Comments for Paying Taxes and Getting Benefits Misses the Boat at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 12 out of 12 comments http://www.cepr.net Mon, 20 May 2013 00:19:22 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18988 [b]skeptonomist[/b] wrote, [quote]Microsoft's monopoly is to a large extent natural...[/quote] Yes, because of so-called network effects. The problem of course is that natural or not, its monopoly still resulted in rent being sucked out of computer users (consumers and businesses). - liberal Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:10:22 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18987 [b]Matt[/b] wrote, [quote]The largest of which is land rent...[/quote] Yeah, was just going to post the same thing. Dean is great, saved me a lot of money by beating on the drum about the 90s tech bubble and the 00s housing bubble, but he seems to have a particular gap in his worldview about land. Though that, sadly, makes him like almost all other modern economics. - liberal Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:59:24 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18984 The gov't subsidies to Gates et al were a great deal more direct than patent protection. The entire computer industry was largely constructed on the basis of government procurement. IBM's monopoly, ultimately the source of his wealth, was built first upon the need of the Social Security Administration for adding machines, and then later on the Strategic Air Command's orders for mainframes. Nathan Newman's book has a great deal on the debt Silicone Valley owes to the Pentagon and NASA. - Richard Marens Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:33:01 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18963 Microsoft's monopoly is to a large extent natural and accidental. It would be extremely inefficient to have a multitude of competing operating systems. Microsoft was selected from the beginning by IBM and its DOS and Windows were sufficiently good to maintain the monopoly. As others point out, Linux is an option that will run on all the same computers and which is absolutely free. It will perform the same functions as Windows and Mac OS, but certain aspects of installation and user interface are inferior so it is not attractive to home users, though it is widely users for servers. Linux is a direct descendent of Unix, which was developed at Bell Labs. MS's DOS was a derivative of Unix. The Mac operating system is now based on Unix as well. Bell Labs was operated by AT&T but was forbidden to patent or copyright its discoveries - which include many of the basic discoveries which underlie modern electronics - essentially as condition of maintaining its then-monopoly on telephone systems. It could be claimed that modern electronics, including computers and their operating systems, would not exist in their present forms without some non-free-trade monopolistic arrangements between business and government. - skeptonomist Wed, 19 Sep 2012 03:43:31 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18953 Great blog! - Alex Hamilton Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:32:07 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18950 [quote]Like the Palestinian miracle drugs? written by daxxenos, September 18, 2012 4:28 Without copyrights and patents we'd be getting Windows free? Why would one assume Windows would have even come into existence under those conditions?[/quote] For the same reason that Ben Franklin never filed a patent on a single one of his inventions, but bifocals are still being used to this day. Same with the Franklin stove: at the time the most efficient stove available. Why did these solutions come into existence? Because there was a problem someone had and found a solution to, and a lot of other people had that same problem and wanted that solution too. Providers provided. It's not hard to figure out. What doesn't work is when marketers make up false problems for their products to solve (e.g. pharmaceutical companies marketing their product for unintended uses). Windows solved a real problem; and Steve Jobs got it from Xerox before Gates did, but they both relied on the largesse of Xerox Corporation. - David Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:41:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18948 The Linux operating system did come into existence even though it is given away free - Gavin Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:08:18 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18944 Without copyrights and patents we'd be getting Windows free? Why would one assume Windows would have even come into existence under those conditions? - daxxenos Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:28:54 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18943 [i]There are many other ways in which the government structures markets that advantage some groups within society to the detriment of others. The financial sector presents many other obvious examples with its too big to fail insurance and enormous bailouts of the last few years that kept the Wall Street giants from going belly up.[/i] The largest of which is land rent, which is an order of magnitude greater than examples such as patents or copyrights (estimates put it as high as $2T annually). Yet, it's largely just gifted away by the government, and generally is absorbed as interest by financial institutions, or becomes capital gains for large corporations which own many high-value sites. - Matt Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:17:32 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18942 no surprise about romney's "off the cuff remarks". most people that are born into wealth have a very condescending attitude to the poor & working classes. they can't help it, it's in their DNA. but what is infuriating to many romney camp followers, is how he could be so stupid as to reveal the common attitude of most conservatives to the general public. i mean, what the hell, didn't his security people check for tape reorders? romney is showing he's stupider than palin, which is a very bitter pill for his backers. only the terminally stupid, (i'm thinking of you rush), believe what he said is positive. but let's don't get too excited, the new economy is here to stay. still it's good comic relief for red blooded american progressives even in these terrible times. - mel in oregon Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:11:05 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18939 Patents really have very little to do with innovation, or even protecting innovators, the major point is that they protect the patent holders. A patent challenge is expensive (about $35,000 just to file), and if some deep pockets company steals an individual's ideas, why not? Because the minimal legal fees are about $1.5 million (on each side). Now tell me which mom and pop/ Steve Wozniak garage inventor is going to be able to afford that? Well, if they license their patent to another big company, that's how. It's ridiculous and economically unproductive, other than swelling the ranks of patent lawyers (the numbers of which have been growing at a faster rate than the patents). It's very disheartening to have someone like Mr. Romney (for example) who can use his access to big bucks to crap on the head of those below him, all done legally by finance laws and regulations written specifically for his business to do so. And then they laugh at how stupid and lazy those losers are. They just have to buy the tag-alongs like Erskine Bowles, who cares if they lose a couple hundred million in the deal, when there's billions and trillions to plunder? - David Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:16:43 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paying-taxes-and-getting-benefits-misses-the-boat#comment-18938 The ones that you have been villifying are considered necessary by the their beneficiaries. Who knew? Both parties tell us and esp. one in more particular, those are needed for job creation - trig down theory. One should not be surprised though just look at which party generally gets the most support from the Silicon Valley. And for the rest of us, sit and wish some thing might fall onto us. - James Tue, 18 Sep 2012 08:16:31 +0100