The Change Express machine at the local bank says that if you are an account holder, they will convert your change to bills at no charge. But if you aren't an account holder, you'll have to pay 10% of the transaction. When Lillian read that she said, "Wow, that sucks! Why do they take 10% just because you don't have an account. I mean, it's YOUR money, right?"
Showing posts with label corporate rule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate rule. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2015
Friday, July 6, 2012
Shift of Allegiance from State to Corporation
I have written about the corporate takeover of our lives but ought to elaborate here. For more information, see the book with the B-Movie title, "When Corporations Rule the World" by David Korten.
We owe support and allegiance less and less to our government and more and more to corporations. Most Americans today know much more about consumption than citizenship.
Among other things is our attitude toward the central collection of personal information. Many of us resist vehemently a national database run by the government of information such as our names, addresses, habits, political affiliations, employers, income, debts, preferences for books and movies, etc. It reminds us of George Orwell's novel, "1984."
But while we resist the collection and maintenance of a file or dossier on our personal lives by government for fear of a dictatorial state, we actively participate in this data collection when we create online identities. In other words, we don't seem to care that Amazon.com collects this information or that EquiFax does. At least, it doesn't stop us from buying products online or participating in the system that allows this data to be accumulated and maintained.
I read a book recently (Life, Inc.) which had a variation on the Toynbee quote that I posted earlier (http://historicalaccident.blogspot.com/2008/09/title-explanation.html) . This one went something like this:
But today that label would have to be revised. Given that the U.S. Congress and the White House of either party feels that it is their job to keep America employed, the stock market rising and corporations earning a profit, they would likely consider any threat to those efforts anti-American. But today we have a growing simplicity movement which advocates consuming less among other things. And policy makers in Washington, although they may not admit it openly, would consider the voluntary simplicity movement an enemy of the state in that its end result is to reduce consumption and therefore production, employment and investment.
So it will probably become clear in a short time to everyone that we owe our allegiance not to the U.S. government but to the U.S. industrial state which provides us with much more than Uncle Sam does.
We owe support and allegiance less and less to our government and more and more to corporations. Most Americans today know much more about consumption than citizenship.
Among other things is our attitude toward the central collection of personal information. Many of us resist vehemently a national database run by the government of information such as our names, addresses, habits, political affiliations, employers, income, debts, preferences for books and movies, etc. It reminds us of George Orwell's novel, "1984."
But while we resist the collection and maintenance of a file or dossier on our personal lives by government for fear of a dictatorial state, we actively participate in this data collection when we create online identities. In other words, we don't seem to care that Amazon.com collects this information or that EquiFax does. At least, it doesn't stop us from buying products online or participating in the system that allows this data to be accumulated and maintained.
I read a book recently (Life, Inc.) which had a variation on the Toynbee quote that I posted earlier (http://historicalaccident.blogspot.com/2008/09/title-explanation.html) . This one went something like this:
in the past 500 years, since the inception of state-chartered corporations, people have gone from subjects to citizens, from citizens to workers and most recently, from workers to consumers.In the 1940s and 50s, the United States experienced a wave of paranoia due to anti-communist sentiments in Washington. A U.S. Senator held hearings recklessly accusing public figures of being communist sympathizers and it ruined several careers. It was common in those days to call a communist an enemy of the state.
But today that label would have to be revised. Given that the U.S. Congress and the White House of either party feels that it is their job to keep America employed, the stock market rising and corporations earning a profit, they would likely consider any threat to those efforts anti-American. But today we have a growing simplicity movement which advocates consuming less among other things. And policy makers in Washington, although they may not admit it openly, would consider the voluntary simplicity movement an enemy of the state in that its end result is to reduce consumption and therefore production, employment and investment.
So it will probably become clear in a short time to everyone that we owe our allegiance not to the U.S. government but to the U.S. industrial state which provides us with much more than Uncle Sam does.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Alternative Advertising
Advertising is one of my pet-hates, primarily because so many ads seem to treat the viewer/reader as an idiot. Automobiles with names like 'The Magnum' or the 'XKE325' apparently try to appeal to the base emotions that might be more abundant in a nine year old than a grown man.
