# The TRUTH behind Streaming Music...



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

The other day I received some royalties (from the usual suspects) and thought I would post them, as I know the topic debating the merits of Streaming vs CD has cropped up from time to time on TC. I certainly earn more through CD sales, but my music is streamed far, far, far more often than it is bought on CD. 

So, as you can see, ain't no one (i.e. musicians) gonna get rich by listeners preferring Spotify, et al. Small wonder that labels have abandoned expensive studio recordings in favour of cheaper composite live recordings.

$0.01 for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.01 for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Rhapsody
$0.01 for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Muve Music
$0.01 for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through iTunes Match - Europe

I hasten to add that the above random cut'n'paste represents only a tiny fraction of my streamed royalties. Still, I'm not exactly celebrating...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

yes, the days when people made good money from recordings may be over. The ones that are left will be doing it for love rather than fame or wealth. They'll be professional academics, tuners, instrument makers, piano teachers, retailers etc and do the recording and give the concerts because they genuinely have something fresh and inspired to say. I can see nothing but good from all of this.

(This has been the model in baroque and Renaissance keyboard music for years, and that's an area which has really thrived over the past 50 or so years. )


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> yes, the days when people made good money from recordings may be over.


Actually, they've been over for a long time. In fact, with the exception of a very few top echelon performers, musicians haven't made much money from recordings for decades. The reason that they make recordings is for exposure, to attract people to attend their performances. And that exposure is a lot easier to get in 2018 than it was in 1958, largely due to electronic media and streaming services.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

....................


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Someone once said to me that the last person with a contract which allowed him to make a good living out of recordings in Early music was Hogwood, I believe that certain very well known harpsichordists (two) with a significant number of recordings have difficulty paying their rent.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2018)

I saw Courtney Pine in concert a few years back. He said that jazz musicians don't make money from CDs any more. They make them in order to have a record of the sound they were making at that particular time.

I'm not entirely sure about the idea that CDs are generated to create publicity. It may be true to some extent, but modern performers (classical and non-classical) tend to charge much more money for a CD than older recordings, so they are never likely to shift many.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

It's basically the same story with publishing. I have had work published a number of times and I can tell you, I don't do it for the money. What little you make, it is more of a hassle at tax time than it is worth. You have to be massively successful with tremendous push from a major publisher and/or film rights before you can actually make a living at writing. I'm talking fiction writing.

It may be a good thing in some ways to write for the love and art of it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Anybody looking for money is probably in the wrong branch of music. Here's Nicki Minaj's home.










Oh, and another one of hers, for when she feels like slumming I guess...


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## JEC (Mar 11, 2015)

The problem with being forced out on the road to perform is that you are not creating/recording new music. Ask any touring musician how fun it is to tour.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

JEC said:


> The problem with being forced out on the road to perform is that you are not creating/recording new music. Ask any touring musician how fun it is to tour.


It's bringing money in the pocket though.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The sad fact is, most musicians have always been poor. As Franz Berwald wrote, "Music makes a thin soup." As talented as he was, he went into making prosthetic limbs.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Anybody looking for money is probably in the wrong branch of music. Here's Nicki Minaj's home.


I had no idea who Nicki Minaj is; had to go look her up. Apparently some or other famous pop star.

She neatly illustrates what used to be the 80/20 principle: 80% of the sales/profits are made by 20% of the artists. Except nowadays it may well be closer to 99/1. Virtually all the profit in any field is reaped by a very, very small fraction of the professionals in that field.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Even if, starting from now, not a single piece of new music was produced in the world, I would not mind that much. There is already so much music in the world to last lifetimes. And new musicians are competing (for listening time, attention) not only with their current colleages but also with all the music that has been produced so far.
Being a musician is a hard living and has always been hard. Most of the musicians that we cherish today lived and died in poverty. If they were lucky they found beneficiaries. Musicians traditionally lived from live perfomances. Recording technology has been invented some 100 years ago. And the commercial model of recording music, protecting the music with copyright laws invented for this purpose, is recently new. This model has functioned very well for a couple of decades and a whole musical industry developped and exploded. The industry got greedy, selling CDs of decades old recordings for $20 even when the production price was 10c. Now the model seems to be failing due to digitalization, and the dwindling money supply will lead to reduction of musicians. 
It is best not to do music as your main profession, but have it as a hobby. My brother is an engineer (constructs car parts), but he also plays clarinet in a local band on weekends. This amounts maybe 30% extra money to his salary for playing at weddings, birthday parties etc. 
Certain things can only be done if you love doing it, not for money. Music, writing etc. Either you write junk thrillers, horrors etc. to make a living, but what you write is meaningless, or you write because you feel that you have something meaningful to say and then do not care about money (think Robert Musil writing The Man Without Qualities, died in poverty, but wrote nonetheless). However, I think that the state should support at least the classical music, theater etc.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Jacck said:


> It is best not to do music as your main profession, but have it as a hobby.
> 
> Certain things can only be done if you love doing it, not for money.


