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Sunday, February 28, 2010
Norway conquers infections by cutting use of antibiotics
The best way to cut down on infections is to reduce antibiotic use, Norway finds
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BY MARTHA MENDOZA AND MARGIE MASON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia last year, soaring virtually unchecked.
The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.
Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway's public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.
Now a spate of new studies from around the world prove that Norway's model can be replicated with extraordinary success, and public health experts are saying these deaths -- 19,000 in the U.S. each year alone, more than from AIDS -- are unnecessary.
``It's a very sad situation that in some places so many are dying from this, because we have shown here in Norway that Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus [MRSA] can be controlled, and with not too much effort,'' said Jan Hendrik-Binder, Oslo's MRSA medical advisor. ``But you have to take it seriously, you have to give it attention and you must not give up.''
The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the leading public health threats on the planet. A six-month investigation by The Associated Press found overuse and misuse of medicines has led to mutations in once curable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, making them harder and in some cases impossible to treat.
Now, in Norway's simple solution, there's a glimmer of hope.
ANTIBIOTICS MISSING
Dr. John Birger Haug shuffles down Aker's scuffed corridors, patting the pocket of his baggy white scrubs. ``My bible,'' the infectious disease specialist says, pulling out a little red Antibiotic Guide that details this country's impressive MRSA solution.
It's what's missing from this book -- an array of antibiotics -- that makes it so remarkable.
``There are times I must show these golden rules to our doctors and tell them they cannot prescribe something, but our patients do not suffer more and our nation, as a result, is mostly infection free,'' he says.
Norway's model is surprisingly straightforward.
``We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever,'' says Haug. ``We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better.''
U.S. REACTION
Dr. John Jernigan at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they incorporate some of Norway's solutions in varying degrees, and his agency ``requires hospitals to move the needle, to show improvement, and if they don't show improvement they need to do more.''
And if they don't?
``Nobody is accountable to our recommendations,'' he said, ``but I assume hospitals and institutions are interested in doing the right thing.''
Around the world, various medical providers have successfully adapted Norway's program with encouraging results. A medical center in Billings, Mont., cut MRSA infections by 89 percent by increasing screening, isolating patients and making all staff -- not just doctors -- responsible for increasing hygiene.
In 2001, the CDC approached a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh about conducting a small test program. It started in one unit, and within four years, the entire hospital was screening everyone who came through the door for MRSA. The result: an 80 percent decrease in MRSA infections.
The program has now been expanded to all 153 VA hospitals, resulting in a 50 percent drop in MRSA bloodstream infections, said Dr. Robert Muder, chief of infectious diseases at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.
``It's kind of a no-brainer,'' he said. ``You save people pain, you save people the work of taking care of them, you save money, you save lives and you can export what you learn to other hospital-acquired infections.''
``So, how do you pay for it?'' Muder asked. ``Well, we just don't pay for MRSA infections, that's all.''
Scott Brown (Just Doing What He Campaigned On)
Scott Brown is a Republican. From Massachusetts. If conservatives want him to be able to stay in Washington so he can vote against Obamacare and other boondoggles, then they shouldn't criticize him for voting like a Republican from Massachusetts. The movement for limited government is strengthened by Brown holding that seat. To keep it, he has to vote for some things conservatives find distasteful. As long as he's voting for small distasteful things so he can stick around to vote against the big ones, that's a win for the movement.
Scott Brown (Just Doing What He Campaigned On)
Scott Brown is a Republican. From Massachusetts. If conservatives want him to be able to stay in Washington so he can vote against Obamacare and other boondoggles, then they shouldn't criticize him for voting like a Republican from Massachusetts. The movement for limited government is strengthened by Brown holding that seat. To keep it, he has to vote for some things conservatives find distasteful. As long as he's voting for small distasteful things so he can stick around to vote against the big ones, that's a win for the movement.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Politburo or The Political Bureau
The Politburo, or Political Bureau, was the most important decision-making and leadership organ in the Communist Party, and has commonly been seen as equivalent to the cabinet in Western political systems. For most of the life of the Soviet system, the Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966) was the major focus of elite political life and the arena within which all important issues of policy were decided. It was the heart of the political system.
