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November 27, 2007
The music industry has a problem
The problem is that they have no conception of how to do business. Rather than being customer-centric, the industry is capital-centric!
"There was a cartoon character years ago called the Shmoo," he says in a raspy tenor. "It was in Li'l Abner. The Shmoo was a nice animal, a nice fella, but if you were hungry, you cut off a piece of him and put onions on it, and if you wanted to play football you just made him like a football. You could do anything to him. That's what was happening to the music business. Everyone was treating the music business like it was a Shmoo. (via)Note the tell-tale "but". The fact that so many people want a piece of the music industry is thought of as a problem. It isn't, it's simply the greatest opportunity that has ever befallen their industry. Failure to understand that is... insane.
If you're an investor in any of these companies, now would be an excellent time to go CEO shopping...
Posted by Andrew at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2007
Morals and Marriage
Stop buying their frame. Yeah, you Liberal Seagull, stop that right now. When the Right says that the only proper love for your country is the childish sort that one feels for mommy and daddy. The answer is right in front of you:
"People in less jingoistic countries love where they live, too; but often it's a love born of preference and familiarity. They love their countries while acknowledging their faults; they don't feel they have to prove their love by angrily denying that those faults exist."
This, too, is patriotism. It doesn't lead to wars, but it sure does lead to national health care. It is the love one feels for their spouse-- adult love. In a very real sense, we are married to our various nations. We can chose to leave them, but the separation process would be a painful one. We stay, loving our partner, perfecting the relationship, learning from one another.
Simply ceding patriotism denies us this useful concept. More: it denies us the fuel we need to fire the process of making this a better place to live. Letting the Right own the word diminishes us all...
Posted by Andrew at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)
November 25, 2007
Speechless
The problem with this ad (and it's a good one!) is a fairly common failing with advertising-- it is utterly dependent on the viewer knowing the context. If you don't know that A) there's a writer's strike, and B) these are actors, then you won't know what the hell is going on.
Nonetheless, knowing all that, this set of ads make a rather powerful point...
Posted by Andrew at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2007
Minor head wound
Posting will resume in a couple days.
Posted by Andrew at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2007
Why America is great:
It's not that we have more freedom to be creative, it's that we have so much freedom and a huge population. This means that for any given problem-- say an inability to cook a turkey-- there's a big enough market to solve that problem. Net result: we have the Butterball Hotline. The Brits, wonderful people they are, couldn't make enough money to keep the thing alive...
Anyway: Happy Thanksgiving! May your giving of thanks be happy.
Posted by Andrew at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2007
Gauntlet: accepted!
In a previous entry, I asked "If you think Paris Hilton (or the Gates' kids, for that matter) have some sort of moral right to being given money they didn't earn, by all means speak up."
Not as such, but I believe that rich people have a moral right to dispose of their wealth as they see fit. If I build up a multi-million dollar business, teach my children how to run it, and I want to leave it to them when I'm gone, that is my right. And if I want to sell my business and leave my children cash instead, that is my right, too. Just as it would be my right to sell the business and spend the proceeds on myself before I die.
The argument over the Estate Tax always seems to come down to a fundamental misunderstanding of it's nature, genially, intelligently, and fully on display in this post. The tax is not on the giving of wealth, but on the reception of wealth.
This seems like a small distinction-- one without importance.* It is, however, the vital distinction. Earned wealth is, of course!, the engine which powers civilization. The accumulation of wealth is also the accumulation of power. It's nearly axiomatic-- in a capitalist society we can scratch the qualifier.
Recall that the Estate tax only kicks in for something like .01% of all households-- the very rich. Without some sort of check on that wealth it will simply grow. Power will be passed on, concentrated in fewer hands-- hands far removed from the creativity which created that wealth. Let each generation prove itself anew. Let talent rise, and let us use the tools at our disposal to keep the worthless heirs of talent from buying positions they could not win.
*In the comments section, Maniakes shows a rather sophisticated understanding of the moral side of the argument. That understanding puts us very close to the same side on this debate.
Posted by Andrew at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2007
Best ad of the season
This is a brilliantly funny ad, which masterfully drives home its points. It relentlessly tells the target demographic exactly what they wish to hear. Since I am not the target demographic, however, it tells me that I really, really don't want to vote for Huckabee.
Granted, since there is a .0001% chance of my voting for any Republican in 2008, there's no real loss for them...
Posted by Andrew at 12:01 PM | Comments (2)
November 17, 2007
Jonathan Coulton Sings "Still Alive"
End song to Portal as done by the writer.
Spoilers, obviously.
Posted by Andrew at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 16, 2007
The estate tax
Warren Buffet, who is worth many billions of dollars, is calling on Congress to keep the death tax in place, because repealing it would benefit rich people and widen the widen the income disparity, as though there's something wrong with benefiting rich people and widening the income disparity.This isn't satire.
