Monday, October 31, 2005

Democracy's evil twin - Los Angeles Times

I would agree, but also remove those ridiculous term-limits. Basically the voters of California have to make many expert decisions on a wide variety of issues that they do not understand. Add to that, the only ones that are accountable to the people are leaving office in a year or two (or looking for a new job), that they have no interest or expertise on any issues that require more than 30 seconds of thought.

Initiatives hamstring these electeds until they have no discretion with the budget. It's a crazy place to live and no way to govern.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Democrat Urges Rove to Quit Over CIA Leak - Yahoo! News

Flip-flopper? Or worse? Not sure why the MSM is letting them get away with this crap. They didn't do it with Clinton.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Director Warns of Big Screens' Extinction - Los Angeles Times

The "problem" is that in some markets their is no delay between the DVD and the theatrical release. With piracy at such a massive scale and growing, it is moving quickly toward that model. The better question is how do you make $$ on this? That's where the simultaneous release come in.

There will always be a certain group that finds going to the movies with a crowd a great experience. I will always feel that certain movies are better with a crowd. At the same time, it's expensive ($10+) and it's not always that much better (babies crying, cell phone conversations).

There is a solution in that video games and movies fuse into a two hour "experience." If there was a way to make a movie/game that people played together it could make for a pretty cool experience. One that would need people to meet and come out together and pay $$$ for the experience.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs - New York Times:

"Wal-Mart executives said the memo was part of an effort to rein in benefit costs, which to Wall Street's dismay have soared by 15 percent a year on average since 2002. Like much of corporate America, Wal-Mart has been squeezed by soaring health costs."

Is Walmart going to come out for nationalized health care? Will the Legacy industries and Wal-mart be able to beat big Pharma and get it through? I doubt it .... Then again what does the Democratic Party stand for?
German Labor's New Reality - New York Times

Everyone is facing global pressures. The key with the German car makers is that their was once a premium to be paid for their cars. That is evaporating with competative pressure from around the world. Additionally the wage pressures from all over can't be good for the unions.

The unions will have the toughest problems. What would SEIU do in this situation? I believe in the right to collectively bargin, but at the same time, expectations of unions have to got to go down. Nothing is certain except for change.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

What's He Really Worth? - New York Times

The emperor has no clothes. It's amazing how much his hype is worth though. There is a premium to his name. It's all about the brand. The funny thing is that people keep buying his crap.
What Rice Can't See

I see Robinson's point about how few blacks that Rice has pulled along in her career. Although at the same time, the "lame excuse" about not enough qualified blacks is not crazy. It does seem that Condo could have done a better job of enabling.

The other thing about the bubble, is maybe the bubble is personal and the isolation she feels doesn't allow her to look to deep for fear of what she's going to see. Then again all this pop psychology is crap too ;)

Monday, October 24, 2005

Bull's-Eyes on a Generic Nation

A twofer: First up is the scandal that the GOP majority is helping a mistress-beater good-ol'-boy. Great, why aren't you writing about it?

Second, the fact that Condi Rice is not only overmatched (by the Veeps Cabal), but just a crony. Nothing more and nothing less. I sure bet that she can't wait for Tags to retire ;)
Why You Should Pay to Read This Newspaper? - New York Times

What about the ads that are sitting right next to your precious content? Is that a "charge" for content? It sounds/looks like that to me. I'm not sure their is a truly free option, but we do have to put up with cookies, surveys, and ads to read most Web content. That isn't free, it's just harder to see.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Is Affordable Housing Becoming an Oxymoron? - New York Times

Not really. If the person that Prof. Varian says skimps and saves to live on the one acre lot is properly rewarded, say by a condo developer paying him 5 times as much as he paid, is that a bad thing? The land owner gets lots of $$, the developer gets to make a profit off his building, and the "searcher" gets a place to live. Certainly more people win (more intensely) in that scenario versus restrictive R-1 zoning where only the owner wins and everyone else loses (no housing for the searcher, no profit to be made by developers, etc.) The best case scenario is to limit zoning laws and encourage a variety of housing options, and then, most importantly, reassess the zoning on a continual basis. Government should not be so intrusive on the market and force limit folks housing option like it has in the past.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

FRONTLINE: the torture question | PBS

the most upsetting TV show I've seen in years (well since the first and last time I saw Nip/Tuck). Seriously though, this is about us. What we mean as a country and our morality. The torture that the Bush Administration has helped destroy our country and warp what we stand for.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Wholesale Inflation Soars on Surge in Energy Prices - New York Times

So what? I'm not sure that the Fed has the right tools to deal with this inflation. Raising interest rates is good for fighting inflation. Althougth the Fed has been doing that for months now. Has it worked? Fuel prices continue to increase. Food is up as are other costs (housing bubble anyone?).