The Politburo was formally established at the Eighth Congress of the Party in March 1919 and held its first session on April 16. Formed by the Central Committee (CC), the Politburo was to make decisions that could not await the next meeting of the CC, but over time its smaller size and more frequent meeting schedule meant that effective power drained into it and away from the CC. There had been smaller groupings of leaders before, but these had never become formalized nor had they taken an institutional form. The establishment of the Politburo was part of the regularization of the leading levels of the Party that saw the simultaneous creation of theOrgburo and Secretariat, with these latter two bodies meant to ensure the implementation of the decisions of leading Party organs, in practice mostly the Politburo.
From its formation until late 1930, the Politburo was one arena within which the conflict between Josef Stalin and his supporters on the one side and successive groups of oppositionists among the Party leadership was fought out, but with the removal of Mikhail Tomsky in 1930, the last open oppositionist disappeared from the Politburo. Henceforth the body remained largely controlled by Stalin. Its lack of institutional integrity and power is illustrated by the fact that various of its members were arrested and executed during the terror of the mid-to late 1930s. After World War II, the Politburo ceased even to meet regularly, being effectively replaced by ad hoc groupings of leaders that Stalin mobilized on particular issues and when it suited him.
Following Stalin's death in 1953, the leading Party organs resumed a more regular existence, although Nikita Khrushchev's style was not one well suited to the demands of collective leadership; he often sought to bypass the Presidium. Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Politburo became more regularized, and the overwhelming majority of national issues seem to have been discussed in that body, although an important exception was the decision to send troops into Afghanistan in 1979. For much of the Mikhail Gorbachev period, too, the Politburo was at the heart of Soviet national decision making, although the shift of the Soviet system to a presidential one and the restructuring of the Politburo at the Twenty-Eighth Congress in 1990 effectively sidelined this body as an important institution.
The Politburo was always a small body. The first Politburo consisted of five full and three candidate (or nonvoting) members; at its largest, when it was elected at the Nineteenth Congress in 1952 and was probably artificially large because Stalin was planning a further purgeof the leadership (it was also envisaged that there would be a small, inner body), it comprised twenty-five full and eleven candidate members. Generally in the post-Stalin period it had between ten and fifteen full and five to nine candidates. Membership has tended to include a number of CC secretaries, leading representatives from state institutions (although the foreign and defense ministers did not become automatic members until 1973) and sometimes one or two republican party leaders. Gorbachev changed this pattern completely in 1990 by making all republican party leaders members of the Politburo along with the general secretary and his deputy, and eliminating candidate membership. It was over-whelmingly a male institution, with only two women (Ekaterina Furtseva and Alexandra Biriukova) gaining membership, and it was always dominated by ethnic Slavs, especially Russians.
While the frequency of Politburo meetings is somewhat uncertain for much of its life, it seems to have met on average about once per week in the Brezhnev period and after, with provision for a further meeting if required. Meetings were attended by all members plus a range of other people who might be called in to address specific items on the agenda. In addition, some issues were handled by circulation among the members, thereby not requiring explicit discussion at a meeting. No public differences of opinion between Politburo members were aired before the breakdown of many of the rules of Party life under Gorbachev, and public unanimity prevailed. It is not clear that votes were actually taken; issues seem to have been resolved through discussion and consensus. Whatever the process, the Politburo was the central leadership site of the Party and the Soviet system as a whole.
Politburo or The Political Bureau
The Politburo, or Political Bureau, was the most important decision-making and leadership organ in the Communist Party, and has commonly been seen as equivalent to the cabinet in Western political systems. For most of the life of the Soviet system, the Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966) was the major focus of elite political life and the arena within which all important issues of policy were decided. It was the heart of the political system.
The Politburo was formally established at the Eighth Congress of the Party in March 1919 and held its first session on April 16. Formed by the Central Committee (CC), the Politburo was to make decisions that could not await the next meeting of the CC, but over time its smaller size and more frequent meeting schedule meant that effective power drained into it and away from the CC. There had been smaller groupings of leaders before, but these had never become formalized nor had they taken an institutional form. The establishment of the Politburo was part of the regularization of the leading levels of the Party that saw the simultaneous creation of theOrgburo and Secretariat, with these latter two bodies meant to ensure the implementation of the decisions of leading Party organs, in practice mostly the Politburo.