_(Apologies for the severe trim)_

I agree with you that part-time or hobby musicians probably live a less precarious life and have more fun on the whole, but the musicians at the highest levels aren't the product of an hour's practice every night after working in a regular job. They are the product of having devoted their life to their instrument. I suppose the question is how can that level of achievement be maintained when there is no longer a commercial outlet to sustain it?

I assume that everyone pursuing a music performance education is there for the love of it rather than having an eye on the financial rewards. It's well enough known by now that being in e.g. a regular touring string quartet is daily grind with moments of performance joy. The majority of working musicians _are_ actually just in a job, for which the financial rewards are the same for most other normal jobs, but they happen to love it and get some actual enjoyment. The disappointment only comes if people expect a music career to automatically lead to a superstar lifestyle.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

KRoad said:


> The other day I received some royalties (from the usual suspects) and thought I would post them, as I know the topic debating the merits of Streaming vs CD has cropped up from time to time on TC. I certainly earn more through CD sales, but my music is streamed far, far, far more often than it is bought on CD.
> 
> So, as you can see, ain't no one (i.e. musicians) gonna get rich by listeners preferring Spotify, et al. Small wonder that labels have abandoned expensive studio recordings in favour of cheaper composite live recordings.
> 
> ...


I would be interested to hear what alternatives or solutions you would like to see.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

KenOC said:


> The sad fact is, most musicians have always been poor. As Franz Berwald wrote, "Music makes a thin soup." As talented as he was, he went into making prosthetic limbs.


Kurt Atterberg worked as an engineer, Natanael Berg was a veterinarian and Ives worked as insurance agent.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Not everyone makes their music available through streaming. And some of the holdouts seem to make decent money through CD sales and downloads.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Haydn man said:


> I would be interested to hear what alternatives or solutions you would like to see.


I don't really have any alternatives or solutions. I accept things the way they are and besides, I do not release my music for the money in any case. I may sell more streams than CDs but I personally continue to purchase CDs for my own listening pleasure for reasons I mentioned in a different but recent post.

I prefer studio recorded music because I like music to be note and pitch "perfect" right down to the very last exhale of breath on a vocal wobble. If it takes multiple takes to nail it, then so be it. Composite live recordings, especially of opera, will never eliminate audience or ambient noise completely. It could be argued that the energy and excitement of _live_ creates a better performance, but I tend to disagree. Musicians of all leanings will take risks in a studio (secure in the knowledge that if they fluff it they can try again) that they would never take in a live situation and this can make for superlative music.

With streaming reducing the profit margin, labels are increasingly less willing to invest in major studio productions knowing they will not get a return on their investment through CD sales. I posted my royalties to show people here the economic reality behind streaming for the musicians concerned and for the effect this will ultimately have on studio based recording projects.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

The licensing of unused live takes - and takes which, because of errors, hadn't made the cut for the major labels - to all those budget-release companies in the late '80s and early '90s was the initial reason major sales took a knock. On the other hand those major labels probably thought they could make an easy, tidy profit from unused material. Rather shot themselves in the foot.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

When classical music was recorded on vinyl it was on a medium that wore out, so you always had a market looking to replace their records. Record companies had a ready market and could look forward to new releases being bought by people looking to replace worn vinyl with the latest and greatest version.
CD whilst not indestructible is far more resilient and there is a big market of cheap secondhand stuff out there with box sets of reissues at bargain prices.. The market for mainstream repertoire most be close to saturated now, you can have your Beethoven fast, slow, HIP, big or small forces, live or studio all for little money and delivered to your door tomorrow. There are so many versions of most of the repertoire, do we need anymore?
In a saturated market streaming is going to be cheap or it ain't going to be used.
Whilst I want to support the classical music industry making recordings may no longer have much future unless you have something radical or new to say to listeners. How many recent releases really have anything new to offer?
I think the future is via live performance and subscription


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Jacck said:


> Even if, starting from now, not a single piece of new music was produced in the world, I would not mind that much. There is already so much music in the world to last lifetimes. And new musicians are competing (for listening time, attention) not only with their current colleages but also with all the music that has been produced so far.


