Want to make the world a better place? Steal more music!

Bob Lefsetz continues to speak the truth:
“If you’re arguing against theft, if you’re arguing for higher prices, you’re showing your ignorance, you’re shilling for the man. Please open your eyes to the overall game. The distribution lines must be redrawn, for the benefit of artists and society. Don’t let the usual suspects [...]

The Day They Packed Up The Vinyl Revisited

This is a day I will never forget.  I was in the Sam Goody at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego and I saw all the vinyl being packed up in boxes.  This was towards the end of eighth grade, so the date was June 1990.  I guess there is some significance in that date [...]

Utopian Financial Research Project Gone Awry

Wanted: Gullible Lawyers
All I can say is…wow. A terrible scam. Such a free research site would be pretty awesome though!
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Ben’s sick day links

 
If I’m going to be home with the flu, I might as well post some interesting links.  And BTW, all hail our new contributor FiestaRed…let’s hear more!
1- If you’re afraid of the big bad record companies prosecuting you (read this article about Doug Morris if you really don’t realize how out of touch the big labels are), there are [...]

Happiness and Public Policy

Now, it would be extra special had this been published in the WSJ!
From the NY Times: All They Are Saying is Give Happiness a Chance. Excerpts:
“The era of laissez-faire happiness might be coming to an end. Some prominent economists and psychologists are looking into ways to measure happiness to draw it into the public [...]

Northeastern University Patent Suit Against Google Search; E-Trade Stocks Down 59%

What a Monday. Suit filed last week by Northeastern University and Jarg, owner and sole licensee of a patent on splitting up search queries to search them over multiple databases to speed up the search, which basically is how Google’s search capabilities function–the suit is for an injunction and damages. That would be [...]

Rebranding the United States as the Non-united Non-states of Independent Rational Actors–The Subprime Fiasco and Insights into Distaste for Government Regulation

*Note: yes, this is a disorganized, rambling rant*  But I’ll leave it up for now…
Why bother having a nation at all–why not just dissolve the US as a nation, as a “People,” and rebrand it as an unassociated office park space for transacting business?
Of course government regulation is a highly controversial topic. Of course [...]

Interesting Post on Comparative Advantage, and Awesome Equations at “What’s Your Formula”

Economist: This week in comparative advantage
Even if Iga is better than Og at both fishing and fruit gathering –
– It takes Og 3 hours to catch a fish and would take 4 hours for him to gather some fruit,
– While it only takes Iga 1 hour to gather some fruit, and 2 hours [...]

Interesting Statistics: Are We Worse Off Financially Than Previous Generations?

All those experts, and we’re still unsure how to really interpret the numbers. It’s amazing to me how statistics can be misrepresented or important figures omitted or overlooked when making claims and comparisons, hence reports like the one cited below, which seem to contradict conventional wisdom and hopefully make people think twice about how [...]

The Rich Get Richer, While All of Us Ingest More Lead: Globalization, Lack of Regulation, and the Race to the Bottom

More evidence of our sloppy handling of globalization without concerted efforts at orchestrating international safety standards (yes, that would probably count as “regulation,” and it would cost some upfront money, but ultimately it could save lots of money in terms of health costs, greater trust in international trade, etc).
90,000 more Chinese-made toys recalled due to [...]