National Portait Gallery and everlasting copyrights
I had not intended to blog about the National Portrait Gallery threatening to sue Wikipedia over the latter’s publication of copies of paintings in the gallery, as I thought it would be obvious to anyone that this is a blatant attempt to use physical possession of a work to get around the expirations of copyrights. Tactics like this can effectively extend copyright indefinitely. (more…)
Google hatred
The usually intelligent Willem Buiter has written a great example of the irrational hatred that Google seems to sporadically evoke. He attacks them with a list of charges, all of which are easily refuted.
Linux is fruit juice, Windows is cola
A discussion about why Linux has been so slow to take off made be realise that, essentially, Windows is like cola, Linux is like fruit juice. Its marketing that matters. (more…)
Product specifications and consumer stupidity
New research provides more evidence that people simply are not rational in choosing what they buy, a fundamental assumption of economics. I have previously discussed problems including consumers inability to understand many products.
Patent on patenting others’ inventions
Halliburton (it would be) have patented an aspect of patent trolling: reverse engineering other people’s trade secrets using a patent, patenting the (former!) trade secret and then suing the original inventor. (more…)
If this is the market working, what is failure?
Brain Caplan thinks markets work fine despite having to wait 19 years to be able to a product with a tiny marginal cost of production: i.e. he spent 19 years waiting on the supplier’s whims just to buy allowed to buy some music. (more…)
Why tax havens are fraudulent
I usually enjoy reading Economic Logic, but this post defending tax havens seems badly wrong headed to me. It misses the essentially fraudulent character of tax havens. (more…)
Alan Sugar fails to understand education
Alan Sugar has called for “enterprise lessons” in schools. While a capitalist economy may benefit from there being some people like Alan Sugar, I see absolutely no evidence that we need more of them. (more…)
Beyond capitalism?
This blog post by an academic economist raises a question that I am convinced we can already see part of the answer to. Industries that have a negligible marginal cost of production (media, software, etc.) demand a different economic system. (more…)
Northern Rock should have been allowed to fail
Willem Buiter is quite right to criticise the Bank of England’s bailout of Northern Rock. The message to bank directors and shareholders is quite clear: “take big risks, and if they go wrong the taxpayer will pay for your mistakes, if they work, you can keep the profit”. (more…)
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