True that. One could argue that our civilization has reached a sort of senescence, with such a glut of everything that there is too much rather than too little. Also, recorded music has bedeviled many a musical career: in the old days, no matter how good you were, you could only be in one place at one time, and thus, no matter how amateurish, the village musician was an appreciated figure at dances or church meetings or whatever. In a larger town, he may even have been able to do it full time. At the least it might have served to supplement his income. Nowadays, they can have better music at the press of a button, so of what use is he?

That is one reason why almost all the income now goes to a small number of professionals.



> Being a musician is a hard living and has always been hard. Most of the musicians that we cherish today lived and died in poverty. If they were lucky they found beneficiaries. Musicians traditionally lived from live perfomances. Recording technology has been invented some 100 years ago. And the commercial model of recording music, protecting the music with copyright laws invented for this purpose, is recently new.


A minor nitpick here: copyright law was emphatically not invented to protect the interest of artists or writers. It was invented specifically to give government control over what gets published. For a relatively brief period somewhere in the 19th century, it was amended to protect creators, but then its whole purpose became the protection of the interests of large recording and publishing companies, with the interests of individual creators once again becoming secondary.



> This model has functioned very well for a couple of decades and a whole musical industry developped and exploded. The industry got greedy, selling CDs of decades old recordings for $20 even when the production price was 10c. Now the model seems to be failing due to digitalization, and the dwindling money supply will lead to reduction of musicians.


Yup, for better or for worse, the Age of Copyright has effectively come to an end. Of course, YouTube will still remove copyrighted material if someone complains, but by and large that genie is out of the bottle now. And predictably, instead of leading to an end of creativity, it has had the exact opposite effect.



> It is best not to do music as your main profession, but have it as a hobby. My brother is an engineer (constructs car parts), but he also plays clarinet in a local band on weekends. This amounts maybe 30% extra money to his salary for playing at weddings, birthday parties etc.


As others pointed out, this is true, but it is not the way to create high level virtuoso performers. Such people do still exist, and some are making a living, and some are even making a pretty good living. But the field is monstrously competitive, and you gotta be very talented or very brave or very stupid to go into it. 



> Certain things can only be done if you love doing it, not for money. Music, writing etc. Either you write junk thrillers, horrors etc. to make a living, but what you write is meaningless, or you write because you feel that you have something meaningful to say and then do not care about money (think Robert Musil writing The Man Without Qualities, died in poverty, but wrote nonetheless). However, I think that the state should support at least the classical music, theater etc.


Don't I know it: I write books no one wants to read and paint pictures no one wants to buy, and live in poverty, but I'm not sure I'd really want to do anything else.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I think it's very good people in the music business are letting us in on the way it works financially in the business. In the end we will only continue to have a broad choice of good music with many musicians earning some sort of living. 

I would like some advice on how we as music consumers that care about the future of music can sustain musicians. I myself don't stream (except youtube). I buy cd's (or vinyl), preferably at concerts directly from the performers involved.


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## Guest (Jan 18, 2018)

As I understand it back in the day when all LPs, Cassettes and CDs were very expensive, the artists only received a small fraction in royalties. Because they cost so much, less music could be purchased by listeners, so only the most commercial of musicians could make a living.

One of the advantages of the current era is that many musicians who previously went under the radar can now be picked up and spread around the internet giving them the possibility of a global following whereas previously they could only have been known locally for their work.

I'm not fussed about copyright laws being less effective as the bulk of the money for music purchases go to big corporations in any case. I'm also not fussed whether the small number of musicians who have become rich through their music making lose a good part of their income through this situation.

The main concern for me is to ensure that talented musicians, particularly those who are creative, are able to receive a livable income. This can be achieved by both providing the artist with significant royalties per play and by the government providing suitable financial support for qualifying individuals. 

As listeners, we are beneficiaries of an incredible amount of diverse music, much of it for free. I believe that as a society we have an obligation to support those who make this music for us.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> ...This can be achieved by both providing the artist with significant royalties per play and by the government providing suitable financial support for qualifying individuals.


Tulse, do you really want the government to decide which artists are deserving of our tax money and which are not?