From its formation until late 1930, the Politburo was one arena within which the conflict between Josef Stalin and his supporters on the one side and successive groups of oppositionists among the Party leadership was fought out, but with the removal of Mikhail Tomsky in 1930, the last open oppositionist disappeared from the Politburo. Henceforth the body remained largely controlled by Stalin. Its lack of institutional integrity and power is illustrated by the fact that various of its members were arrested and executed during the terror of the mid-to late 1930s. After World War II, the Politburo ceased even to meet regularly, being effectively replaced by ad hoc groupings of leaders that Stalin mobilized on particular issues and when it suited him.
Following Stalin's death in 1953, the leading Party organs resumed a more regular existence, although Nikita Khrushchev's style was not one well suited to the demands of collective leadership; he often sought to bypass the Presidium. Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Politburo became more regularized, and the overwhelming majority of national issues seem to have been discussed in that body, although an important exception was the decision to send troops into Afghanistan in 1979. For much of the Mikhail Gorbachev period, too, the Politburo was at the heart of Soviet national decision making, although the shift of the Soviet system to a presidential one and the restructuring of the Politburo at the Twenty-Eighth Congress in 1990 effectively sidelined this body as an important institution.
The Politburo was always a small body. The first Politburo consisted of five full and three candidate (or nonvoting) members; at its largest, when it was elected at the Nineteenth Congress in 1952 and was probably artificially large because Stalin was planning a further purgeof the leadership (it was also envisaged that there would be a small, inner body), it comprised twenty-five full and eleven candidate members. Generally in the post-Stalin period it had between ten and fifteen full and five to nine candidates. Membership has tended to include a number of CC secretaries, leading representatives from state institutions (although the foreign and defense ministers did not become automatic members until 1973) and sometimes one or two republican party leaders. Gorbachev changed this pattern completely in 1990 by making all republican party leaders members of the Politburo along with the general secretary and his deputy, and eliminating candidate membership. It was over-whelmingly a male institution, with only two women (Ekaterina Furtseva and Alexandra Biriukova) gaining membership, and it was always dominated by ethnic Slavs, especially Russians.
While the frequency of Politburo meetings is somewhat uncertain for much of its life, it seems to have met on average about once per week in the Brezhnev period and after, with provision for a further meeting if required. Meetings were attended by all members plus a range of other people who might be called in to address specific items on the agenda. In addition, some issues were handled by circulation among the members, thereby not requiring explicit discussion at a meeting. No public differences of opinion between Politburo members were aired before the breakdown of many of the rules of Party life under Gorbachev, and public unanimity prevailed. It is not clear that votes were actually taken; issues seem to have been resolved through discussion and consensus. Whatever the process, the Politburo was the central leadership site of the Party and the Soviet system as a whole.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
30 Money Quotes from Poor Richard's Almanack
 Poor Richard's Almanack was a yearly Almanack published by Benjamin Franklin from 1732 - 1758. The publication included information on seasonal weather, planting schedules, lunar cycles, and more. Poor Richard's Almanack is most famous for its insightful little quotes and wordplays.I became interested in reading Poor Richards's Almanack after hearing Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, talk about all the wisdom it contained. Munger has been a student of Benjamin Franklin's writings for a long time, and Munger attributes some of his success to what he has learned from the simple quotes in Poor Richard's Almanack. Here are 30 of my favorite quotes from Poor Richard's Almanack: "Speak little do much" "Light purse, heavy heart" "Necessity never made a good bargain" "If you'd know the value of money, go and borrow some" "Beware of little expenses: a small leak will sink a great ship" "Drive thy Business, or it will drive thee" "If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone" "As Pride increases, Fortune declines" "Little Strokes Fell great Oaks" "Content makes poor men rich, Discontent makes Rich men poor" "Avoid dishonest gain: no price can recompense the pangs of vice" "No gains without pains" "Great spenders are bad lenders" "Light Gains, heavy Purses" "He that drinks fast, pays slow" "He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner" "Haste makes waste" "Diligence is the mother of good luck" "Patience in market, is worth pounds in a year" "Don't judge a men's wealth or piety, by their Sunday appearances" "Spare and have is better than spend and crave" "A Plowman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees" "Work as if you were to live 100 years, Pray as if you were to die tomorrow" "Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is" "If you have no honey in your pot, have some in your mouth" "Lost time is never found again" "Well done is better than well said" "After crosses and losses, men grow humbler and wiser" "If Passion drives, let reason hold the reins" "Wise men learn by others' harms, fools by their own"
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12 Tips from Thomas Jefferson
 In 1811, Thomas Jefferson sat down and wrote out 12 thoughtful rules of conduct for his granddaughter, Cornelia, when she was twelve. As I read these rules I was surprised by how many of them pertained to personal finance. 1. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.2. Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.3. Never spend your money before you have it.4. Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you. 5. Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves!6. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.7. We never repent of having eat too little.8. Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly. 9. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.10. Take things always by their smooth handle.11. Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.12. When annoyed count 10, before you speak, if very angry, count 100. |
Vegetable Gardners
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A Greener Garden
I’m sure more and more of you are hearing buzz words like “sustainability” and “eco-friendly” when it comes to gardening. Those terms are broad, hard to define and, frankly, mean a lot of different things to different people. So what can you do to go greener in the garden? Here are some simple ways to take steps towards a more sustainable landscape.
