It's not that bitter chocolate is so great just that loads of sugar is bad for you. It's amazing how if you stop eating sugar things that were unpalatable like coffee and chocolate without sugar suddenly taste great.
Hence the walled garden and "ecosystem" approach by apple. There are many people that don't want to figure out which phone/tablet/laptop is good and bad. They know if they buy an Apple product it will be good. They don't sell junk. Sure it's overpriced if you compare specs to Android phone/tablet or Windows laptop but you also don't need to do hours of research to see if the product you are looking to get sucks. This is the same reason people buy Honda's and Toyota's. You can get cars with more performance and accessories much cheaper. But if you buy a Honda or Toyota you pretty much know you can drive it for 200,000 miles and just pay for regular maintenance.
Slavery, monarchy, and arranged marriages were much older institutions that ended. Just because something is old doesn't mean it will survive. Patents and copyrights were easy to control when innovation was slow and capital intensive. Today tools for creation and copying are cheap so innovation is widespread. This will only increase. These monopolies will end because they will not be economical.
First off I think all Intellectual monopoly will go away in the next few decades because it will prove to be unworkable.
But if you are going to have this stupid system patent trolls serve an important purpose. They buy up patents from small inventors and in return provide the legal firepower the small inventors don't have.
The costs for the shuttle program were pretty much fixed per year at $5B. The refurbishment of the SRB's and ET's were pretty cheap. If the Air Force didn't bail on the Shuttle a realistic flight rate would be once a month with 4 orbiters which would be about $400m per flight. With the existing infrastructure of 3 OPS's, 3 Bays in the VAB, Two Pads, 3 MLP's and 2 Crawlers you could have added another orbiter at about $1B to ramp up the rate. Also the infrastructure at Vandenburg was nearly finished and that could have upped the launch rate even more.
After the loss of Challenger the Air Force bailed on the Shuttle and instead created and flew the Titan IV at the cost of about $400 m per flight. If that money was kept with the Shuttle program the costs per flight could have been even cheaper.
The costs weren't due to technical problems with the Shuttle but politics.
You may be able to make a profit but you just won't get monopoly profits. Just like before recordings actors and singers earned money from live performances. if you want to make movies you have to keep them under your control in a theater, insert ads or product placements, fund through crowd sourcing, or try to come up with digital distribution easy enough that people will pay instead of copying. There are plenty of ways to make money creating content without monopoly.
There is already Economic incentives to create. You just won't have a small group of people get incredibly wealthy without a monopoly. Just like every other monopoly.
Property is scarce and property rights are consistent and non-contradictory. Ideas are not scarce. They can be freely reproduced without loss. Monopolies in ideas cannot be consistent and contradict property rights by giving others claim to your property.
The real underlying flaw with Intellectual Monopoly laws like Copyright and Patents is they violate property rights. Someone that creates a movie now has a legal claim on my hard drive. They can show up at my house and use violence against me if I arrange the magnetic patterns on a disc I own in a particular way. The same with patents. They can use force against me when all I have done is arrange materials I own in a certain pattern. These laws violate my property rights.
Your only argument is that monopolies can get rich is correct. When you can use force on peaceful people to make them pay you then you tend to get wealthy. Not a big shock there.
That is not how an economy works. You actually need to produce things. Just increasing the money supply without increasing production will cause inflation as more money chases the same goods.
Because some people's labor is not worth the minimum wage. Let the businesses pay them what they are worth. A basic income can maintain a minimum standard of living without penalizing work. This way once you get the first job and increase your skills you can earn more. Cutting off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder isn't the answer.
You are only looking at who is hurt by deflation not the benefits. This is why Central Banking is so dangerous. It picks winners and losers for every action it takes.
Deflation hurts those: in debt just like inflation hurts savers. with houses but helps those looking to buy a house.
An economy needs savings to grow. Going into debt when there isn't actual savings (producing more than is consumed) cannot lead to sustainable growth but only malinvestment bubbles and crashes.
