I remember the hubbub about Obama vouching for Sotomayor's capability for empathy during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Maybe that's something that needs to be applied to federal prosecutors as well.
I have this issue too, so it's not just you (and it's ironically appropriate).
Anyway, I'm confused: the TSA is dumping the scanners because the manufacturer couldn't make them less obviously like a naked scanner, and yet the TSA is also saying that this has nothing to do with the manufacturer's misleading information about how the scanners will affect travelers' privacy? How does that work?
The attacks remind me of what happened after Steve Irwin tragically died from a stingray strike. A lot of people in their anger started killing stingrays. It was needlessly destructive, wasn't helping anyone, was totally misplaced, and was exactly what Steve Irwin would not have done.
I have an idea: if a movie takes some amount of taxpayer money (either any, or above some threshold value or percentage) to be made, why not call it a government work and declare its copyright null and void, just like other government works?
I don't think it's really appropriate to compare this homeless guy's attitude to the ownership mentality pervading culture now. He has bigger issues regarding drug abuse, and he has basically said that he chooses to live out on the streets, not try to help himself, and mooch off of people. I think this is a simple case of greed, and I don't think it's proper to tie this in with the ownership mentality as it relates to copyright and TechDirt coverage of it.
Let's see...
"Free": copyright restricts other people's freedoms to produce and compete.
"Market": copyright severely curtails production in the market to just one supplying entity.
"Capitalism": copyright only allows one person to capitalize on a particular product, often in an arbitrary manner.
So no, copyright is not a part of free market capitalism. In fact, copyright is in every way disjoint from free market capitalism. Granted, we have a mixed-capitalist economy in the US, and it could be argued that nothing in the definition of mixed-capitalism precludes the existence of copyright, but empirically of course, it doesn't need to exist in as large of a scope as it does now.
I think the best example I have seen in mainstream culture of the Streisand effect (i.e. in a fictional work, not in real life), is in the Seinfeld episode "The Cartoon". Jerry Seinfeld's character tells guest star Kathy Griffin's character that she's terrible at acting, but later convinces her to get back into showbusiness. She does by starting a one-woman stand-up comedy show called "Jerry Seinfeld, the devil". Every time Jerry tries to confront her about her material and asks her to make it a little more fair, she hilariously exaggerates his actions further to make him look more like the devil. Finally, he sends her a cease-and-desist letter through his attorney...which she reads aloud on her show to further prove her own point.
Usually it seems like whenever draconian anti-piracy laws go into effect, music sales drop mostly because people can no longer listen to a bit of the music before they buy, so a lot of the customers who would pay for the music are turned away. I find it interesting that there is the added effect that these laws have cast doubt on the validity of any download; that alone should show just how much more backwards this law is.
in the opposite way. Weren't there a whole bunch of amazing, poignant photographs by ordinary citizens of New York City immediately after the attacks? I don't think those would have happened with these police officers there.
The only companies and organizations responsible for comments on websites like their Facebook pages are the ones who see so many negative reviews that they close down comments and/or astroturf the comments like crazy. You know...like the ASB.
Could it be possible then to structure a progressive corporate income tax then? I'm (very naively, mind you) thinking of a system where small businesses which anyway would be more likely to actively grow by investing rather than putting corporate income into executives' paychecks would pay very little to no tax, while larger corporations would pay more taxes for the opposite reason.
I actually have a similar issue with that, and I've taken two semesters of introductory college economics (microeconomics and macroeconomics). It sounds good on paper that cutting corporate income taxes will induce business investment, it sounds a whole lot more like the voodoo economics of the 1980s; to me it seems like the abolition of corporate income taxes should be coupled with strong other non-tax incentives to actually invest corporate income in business ventures, or else said corporate income will simply go into the pocketbooks of corporations. This is also why subsidizing firms in a market to increase production to match a positive externality won't work. Taxing firms to match a negative externality will cause production and possibly the number of firms to decrease, and prices will increase. Subsidizing them, though, will not decrease prices or increase the number of firms, because firms would rather hang on to their greater market power and higher prices while eating the subsidy themselves; the only way for this to change is for another firm to essentially cheat at the game and drop prices to marginal cost with the subsidy, but that is far from guaranteed.
Income tax exists only because it is so far the only palatable and simple way to enact progressive taxation. I would be fine with replacing income taxes with other taxes (e.g. consumption taxes, as mentioned in the article) that are structured to be progressive, but those economists had better have a damn good idea of how to make other taxes progressive given that almost all taxes other than those on income are inherently regressive. Why is this so? It's because poor people spend a larger percentage of their income through consumption than rich people do, so they would get hit harder with consumption taxes; again, there had better be a good, solid way to make such a regressive taxation system progressive.
I would mostly agree with the other suggestions though. They seem quite reasonable, so I think they're just nonstarters *within Congress*.
I think the analogy is fine because beyond their normal activities, the Red Cross didn't have to serve those donuts. When they started charging for them, though, that bred some ill will.