What next then? If the Fed keeps increasing rates, the economy will continue to slow down and that should keep inflation low. But what if they keep raising rates and inflation keeps going up? What conundrum is that? As fuel cost keep applying pressure on inflation, the economy can't slow down much more, can it?

Will unemployment increase? What is the moneterist response to that? Could we be in the beginings of a downward spiral?

There will be no more large tracks of fuel to be found. Technology will require at least a decade to catch up with alternatives. That means continued higher fuel cost which means a slowing economy. Demand continues to increase as China and India continue to industrialize. Fuel costs will continue to rise.

What about long-term interest rates? Are they going to start rising with this screwy economy?
'Rule of Law'? That's So '90s

It's easier to say hypocrite.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Baltimore City Paper: NEWS:

"“To me, what’s happening as symbolized by the dismantling of these foreign bureaus is a single-minded focus on bolstering short-term profit margins at the expense of building long-term foundations of a news organization,” says Marimow, himself a Tribune Co. shareholder. “And to me, Baltimoreans specifically and readers in general know when a newspaper has been diluted. And I, for one, do not subscribe to the notion that homogenous newspapers attract and retain readers.”"

I subscribe to the papers should get fatter and deeper, become more essential to their reader's lives than trying to please the focus groups of non-readers.

Who are these people in the focus groups that don't read the paper? Do they care about the World around them? If your trying to recruit a bunch of stoners and burnouts, they will never read the paper.

The thing with media is that they are competing with the Web for news. The Web is very broad and not too deep (or only in specialized subjects). Newpapers can fill that gap and go deeper (I'm not saying New Yorker deep, but a few of thousand words about City Hall is always good for the community).

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

At Newspapers, Some Clipping - New York Times:

"revenue growth as paltry as it is"

What are the margins on media companies? 20%? These guys are crying wolf. Newspapers make tons of money, they just don't make enough. The family owned concerns with a feeling of obligation to their readers put out a great product and they live high on the hog. As the papers get crappier and crappier, why would you subscribe?

If McDonald's took away a hamburger pattie in the their Big Mac and said it was a cost cutting measure, would you buy a Big Mac?

As a mature market, newspapers and media in general should be giving more for the same price. Bigger pictures, better writing and more features would be a good selling point. Why go smaller and crappier? You're eating your young.

Those that say newspapers are dying because of focus groups ... Morons! Why don't you ever hear about focus groups of readers? The opinions I want to know are those that actually PAY to get the paper and read it. These opinions should be a thousand times more important that any crap that some illiterate ignoramous spews out in a poll. More is better, it's the American way ....

Friday, October 07, 2005

:: rogerebert.com :: Scanners (xhtml):

"... studios might just stop making new movies if video pirates nabbed any more of their revenue."

I know this is a joke .... However the thing about pirating and Hollywood crap is that it is all lies. If their isn't a bigger more ruthless pirating world that China or India, how could they still stay in business? China's film industry is doing well (sure it's still censored, but it can't be losing that much money). Bollywood is going gangbusters. They are sucessful markets for making movies.

I doubt Hollywood will go out of business. It may actually help by giving more people access to movies. It certainly won't hurt. The profits that the studios and actors are making will be hurt, but the big losers will be the distribution arms (studios make more on DVDs than anything else) and movie theatres. Looking long range, it might hurt, but then again, it is the only place you can see a movie on the big screen with the crowd and all that ....
Opening Arguments, Endlessly - New York Times:

"Blogs break down the barriers"

I'm sure that the law monopoly is going to go down soon too.

Lots of navel gazing when it comes to all this blog stuff. I wonder if this will be a fad or something that will last (pen pals?).
Instant Revisionism:

"... the truth is never simple, and that the first story you hear surely won't be the last."

The more I read Robinson, the more I am impressed with his column. I know he was busy with other jobs at the Post, but he should have been on the op-ed page ages ago.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Big S.U.V.'s Lag in Sales, Hindered by Gas Cost - New York Times

Man Bites Dog? Or maybe the other way around ....