Of course there are some television commercials which are innovative and humorous, but unfortunately after the first 200-300 views, anything gets rather old.
And some ads are aimed not at buyers of a certain product or service, but at a different audience.
Potential employees is one example. Several years ago Wal Mart ran a television ad that featured several senior-citizen employees who spoke about the variety of activity in their particular Wal Mart and that you never knew what you were going to see at a Wal Mart. The ad didn't mention any of the products or prices or discounts but really featured the working life of a retired and presumably part-time Wal Mart greeter or cashier. It seemed to me at the time that the object of the commercial was not to get people to come in to buy stuff but to get people to come in and apply for a job.
And they were particularly targeting the elderly, part-time, bored, newly retired types who might find it a way to spice things up if they spent 12-20 hours a week earning an hourly wage down at the local outlet. I can only guess that Wal Mart likes these senior citizen, part time workers since they do not require health insurance since the law does not require health coverage for part-timers and that presumably those older than 62 qualify for medicare at some level.
Other advertisements are directed at cultivating investment in a particular company. These tend to be for products or services that don't have a retail market or that appear in media aimed at an adult audience for whom the product might not be appropriate.
Still others feature a corporation's good works and citizenship by highlighting charitable activities and such. Nothing mentioned about the product or the sale or benefits of buying their wares. Only that we're good guys for helping out the disadvantaged in your community or for our activities to restore environmental quality, etc.
In the area of public policy, particularly in the Washington D.C. area there are ads which run during the political commentary Sunday fare by large corporations trolling for government contracts or legislation to protect a certain company's business model. Northrop Grumman and Archer Daniels Midland come most immediately to mind. Almost nobody watching any television show is going to buy a fighter jet except someone who holds a high position at the Pentagon or who reviews military procurement in Congress.
It is said that taxes are an economic inefficiency because that money would be better allocated in the hands of consumers or the private sector generally; governments do just about everything less efficiently than consumers or private enterprise. If that's true I would say the same thing about expenditures on advertisements. Embedded in the price of every product or service, along with the raw materials, labor, insurance, licensing, delivery, warehousing and such is the cost of marketing the thing. And it seems that more and more resources are devoted to this attempt at persuasion which is widely recognized as deception. I'd say that's an inefficient allocation of capital.
Of course there are some television commercials which are innovative and humorous, but unfortunately after the first 200-300 views, anything gets rather old.
And some ads are aimed not at buyers of a certain product or service, but at a different audience.
Potential employees is one example. Several years ago Wal Mart ran a television ad that featured several senior-citizen employees who spoke about the variety of activity in their particular Wal Mart and that you never knew what you were going to see at a Wal Mart. The ad didn't mention any of the products or prices or discounts but really featured the working life of a retired and presumably part-time Wal Mart greeter or cashier. It seemed to me at the time that the object of the commercial was not to get people to come in to buy stuff but to get people to come in and apply for a job.
And they were particularly targeting the elderly, part-time, bored, newly retired types who might find it a way to spice things up if they spent 12-20 hours a week earning an hourly wage down at the local outlet. I can only guess that Wal Mart likes these senior citizen, part time workers since they do not require health insurance since the law does not require health coverage for part-timers and that presumably those older than 62 qualify for medicare at some level.
Other advertisements are directed at cultivating investment in a particular company. These tend to be for products or services that don't have a retail market or that appear in media aimed at an adult audience for whom the product might not be appropriate.
Still others feature a corporation's good works and citizenship by highlighting charitable activities and such. Nothing mentioned about the product or the sale or benefits of buying their wares. Only that we're good guys for helping out the disadvantaged in your community or for our activities to restore environmental quality, etc.
In the area of public policy, particularly in the Washington D.C. area there are ads which run during the political commentary Sunday fare by large corporations trolling for government contracts or legislation to protect a certain company's business model. Northrop Grumman and Archer Daniels Midland come most immediately to mind. Almost nobody watching any television show is going to buy a fighter jet except someone who holds a high position at the Pentagon or who reviews military procurement in Congress.
