Are you trying to say “Monopolies” are a synonym for “Bloodthirsty pirates who are only interested in booty?” because that is not what monopoly means. There are a lot of monopolies out there that lose money.
Case in point, USPS. In exchange for a monopoly they are heavily regulated. I am a free marketer and I think the USPS service does a decent job for the money. There are a lot of other cases out there like that.
Look up “Natural Monopolies”. There are quite a few cases where monopolies can last forever. Or if not forever then for decades. I have strong free market tendencies but I do recognize that there are market failures and those need to be regulated.
I do think the Post Office makes a strong argument for a monopoly in exchange for universal service.
I know that is important for rural USA. I would think it would be even more important for Canada which is even more rural. (Urban areas are a different ball game.)
Because the US Constitution gives the USPS a monopoly over letter delivery (in exchange for universal service) so it does not matter if you could do it cheaper or better. Ergo no profit motive. (Unless you bypass the USPS by delivering the movies over the internet, hence the move to make it "competitive".) Hence the regulation.
Reading the summary, but not the article, I got the impression it would be less. The USPS has a monopoly on letter delivery and can charge whatever price they want. In areas where they don’t have a monopoly – like next day mail – they have to charge a lower “competitive” price to match FedEx, et. al.
Since King’s speech was popular it should not have IP protection. Ergo other popular things, like Star Wars and the NFL games should not have IP protection.
I think we can – are should - argue what level (if any) if historical events should have IP. I think we should be arguing the length of IP restrictions. (50 years seems enough.). But I don’t think we should be arguing that popular things should have a lower level.
I don’t think that is happening. From what I have been reading library usage is up but the usage is changing.
Partly this is because people are using the library’s computers and internet access – mainly the poor and young who don’t have it at home. Partly this is people using the reservation system to borrow music, DVDs and books instead of buying them.
Most mid life people would gladly take lower pay after spending many years in industry.
I think you missed my point – it is not about the pay per se –it is about the lower pay for older workers thus tilting the playing field. Teacher salaries are pretty good because it is explicitly paying lower salaries today for higher benefits tomorrow, and the future benefits are skewed to those who start early.
Pension and tenure benefits are worth more to a younger person then an older person. In the US most teacher benefits are based on years worked and finial salary. Finial salary is highly dependent on seniority. So the non-cash benefit for working is 10 to 20k higher for a 22 year old verse a 42 year old.
(And I am not saying that there is not a bunch of bureaucracy to jump through and that also discourages people.)
There was a study about 10 years ago that showed zero correlation between teacher pay, teacher effectiveness, and academic results between states.
Probably what is more important is teacher requirement, training, and management. If you increased teacher pay today without changing the above you would increasing pay to those who are already teachers or are likely to become teachers.
I have issues with how teacher’s pay is structured. The initial pay is low and most of the benefits are at the backend so it encourages marginal teachers to become entrenched and discourages middle aged people from making a career switch into the profession. (I think there is a rich vein of potential people who hold masters in math, science, or engineering who would make great teachers but don’t want to deal with the initial low pay and would not qualify for some of the bigger retirement packages.)
You need to figure out the risk adjusted return. If you are making massive bet the company moves and only getting 15, then no. I you have a guaranteed lock of 5% then that is better then the stock market at the moment.
Which is one of the things that IRR lets you do. It is not just the return but you need to factor in risk and the cost of capital.
And the DOW is a 2nd rate index. S&P 500 is better - or the NASDAQ 100, which is better for large tech companies.
How do you judge the effect on investment on the “overall economy?” If you are talking about stakeholder, community impact, etc. or other vague guidelines I can justify almost any investment – or judge against them.
The corporation is a tool invented by man and it does one thing well – return cash value to shareholders. It does other things less well. If you want to increase investment to the “overall economy” there are better choices. Cutting corporate and capital gains will get you one result. Increasing taxes to pay for more infrastructure and education (which are investments) gets another result.
But even in those cases you can still apply IRR. Should we build a cheap bridge that will have higher maintenance costs or a expensive bridge that will have cheaper maintenance costs? You can do it even with “green” projects but you need to put a price on pollution.
