Posts Tagged With: Opinions

Record Numbers of Poppies in Afghanistan

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New York Times has an article detailing the record levels of opium being produced in Afghanistan this year. We are spending $600 million on counternarcotics efforts, divided between eradication, interdiction, and "alternative livelihoods." Government officials admit, however, that eradication "drives farmers into the hands of the Taliban." Why not pay the farmers for the opium they produce and then destroy the crop, instead of insisting they grow wheat, which makes a tenth of the profits? A lot of the high cost of heroin in the United States is added at the end, because it costs so much to smuggle it in and refine it for street sale. As the leader of the free world, and with trillions of dollars in tax revenue, we should be able to outbid the Taliban.

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Money & the 2008 Election

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NY Times has an interesting, if improbable, look at how Michael Bloomberg could focus all of his energy at one or two large states, and use these as bargaining chips if neither the Democrats or Republicans manage to get a majority in the Electoral College. Of course, if one of them does manage to get a majority, or if Mr Bloomberg doesn't decide to run for president, this whole strategy is for naught. I think a better strategy would be to offer every Electoral College voter 2 million dollars to vote for Bloomberg instead of their candidate. To get a majority, Bloomberg would need 270 voters to change their vote, for a total cost of $540 million, comparable to the cost of an election campaign. Of course, this could fail too. All this strategizing says to me that the Electoral College is an idea that has long outlived its usefulness. Every election year, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Missouri get twice as much attention as California, a state with the world's 7th largest economy and one sixth of the country's population. There is no Electoral College equivalent at any other level of government in the US; it would be silly if governor's races were decided by how many counties a candidate won. It's about time we switched to popular voting for the president, like every other industrialized country.

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Final Chapter Mediocrity

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POTC Spiderman 3, Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 have come out in the past month, with lots of hype and big budgets, but I haven't seen any of them, mainly because they reviewed so poorly, among my friends and the papers. I would think that these movies would have done worse among reviewers if not for the hype and ad campaigns and big budgets. Don't waste your money; go see Hot Fuzz instead. The third film of a trilogy remains really hard for Hollywood to get right. They are riding high on the success of the first two, and maybe bring in a new writer or new director, a larger budget, and don't want it to go to waste, so they pack it with special effects and forget that good storytelling attracted people to the first two movies, not over-the-top effects. For my money, the original Star Wars trilogy and the Lord of the Rings share the title of best three-movie trilogy ever made. Even The Godfather 3 wasn't that good. While a book isn't subject to board meetings, producers and budgets, I am not hopeful for Harry Potter 7.

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State of the Recording Industry

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As I sit in my dorm room downloading "The Tipping Point" by the Roots off BitTorrent, I think about the state of the music industry. By pirating this CD, I am short changing the Roots. The million dollar question is, how much should they be entitled to? When you consider that the band may only see 5% of whatever I pay for their music, I like the idea of mailing money straight to the band, but I am too lazy to do this. The RIAA has argued that piracy is causing decreasing CD sales. They may have a point. I haven't bought a CD since last summer (Hard-Fi's "Stars of CCTV" and Thom Yorke's "The Eraser", both from Amazon), around the time I discovered how easy it was to download CD's off BitTorrent. The anti-RIAA side argues that decreasing CD sales are caused by high prices (true, you will never get me to pay $19 for a CD) and by poor quality music (and Mims rapping "I can make a mill sayin' nothin' on the track" isn't helping.) I realized today that the RIAA, in turn, should point out that the poor quality music may be caused by piracy. Take the extreme scenario where songs are instantly available for free whenever a musician records a new one. If musicians never got paid, there would be little incentive for them to produce music for a living (it would be impossible). If there was no piracy, not only would CD's probably be cheaper but there would be lots more money for artists to make by producing music. If consumers demand free music, they will get the quality that free provides. If they are willing to pay for music they will get better quality music. That said, we will never eliminate piracy. I am guessing that the big labels will slowly go out of business, as the costs of recording and advertising decrease, and bands discover they can make more money by not signing with a label. In addition I think the agreements radio stations and big labels have to promote new songs will go out the window as radio gets more competition (from the Internet, hopefully, and from portable music players)

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Huh?