Choosing plants that are well adapted to our climate and use less water is a great first step. That doesn’t mean that the plants you choose have to be “natives.” Texas is a big state, and what’s native to one part of the state may not thrive in another part. Choose plants recommended for your area. Mulching your garden in spring and fall is also a great way to conserve moisture and reduce weeds.
Try to buy locally when you can. Support local retailers who provide locally produced plants and products. By purchasing local products from local vendors, you’ll cut down on the materials and fuel necessary to create and transport the goods.
Have your automated irrigation system audited to identify any leaks or performance problems. This can save you a lot of wasted water and money on your water bill. Learn how to program your system properly by zone so you’re not overwatering portions of your landscape. It’s best to have a certified irrigation specialist perform the audit.
Consider setting up compost bins. Huge amounts of kitchen waste and yard clippings can easily be recycled in a relatively small space in your landscape. Why throw all that valuable organic matter into the landfill? Use your own compost to amend your garden soil.
Make this year your year to get the vegetable garden started. In today’s world, getting back to the basics is a priority for many of us. Growing and preserving our own food, at least some of it, can go a long way to cutting down on costs and reducing our impact on the environment. Vegetables and herbs can be grown even in small spaces and containers in an urban garden. Kitchen gardens can be large or tiny, but no matter the size, they are rewarding.
There’s much to do in the kitchen garden right now, and it’s a great time to get started. Plant tomato transplants outdoors mid-March, along with peppers and many other veggies. Direct seed lettuce right into the garden for a quick salad crop. You can also direct seed herbs like cilantro and dill, along with beans, corn, squash, cucumbers and more for early-summer harvest. Garden centers should have plenty of veggie transplants for you to choose from this time of year. Don’t forget, many vegetables and herbs are also beautiful ornamentals. Mix in containers with spring color for a great display. There’s nothing like knowing exactly where your food comes from, especially when it’s your own backyard!
About the author: Leslie Finical Halleck is a horticulturist and general manager for North Haven Gardens in Dallas, Texa
The Fate of a Format: Will MusicDNA Catch On?
The Fate of a Format: Will MusicDNA Catch On?
Kyle Bylin (
Twenty-seven and a half years ago, the manufacturing of the world’s first compact disc took place at a Philips factory in Langenhagen, Germany. Upon its introduction, the CD was marketed to music fans with regards to its superior sound quality and scratch free durability. But, as time when on, those claims were both highly debated among audiophiles, and, in the case of durability, or “Perfect Sound Forever” as they called it, even refuted completely. When compared to the record in terms of the trade-off between fidelity and convenience that music fans made when choosing formats, it’s clear that the CD offered up far more convenience than records did at the time. Their higher portability and capacity to allow effortless skipping between songs gave the CD a definite edge.
In contrast, the record tended to resonate more deeply with music fans for the reason that it offered a considerably higher degree of fidelity. It has been passionately argued that the record contained more natural sounding music — where the warmness of the instruments and voices hadn’t been lost. Nor had the much finer nuances — such as background noise, minor mistakes, or even the slightest cough — been removed, adding an essence of human touch and imperfection to the format. There was this distinctive, yet intangible quality surrounding records — that seemed representative of the culmination of artistry and musicianship that bleed into their production. Their artwork and liner notes garnered identity not only to the music, but to the music fans themselves who preeminently displayed their vast collections.
