2 Factors which are specific to research institutions.
Associate Professor / Post-Grad / Grad Student = indentured servant / long hours / low pay. Routinely ranked as a highly stressful. Full Prof means labs staffed by said indentured servants. Routinely ranked as a highly rewarding for the time/money.
Up or Out: Most research institutions have a 7 year limit – either make full prof by that point or start searching for your next job in a new city.
Need to update my post - I guess we are at 50% coins mined. So the situation is not quite that dire – but you still have over 99% deflation in the long run.
Umm – just the opposite. If you sit on the money today it would be worth more tomorrow. You use eventually. True – but it rewards those who have wealth today and discourages investment in tomorrow. Relatively speaking, we are worse off.
If you invested your money you could lose it. Even if you create value you could still lose money. Invest $100 in a company – have 2% deflation – get back $99. I mean – yes – you have made money in the sense that you have more value – but you have also lost money because now you have less.
Wealth people get free value for holding onto money – so they tend to do so. Debtors are at a disadvantage – want to finance that college education?
Financial assets (government bonds, loans, etc) get an advantage over real assets.
Think Zeno’s Arrow. There is a hard limit on the number of bit coins but it become progressively harder to mine them so the supply will always be increase – but a slowing rate until only a infinitesimal amount are created.
For those of us in the deflation is inevitable (and horrible) with bitcoin this slight increase means nothing. If you believe in monetary economic theory, a GNP increase by 1% would need a 1% increase in the money supply to keep inflation at zero. With Bitcoin's hard limit - well....
I believe the OP was referring to seigniorage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage Quick example: The US Mint releases commemorative state quarters. People “buy” these coins and throw them in their sock drawer - effectively giving the US a zero percent loan. In this case it a win for everybody – an odd way to spend money but I don’t collect coins.
If people where hoarding currency as a hedge against deflation – well – that would be a different story.
Since we have a First Past the Post system we tend to have 2 parties - one broad center left and one broad center right.
Parties don't blow up to be replaced by a new one - they slowly evolve - as the populations drifts one way or the other they adapt - steal ideas from the other.
In common, everyday usage, “Regulation” means “do this, don’t do that.” - a hard hand telling you what to do. “Priced In” means behavior X is going to be subsidized / taxed – a soft hand encouraging “correct” behavior.
This is not to say that there would not be regulations around the “priced in”. Society needs to decide what is correct via government. Rules have to put in place to prevent fraud, etc.
A functioning market is not the same thing as anarchy. Does a free market need rules? Yes â" and judges to enforce said rules.
Do you want to point to broken markets that do broken things? I can point out just as many examples of broken regulations doing broken things. However, the invisible hand of a market that is regulated parsimoniously (i.e. with the minimum required regulations - which I will admit is no easy thing) will tend to outwit the philosopher kingâ(TM)s bureaucrats.
I think you are missing, a bit, the point about regulation verse incentive structure – and I think you should broaden your horizons. Take smoking as an example.
You can regulate it. You have to 18, limiting to where you can smoke, banning sports advertisements. etc. (I know somebody who’s job is to directly market chewing tobacco. They have to ask the person if they are over 18, chew, etc. – then offer coupons / sample. A very odd job.) Yes minors still sneak cigarettes.
Or you can incentivizes against it – that is – to lay a very large, heavy tax. This has been more effective then all of the other regulation combined.
My 2 cents – it would be cheaper and faster to reduce greenhouse gasses by leaving a carbon tax then by regulating industries.
A bit off topic but Back in the 90s I was talking with some 1st year Naval cadets at Annapolis.
They were discouraged from playing any commercial available military war game – with the exception of Harpoon. The feeling was that the cadets would subconsciously pick up on biases in the game. (i.e. relative strengths of various ships.) And because they were 1st year they could not play the military simulators because that had classified data.
b) This sort of tech is what most people will be driving a few years from now.
Maybe - there is quite a bit of work that needs to be done. I wish I could link directly to this chart - it's about 1/2 down in the article. It shows when electric cars will become viable based on battery and gas cost. Today gas is the clear leader. Batteries would have to drop in price by 50% or gas would have to be above $6 to make the economics work - which could happen in a few years - but I would not take a bet either way..