The death tax doesn't benefit rich people. After all, the rich people who have to pay the death tax are already dead. The death tax affects those who would inherit estates or portions of estates -- wealth that has already been taxed at least one time.(from)
The death tax affects people who inherit more than 2 million a year-- how much more depends on the exact year they die. So: If I inherit 2million dollars, I become... rich. Therefore the estate tax only effects the... rich. This isn't complicated.
If you think Paris Hilton (or the Gates' kids, for that matter) have some sort of moral right to being given money they didn't earn, by all means speak up. Me? I think inherited riches are destructive to democratic society.
Posted by Andrew at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2007
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess singin' drunken lullabies
So, imagine you’re paying your taxes, filling out the paperwork, tracking down the receipts, you get to the end and wham, you have to fill it all out again. Using different rules. This is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The rules themselves are neither bad nor confusing, but the act of filing twice is maddening. And so Democratic lawmakers decided to give us a break and push the AMT threshold up a bit. This will cost roughly US$80Billion.
How do we make up for that? Well... we can either cut services—roads, schools, military courts, etc; or we can raise taxes elsewhere. Democrats decided to close a loophole that has been allowing investment bankers to only pay a 15% tax. For some strange reason, President Bush vetoed the bill.
"Preventing a tax increase in one area should not be an excuse for raising taxes in other areas," he said. "Congress should eliminate the tax increases in the bill and send the AMT relief to my desk as soon as possible." link
Republicans want to A) Cut taxes B) leave spending where it is and C) not make the very rich pay the same tax rates as the rest of us. Its tempting to be demagogic and outraged by this behavior. I’ll simply let these facts speak for themselves.
Posted by Andrew at 07:37 AM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2007
I want an iPhone
Posted by Andrew at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2007
Addendum to the previous:
We need a better word than "television"-- it's obsolete. We also need a better phrase than "episodic, non-interactive entertainment". If I need to explain why we need a better phrase, you should stop reading this blog...
Posted by Andrew at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
Why I care about the writer's strike
I spend roughly one hour each week watching television. And, quite frankly, I’d be sort of relieved if the strike forced Heroes off the air—I sort of hate myself for liking that show. But that’s not the whole story.
When I’m not watching television, I can usually be found watching something I’ve downloaded, or a DVD. “Television” shows that I’ve downloaded or am watching on DVD*. I put television in quotes there because “television” is merely one device for displaying episodic non-interactive content. That’s what this strike is about.
The villains are quite cartoonishly evil—more so than most on television. The networks are using the changing way that Americans are watching television to do 2 things: 1) make more money than ever and 2) deny money to the creative talent. The devious bit: TV on DVD is compelling precisely because the writers have gotten so good in the last decade. Most pre-Buffy TV can be watched in pretty much any order. But post Buffy? Anything worth watching has characters that evolve and storylines that take an entire season to play out. Ross and Rachel? Wasn’t the network executives who made us tune in. It was the writers.
The producers have decreed that their power gives them the sole right to monetize the new medium. The writers disagree. And so they strike. As long as the writer’s are on the picket lines, they’re the most entertaining thing on TV YouTube. I can’t wait for the DVD.
This is the face of corporatism. A change in technology allows enough instability for those with power to claim even more control. The millionaires are literally trying to take money from the middle class and stick it in their own banks. The issue is so clear cut, so easy to see, the networks are being so thuggish... So I care. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some DVDs to watch.
*As I type this, I am watching a DVD of formerly televised content. Scrubs, season 2, if you want to know. I’m watching it on my Computer. The networks got their full cut. The writers got half their full cut.
Posted by Andrew at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2007
Don't write until it's right!
Posted by Andrew at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2007
The Crux of the matter.
Some of your favorite TV shows are most likely going to be going into reruns. Early. Seasons will be canceled, entertainment options dwindle, etc. Why?
Well, people with power (the TV studios) have decided that the people without power (TV writers) ought not to get a share of the money that they (the TV writers) are creating. It really is as simple as that.
It is actually worse than that. The studios have decided that since they have power, they will simply define the writer's revenue stream out of existence. DVD sales simply won't "count" towards "residual" sales in exactly the same manner as VHS sales. Also: since the internet doesn't "broadcast", writers (it seems) don't have the right to money from "rebroadcast".
Just so we're clear: when you buy a season of TV on VHS, writers are compensated. When you buy it on DVD or iTunes, they are not. Fortunately, the writers have the power to break the collective bargaining ability shown by the networks. They have formed a union for their collective defense.
As the writer's guild says " Our position is simple and fair: when our work generates revenue for the Companies, we deserve to be paid." Indeed.
Posted by Andrew at 09:48 PM | Comments (2)
November 01, 2007
Quick pictorial illustration of the postscript bellow:
Posted by Andrew at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)