This week’s topic: Intellectual Property Rights & Music Piracy
AB: Anybody who illegally downloads [here, d/l’s] music should have his computer forfeited and be sent to jail. Without a trial.
MM: That’s a bit harsh. Lawsuits count the songs people have illegally distributed and fine them that way. That sounds good, although it overstates their losses.
SC: The […]
Archive for November, 2007
Meeting Overview 11/27/07
Published by November 28th, 2007 in Technology & Innovation, Meeting Records and Law. 3 CommentsI want to share with all of you a nifty little website that allows one to look at and track the national budget and its current deficit. The nice part is it provides an easy to use interface and allows you to visualize where the money is going. You can click to view the subcategories […]
The estate tax repeal is “off the table” apparently.
Adding a post to the fluff category without a Star Trek reference isn’t always easy, but here it goes. This Wednesday (Nov. 21, 2007) I decided to drive 130 miles down to Lakeland, FL to spend Thanksgiving with my mother who lives down there. About halfway through at approximately 9:00 p.m while doing 80 MPH […]
This evening, at the Accent-sponsored forum on universal healthcare, I got into an argument during the Q&A session with Dr. David Himmelstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. Our debate went something like this:
Me: In the interest of full disclosure, I am a libertarian. To quote […]
America’s Prisoner Dilemma
Published by November 19th, 2007 in Miscellaneous, Economics, Policy and Law. 0 CommentsThere is a study that has just been published by the JFA Institute on America’s prison/incarceration dilemma. It cites a report by PEW Charitable Trust which states that “under current sentencing policies the state and prison population will grow by another 192,000 prisoners over the next five years. The incarceration rate will grow from 491 […]
Funniest Tax Avoidance Story I Read Today
Published by November 18th, 2007 in Policy and Law. 0 CommentsFrom a new paper (”Reforming the Gift Tax and Making it Enforceable“) by Mitchell Gans and Jay Soled that mostly heaps a lot of love on the Gift Tax and wants to stick it to all those rich people who “deserve” to be punished for avoiding it (emphasis added and comments in brackets):
Some commentators, however, […]
Criminally Negligent in Legal Education
Published by November 18th, 2007 in Economics and Law. 0 CommentsWe spoke briefly after last meeting about how there were somehow criminal penalties for copyright infringement, and I have written recently about the extraordinary lengths the US will no go to in prosecuting such infringement at the behest of the entertainment industries. I then went berserk about how public education is criminally negligent for producing […]
This is the best argument against the Iraq War.
Google Wireless in the Works
Published by November 16th, 2007 in Miscellaneous, Technology & Innovation and Fluff. 0 CommentsNot drooling for the iPhone yet? Just wait until it’s on a Google wireless network along with all the Google goodies we have all come to love and depend on. I know you’re thinking “What does all this have to do with economics!?” Well, it does have serious implications for those in the wireless telecommunications […]
Guys, we really dropped the ball this year on Zombie Defense. I think they’re still out there. Sheesh. File this post under “democracy” and “war.”
Meeting Overview 11/13/07
Published by November 15th, 2007 in University of Florida, UES and Meeting Records. 4 CommentsI really have almost nothing from this week’s meeting, so instead I’m posting our article for the Warrington Times:
Another eventful year is barreling to a close for the University Economics Society.
Last spring, UES said goodbye to its graduating seniors, to include outgoing President Mike Redondo. Under the direction of Acting President Matt Masten, the summer […]
Newt would be the best candidate for President. It’s our loss.
From Drudge, this about how much most people value the right to vote. Most people don’t think about many rights in this way, but this right like most others can, in theory, be alienated. I think an enormous amount of people would definitely sell their right to vote, or perhaps the votes themselves (or worse […]
Some may argue that the right of an individual to develop his own property as he sees fit is constricted enough, given current zoning codes and regulations. While there is certainly room for disagreement on the issue, there is a new constitutional amendment in the pipeline that promises to choke our quasi-free market real estate […]
