Pink Floyd have won their long-standing lawsuit against EMI, part of which was a complaint that they had an agreement with EMI not to sell incomplete albums. This has been pitched as a triumph for artistic integrity and has lead to some postulate that Pink Floyd may withdraw their songs from iTunes or insist that [...]
In case you were wondering whether the traditional book publishers were as clueless about the digital age as the MSM and the recording industry the answer is YES. AppleInsider reports that the publishers are complaining that they do not get enough profit from e-books.
Publishers get roughly half — $13 — of the selling price of [...]
I have finally managed to sit down and finish Gareth Morgan’s book, Health Cheque, on the New Zealand health care system (long international flights are at least good for something). I find most of Morgan’s books a little superficial for my tastes and Health Cheque is certainly no exception, lacking, as it does, any deep [...]
I have to say I am amused by the frenzied reaction to the story of the Chinese drug dealer who was drawing a sickness benefit and living in a state house. Does anyone actually think this is an abnormal situation? Judging by the reactions over on Kiwiblog, I would say the answer to that is [...]
The Dominion Post writes yesterday about the looming shortage of oncologists. Four cancer doctors have resigned in a very short space of time. The article explores all the usual reasons why doctors leave, particularly the worrying ones of overwork, which can only be fixed by employing more hard-to-get doctors. What struck me, though, was the [...]
Obama announces.
President Barack Obama sent Congress his new budget overnight, a plan that forecasts the government spending a record US$1.66 trillion ($2.37 trillion) more than it takes in through taxes.
1.66 TRILLION deficit in a single year…
If you laid every dollar bill end to end you could walk on them through the centre of the sun [...]
De Beers, the diamond merchants, and specialists in certain disciplines are wealthy for exactly the same reasons. They both have something that is rare. It De Beer’s case, it is diamonds. In the doctor’s case it is his skills as a physician. I earn a salary way above the average for no reason other than [...]
No one has said that living on the minimum wage was fun or comfortable. The 25c per hour increase that the National Government has approved will not change that. It barely keeps pace with inflation. But that is not the point of the minimum wage. It is the minimum. It is not meant to be [...]
Most tax-funded subsidies produce weird incentives that cause overuse and/or overproduction of a product or service. Witness that enormous blow-out in physiotherapy costs as soon as the subsidy effectively made visits free. But there are occasional government subsidies that are economically worthwhile. The tax subsidy that encourages overseas movie producers to film here and, especially [...]
Hark! What is that strange disembodied twittering that I hear? Is it a ghost? A telephone answering machine? a vague afterthought? Yes! It’s all three ! It’s the Invisible Phil…
Once again, Phil abandons invisibility in order to utter an inanity. It’s rather like watching a Klingon Bird of Prey on Star Trek, de-cloaking and firing, [...]