Fixed costs only matter for that first copy. Charge enough for that first copy to meet your fixed costs.
Well, technically, marginal costs are based on total costs which included fixed costs. Even assuming you could find somebody to pay the upfront costs (which is a very generous assumption) you would have to deal with the free rider problem. So, as a whole society would undervalue these types of projects and thus underfund. (See below)
Air is free, and yet it has value. Price is not value. Getting something valueable for free is a good deal.
You are right that there is a difference between price and value. But by saying it should have a price for zero you are EXPLICATING stating it is worthless. In your example, when air was valued at nothing we had massive air pollution. Only by saying that air had value did we move forward to clean up the air. In this case 1 person bus the good but everybody else gets it for free – massive positive externalities. Items with negative externalities (like air pollution) tends to be overproduced. Positive ones tend to be underproduced. See also the tragedy of the commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
That's OK. If supply of copies ever dries up, we can choose to pay for a copy. If people want it, they will pay for it. If they don't, then nothing of value was lost.
So we will have unlimited old stuff – but you would have killed the golden goose – production would be cut to a trickle.
Your assuming the system is fair – which it may not be. Does your ability to ability to open a checking account, start a business, chose a job, or get an education depend on what is between your legs?
Then, as an outsider, do you want to help prop up this corrupt system?
(So, is there a valid rational? Yes. Does it trump Freedom of Speech – no. – but that is my 2 cents.)
I would temper that enthusiasm. I work with accountants, Excel, and VBA.
Spreadsheets offer a familiar and flexible front end for non-tech users. We have spreadsheets where sections are ridge to handle the VBA but exposes data to the end user. It is easy to enter paramaters and see the updates quickily - much harder to do when you have to import a new CSV each time. The accountants then can easily customize the data for their needs – and it still prints out nicely on the printer.
So, while I have issues with Excel / VBA / Spreadsheets in general – sometimes it is the best option.
It’s not “When marginal cost is zero, price is zero” – you have to factor in fixed costs. And when you say the price of something is nothing, you are saying it has no value. Then take a look at the supply curve - when price is zero supply is zero.
I think a lot of stuff out there has value. Am I 100% happy with current laws? No – I think they are too strict. Have I seen a better proposal then the current general construct of IP laws? Not really. (I have to give credit to KickStarter as the new form of patronage – but I think it only solves a limited number of issues.)
No – the founders were very afraid of Democracy, because Democracy was equated to mob rule – where the rabble would pass laws that would benefit them in the short term. They were highly influenced by Plato’s Republic.
I would point to California as an example – where the ballot initiative has gotten out of hand. Ask voters individual questions – limit the raising of taxes, direct increase on spending (education), or indirect increases (3 Strikes vastly increased spending on prisons) and voters will give you a rational answer. Taken collectively and you have inherent contradictions.
What you need is something that integrates all of these choices into coherent packages which the voters can vote on. The First Past the Post has done so – giving voters a center left or center right option – but I feel that system is breaking down. The primaries are not delivering centrist choices. The large congressional districts favor negative and motivating the core. The center is being ignored.
I think I can point to as many – if not more - Democrats who support strict IP laws.
As for the Republicans specifically, read up on the tragedy of the common’s and Milton Friedman ‘s work on property rights and freedom. They (and I) believe that strong property rights encourage economic advancement and personal freedom.
As a side note, this is something that I struggle with. I want to see movies like the Hobbit, which only make economic sense if you factor in the DVD sales, licenses products, etc. On the other hand, I saw a wonderful stage production – fringe festival, 3 people (w/ puppets), 60 minutes. I want a world with both.
By the way, can anybody point me to the original memo? It’s not in the summary.
Follow up question: If you had been a Democratic staffer, do you think you would have been fired or would have been treated differently?
That is, what is the interaction between the Republican party verses the general entrenched interests that influences both parties. I have seen many Democrats also advocate for strict IP laws.
I can't figure out why I'd want a voice activated watch, or biometrics, or mobile payments on my watch.... Me, I prefer a device meant to do one thing well instead of 10 things half-assed
I mostly agree with you – except the biometric data. For biometric data you would be wearing a device most of the time. Why wear a biometric device that looks like a watch and a watch? (On the other hand, the only good biometric data I could imagine it getting would be pulse. Maybe temp but I don’t think that would be valuable data.)
