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This picture is a treasury of symbolism and metaphor. Helpless on its side, with an enormous hole torn in its hull, this disaster has already killed more than a dozen people who only wanted to have fun for a few days, ruined the career of the captain and possibly headed him for time in the [...]
Archive for the ‘Paying for nonrival goods’ Category
September 4th, 2011
by Michael O'Hare
Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum are at it again about digital content. Unasked, I propose to mediate this dispute between parties known to me to be technically, economically, and politically astute, and to have their hearts in the right place. The question on the table is, approximately ,whether taking a good embodied in a bunch [...]
Posted: Sunday, September 4th, 2011 at
4:55 pm
44 Comments »
August 22nd, 2011
by Robert Frank
Taxation is one thing; voluntary contributions are something else. Is this so hard to understand?
Posted: Monday, August 22nd, 2011 at
1:26 pm
Tags: soaking the rich, Warren Buffett
30 Comments »
April 22nd, 2011
by Michael O'Hare
Writing about my local radio options, around tax time when I always feel guilty about not giving enough money away last year, led to an expensive tour past the web cash registers of several public radio stations. My conscience is salved, but I’m still nettled by the system I have to deal with. First, as [...]
Posted: Friday, April 22nd, 2011 at
9:46 am
7 Comments »
February 20th, 2011
by Michael O'Hare
Matt Yglesias gets the key fact about recorded music. It’s a non-rival good: when I play an mp3 file of a song, there’s no less of it for you, so the marginal cost of my consumption is zero. He also gets the profoundly illuminating and useful principle that everything should be sold at marginal cost. [...]
Posted: Sunday, February 20th, 2011 at
12:44 pm
25 Comments »
July 5th, 2010
by Michael O'Hare
Category: Arts and Cultural Policy, Education policy, Management, Paying for nonrival goods, Teaching
What does cheating in college have to do with markets for digital goods? More than you might think, and two links connect this weekend’s report from the battlefield between professors and students and a book review by the interesting and insightful jazz critic Devin Leonard. The cheating story is profoundly depressing; the University of Central [...]
Posted: Monday, July 5th, 2010 at
11:12 pm
15 Comments »
May 5th, 2010
by Michael O'Hare
Megan McArdle is the business and economics [sic] editor of the Atlantic. She and I have crossed swords mice before and if she recalls those debates at all probably thinks I have no manners and don’t like her. As to the first, I do wish I were more gracious in person and in print, and [...]
Posted: Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at
10:57 pm
24 Comments »
September 4th, 2009
by Mark Kleiman
Category: Health Care, Paying for nonrival goods
We should run parallel systems: the current system driven by the promise of monopoly rents via patent, and a new system of direct public expenditure via public-benefit corporations, grants, and prizes.
Posted: Friday, September 4th, 2009 at
5:42 pm
4 Comments »
March 1st, 2009
by Michael O'Hare
The news news is bad news: my hometown paper is breaking up on the rocks, the LA Times is a shadow of its former self, the Rocky Mountain News is a memory, and the New York Times is on very soft financial ground. Almost every American city is a one-newspaper town, and those surviving papers [...]
Posted: Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at
11:21 pm
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January 6th, 2009
by Michael O'Hare
Category: Economics, Intellectual property, Journalism (Online and Otherwise), Paying for nonrival goods, Policy briefs
The crisis in print journalism seems to be worsening, or at least ripening. It’s not just the incredible shrinking daily paper, but monthly magazines (including Wired, so it’s not outdated content) and it’s not just periodicals but books, and not just print media but music and video. Us shadetree mechanics always look for one specific [...]
Posted: Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at
11:38 pm
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