I agree with you that we should embrace technology, but I am pointing out that embracing technology is a necessary but not sufficient condition to “put everybody out of (drudgerous) work”. You also have to consider how society is going to apply that technology. Think education, training, government regulations, labor unions, etc. Without people with high level skills even the most advance machines is no better than a hunk of metal.
It used to be that a high school graduate could get a low skill job in the US and 20 years later be a highly skilled machinist. There was a ladder one could climb. Now, with the lower rungs stuck out, it becomes more complicated. It does not have to be that way.
I am looking at Germany where high schools, technical education, unions, and business come together – developing a road map from unskilled worker to highly skilled worker who can use cutting edge technology.
The Domesday Book is still taken very seriously today. In fact, I can’t think of one person who does not think of it seriously.
It is one of the best historical surveys of England and Wales. A classic example of primary documentation. I can think of few things that can rival it until America starting doing census back in the 1880.
Once concern is that over the past 50 years the lowest rungs have been knocked out of the labor market. The gas attendant would graduate to the assistant mechanic, to a full mechanic. Now many low skilled entry level jobs lead nowhere.
Business make their decisions on the margin. What does this mean? Well the farmer has to decided how hard to work and what mixture of products he is going to raise
With methane cows become a little more profitable. Under any economic model that assumes rational behavior the number of cows is going to increase. Maybe the extra profits will induce the farmer to work harder and put marginal pasture land into use. Maybe he will work the same and become more comfortable – but the better choice would be to work the same, increase the number of cows, and decrease something else – like organic vegetables.
By the way, pig manure is a whole different beast then cow manure. Cows generate the same amount of manure as pigs and you never hear about a dam busting. 10 years ago my local land grant college gave up trying to build a methane converter for pigs because the shit kept eating though everything.
If we ignore the vegan moral aspects and focus solely on greenhouse gases I would suspect a net win but I can't tell for sure.
In America, winter is the time of highest energy use and the shortest daylight hours so double whammy. Since I live in Wind Ally wind power is thus favored.
For solar it is about storage. Solar cells and wind power are about the same cost and can even compete with coal once you have factored in coal’s negative externalities. Thermic is a form of storage and I don’t know of one thermal plant today that has a cost structure that can compete with solar cells.
As for wind, there are times when the wind just does not blow. No number of wind turbines will solve for that problem. You can make this work on the assumption that it is always blowing somewhere but then you have to build a grid that can take the energy spikes from one part of the country and move it to where there is no wind. We don’t have that today.
The issue is not with the methane digesters per se, it is with the cows.
Buying cow power subsidizes the cost of cows resulting in more cows. Cows generate a lot of methane that is not captured. More cows mean more marginal pasture land is put into use and farmed which is (probably) increases greenhouse gases.
If we did not add any new cows, net gain. If this does take off and we add more cows, net loss.
Maybe. There is a whole complex web out there. Which is the primary reason why I favor a carbon tax. The market should be able to figure out all of the impacts and deliver the biggest bang for the buck.
For your point the answer to that you make predictions about the future and then discount the cash flows according. If it is under 10 years you can probably make a better good guess.
But that was not my point. I was just completing replacing an older(60s design?) single reactor with a multiple reactor of current design.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you trying to say “Monopolies” are a synonym for “Bloodthirsty pirates who are only interested in booty?” because that is not what monopoly means. There are a lot of monopolies out there that lose money.
Case in point, USPS. In exchange for a monopoly they are heavily regulated. I am a free marketer and I think the USPS service does a decent job for the money. There are a lot of other cases out there like that.
Look up “Natural Monopolies”. There are quite a few cases where monopolies can last forever. Or if not forever then for decades. I have strong free market tendencies but I do recognize that there are market failures and those need to be regulated.
I do think the Post Office makes a strong argument for a monopoly in exchange for universal service.
Universal Service.
I know that is important for rural USA. I would think it would be even more important for Canada which is even more rural. (Urban areas are a different ball game.)