Modern Anti-Trust law is a bit more nuanced then the Greek definition.
Currently you run into anti-trust issues if a company’s dominate position causes market abuse – i.e. extract rents (i.e. economic profits which are above ordinary profits.) Some companies have been able to remain monopolies by keeping prices low so there is minimal market abuse and thus escape the eye of the Justice department.
Also, to but a finer detail on your post, most of the firms you mentioned are not competitors, but rather close substitutes. I have heard interesting arguments on how close a substitute a bundled cable/internet is verse a bundled phone/DSL competitor, and where to draw the line.
Anyway, making engines for warplanes is just as important as making guns for them
Which, in the grand scheme of things, means it’s not important.
GE is massive. GE does not bother breaking out it’s government defense contracts which means it accounts for only a thin slice of it’s income. It’s ancillary to GE core business. They make jet engines – extending it the military is easy. This is unlike Boeing, which is much more reliant of military contracts to fund it’s R&D.
They also make a lot of the gatling guns in service, like the M134
The wiki article uses the past tense when talking about GE.
Consumer Protection groups kicked up a fuss a few year ago but I don’t think it went anywhere.
FYI, the bank position is that the larger checks are more important – if you are going to bounce a check you would rather have the smaller check to the grocery store bounce rather then you large rent check.
And, they also call “Free Checking” “Fee checking” – because the way they make money is off the fees.
Slashdot Mirror
2 Factors which are specific to research institutions.
Associate Professor / Post-Grad / Grad Student = indentured servant / long hours / low pay. Routinely ranked as a highly stressful. Full Prof means labs staffed by said indentured servants. Routinely ranked as a highly rewarding for the time /money.
Up or Out: Most research institutions have a 7 year limit – either make full prof by that point or start searching for your next job in a new city.
Need to update my post - I guess we are at 50% coins mined. So the situation is not quite that dire – but you still have over 99% deflation in the long run.
Umm – just the opposite. If you sit on the money today it would be worth more tomorrow. You use eventually. True – but it rewards those who have wealth today and discourages investment in tomorrow. Relatively speaking, we are worse off.
If you invested your money you could lose it. Even if you create value you could still lose money. Invest $100 in a company – have 2% deflation – get back $99. I mean – yes – you have made money in the sense that you have more value – but you have also lost money because now you have less.
Wealth people get free value for holding onto money – so they tend to do so. Debtors are at a disadvantage – want to finance that college education?
Financial assets (government bonds, loans, etc) get an advantage over real assets.
Look at the 1930s to Japan today.
Would you care to explain that, given that we have another 130 years before the last BTC-generating block issues?
Sure. Plain vanilla monetary economic theory says that you will have deflation if your currency expands slower than economy you will have deflation.
I believe that 99% of bitcoins have been mined, so we can expect a total of a 1% growth.
If the world economy grows at 2% for the next 130 years (which I think is conservative), GNP would grow at 1,312%.
If BitCoin’s market share remained constant – well – that would be a deflation rate of over 99%
What is the difference between a currency and a investment? There is an intersection between the two.
One of the roles of money is a store of value. There are people who invest in currencies because they believe it will go up in value.
Now I don’t think BitCoin is a Ponzi scheme. I do think it is an asset bubble – think Dutch Tulips, Dot Com Stock, or un-built Miami Condos.
Think Zeno’s Arrow. There is a hard limit on the number of bit coins but it become progressively harder to mine them so the supply will always be increase – but a slowing rate until only a infinitesimal amount are created.
For those of us in the deflation is inevitable (and horrible) with bitcoin this slight increase means nothing. If you believe in monetary economic theory, a GNP increase by 1% would need a 1% increase in the money supply to keep inflation at zero. With Bitcoin's hard limit - well....
I believe the OP was referring to seigniorage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage
Quick example: The US Mint releases commemorative state quarters. People “buy” these coins and throw them in their sock drawer - effectively giving the US a zero percent loan. In this case it a win for everybody – an odd way to spend money but I don’t collect coins.