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## Guest (Jan 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Tulse, do you really want the government to decide which artists are deserving of our tax money and which are not?


Tax money is cancelled money, so it is not available for artists.

It is the government's role to guarantee full employment. (Maybe hard for many to accept after 40 years of neo-liberal groupthink ). The government therefore needs to decide what employment opportunities to create. As well as in schools, hospitals, transport and other essential services the arts should also be promoted.

So these are extra artists, additional to the ones in the non-government sector. Who else but the government should decide how to spend government money?

It is hardly revolutionary. In the UK our main orchestras receive significant government support. In France all artists are paid a small income by the government if they need the help.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

> It is the government's role to guarantee full employment. (Maybe hard for many to accept after 40 years of neo-liberal groupthink ). The government therefore needs to decide what employment opportunities to create. As well as in schools, hospitals, transport and other essential services the arts should also be promoted.


Tulse, this is naive and sounds a lot like the centrally-planned economy that I was born into (communism). The market organizes the economy better than any bureacrats. The real problem are the bail-outs, subsidiaries etc., because they cripple and distort the market. I am not a free market fanatic and can see, that certain industries need state intervention (judical system, healthcare, education, science, maybe some arts), but to claim that the state must ensure 100% employment is ridiculous. Some segment of the population is never going to work, no matter how hard you try to force them. And we had this during the communism, ie the state was forcing all the lazy drunkards and gypsies to go to work. The productivity was catastrofal. The state should be as small as possible to ensure safety (domestic and international), infrastructure, the upholding of laws and justice.


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## Guest (Jan 18, 2018)

Jacck said:


> Tulse, this is naive and sounds a lot like the centrally-planned economy that I was born into (communism). The market organizes the economy better than any bureacrats. The real problem are the bail-outs, subsidiaries etc., because they cripple and distort the market. I am not a free market fanatic and can see, that certain industries need state intervention (judical system, healthcare, education, science, maybe some arts), but to claim that the state must ensure 100% employment is ridiculous. Some segment of the population is never going to work, no matter how hard you try to force them. And we had this during the communism, ie the state was forcing all the lazy drunkards and gypsies to go to work. The productivity was catastrofal. The state should be as small as possible to ensure safety (domestic and international), infrastructure, the upholding of laws and justice.


Jacck

Firstly, you shouldn't refer to alcoholics and gypsies as lazy.

Secondly, you are not stating my position correctly. I am not promoting a centrally planned economy, and I do not believe in forced labour.

We aren't allowed to discuss politics here. Why not see if you can get an invite to Dogen's 'The State of Britain' group & we can continue over there.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

There's never any sense in arguing with people whose tag line is: "but I'm from a communist country". They've felt the hard edge of living in an crackpot autarkic dictatorship nominally called "communist" that they think any sort of socialism is a mistake and actually _are_ market fanatics, especially the natural right-wingers, despite the denials. A modern country can't run on three men and a dog and any state-shrinking just leaves a vacuum filled by unelected governing entities and you don't get to vote these ones out.

Tulse is essentially correct; in an artificial society governed by policy and laws, including the economy which is not some sort of magic separate entity running as a perpetual motion machine, there has to be policy to maintain the life we want as decent societies. This includes the arts and music as part of the fabric of social life and education. Omitting this (and omitting to nourish it for all) is not a matter of can't, but of won't based upon retarded policy.


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## Guest (Jan 18, 2018)

eugeneonagain said:


> There's never any sense in arguing with people whose tag line is: "but I'm from a communist country". They've felt the hard edge of living in an crackpot autarkic dictatorship nominally called "communist" that they think any sort of socialism is a mistake and actually _are_ market fanatics, especially the natural right-wingers, despite the denials. A modern country can't run on three men and a dog and any state-shrinking just leaves a vacuum filled by unelected governing entities and you don't get to vote these ones out.
> 
> Tulse is essentially correct; in an artificial society governed by policy and laws, including the economy which is not some sort of magic separate entity running as a perpetual motion machine, there has to be policy to maintain the life we want as decent societies. This includes the arts and music as part of the fabric of social life and education. Omitting this (and omitting to nourish it for all) is not a matter of can't, but of won't based upon retarded policy.


Absolutely. Also, given all the state handouts, subsidies and bailouts to the private sector, the capitalists clearly do not want a small government either.

The best example I can think of as a 'three men & a dog' government, ie a free market, is Russia after the collapse of the USSR. There was a massive land grab, armed militias and huge poverty. No-one, apart from oligarchs and their sycophants would actually want a free market. (In fairness to Jacck, I don't believe that he was promoting that view).