It is said that taxes are an economic inefficiency because that money would be better allocated in the hands of consumers or the private sector generally; governments do just about everything less efficiently than consumers or private enterprise. If that's true I would say the same thing about expenditures on advertisements. Embedded in the price of every product or service, along with the raw materials, labor, insurance, licensing, delivery, warehousing and such is the cost of marketing the thing. And it seems that more and more resources are devoted to this attempt at persuasion which is widely recognized as deception. I'd say that's an inefficient allocation of capital.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Piracy/Copyright Solution
It is always popular to criticize the wealthy. The vast majority of us harbor stereotypes about the well-to-do: they're heartless, insulated, fragile and interested in profits above all else. This is supported by the fact that it has always been fashionable to support a tax increase on the wealthy given that most of us do not consider ourselves rich.
But the wealthy have made many of the latest products we enjoy today affordable. Often the latest gadget or device to adorn American homes began as playthings of the rich. Business or corporations were the only ones who could afford them, followed by the super rich, accustomed to such luxury.
A good example is flat-screen televisions which were out of reach for most of us just 10 or so years ago. They sold for several thousand dollars each so that only the very wealthy or businesses like restaurants, bars, airports or casinos could afford them. But as more wealthy bought these things once considered a luxury, the manufacturers of the sets could increase production and by realizing economies of scale, reduce the price based on greater manufacturing and shipping volume and efficiency. Soon these sets were under $1500 and many middle class families could buy one. Now that they can be bought for less than $500 they are commonplace in many American homes. That wouldn't have been possible if the very wealthy among us hadn't waded in first.
The same can be said of microwave ovens and videocassette recorders. Around 1980. They sold for several hundred dollars at the time which might be equivalent to nearly a thousand dollars today. They were a luxury that few homes had 30 years ago but as demand increased from commercial or industrial use to luxury item to upper middle class homes and finally into just about everyone's home the manufacturers realized cost-per-unit savings which drove the price down continually and fostered the proliferation.
I wonder if we couldn't solve the problems associated with intellectual property and pirating by following similar pattern of first-use/high-cost with the cost gradually decreasing as usage increases. For instance, it is silly that today one should pay the same amount of money to purchase a movie or a piece of recorded music that has been sold millions of times compared to a newly released film. Demand would seem to be highest for the latest song or movie rather than something that is decades old. It would make sense if the price reflected this demand.
If these entertainment products were very expensive upon release but the costs declined with each subsequent purchase (or block of a thousand or so) the costs of production would be realized much sooner by the artist and production company. And since there are (almost) no ongoing costs to replicate the product into units for sale, the price could drop quite rapidly after an initial windfall. The rich would have first access to these movies and recordings and the poor would enjoy them years after they were released.
Additionally, online retailing has the advantage of easy price adjustment compared with a physical paper tag that appears on goods sold in brick-and-mortar stores. Electronic retailers should take advantage of that.
Additionally, online retailing has the advantage of easy price adjustment compared with a physical paper tag that appears on goods sold in brick-and-mortar stores. Electronic retailers should take advantage of that.
But the bottom line is: the artist will earn the bulk of the total revenue on a given work much earlier in the process.
Even if the price drop curve was very slight, it would still make sense to make 30 or 40 or 50 year old movies and music available to consumers at a very low price relative to the latest release. The same could be said for music: why should Elvis Presley's Hound Dog sell for the same price as the hottest new single from the hottest new artist? The demand certainly isn't the same. Production companies, studios, artists and rights holders would still make money on the older material and probably likely head off any illegal reproduction if it was affordably priced.
Eventually, after years and millions or tens-of-millions of uses, purchases and plays, these movies and music will be extremely inexpensive to the masses who would otherwise end up pirating them. Current copyright law, which contains fixed terms after which content is in the public domain, is probably based on a similar principle that after a while, works should belong to the culture in which they are created and not to any individual.
