't hang around with many musicians do you? Well my parents are in bands, their friends are, their friends friends, and so on. All in all, I know far too many musicians, from writers, to performers, to producers and managers. They perform original works to covers. Even 20-30 years ago, "Being a musician is a hobby that you do in your spare time". This hasn't changed. Although some of the musicians I know have seen varying success, every single one performs in a 'pay to play' way. They spend more money, than they make, yet they keep on performing for 10s of years. Every one of them has a real job and their fun job. Just like programmers who program for no money, but for the fun of creation.
Why do they keep performing? Because of the intangibles, they benefit from making and performing. They love it. Regardless of the money.
"For instance, if that child says "oh well. in that case I want to make video games!" - same thing. No you're not. You will get a job where you are paid per hour of your labor like the rest of the world." seriously it's like you don't know anyone in the industries you're talking about. I attempted to get into this industry, starting from a young age, making simple games, to eventually using other peoples engines, and I've several friends who had varying success, though. This is the current state of the industry. However, we keep making games. Why? Because we love to!
"Ditto for movies, books .... who knows what else in future." this is a joke.
I think you are only exposed to the 1 in a million who make it. You don't seem to realize that, people are not only driven by economic incentives. There is more to people than that, and we're not purely rational. These works will be produced, especially if we have the comfort we do these days, which allows us to spend this time.
I do concur that we should be consistent and wipe out any copyright (and yes I know the repercussions, I'm an economist these days). These are positive consumption externalities, and they are great, because we can reach the quantity produced at the intersection of Marginal Private Cost and Marginal Social Benefit through price discrimination, without imposing any extra costs on the producer. It's a marvelous thing that we should embrace, as it only makes our economies more efficient and more prosperous.
And that is why I think you don't know the topic you're talking about.
You've brought up some of the common arguments for licensing, however you've missed quite a lot in your argument. Given this is an economics topic you're talking about, you need to analyze the situation using it, else you're just ignoring a large body of study on the very topic you're talking about.
What you're talking about here are positive externalities. You believe that these organizations benefit from the works of the artists, yet they do not have to pay for the production of these works. This means they benefit from the surplus generated by the artists, yet bare none of the cost. That's fine, however you're missing an understanding of the larger market and the complexities in pricing an externality.
Given you opt for regulation, the regulator essentially becomes a monopoly which has control over the distribution of these works. This means the regulator can set the price of the externality and the quantity supplied, which drives up the cost for these businesses. Since the regulator does not operate in a market (there might be some faux market, such as buying credits or similar, I'm unsure in this instance), it has no competition, nor does it have the price mechanism to discover the price of this good. This results in the regulator arbitrarily setting the price, given people don't break the law (most would), then we would see less of these works being distributed, and a higher price being paid. This means the regulator would be able to apply downward pressure on the price paid to it's clients, and take a larger amount of the surplus.
I'm going to leave it there, since it's a much larger topic and ridiculously more complex than I've put it. Especially since there is a market for regulation and it would require us to take into account rent seeking, which includes lobbying. However, we can see that this organization would be granted an extreme amount of control on the music industry, where it could (and would) be able to maximize its own revenue at the sake of the businesses which consume the benefit and the businesses which produce it.
Lets look at it from the other side. You've said songwriters aren't a particularly wealthy lot and you're right. Yet they exist, why is that? Well, song writing has a large amount of intangible benefits, from being associated with it, to sharing your creative works, etc. This means that although it may cost you, you'll still do it, because it still provides benefit to you. Additionally, it can take you $0 to write a song and very little to make it. As distribution, production and marketing costs continue to plummet, we're likely to see less and less money made by these artists, as they assume barley any risk and have a large intangible up side. I hang around a fair few musicians and song writers, most of whom do not make money from it, despite the fact that they are always performing. They call this "Pay to play", where you essentially do it for the fun, excitement and similar.
In a regulated market like this, the businesses which consume the benefit (supermarkets, radio stations, etc) have imposed on them large costs, and the businesses which produce the benefit (musicians, songwriters, etc) receive small benefits from it (due to the downward pressure from the monopolist). This means if businesses which consume the benefit want to stay in business, they need to find revenue streams which are more profitable, as no matter what, they have these costs imposed on them. In this case businesses who produce this benefit and are confident in their ability to generate returns, have an incentive to offset these costs. This means they spend on advertising through the organization, perhaps pay them to play the song, or similar. This means that only larger organizations which are willing to take on the risk that they won't receive enough returns to offset this cost, are the ones who get played the most. Additionally, since we know that these artists aren't "a particularly wealthy lot", we know that these people are going to seek financing to get their music made. Thi
I doubt this is a hoax. This happens quite a lot in Australia, but it doesn't usually get quite so much publicity, and it usually happens to night clubs, pubs, private halls, radio stations and similar.