So we need a sizeable government and part of its remit is to support the arts.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Haydn man said:


> When classical music was recorded on vinyl it was on a medium that wore out, so you always had a market looking to replace their records. Record companies had a ready market and could look forward to new releases being bought by people looking to replace worn vinyl with the latest and greatest version.
> CD whilst not indestructible is far more resilient and there is a big market of cheap secondhand stuff out there with box sets of reissues at bargain prices.. The market for mainstream repertoire most be close to saturated now, you can have your Beethoven fast, slow, HIP, big or small forces, live or studio all for little money and delivered to your door tomorrow. There are so many versions of most of the repertoire, do we need anymore?
> In a saturated market streaming is going to be cheap or it ain't going to be used.
> Whilst I want to support the classical music industry making recordings may no longer have much future unless you have something radical or new to say to listeners. How many recent releases really have anything new to offer?
> I think the future is via live performance and subscription


The only problem with live performance is you have to produce music people want to go to listen to. If they do not want to listen to it no one will play it.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Tulse said:


> Absolutely. Also, given all the state handouts, subsidies and bailouts to the private sector, the capitalists clearly do not want a small government either.
> 
> The best example I can think of as a 'three men & a dog' government, ie a free market, is Russia after the collapse of the USSR. There was a massive land grab, armed militias and huge poverty. No-one, apart from oligarchs and their sycophants would actually want a free market. (In fairness to Jacck, I don't believe that he was promoting that view).
> 
> So we need a sizeable government and part of its remit is to support the arts.


It is not the governments job to support the arts why not ask Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to do this?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> ...So we need a sizeable government and part of its remit is to support the arts.


In the US, the government has no mandate to "support the arts." If you can find this in the Constitution, let me know! In practical fact, the government is somewhat free to take on roles that the people agree are proper. Within limits! Outside of certain classical music forums of narrow interest, I have sensed no groundswell of support for subsidizing composers or musicians.

If we were to use public money to subsidize such things, the money would benefit far more citizens if it were used to lower the cost of tickets to rap concerts and professional sporting events. Or even to lower the cost of drugs and beer typically ingested at such events. :lol:

Tulse: "It is the government's role to guarantee full employment." Is it? Looking at my copy of the Constitution, I can find nothing about that.

"The government therefore needs to decide what employment opportunities to create." In my country, the government does not create employment opportunities, except by expanding the bureaucracy.

"Who else but the government should decide how to spend government money?" How about…the people? Now there's a thought!


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> It is not the governments job to support the arts why not ask Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to do this?


If I were the government I wouldn't ask Zuckerberg or Gates to do anything. I would crush their monopolies and take a large portion of their wealth away in taxation. This would lead to the rest of the population paying less tax. As people with lower incomes have a greater propensity to spend, this lower taxation will provide more spare cash, some of which will be filtered through to the arts.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> If I were the government I wouldn't ask Zuckerberg or Gates to do anything. I would crush their monopolies and take a large portion of their wealth away in taxation. This would lead to the rest of the population paying less tax. As people with lower incomes have a greater propensity to spend, this lower taxation will provide more spare cash, some of which will be filtered through to the arts.


I really can't bring myself to respond to this.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

KenOC said:


> In the US, the government has no mandate to "support the arts." If you can find this in the Constitution, let me know!


Quoting what is in the Constitution has no relevance to a debate about what the government should or shouldn't do. If it is restrictive then change it. Job done.



> If we were to use public money to subsidize such things, the money would benefit far more citizens if it were used to lower the cost of tickets to rap concerts and professional sporting events.


Professional sport and pop concerts are self financing in the non-government sector. By developing the arts (and public health and fitness through participatory sport if you wish to widen the debate) the government can improve the mental and physical health of a country in a way that the capitalists are less able and willing to. So no, it would not benefit more citizens to spend government money in the way you suggest.



> In my country, the government does not create employment opportunities, except by expanding the bureaucracy.


Really? Do you not have schools, hospitals, soldiers in your country? Do you live in Russia in 1993?



> Tulse: "Who else but the government should decide how to spend government money?" /Tulse.
> 
> KenOC: How about…the people? Now there's a thought!


Governments are elected by the people in my part of the world. Seriously, where do you live? The Congo?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> Quoting what is in the Constitution has no relevance to a debate about what the government should or shouldn't do. If it is restrictive then change it. Job done.