Because the US Constitution gives the USPS a monopoly over letter delivery (in exchange for universal service) so it does not matter if you could do it cheaper or better. Ergo no profit motive. (Unless you bypass the USPS by delivering the movies over the internet, hence the move to make it "competitive".) Hence the regulation.
Here are some hard numbers. It is for FedEx but I suspect that USPS numbers would be similar.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/31/
Reading the summary, but not the article, I got the impression it would be less. The USPS has a monopoly on letter delivery and can charge whatever price they want. In areas where they don’t have a monopoly – like next day mail – they have to charge a lower “competitive” price to match FedEx, et. al.
You know, the summary had me confused.
Since King’s speech was popular it should not have IP protection. Ergo other popular things, like Star Wars and the NFL games should not have IP protection.
I think we can – are should - argue what level (if any) if historical events should have IP. I think we should be arguing the length of IP restrictions. (50 years seems enough.). But I don’t think we should be arguing that popular things should have a lower level.
I don’t think that is happening. From what I have been reading library usage is up but the usage is changing.
Partly this is because people are using the library’s computers and internet access – mainly the poor and young who don’t have it at home. Partly this is people using the reservation system to borrow music, DVDs and books instead of buying them.
Most mid life people would gladly take lower pay after spending many years in industry.
I think you missed my point – it is not about the pay per se –it is about the lower pay for older workers thus tilting the playing field. Teacher salaries are pretty good because it is explicitly paying lower salaries today for higher benefits tomorrow, and the future benefits are skewed to those who start early.
Pension and tenure benefits are worth more to a younger person then an older person. In the US most teacher benefits are based on years worked and finial salary. Finial salary is highly dependent on seniority. So the non-cash benefit for working is 10 to 20k higher for a 22 year old verse a 42 year old.
(And I am not saying that there is not a bunch of bureaucracy to jump through and that also discourages people.)
Maybe.
There was a study about 10 years ago that showed zero correlation between teacher pay, teacher effectiveness, and academic results between states.
Probably what is more important is teacher requirement, training, and management. If you increased teacher pay today without changing the above you would increasing pay to those who are already teachers or are likely to become teachers.
I have issues with how teacher’s pay is structured. The initial pay is low and most of the benefits are at the backend so it encourages marginal teachers to become entrenched and discourages middle aged people from making a career switch into the profession. (I think there is a rich vein of potential people who hold masters in math, science, or engineering who would make great teachers but don’t want to deal with the initial low pay and would not qualify for some of the bigger retirement packages.)
Maybe.
You need to figure out the risk adjusted return. If you are making massive bet the company moves and only getting 15, then no. I you have a guaranteed lock of 5% then that is better then the stock market at the moment.
Which is one of the things that IRR lets you do. It is not just the return but you need to factor in risk and the cost of capital.
And the DOW is a 2nd rate index. S&P 500 is better - or the NASDAQ 100, which is better for large tech companies.
How do you judge the effect on investment on the “overall economy?” If you are talking about stakeholder, community impact, etc. or other vague guidelines I can justify almost any investment – or judge against them.
The corporation is a tool invented by man and it does one thing well – return cash value to shareholders. It does other things less well. If you want to increase investment to the “overall economy” there are better choices. Cutting corporate and capital gains will get you one result. Increasing taxes to pay for more infrastructure and education (which are investments) gets another result.
But even in those cases you can still apply IRR. Should we build a cheap bridge that will have higher maintenance costs or a expensive bridge that will have cheaper maintenance costs? You can do it even with “green” projects but you need to put a price on pollution.
Internal Rate of Return is considered a sounder methodology then ROI but the though is the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return
If you make 10b on a 8.5b investment over 2 years that’s probably a win.
If it takes 10, probably not.
I agree with you that we should embrace technology, but I am pointing out that embracing technology is a necessary but not sufficient condition to “put everybody out of (drudgerous) work”. You also have to consider how society is going to apply that technology. Think education, training, government regulations, labor unions, etc. Without people with high level skills even the most advance machines is no better than a hunk of metal.