Incidentally, I do not favor state-mandated price controls on movies and music but I think the media production conglomerates are beginning to face the facts that their content will be (and is currently) pirated because the price is too high. So it may be in their best interest to re-structure pricing lest they face wholesale theft. This appears to be another case where technology has become too sophisticated for institutions in much the same way that sophisticated financial investment products were not well understood by regulators which led to unfair if not illegal practices.
A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review uses the examples of eBooks http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/whats_the_right_price_for_eboo.php
A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review uses the examples of eBooks http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/whats_the_right_price_for_eboo.php
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Mental Health's Second-Hand Smoke Equivalent
In the 1980s, a singer named Joe Jackson released a song called "Cancer." The line repeated throughout the song was "everything gives you cancer." It was a parody on the seemingly endless list of everyday products and practices that in laboratories has resulted in carcinoma cell development among mice. I'm exaggerating but only because the song itself was an exaggeration.
However, I do believe that sometime in the near future we are going to hear from scientists who find that the electronic audio and video that are so pervasive in our lives and that form a background of sounds to an increasing portion of our days is the mental health equivalent of second-hand smoke. In other words, published findings will demonstrate that passive listening to this noise leads to one of several neuroses like anxiety, insomnia or some more serious threat to mental health.
Popular media undoubtedly aim to cultivate a sense of dissatisfaction among viewers and listeners and are interspersed with advertisements purporting to fulfill those unmet desires. So the question for laboratory or field research will be what are is the net outcome of this dissatisfaction among the populace. Tranquility and acceptance? Unlikely. I can't help but think of teen suicide and cyber-bullying as the result of this sense of dissatisfaction which advertisers want to inject into a younger and younger audience.
In fact, it is so widely published in popular news accounts that watching television before bedtime does contribute to sleeplessness that I have no doubt the harm of electronic media will become common knowledge soon. We hear from a national pediatrics group that children under 2 should not be exposed to television as it might interfere with cognitive development.
I can only wonder whether lawsuits will ensue, asserting that television producers and advertisers knew the dangers but still pushed the medium in an attempt to downplay the effects or even spin them into some positive outcomes.
However, I do believe that sometime in the near future we are going to hear from scientists who find that the electronic audio and video that are so pervasive in our lives and that form a background of sounds to an increasing portion of our days is the mental health equivalent of second-hand smoke. In other words, published findings will demonstrate that passive listening to this noise leads to one of several neuroses like anxiety, insomnia or some more serious threat to mental health.
Popular media undoubtedly aim to cultivate a sense of dissatisfaction among viewers and listeners and are interspersed with advertisements purporting to fulfill those unmet desires. So the question for laboratory or field research will be what are is the net outcome of this dissatisfaction among the populace. Tranquility and acceptance? Unlikely. I can't help but think of teen suicide and cyber-bullying as the result of this sense of dissatisfaction which advertisers want to inject into a younger and younger audience.
In fact, it is so widely published in popular news accounts that watching television before bedtime does contribute to sleeplessness that I have no doubt the harm of electronic media will become common knowledge soon. We hear from a national pediatrics group that children under 2 should not be exposed to television as it might interfere with cognitive development.
I can only wonder whether lawsuits will ensue, asserting that television producers and advertisers knew the dangers but still pushed the medium in an attempt to downplay the effects or even spin them into some positive outcomes.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Are Broadcasters Next?
I listen to a lot of podcasts and increasingly it's becoming clear that some content is not being read by a person and spoken into a microphone but rather the text is converted to voice automatically using software. I can tell not because the voice sounds anything like the 1960s version of what Hollywood thought robots would sound like in the 21st century but because of slight mispronunciations and misinterpretations of the words. Two of these that come to mind are created by BusinessWeek and the Economist.
I wonder if it won't be possible one day to take a text document and use a piece of software to generate a voice narration of the words using the voice of famous people. There are hundreds of hours of archived sound recordings of famous people and presumably machines can parse a person's voice into just about anything you want it to be. So if you fed both the text and corresponding audio files of the entire corpus of Walter Cronkite (for example) into an artificially intelligent machine, then the system could eventually "learn" how Cronkite would say just about any word, syllable or phrase.
