Free books and media – days 8 and 9
Another uneventful days as far as the books go, but music is going better than I expected. (more…)
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Free ebooks and video, first day
Yesterday was my first full day of consuming only free media, Its a day and a half since I started. So how is it going? (more…)
A month of only free content
For the next month (i.e. from 16th July 2011 to 15th August 2011) I will only read/watch/listen to legally free media (audio, video, books, whatever). The biggest changes will be reading only free ebooks (something I have been doing a lot of lately, anyway) and listening only to free music. (more…)
Governments should promote OSS
One would imagine that economists would have learned by now that they need to check their theoretical models against the real world. A recent article arguing that governments need to promote a “balance” between open source and proprietary software, rather than promoting open source, rests on no fewer than five incorrect assumptions, and is easily rebutted by what happens in the real world. (more…)
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Was Marx right?
One reason that Marx’s prediction that capitalism would lead to increasing inequality, and then failure, was wrong, was that advancing technology lead to increases in prosperity for almost everyone. Slowing technological change will mean an increase in inequality, so Marx may have another chance to be proved right. (more…)
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The plutocracy is no meritocracy
Many of the spate of recent articles on the super-rich, such as the influential one in The Atlantic have accepted the idea that the plutocracy is meritocratic: the wealth is earned. I have my doubts, and had a look at how and where the richest of the super-rich made their money. (more…)
Do the British really hate foreigners that much?
The government has so far come up with two ideas to reduce cap immigration, both of which would be highly damaging to the country:
- Let fewer students in
- Reduce the number of foreign workers
Take the first as it has had less attention. Educating foreign students is highly profitable for Britain and earns huge amount of money. It is like an extended, and far more profitable, version of tourism. (more…)
Great crash and credit crunch similarities.
I have been reading Galbraith’s The Great Crash of 1929 and a lot of similarities have struck me, not all of which seem to have been noticed by everyone. (more…)
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How to break up oligopolists
The most discussed problem with my proposals on how to fix capitalism is how one decides which companies to break up, and how one goes about doing it. Needless to say, I do have some answers (more…)
How to fix the banking system
This is a bit less ambitious than my plan to reform capitalism, but the principles are the same.
Too big to fail is too big to exist
Big banks create too much systemic risk, and are far too much of a strain on government finances when they need to be bailed out. (more…)
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