OK, change it. Let us know when you're done. Until then, the Constitution is the law of the land (something many don't seem to understand).

"Quoting what is in the Constitution has no relevance to a debate about what the government should or shouldn't do."

Certainly the most bizarre thing I've read today.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

KenOC said:


> I really can't bring myself to respond to this.


It must be difficult to accept that the worldview you have been brought up with, educated & ruled by and indoctrinated by a compliant media is in fact hugely inefficient and damaging and not in the interests of the bulk of the population. A natural response is denial and ridicule when confronted with an alternative which would undermine what you believe in.

It is a problem for the arts.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Your view seems to be that your preferences, rather than laws, should govern society. With all respect, I demur.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

KenOC said:


> OK, change it. Let us know when you're done. Until then, the Constitution is the law of the land (something many don't seem to understand).
> 
> "Quoting what is in the Constitution has no relevance to a debate about what the government should or shouldn't do."
> 
> Certainly the most bizarre thing I've read today.


You make it sound like you live in a third world despotic nation. In my country laws are not cast in stone. If new laws are required, they are introduced by due process. I do not understand how that is bizarre. Perhaps you can expand on that?


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Your view seems to be that your preferences, rather than laws, should govern society. With all respect, I demur.


Thanks for the straw man. I have never said that as you know. If you wish to debate with me you will need to do better than that.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> There's never any sense in arguing with people whose tag line is: "but I'm from a communist country". They've felt the hard edge of living in an crackpot autarkic dictatorship nominally called "communist" that they think any sort of socialism is a mistake and actually _are_ market fanatics, especially the natural right-wingers, despite the denials. A modern country can't run on three men and a dog and any state-shrinking just leaves a vacuum filled by unelected governing entities and you don't get to vote these ones out.


I think you are building a strawman and misrepresenting my position. I am neither a free-market fanatic (certainly not a big fan of the Iron Lady) nor a hardcore socialist, but I try to seek a balance between the two principles. In the US, there is too much free market (especially their healthcare is dysfunctional), in the nordic countries, there is too much socialism where you pay 60% of your salary in taxes which is completely demotivational. As I have already written, some segments of the economy are better left to the market, some to the state and some need a mix of the two (healthcare, imho). But since we are discussing arts. Generally, the state should not support arts, but I think it could support things like the national philharmony or theater or national televizion (such as BBC)


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

I've read some bizarre stuff on here today too.

Is something only of value if it involves money?

Is the American constitution / the law the be and end all of every issue then (for Americans) ? 

This thread is not just about America is it?


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

Jacck said:


> I think you are building a strawman and misrepresenting my position. I am neither a free-market fanatic (certainly not a big fan of the Iron Lady) nor a hardcore socialist, but I try to seek a balance between the two principles. In the US, there is too much free market (especially their healthcare is dysfunctional), in the nordic countries, there is too much socialism where you pay 60% of your salary in taxes which is completely demotivational. As I have already written, some segments of the economy are better left to the market, some to the state and some need a mix of the two (healthcare, imho). But since we are discussing arts. Generally, the state should not support arts, but I think it could support things like the national philharmony or theater or national televizion (such as BBC)


Yet the Nordic countries, despite living under appalling financial constraints, consistently come out as being the happiest peoples of the world. Wonder why that is?

http://nordic.businessinsider.com/the-21-happiest-countries-in-the-world-2017-3/


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

When was the last post that replied to the OP or Streaming?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

dogen said:


> Yet the Nordic countries, despite living under appalling financial constraints, consistently come out as being the happiest peoples of the world. Wonder why that is?[/URL]


there are also alternative views of the nordic paradise. 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...an-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden
I, for one, would not like to live there, although I love travelling there in the summer - Finnish lakes, Swedish and Norweigen beautiful natural parks etc.... but I'd hate the long winters


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

Jacck said:


> Even if, starting from now, not a single piece of new music was produced in the world, I would not mind that much. There is already so much music in the world to last lifetimes. And new musicians are competing (for listening time, attention) not only with their current colleages but also with all the music that has been produced so far.
> Being a musician is a hard living and has always been hard. Most of the musicians that we cherish today lived and died in poverty. If they were lucky they found beneficiaries. Musicians traditionally lived from live perfomances. Recording technology has been invented some 100 years ago. And the commercial model of recording music, protecting the music with copyright laws invented for this purpose, is recently new. This model has functioned very well for a couple of decades and a whole musical industry developped and exploded. The industry got greedy, selling CDs of decades old recordings for $20 even when the production price was 10c. Now the model seems to be failing due to digitalization, and the dwindling money supply will lead to reduction of musicians.
> It is best not to do music as your main profession, but have it as a hobby. My brother is an engineer (constructs car parts), but he also plays clarinet in a local band on weekends. This amounts maybe 30% extra money to his salary for playing at weddings, birthday parties etc.
> Certain things can only be done if you love doing it, not for money. Music, writing etc. Either you write junk thrillers, horrors etc. to make a living, but what you write is meaningless, or you write because you feel that you have something meaningful to say and then do not care about money (think Robert Musil writing The Man Without Qualities, died in poverty, but wrote nonetheless). However, I think that the state should support at least the classical music, theater etc.


Yes, the economic structures change over time, with new replacing old (eg streaming). But this is a different matter to music itself. For better or worse (!) there will always be new music, since it is but one means of humans expressing themselves and being creative. Making money from that may or may not be possible (for the individual artist).


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Granate said:


> When was the last post that replied to the OP or Streaming?


The posts are related to streaming, because they are discussing whether the state should or should not support arts, ie we are looking into ways how to support musicians, because streaming is killing the recording industry


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

Jacck said:


> there are also alternative views of the nordic paradise.
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...an-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden
> I, for one, would not like to live there, although I love travelling there in the summer - Finnish lakes, Swedish and Norweigen beautiful natural parks etc.... but I'd hate the long winters


Maybe not a paradise and yes there's a "dark" side to every country. For me, overall, the Nordics seem to have got most things right.

Anyhoo....

streaming...


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> In the US, the government has no mandate to "support the arts." If you can find this in the Constitution, let me know! In practical fact, the government is somewhat free to take on roles that the people agree are proper. Within limits! Outside of certain classical music forums of narrow interest, I have sensed no groundswell of support for subsidizing composers or musicians.
> 
> If we were to use public money to subsidize such things, the money would benefit far more citizens if it were used to lower the cost of tickets to rap concerts and professional sporting events. Or even to lower the cost of drugs and beer typically ingested at such events. :lol:


You're probably right about the latter, in the sense of short-term thinking. That seems to be the bread and butter of policy thought since the late 1970s. A good deal of the baby boomers should assume the guilt for this.

Whittling down public education so that again it is designed to be enough to create obedient workers and doesn't "cost the taxpayer" too much (including those most noisy about this, but who dodge most tax) is the route to problems. The U.S. and to some extent Britain, refuse to learn this lesson. It is reflected in the very poor provisions for broad educational needs and real windows of opportunity.

This discussion concerns classical music and perhaps you're right that composers shouldn't be supported. I wonder though if the numbers of people who might listen to classical music and modern art music might be affected by the poor appreciation for arts education.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I think you are building a strawman and misrepresenting my position. I am neither a free-market fanatic (certainly not a big fan of the Iron Lady) nor a hardcore socialist, but I try to seek a balance between the two principles. In the US, there is too much free market (especially their healthcare is dysfunctional), in the nordic countries, there is too much socialism where you pay 60% of your salary in taxes which is completely demotivational. As I have already written, some segments of the economy are better left to the market, some to the state and some need a mix of the two (healthcare, imho). But since we are discussing arts. Generally, the state should not support arts, but I think it could support things like the national philharmony or theater or national televizion (such as BBC)


I am building no 'strawman'. The way you initially responded to Tulse: "that description is like a planned economy and it's a mistake, I know because I come from one" implying 'I escaped from its horrors', is strawman building. I'm not going to insist what your views _ought_ to be, but if _you_ do that, expect it in return.

I disagree that there is "too much socialism" In the Nordic countries; there is NO socialism there. They are capitalist countries with social democratic political policies, that stand out because so much of the current world is shackled by neo-liberal policy. Now, all that aside...

The arts funding issues hardly change. It hasn't always been so, but the U.S. in particular is now always at the bottom of the table when it comes to public funding of the arts. Generally 0,02% where in Europe it ranges between 1-2% of overall spending. There may be wealthy individuals and organisations offering support, but this waxes and wanes and is not foundation upon which to build wide public access. 
Of course most countries now can't even offer decent, affordable healthcare to all citizens, so I suppose there's not much hope for arts - aside from the token subsidies which are widely trumpeted.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

dogen said:


> I've read some bizarre stuff on here today too.
> 
> Is something only of value if it involves money?
> 
> ...