The regulatory body over here which primarially deals with this is called the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), basically if you want to perform a copy righted work, you need to obtain licensing.
For instance I work for a small organization which uses some of it's land for small private concerts, of a maximum of 20 people, generally playing classical works, though occasionally other stuff. Under Australian law we had to obtain licensing through APRA for us to be able to hold these private events.
A friend of the family used to work for them and although they believed in what they were doing (They saw it as standing up for the rights of the artists against profiteering companies), they did have stories on how some businesses couldn't/wouldn't pay the licensing fees, so they monitored the events closely and pursed legal action. Though in most cases the businesses just give up. Though they did have stories of how they omnipotently gave the licensing, regardless of the businesses right to pay, for the good of the people. Both of which made me sick.
Anyhow, I took this person to task on the topic one night and suffice to say we're not family friends with them anymore.
I think it's for the best.
I believe that although it is secured by the borrowers commitment to pay, this does not constitute being secured, as there is no second entity providing the security.
For instance, if a borrower could secure his own loan by promising to pay it, and promising that their income will be adequate, then every loan would be considered secured.
When their is an asset or an organization which is underwriting the loan, then the security is separate from the original and implied agreement to repay the loan.
Now, a student loan is secured by an income stream, you're correct, however since this is no more secure than the original promise to repay, then it would be treated no different. Given that, we can see that the interest rate, would have this "security" implied in it, and would reflect the risk the lender is assuming. Though it would deviate somewhat, as this is a market and so the cost of this capital would be found through the pricing mechanism. In which case the interest rate could be above or below the risk of the market, though the equilibrium should tend towards it.
Anyhow, the answer is not to distort the market further, if it is an imperative, I'd suggest removing entry barriers, decreasing their taxation and regulatory requirements, perhaps securitize these loans and market them on the intangible benefits of providing education to the future generations while making a return.
There are many ways to achieve this and most of which require less intervention, not more.
Either way, it's a far more complex topic than it has generally been summarized on this story. Not something which someone can think about for 5 seconds and come up with a better answer than the people spend their lives doing this.
Also, what did he study, and how well did he do at it?
I've just graduated with a lot of people, everyone I know who did a valuable subject (Something in commerce, Engineering, IT, or similar) has obtained a job straight out of Uni, even in this economy. Sure it was maybe a little more competitive, but if you've got a solid degree, and aren't beneath working in lower positions, or for less money, there's always work.
Though most of my friends have done well, and some have done awesomely (Damn Petroleum Engineers!).
And to everyone saying it isn't unsecured debt needs to actually look into the definition of unsecured debt.
If there is no mechanism for the lender to be compensated in the eventuality of the borrower defaulting, the loan is unsecured.
In this instance the lender can not be paid if the borrower can not pay, ergo is unemployed, dead, overseas (uncertain about this one), or similar.
If the loans are underwritten by the government, this means the government will pay in the event of a default. Is this correct?
If so, the rate reflects the governments rate which it will pay out, and other fees that might not be recovered, in the event of a default.
You want an unsecured loan to have the same interest rate as a secured asset?
You want the country to take on more loans which might be riskier than they are priced at.
I know it's not as bad as housing loans being underwritten by the government, but it's similar. We need to get out of this ideology of removing risk for one party of a transaction for "the good of the people" when we are uncertain and can not accurately price those gains (the gains in this case are the externalities associated with having an educated population).
If the education is valuable, the person will be able to gain the returns required to invest this money. If they aren't, then it isn't.
Wow, I was ready to write this off as retarded, but it has an absurd amount of merit and I am thoroughly impressed.
I definitely see a lot of this happening in the work place, and it makes a lot of fucking sense. This definitely requires more research and thought, I know it will take a while for these ideas to sink in, before I have a better grasp of it. I am not sure yet exactly how this understanding can be exploited, as it seems to be more of a free market (or as it says Darwainism) approach to the organizational environment. I would be interested to see an analysis using this framework on how organizations with aggressive cultures with high burn out rates, are instinctively using this principle to cut out the clueless and possibly the over performing losers. Not that I am abdicating that such aggressive cultures are right for all organizations.
Under this classification, I'd be an under performing loser cum sociopath.
My background:
Dip. Programming
BEcon & BFin
MBA
CFA