Despite the presence of these two subtle components: aura and identity, records were replaced by CDs because their inconvenience trumped their fidelity. This trade-off would happen again once MP3s became widely available, as their ease of use, in the minds of many people, made up for their sheer lack of quality. Not to mention the fact that for several critical years they could be downloaded for free at a time when most CDs, regardless of the pricing war that occurred, were still considered a relatively expensive commitment for the fans who only wanted access to a couple radio singles. Then, iTunes and the social phenomenon of the iPod ignited the penchant for the MP3 over the CD among fans and pushed the format back into what technology writer Kevin Manley calls the fidelity belly.
Almost always, he argues, new technologies start out there, and, at the end of their lifecycle, old ones inevitably fall below this threshold. Once a product or service possesses so little of either convenience or fidelity that consumers are no longer motivated to act, they have fallen into the fidelity belly — where people are no longer excited about them, because, like CDs, they are no longer perceived as needed nor are they deeply loved by fans. This is the place that Manley, after nearly two decades of writing about the technology sector, named “the no-man’s-land of consumer experience,” once he observed that products or services that only offered so-so fidelity, and were only somewhat convenient, didn’t catch on. It’s this problem, he argues, that’s drastically hurting CD sales.
MusicDNA, said to be “the successor to the MP3,” is hoped to amend this disconnect between the desires of fans and the record industry’s current offerings by granting owners of the format access to “additional updated content, including lyrics, artwork, tour dates, blog posts, videos, and Twitter feeds.” Much like the format advancements made by the CD and MP3, the appeal of MusicDNA is based entirely on higher convenience, seeing as all the content that it seeks to make available to fans already exists online, elsewhere. The idea is that by only allowing purchased versions of the format to be updated, while pirated versions remain static, fans will feel more encouraged to purchase these songs and curb their file-sharing habits. But, is locking out “pirates” the right strategy to adopt?
II.
Currently, the record industry is structured around a top-down, highly centralized “push” marketing model — where a few key gatekeepers anticipate the demand for their product in the marketplace and finance the production of music from a small number of artists — based upon what they want to sell to music fans, not on what music fans want to buy. The problem that arises here — if music fans become unsatisfied not only with the product being distributed, but the means through which it is distributed — is that, in times of change, the highly specified, centralized, and restrictive nature of the record industry, and their push systems, prevent them from adapting. It prevents them from experimenting, improvising, and learning as quickly as possible about the changes in consumer behavior.
In From Push to Pull, John Seely Brown argues that, “Push systems not only inhibit product innovation but — even more important — make it much harder to implement incremental process innovations rapidly.” He believes, “The next frontier of innovation will require the broader adoption of pull capabilities as well as less reliance on traditional push systems, which, as demand becomes more and more difficult to forecast, increasingly fail to even deliver the efficiency they were designed to promote.” Over the course of a decade, the record industry’s “push” marketing model, the CD-Release Complex, has severely weakened. Once fans migrated to the Internet and began discovering music outside of the mediums that major labels used to promote new music, the record industry began to decline.
“For as long as anybody in the business could remember, labels relied on MTV, radio, and record stores for exposure,” Steve Knopper writes in Appetite for Self-Destruction. “Push the gatekeepers at those place aggressively enough — in some cases, bribe them — and you’ve got a hit.” But, the “push” mentality of the record industry could not be extended into the digital realm, because all three of these institutions — that they built themselves on the back of — deteriorated in the face of the societal and technological shifts that the Internet brought forth. With that, the media landscape fractured into niches and it rendered push marketing nearly impossible. In its place, what the web, the proliferation of digital technologies, and the rise of the networked audience leads to is "pull" marketing.
“Rather than treating producers as passive consumers whose needs can be anticipated and shaped by centralized decision makers, pull models treat people as networked creators even when they actually are customers purchasing goods and services,” Brown explains. “Pull platforms harness their participants’ passion, commitment, and desire to learn, thereby creating communities that improvise and innovate rapidly.” Prior to the Internet, music was pushed out through specific delivery mechanisms like radio and MTV wherein the fans on the other end were regarded as passive participants in the process. Push marketing was something that you did to fans, but it didn’t involve them. Today, music fans are actively engaged, have the choice to participate, and are “pulled” in directly.