If people where hoarding currency as a hedge against deflation – well – that would be a different story.
Less so then you think.
Since we have a First Past the Post system we tend to have 2 parties - one broad center left and one broad center right.
Parties don't blow up to be replaced by a new one - they slowly evolve - as the populations drifts one way or the other they adapt - steal ideas from the other.
There may be a language issue here.
In common, everyday usage, “Regulation” means “do this, don’t do that.” - a hard hand telling you what to do. “Priced In” means behavior X is going to be subsidized / taxed – a soft hand encouraging “correct” behavior.
This is not to say that there would not be regulations around the “priced in”. Society needs to decide what is correct via government. Rules have to put in place to prevent fraud, etc.
A functioning market is not the same thing as anarchy. Does a free market need rules? Yes â" and judges to enforce said rules.
Do you want to point to broken markets that do broken things? I can point out just as many examples of broken regulations doing broken things. However, the invisible hand of a market that is regulated parsimoniously (i.e. with the minimum required regulations - which I will admit is no easy thing) will tend to outwit the philosopher kingâ(TM)s bureaucrats.
I think you are missing, a bit, the point about regulation verse incentive structure – and I think you should broaden your horizons. Take smoking as an example.
You can regulate it. You have to 18, limiting to where you can smoke, banning sports advertisements. etc. (I know somebody who’s job is to directly market chewing tobacco. They have to ask the person if they are over 18, chew, etc. – then offer coupons / sample. A very odd job.) Yes minors still sneak cigarettes.
Or you can incentivizes against it – that is – to lay a very large, heavy tax. This has been more effective then all of the other regulation combined.
My 2 cents – it would be cheaper and faster to reduce greenhouse gasses by leaving a carbon tax then by regulating industries.
A bit off topic but Back in the 90s I was talking with some 1st year Naval cadets at Annapolis.
They were discouraged from playing any commercial available military war game – with the exception of Harpoon. The feeling was that the cadets would subconsciously pick up on biases in the game. (i.e. relative strengths of various ships.) And because they were 1st year they could not play the military simulators because that had classified data.
b) This sort of tech is what most people will be driving a few years from now.
Maybe - there is quite a bit of work that needs to be done. I wish I could link directly to this chart - it's about 1/2 down in the article. It shows when electric cars will become viable based on battery and gas cost. Today gas is the clear leader. Batteries would have to drop in price by 50% or gas would have to be above $6 to make the economics work - which could happen in a few years - but I would not take a bet either way..
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21571117-search-better-ways-storing-electricity-hotting-up-batteries
Fixed costs only matter for that first copy. Charge enough for that first copy to meet your fixed costs.
Well, technically, marginal costs are based on total costs which included fixed costs. Even assuming you could find somebody to pay the upfront costs (which is a very generous assumption) you would have to deal with the free rider problem. So, as a whole society would undervalue these types of projects and thus underfund. (See below)
Air is free, and yet it has value. Price is not value. Getting something valueable for free is a good deal.
You are right that there is a difference between price and value. But by saying it should have a price for zero you are EXPLICATING stating it is worthless. In your example, when air was valued at nothing we had massive air pollution. Only by saying that air had value did we move forward to clean up the air. In this case 1 person bus the good but everybody else gets it for free – massive positive externalities. Items with negative externalities (like air pollution) tends to be overproduced. Positive ones tend to be underproduced. See also the tragedy of the commons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
That's OK. If supply of copies ever dries up, we can choose to pay for a copy. If people want it, they will pay for it. If they don't, then nothing of value was lost.
So we will have unlimited old stuff – but you would have killed the golden goose – production would be cut to a trickle.
Your assuming the system is fair – which it may not be. Does your ability to ability to open a checking account, start a business, chose a job, or get an education depend on what is between your legs?
Then, as an outsider, do you want to help prop up this corrupt system?
(So, is there a valid rational? Yes. Does it trump Freedom of Speech – no. – but that is my 2 cents.)
I would temper that enthusiasm. I work with accountants, Excel, and VBA.