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According to a new Zogby poll, 45% of Americans fear high levels of corruption if Hillary Clinton returns to office. What? I'm sorry, maybe I didn't hear correctly? As opposed to the low levels of corruption we are enjoying now? The tripling of paid lobbyists on K Street? The ethics 'reform' that means politicians are still enjoying lunches and paid vacations from those lobbyists? A representative soliciting a teen page for sex? No-bid contracts offered to the vice president's old company? Leaking the name of a CIA operative to exact revenge on her truth-telling husband? Congressional votes in exchange for pork/lobby money? Who is being kidded? Bill Clinton's presidency was a little before my time. But getting blown by a White House intern does not hurt the country, or its finances, or take money from its tax payers. I cannot believe the Clintons had scandals to match these. I mean maybe there will be corruption under Hillary Clinton but can it possibly top the amount now? Will there be less corruption under McCain or Obama or Edwards?

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EMI & DRM-Free Music Downloads

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Apple and EMI today announced the launch of DRM-free downloads from the iTunes Music Store. The DRM-free downloads will have twice the quality of regular store downloads, but will retail for 30 cents more per song. Albums will remain the same cost as before. My guess is that the $1.29 downloads will be more popular than downloads with DRM, but not as popular (or profitable) as cheaper downloads. I think they will find plenty of people willing to pay an extra 30 cents for portability, but they would make up in volume what they're losing in price (I am sure their profit margins for digital sales are very large. Especially when you are not strapping a product with DRM.) I am looking forward to finally cashing in my iTunes Gift Certificates on non-DRM music. I hate having to authorize and re-authorize my computer to play my music. However, EMI is now entering into competition with DRM-free websites such as allofmp3.com, which doesn't pay any royalties to anyone and charges around twenty cents per song. EMI is getting killed right now on price per song, but they have better visibility and press than the Russian site. I will be interested to see if EMI continues to sue illegal sharers and downloaders with the same tenacity they are now. I believe they are still anti-piracy; by selling DRM-free music they're inviting piracy, but not on purpose. The best possible outcome for EMI, I believe, would be to offer music on iTunes for $1.29/song and offer the same music on eMusic for 50 cents/song. This way they capture the naive-user market and can compete on price for the more sophisticated music downloaders.

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Prison Vouchers

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What if prisoners, when sentenced, were given a voucher and could choose what prison they went to? As long as the state ensures prisons with escapees are heavily fined and prisons have minimum capacities, a voucher plan could do wonders for our overtaxed prison system. Heck, prisoners could even put up money to go to a better institution! Prisons would have to compete for money from prisoners, and prisons with the worst reputations would disappear. This would never get past Congress but I like it. I have to flush this idea out more.

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Capping the 2008 Presidential Election

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I'm selling Rudy Giuliani. No way he stays the frontrunner for Republicans through the whole election. As a matter of fact, I'm selling everyone this week but Dennis Kucinich, who deserves points for having absolutely no chance and sticking around anyway. It's March 2007; the election is November 2008. I am a freshman now and will be a junior by the time the election takes place. In the meantime I expect lots of gaffes, empty promises, and soul-selling. The winner will be battered to pieces by the end of this process. As we scrutinize our candidates more closely than we ever have, we will realize that they are not likeable. Or perfect. I will put early bets on Barack Obama mainly because he is the best looking candidate in the field. Mitt Romney would be close except that he's a Mormon. In Massachusetts this can be overlooked but not in the country. Especially as he comes under national scrutiny. I wish we could divide up the presidential position into two positions: an economic leader and a social leader. That way voters could combine fiscal conservativism with social progressivism. I only have one vote to say yes or no to all of a candidate's views. I especially dislike the idea of voting for America's leader based on how he feels about abortion. Abortion and gay marriage are important issues but I don't know how suited they are for address by the President.

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