This system could then take any text you submit and generate a pretty damn good impersonation of Cronkite reading what you've written whether or not he's ever been recorded saying it. The system will have learned the idiosyncrasies of an individual's voice, inflection, pronunciation, pauses, etc. to fool perhaps even the speaker's family.
The implications are of course huge. First there are legal challenges. Would it be legal to take the voice of Michael Jordan and use it to pitch a sneaker brand that he is not currently affiliated with? Obviously not but in today's lawless web environment, who's gonna stop it? You could get almost anyone to say almost anything, I would imagine, including U.S. presidents making promises that they never made and holding them accountable to them. So there's fraud to be considered.
But how about the convenience factor? Let's say a manufacturer of designer clothes wants Whoopi Goldberg to be their spokesperson. She hasn't got the time to go into a studio and read a bunch of copy several takes in a row. So she signs permission for the company to take her voice and the aforementioned system that can create the illusion that she is talking when in fact she's relaxing at home. She (or her agent) would of course have to authorize the content and use of her vocal likeness, but the bottom line is, I think the technology is probably here already.
But alas, like so many modern phenomena, the law lags behind.
I wonder if it won't be possible one day to take a text document and use a piece of software to generate a voice narration of the words using the voice of famous people. There are hundreds of hours of archived sound recordings of famous people and presumably machines can parse a person's voice into just about anything you want it to be. So if you fed both the text and corresponding audio files of the entire corpus of Walter Cronkite (for example) into an artificially intelligent machine, then the system could eventually "learn" how Cronkite would say just about any word, syllable or phrase.
This system could then take any text you submit and generate a pretty damn good impersonation of Cronkite reading what you've written whether or not he's ever been recorded saying it. The system will have learned the idiosyncrasies of an individual's voice, inflection, pronunciation, pauses, etc. to fool perhaps even the speaker's family.
The implications are of course huge. First there are legal challenges. Would it be legal to take the voice of Michael Jordan and use it to pitch a sneaker brand that he is not currently affiliated with? Obviously not but in today's lawless web environment, who's gonna stop it? You could get almost anyone to say almost anything, I would imagine, including U.S. presidents making promises that they never made and holding them accountable to them. So there's fraud to be considered.
But how about the convenience factor? Let's say a manufacturer of designer clothes wants Whoopi Goldberg to be their spokesperson. She hasn't got the time to go into a studio and read a bunch of copy several takes in a row. So she signs permission for the company to take her voice and the aforementioned system that can create the illusion that she is talking when in fact she's relaxing at home. She (or her agent) would of course have to authorize the content and use of her vocal likeness, but the bottom line is, I think the technology is probably here already.
But alas, like so many modern phenomena, the law lags behind.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Market State v. Nation State
Many people (including myself) have said that the modern nation-state--just over 250 years old--is nearing the end of its useful life. Some day I will go into the reasons or the causes but for now I will just point to the many others who have said the same thing. The lesson may be that governance over more than just a few hundred thousand people is impractical in today's world but regardless, the days of the nation-state are numbered.
Some say that it will be replaced with what could be characterized as a market-state. I don't know much about this theory except that it appears to align with the long-standing assertion that we owe more and more of our allegiance and livelihood to the private sector (corporations, etc.) than to the government to which we remit our cash in the form of taxes. Again, I will save the details on corporate rule for another post but only note that the market-state, most commonly associated with the author, Philip Bobbitt, supports the growing recognition that multi-national corporations rule the world--including those presidents, prime ministers, legislators and members of parliament who are purported to govern.
Some say that it will be replaced with what could be characterized as a market-state. I don't know much about this theory except that it appears to align with the long-standing assertion that we owe more and more of our allegiance and livelihood to the private sector (corporations, etc.) than to the government to which we remit our cash in the form of taxes. Again, I will save the details on corporate rule for another post but only note that the market-state, most commonly associated with the author, Philip Bobbitt, supports the growing recognition that multi-national corporations rule the world--including those presidents, prime ministers, legislators and members of parliament who are purported to govern.
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