Spreadsheets offer a familiar and flexible front end for non-tech users. We have spreadsheets where sections are ridge to handle the VBA but exposes data to the end user. It is easy to enter paramaters and see the updates quickily - much harder to do when you have to import a new CSV each time. The accountants then can easily customize the data for their needs – and it still prints out nicely on the printer.
So, while I have issues with Excel / VBA / Spreadsheets in general – sometimes it is the best option.
It’s not “When marginal cost is zero, price is zero” – you have to factor in fixed costs. And when you say the price of something is nothing, you are saying it has no value. Then take a look at the supply curve - when price is zero supply is zero.
I think a lot of stuff out there has value. Am I 100% happy with current laws? No – I think they are too strict. Have I seen a better proposal then the current general construct of IP laws? Not really. (I have to give credit to KickStarter as the new form of patronage – but I think it only solves a limited number of issues.)
No – the founders were very afraid of Democracy, because Democracy was equated to mob rule – where the rabble would pass laws that would benefit them in the short term. They were highly influenced by Plato’s Republic.
I would point to California as an example – where the ballot initiative has gotten out of hand. Ask voters individual questions – limit the raising of taxes, direct increase on spending (education), or indirect increases (3 Strikes vastly increased spending on prisons) and voters will give you a rational answer. Taken collectively and you have inherent contradictions.
What you need is something that integrates all of these choices into coherent packages which the voters can vote on. The First Past the Post has done so – giving voters a center left or center right option – but I feel that system is breaking down. The primaries are not delivering centrist choices. The large congressional districts favor negative and motivating the core. The center is being ignored.
I think I can point to as many – if not more - Democrats who support strict IP laws.
As for the Republicans specifically, read up on the tragedy of the common’s and Milton Friedman ‘s work on property rights and freedom. They (and I) believe that strong property rights encourage economic advancement and personal freedom.
As a side note, this is something that I struggle with. I want to see movies like the Hobbit, which only make economic sense if you factor in the DVD sales, licenses products, etc. On the other hand, I saw a wonderful stage production – fringe festival, 3 people (w/ puppets), 60 minutes. I want a world with both.
By the way, can anybody point me to the original memo? It’s not in the summary.
Follow up question: If you had been a Democratic staffer, do you think you would have been fired or would have been treated differently?
That is, what is the interaction between the Republican party verses the general entrenched interests that influences both parties. I have seen many Democrats also advocate for strict IP laws.
100m may be oeverkill. Maybe 40m?
http://www.xkcd.com/909/
I can't figure out why I'd want a voice activated watch, or biometrics, or mobile payments on my watch. ... Me, I prefer a device meant to do one thing well instead of 10 things half-assed
I mostly agree with you – except the biometric data. For biometric data you would be wearing a device most of the time. Why wear a biometric device that looks like a watch and a watch? (On the other hand, the only good biometric data I could imagine it getting would be pulse. Maybe temp but I don’t think that would be valuable data.)
Modern Anti-Trust law is a bit more nuanced then the Greek definition.
Currently you run into anti-trust issues if a company’s dominate position causes market abuse – i.e. extract rents (i.e. economic profits which are above ordinary profits.) Some companies have been able to remain monopolies by keeping prices low so there is minimal market abuse and thus escape the eye of the Justice department.
Also, to but a finer detail on your post, most of the firms you mentioned are not competitors, but rather close substitutes. I have heard interesting arguments on how close a substitute a bundled cable/internet is verse a bundled phone/DSL competitor, and where to draw the line.
Anyway, making engines for warplanes is just as important as making guns for them
Which, in the grand scheme of things, means it’s not important.
GE is massive. GE does not bother breaking out it’s government defense contracts which means it accounts for only a thin slice of it’s income. It’s ancillary to GE core business. They make jet engines – extending it the military is easy. This is unlike Boeing, which is much more reliant of military contracts to fund it’s R&D.
They also make a lot of the gatling guns in service, like the M134
The wiki article uses the past tense when talking about GE.
Consumer Protection groups kicked up a fuss a few year ago but I don’t think it went anywhere.
FYI, the bank position is that the larger checks are more important – if you are going to bounce a check you would rather have the smaller check to the grocery store bounce rather then you large rent check.
And, they also call “Free Checking” “Fee checking” – because the way they make money is off the fees.