What’s unique about MusicDNA in this respect and the true opportunity that it embodies is that the format’s updatable nature enables “pull mechanisms” to be built within the music itself, rather than existing outside of it. All of the media surrounding an artist can be leveraged at the point of interaction with the music to encourage the participation of audiences. It is in this instance that a commercial culture defined by passivity converges with a participatory culture that promotes activity — where all of the conversations that once occurred in the absence of the music become a vital part of its identity and further evolve it as a social object. In theory, then, the record industry should want to have as many MusicDNA tracks in circulation as possible, to ensure engaged and well-informed fan bases.
So, by only allowing legitimately purchased MusicDNA tracks to be dynamically updated, while unauthorized versions remain static files, what the record industry is denying itself the is ability to engage with “pirates,” to use these songs as “pull mechanisms,” and to leverage this additional media as marketing designed to convert them into paying customers. In denying “pirates” convenient access points to their artists marketing efforts all the record industry ensures by doing this is that these fans will remain as passive consumers of music. When instead they could be cultivated into active participants – those more deeply involved in the career of an artist — who are the most likely to want to buy stuff from them. Even if in the end what they buy is not digital files, but higher priced rarities.
III.
Making the MusicDNA format widely accessible, low-cost, and dynamically updateable by anyone, of course, is not likely the approach that the record industry will take. It is intended to be a scarcity in the face of radical abundance – one that is “hoped” to deter piracy and get fans excited about buying music again. The problem with those claims, though, as author Pip Coburn pointed out in The Change Function, is that, “Sometimes technologists forget just how vast the chasm is between them and real people.” Further arguing that, “it is real people and not technologists who determine the fate of technologies.” In that case, what will be a more realistic fate of MusicDNA? There’s no doubt that it offers convenience, but whether or not is high enough is the big question looming.
Since the MP3 file by default already offers relatively low-fidelity, MusicDNA’s only shot is to be super-convenient, of which digital distribution takes care of in terms of ease of use, but another huge aspect of convenience happens to be cost. If MusicDNA is more expensive than the standard MP3 by too much than the labels risk putting up a barrier that may leave fans thinking that the added value just isn’t worth the extra cost. Seeing as most savvy and diehard fans will have taken the effort to seek out the additional content that’s being tied in with MusicDNA, how the format rates in the eyes of casual fans is what matters. If the appeal isn’t there, it may never leave the fidelity belly, “where neither the convenience nor fidelity is good enough to attract a mass-market audience.”
If that’s the result, a huge opportunity will be lost, and unfortunately, MusicDNA would only serve as an example of how out of touch the record industry is in terms of knowing who their listeners are, let alone knowing what they want. For far too long, fans have been regarded as passive participants and denied access to the experiences they want, and file-sharers have been ignored and litigated. When in fact, as William Patry argues, “Copyright owner’s problems are market problems, and they can only be solved by responding to market demands: strong copyright protection cannot make consumers buy things they do not want to buy and, as the RIAA’s ill-conceived, ill-executed, and ill-fated campaign of suing individuals demonstrates, laws cannot stop individuals from file-sharing.”
This is where the record industry went wrong, in thinking that all “pirates” are created equal and are solely motivated to file-share music because it’s free, not because they are in some way, shape, or form left unsatisfied by the current system. The means through which fans discover, acquire, and consume have evolved so prominently over the course of the last decade; to the point where it’s hard to imagine that our largely unchanged ecosystem still reflects upon the needs of the fans whose obligation it is to service. What MusicDNA presents is the chance for the record industry to reach out to file-sharers, engage them with the content surrounding their artists, acquire their e-mails and permission to market, and to finally propose unique propositions and monetize “pirates” as fans.
At present, though, there is no sober reason to think that fans and file-sharers will be motivated to adopt MusicDNA outright, unless the offering is realistically positioned in terms of price and ease of use. Otherwise, in the fidelity belly it will stay. In order to avoid this fate, an alternate strategy should be considered: flood the networks. Make it so file-sharers ought to want MusicDNA — that they go out of their way to ensure they replace their MP3s with it. Then, activate these files and begin dynamically updating them. From there on out, connect with pirates and give them reasons to buy. In 2008 alone, there were 40 billion chances to do just that. This approach may not ‘save’ the record industry per se, but at least it's better than what they've been doing since the rise of file-sharing.
Additional Reading:
Trapped In Cognition: The Plight of the Digital Age
Contact:
kyledotbylinatgmaildotcom
Notes:
All thinking and writing on the fidelity swap should be rightfully credited to Kevin Manely's fantasic and highly insightful book: Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't. If you haven't looked at the interview that's tied to this essay, do so.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Debt Timer Is True Doomsday Clock
Obama racks up debt and journalists depict him as a fiscal conservative.