It used to be that a high school graduate could get a low skill job in the US and 20 years later be a highly skilled machinist. There was a ladder one could climb. Now, with the lower rungs stuck out, it becomes more complicated. It does not have to be that way.
I am looking at Germany where high schools, technical education, unions, and business come together – developing a road map from unskilled worker to highly skilled worker who can use cutting edge technology.
Jobs bought a small hardward company from Lucas.Jobs sold a movie company to Apple.I don’t know how much of that transformation was due to jobs, but
"Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan." - John F. Kennedy
I am still confused.
All of the other books have inspired people to great, good, and bad deeds. They have inspired poets and caused wars.
The Domesday Book is a tax role. I have never hear of it causing a war, a poem to be written, or a good deed done.. Taxs yes, but not a tax role.
The Domesday Book is still taken very seriously today. In fact, I can’t think of one person who does not think of it seriously.
It is one of the best historical surveys of England and Wales. A classic example of primary documentation. I can think of few things that can rival it until America starting doing census back in the 1880.
Or are you thinking about something else?
I think you are making a joke but you right.
Once concern is that over the past 50 years the lowest rungs have been knocked out of the labor market. The gas attendant would graduate to the assistant mechanic, to a full mechanic. Now many low skilled entry level jobs lead nowhere.
No
Jobs created Cars.
Jobs created Pixar which created Cars, using the transitive property.
Business make their decisions on the margin. What does this mean? Well the farmer has to decided how hard to work and what mixture of products he is going to raise
With methane cows become a little more profitable. Under any economic model that assumes rational behavior the number of cows is going to increase. Maybe the extra profits will induce the farmer to work harder and put marginal pasture land into use. Maybe he will work the same and become more comfortable – but the better choice would be to work the same, increase the number of cows, and decrease something else – like organic vegetables.
By the way, pig manure is a whole different beast then cow manure. Cows generate the same amount of manure as pigs and you never hear about a dam busting. 10 years ago my local land grant college gave up trying to build a methane converter for pigs because the shit kept eating though everything.
If we ignore the vegan moral aspects and focus solely on greenhouse gases I would suspect a net win but I can't tell for sure.
In America, winter is the time of highest energy use and the shortest daylight hours so double whammy. Since I live in Wind Ally wind power is thus favored.
There are 2 approaches.
Top down would be the carbon tax. If you are concerned about exporting pollution to the 3rd world there are ways of handling that – like via a tariff (and still not be a protectionist).
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21572180-can-trade-restrictions-be-justified-environmental-grounds-air-trade/print
Or you can go bottom up, implementing various subsides and plans, figuring out the loopholes, then adding another layer, see the loop holes, etc.
You want the plan that gives the most bang for the buck which is the Carbon Tax.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/06/28/196355493/economists-have-a-one-page-solution-to-climate-change
For solar it is about storage. Solar cells and wind power are about the same cost and can even compete with coal once you have factored in coal’s negative externalities. Thermic is a form of storage and I don’t know of one thermal plant today that has a cost structure that can compete with solar cells.
As for wind, there are times when the wind just does not blow. No number of wind turbines will solve for that problem. You can make this work on the assumption that it is always blowing somewhere but then you have to build a grid that can take the energy spikes from one part of the country and move it to where there is no wind. We don’t have that today.
The issue is not with the methane digesters per se, it is with the cows.
Buying cow power subsidizes the cost of cows resulting in more cows.
Cows generate a lot of methane that is not captured.
More cows mean more marginal pasture land is put into use and farmed which is (probably) increases greenhouse gases.
If we did not add any new cows, net gain. If this does take off and we add more cows, net loss.
Maybe. There is a whole complex web out there. Which is the primary reason why I favor a carbon tax. The market should be able to figure out all of the impacts and deliver the biggest bang for the buck.
For your point the answer to that you make predictions about the future and then discount the cash flows according. If it is under 10 years you can probably make a better good guess.
But that was not my point. I was just completing replacing an older(60s design?) single reactor with a multiple reactor of current design.