I don't think the analogy with your education works, though, because while you may be personally opposed to increasing tuition fees, (leaving aside the subsidy of public universities through taxes) it's the current students who are paying for it, and they usually only need to pay for four years anyway, so they seem to be more pliant about it anyway. These veterans though were being served donuts through their service and beyond...until the price increased from zero.
(For some reason my previous comment disappeared.)
I think this actually goes nicely with the idea that if a company can't compete with free, it can't compete at all. When a company sees its product going to consumers for free, it believes that it can't compete because it doesn't see revenue from that particular product anymore; it doesn't realize that it needs to adapt and monetize through other channels because its main product, by being free of charge, is now in a different market category in some senses.
On the post: Carmen Ortiz Refuses To Reflect; Insists Her Office Will Do Everything The Same As Before
Sonia Sotomayor
On the post: TSA Dumps Rapiscan Naked Airport Scanners After Failure To Make Them 'Less Revealing'
Re:
Anyway, I'm confused: the TSA is dumping the scanners because the manufacturer couldn't make them less obviously like a naked scanner, and yet the TSA is also saying that this has nothing to do with the manufacturer's misleading information about how the scanners will affect travelers' privacy? How does that work?
On the post: 'Quantum Copyright:' At What Point Does A Legal Copy Become Infringement?
No cloning
On the post: In Response To Aaron's Death: Don't Take Down, Build Up; Don't Attack, But Share
Steve Irwin
On the post: The Hobbit Took $120M From Kiwi Taxpayers - Maybe They Should Own The Rights
An idea for taxpayer-funded movies
On the post: Homeless Man Who Got Free Boots From Cop Now 'Wants His Cut' Of YouTube Attention
Not an appropriate comparison
On the post: Fixing Copyright: Is Copyright A Part Of Free Market Capitalism?
Copyright antithetical
"Free": copyright restricts other people's freedoms to produce and compete.
"Market": copyright severely curtails production in the market to just one supplying entity.
"Capitalism": copyright only allows one person to capitalize on a particular product, often in an arbitrary manner.
So no, copyright is not a part of free market capitalism. In fact, copyright is in every way disjoint from free market capitalism. Granted, we have a mixed-capitalist economy in the US, and it could be argued that nothing in the definition of mixed-capitalism precludes the existence of copyright, but empirically of course, it doesn't need to exist in as large of a scope as it does now.
On the post: How Did Syria Turn Off The Internet... And What Other Countries Can Just Hit The Off Switch Like That?
There goes my plan
On the post: Latest Company To Discover The Streisand Effect: Casey Movers
Seinfeld "The Cartoon"
On the post: Draconian Downloading Law In Japan Goes Into Effect... Music Sales Drop
More than just discouraging sharing
On the post: Surprise: Two Of Hollywood's Favorite Representatives, Howard Berman & Mary Bono Mack, Defeated
Erman
On the post: Will ACTA Ever Be A Real Treaty?
You know what this means
On the post: Photography In Public Is Not A Crime
It does have to do with 9/11
On the post: Even The Sex At The Olympics Is Sponsored
Dear Olympics
F**k you (with a birth control method officially sponsored by the Olympics)!
Sincerely, Prashanth.
On the post: Australian Advertising Watch Group Says Companies Are Responsible For Comments On Their Facebook Pages
The only companies responsible
On the post: NYTimes Columnist Explains How He Torrented 'The Bourne Identity' Because It Wasn't Available... Then Sent A Check
They'll cash it
On the post: When Every Practical Economic Idea Is Political Suicide, Something's Wrong With Politics
Re: Re: Ok - I'm confused.
On the post: When Every Practical Economic Idea Is Political Suicide, Something's Wrong With Politics
Re: Ok - I'm confused.
Income tax exists only because it is so far the only palatable and simple way to enact progressive taxation. I would be fine with replacing income taxes with other taxes (e.g. consumption taxes, as mentioned in the article) that are structured to be progressive, but those economists had better have a damn good idea of how to make other taxes progressive given that almost all taxes other than those on income are inherently regressive. Why is this so? It's because poor people spend a larger percentage of their income through consumption than rich people do, so they would get hit harder with consumption taxes; again, there had better be a good, solid way to make such a regressive taxation system progressive.
I would mostly agree with the other suggestions though. They seem quite reasonable, so I think they're just nonstarters *within Congress*.
On the post: Two-Cent Doughnuts Breed Decades Of Bad Blood: It's Not So Easy Going From Free To Paid
Re:
I don't think the analogy with your education works, though, because while you may be personally opposed to increasing tuition fees, (leaving aside the subsidy of public universities through taxes) it's the current students who are paying for it, and they usually only need to pay for four years anyway, so they seem to be more pliant about it anyway. These veterans though were being served donuts through their service and beyond...until the price increased from zero.
On the post: Two-Cent Doughnuts Breed Decades Of Bad Blood: It's Not So Easy Going From Free To Paid
Competing with free
I think this actually goes nicely with the idea that if a company can't compete with free, it can't compete at all. When a company sees its product going to consumers for free, it believes that it can't compete because it doesn't see revenue from that particular product anymore; it doesn't realize that it needs to adapt and monetize through other channels because its main product, by being free of charge, is now in a different market category in some senses.
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