By Dan GainorThe Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
Business & Media Institute
2/24/2010 3:10:35 PM
To hear President Obama describe it, “the accumulated weight of that structural deficit, of ever-increasing debt, will hobble our economy, it will cloud our future, and it will saddle every child in America with an intolerable burden.” He should know. He’s certainly doing his part. He would actually sound reasonable if he hadn’t just proposed a $3.8 trillion budget with nearly $1.6 trillion in deficit spending.
Imagine that with your household budget. In lean times, and boy are these lean times, you overspend by 42 percent more than you earn – just in one year. That’s government for you.
You almost don’t want to know how big that budget really is or how far into debt it puts us. Obama’s latest budget is $700 billion more than Pres. George W. Bush’s last budget – and that’s some accomplishment. In 10 years, D.C. has doubled Bill Clinton’s last budget of $1.9 trillion.
But even Obama’s ocean of red ink hasn’t stopped the media from portraying him as a fiscal conservative. According to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Obama needs “$100 billion to spur job growth” and of course, “all economists agree the real way to get a chunk out of the deficit is to increase hiring.”
If journalists really depicted Obama as even more of a spendthrift that George Bush, it would make it harder for him to pass health care reform with another trillion-dollar price tag. So news stories mostly parrot the White House view of the world that the debt, the deficit and the economy are Bush’s fault.
That’s only partially true. Bush certainly expanded government. But for his last two years, that expansion has had the approval of a Democratic Congress that controlled the purse strings. Congress makes the budgets, not the president.
That wasn’t the story the media told us. ABC’s David Muir tried to answer the question: “How did we get here” with the debt during a Feb. 1 broadcast. His synopsis of history gave just four words to the 9/11 attack that set in motion much of Bush’s spending. Muir’s follow-up descriptions only mention Iraq and “expanded Medicare,” when the overall budget grew at an astounding rate.
To solve that, the president isn’t just kicking the can down the road. He’s trying to kick Republican cans as well by launching a “bipartisan commission” designed to give Obama political cover for the mid-term elections. It allows the president to run exactly as journalists depict him – as a reformer who’s a deficit hawk. In reality he’s done more, faster to raise the debt and deficit than anyone.
NBC’s Brian Williams gave a very uninformative view of the president’s new fiscal commission that didn’t raise any major concerns, saying it “is to find ways to reduce the nearly $1 1/2 trillion budget deficit.” Williams then went on to interview both Obama appointees to run the panel – former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson and ex-White House chief of staff under Clinton Erskine Bowles.
Unfortunately, the debt panel is more bogus bipartisanship. The commission has 18 members – six chosen by Democrats, six by Republicans and six by the president. While that last six can’t all be Democrats, they will all be likely Obama allies. So the panel shapes up 2-to-1 for the president. That’s might be Democratic, but it’s not democratic. That’s the way Bugs Bunny used to con other toons by saying: “One for you and two for me.”
It’s the same con here. If two Republicans join with Democrats, the administration could use that allegedly balanced panel to promote fees and spending hikes. All Obama would have to do would be point to the stacked commission. And if the GOP members don’t agree, they’ll be called the “party of no” by the left and the press. And it will look believable because they will be outnumbered by that same 2-to-1 margin.
Back in 1988, a National Economic Commission was formed and one member complained it was inherently pro-tax. This will be just the same. There are only a few ways to pay off these burgeoning bills – growth, spending cuts, taxes or inflation. But government regulations and high corporate taxes already stymie growth and large spending cuts are too tough for politicians.
That means taxes, and debt, will both likely increase. Take a look at the U.S. Debt Clock, an analysis of the seemingly countless trillions Americans owe now and into the future. At the top of the page is the national debt, currently at $12.4 trillion. That clock is spinning faster than Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
But other equally depressing clocks fill the rest of the screen – federal deficit ($1.4 trillion right now), Social Security liability ($14.2 trillion), total unfunded liability ($108 trillion or $348,000 per person). I’m sure some stats whiz could quibble with some of the numbers. The real point is the numbers are staggering and getting more so.
As ordinary Americans are left paying for a government out of control, the clock keeps on ticking.