There is no such thing as a deflationary spiral. The economy always adjusts to whatever the money supply is. It just depends which industries were overvalued. Japan is suffering from stagflation where the Central Bank refuses to let deflation happen.
I agree that few economists think deflation is desirable which is why we are in such a mess right now.
Inflation is an increase in money supply. In a free market money would be provided by the market. Precious metals, IOU's, American Express travelers cheques, bitcoins, etc. Human choices would determine what the supply of money would be. For instance if the price for precious metals rose in relation to other goods you would have price deflation. You could buy more goods with less gold. If it became profitable to mine for gold than people would do so which would increase the supply reducing the price and reducing inflation.
So there is no optimal value of inflation. Central banks inflate because it benefits them, the politicians, and those that get to spend the money first.
Economics is a science with predictive capabilities. The problem is knowing when this science leaves the world of economics and into the unpredictable world of human choice.
Economics similar to physics can tell you what will happen if some action is chosen.
If you let go of this bowling ball it will fall due to gravity. It doesn't say whether you will let go.
Similarly Economics will tell you that creating money out of nothing and giving it to people will cause distortions in the economy . What is can't tell you is if that money will be created, who it will be given to, and what they will spend it on.
It can tell you if you raise the minimum wage above the market clearing wage that marginal jobs will be lost. But it can't tell you what the market clearing wage is, if the minimum is above it, or which jobs will be lost.
A part of a college education can be meeting and interacting with people of different cultures and backgrounds. If a private school wants to have this type of culture they should be free to create it by whatever means they determine is best for their school. You have no right to attend the school.
Now if this was a public school they might have an argument.
Slashdot Mirror
Who takes the loss the retailer or the manufacturer?
It's not that bitter chocolate is so great just that loads of sugar is bad for you. It's amazing how if you stop eating sugar things that were unpalatable like coffee and chocolate without sugar suddenly taste great.
Hence the walled garden and "ecosystem" approach by apple. There are many people that don't want to figure out which phone/tablet/laptop is good and bad. They know if they buy an Apple product it will be good. They don't sell junk. Sure it's overpriced if you compare specs to Android phone/tablet or Windows laptop but you also don't need to do hours of research to see if the product you are looking to get sucks. This is the same reason people buy Honda's and Toyota's. You can get cars with more performance and accessories much cheaper. But if you buy a Honda or Toyota you pretty much know you can drive it for 200,000 miles and just pay for regular maintenance.
Good point. Should have added "in civilized countries".
Slavery, monarchy, and arranged marriages were much older institutions that ended. Just because something is old doesn't mean it will survive. Patents and copyrights were easy to control when innovation was slow and capital intensive. Today tools for creation and copying are cheap so innovation is widespread. This will only increase. These monopolies will end because they will not be economical.
First off I think all Intellectual monopoly will go away in the next few decades because it will prove to be unworkable.
But if you are going to have this stupid system patent trolls serve an important purpose. They buy up patents from small inventors and in return provide the legal firepower the small inventors don't have.
Except for these
http://pattyinglishms.hubpages...
The costs for the shuttle program were pretty much fixed per year at $5B. The refurbishment of the SRB's and ET's were pretty cheap. If the Air Force didn't bail on the Shuttle a realistic flight rate would be once a month with 4 orbiters which would be about $400m per flight. With the existing infrastructure of 3 OPS's, 3 Bays in the VAB, Two Pads, 3 MLP's and 2 Crawlers you could have added another orbiter at about $1B to ramp up the rate. Also the infrastructure at Vandenburg was nearly finished and that could have upped the launch rate even more.
After the loss of Challenger the Air Force bailed on the Shuttle and instead created and flew the Titan IV at the cost of about $400 m per flight. If that money was kept with the Shuttle program the costs per flight could have been even cheaper.
The costs weren't due to technical problems with the Shuttle but politics.
You may be able to make a profit but you just won't get monopoly profits. Just like before recordings actors and singers earned money from live performances. if you want to make movies you have to keep them under your control in a theater, insert ads or product placements, fund through crowd sourcing, or try to come up with digital distribution easy enough that people will pay instead of copying. There are plenty of ways to make money creating content without monopoly.
There is already Economic incentives to create. You just won't have a small group of people get incredibly wealthy without a monopoly. Just like every other monopoly.
Property is scarce and property rights are consistent and non-contradictory. Ideas are not scarce. They can be freely reproduced without loss. Monopolies in ideas cannot be consistent and contradict property rights by giving others claim to your property.
The real underlying flaw with Intellectual Monopoly laws like Copyright and Patents is they violate property rights. Someone that creates a movie now has a legal claim on my hard drive. They can show up at my house and use violence against me if I arrange the magnetic patterns on a disc I own in a particular way. The same with patents. They can use force against me when all I have done is arrange materials I own in a certain pattern. These laws violate my property rights.
Your only argument is that monopolies can get rich is correct. When you can use force on peaceful people to make them pay you then you tend to get wealthy. Not a big shock there.
Basic Income is a type of guaranteed monthly income provided by tax payers to all citizens. It would be an alternative to the current welfare system.
What do you mean? If someone's labor is not worth the minimum wage they will just remain unemployed. That is not good for them or the economy.
That is not how an economy works. You actually need to produce things. Just increasing the money supply without increasing production will cause inflation as more money chases the same goods.
Because some people's labor is not worth the minimum wage. Let the businesses pay them what they are worth. A basic income can maintain a minimum standard of living without penalizing work. This way once you get the first job and increase your skills you can earn more. Cutting off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder isn't the answer.
We did. I have tuff stuff eraser pens. The kids still use the ones on pencils until they are gone.
I have 3 kids in school. In reality you only need a couple of pencils but LOTS of erasers. We have about 200 pencils with the erasers missing.
You are only looking at who is hurt by deflation not the benefits. This is why Central Banking is so dangerous. It picks winners and losers for every action it takes.
Deflation hurts those:
in debt just like inflation hurts savers.
with houses but helps those looking to buy a house.
An economy needs savings to grow. Going into debt when there isn't actual savings (producing more than is consumed) cannot lead to sustainable growth but only malinvestment bubbles and crashes.
There is no such thing as a deflationary spiral. The economy always adjusts to whatever the money supply is. It just depends which industries were overvalued. Japan is suffering from stagflation where the Central Bank refuses to let deflation happen.
I agree that few economists think deflation is desirable which is why we are in such a mess right now.
Saving is required for sustainable growth.
Deflation is not bad in general. Just for those in debt. It's great for savers.
Inflation is an increase in money supply. In a free market money would be provided by the market. Precious metals, IOU's, American Express travelers cheques, bitcoins, etc. Human choices would determine what the supply of money would be. For instance if the price for precious metals rose in relation to other goods you would have price deflation. You could buy more goods with less gold. If it became profitable to mine for gold than people would do so which would increase the supply reducing the price and reducing inflation.
So there is no optimal value of inflation. Central banks inflate because it benefits them, the politicians, and those that get to spend the money first.
Economics is a science with predictive capabilities. The problem is knowing when this science leaves the world of economics and into the unpredictable world of human choice.
Economics similar to physics can tell you what will happen if some action is chosen.
If you let go of this bowling ball it will fall due to gravity. It doesn't say whether you will let go.
Similarly Economics will tell you that creating money out of nothing and giving it to people will cause distortions in the economy . What is can't tell you is if that money will be created, who it will be given to, and what they will spend it on.
It can tell you if you raise the minimum wage above the market clearing wage that marginal jobs will be lost. But it can't tell you what the market clearing wage is, if the minimum is above it, or which jobs will be lost.
Can you imagine driving where all of the streetlights are violently vibrating?
A part of a college education can be meeting and interacting with people of different cultures and backgrounds. If a private school wants to have this type of culture they should be free to create it by whatever means they determine is best for their school. You have no right to attend the school.
Now if this was a public school they might have an argument.