Indeed. The green parties and environmental groups now talk about a lesson they learned after the 1990s. Initially after they got tired of fighting the market fundamentalists they adopted a policy of discussing conservation projects in terms of 'market value' in order to try and meet the market people on a level they responded to.

What happened is that it backfired and the people buying up land for development simply asked what (monetary) value people put upon, say, a local forest, then they ploughed up the forest and used some of the money for things like cosmetic beautification of the area as a sort of compensation.

There is very little vision for the future with this sort of here-and-now cost/benefit analysis of everything. The question I ask adherents of this ideology is: what are your children worth? It's not a strange question considering they think that the 'market value' is the way we measure everything we value.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

dogen said:


> I've read some bizarre stuff on here today too.
> 
> Is something only of value if it involves money?
> 
> ...


It might help if, below their avatar, people would indicate what country they're from.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2018)

DaveM said:


> It might help if, below their avatar, people would indicate what country they're from.


Yes it might for sure, but in terms of government support for musicians affected by music streaming the principles are the same whatever the country. To make this an issue about the contents of the American constitution is indeed quite bizarre.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Tulse said:


> Yes it might for sure, but in terms of government support for musicians affected by music streaming the principles are the same whatever the country. To make this an issue about the contents of the American constitution is indeed quite bizarre.


It's not bizarre if the premise being put forth is that it is an obligation/responsibility of -as opposed to it being in the interest of- the government to support the arts. The acceptance of that premise will probably vary with the country a person is from.

Incidentally, a North American country that has made it a part of the government's agenda to support the arts, with substantial positive results to show for it, is Canada.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> Indeed. The green parties and environmental groups now talk about a lesson they learned after the 1990s. Initially after they got tired of fighting the market fundamentalists they adopted a policy of discussing conservation projects in terms of 'market value' in order to try and meet the market people on a level they responded to.
> 
> What happened is that it backfired and the people buying up land for development simply asked what (monetary) value people put upon, say, a local forest, then they ploughed up the forest and used some of the money for things like cosmetic beautification of the area as a sort of compensation.
> 
> There is very little vision for the future with this sort of here-and-now cost/benefit analysis of everything. The question I ask adherents of this ideology is: what are your children worth? It's not a strange question considering they think that the 'market value' is the way we measure everything we value.


First time in my life I'm reading observations and an analysis that exactly fits my own!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's interesting that classical music fans with their swollen consciences support prying open the public purse (other people's money of course) to support their enthusiasms rather than to aid people elsewhere who live short, miserable lives in poverty and want. Now _there's _a curious ordering of priorities.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Jacck said:


> in the nordic countries, there is too much socialism where you pay 60% of your salary in taxes which is completely demotivational.


This could be called an 'alternative fact' that has been spread by right-wing capitalist as long as I live and is taken for granted by too many badly informed people. It is completely *untrue* that taxation amounts to 60% of your salary. In The Netherlands we have a progressive taxation system where you pay different percentages of tax over different slices of your income after detraction of several parts of your income you don't pay any tax on at all.

I'll explain the principle by a theoretical example. You earn for instance 100.000 euro. You don't pay taxes over the first 10.000 euro. Then you pay 35% over the income from 10.000 - 50.000 euro. Then you pay 40% over your income from 50.000 - 70.000 and you pay 50% over your income from 50.000 - 100.000 euro. Apart from that there are many ways to lower your fiscal income (payments on life and helath insurances, mortgage etc) so in effect many people, especially those that earn a lot, effectvely pay less tax than people with a low to medium income.

As Eugeneonagain said: there is nothing socialist about our societies. You are just misinformed about our tax system.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting that classical music fans with their swollen consciences support prying open the public purse (other people's money of course) to support their enthusiasms rather than to aid people elsewhere who live short, miserable lives in poverty and want. Now _there's _a curious ordering of priorities.


I would expect most people that are in favour of publically financed support of the arts to be in favour of public support of aid to people who live in poverty as well.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I'd also like to mention that it's an utter disgrace that people still believe in this 'trickle-down economic system' where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. My father, who was a nice man but a right-wing conservationist, tried to convince me of that idea back in the seventies. There is nothing new about it but every fact says otherwise. It's just ideology, and a very dangerous ideology as well I may add, closing your eyes on the facts.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Casebearer said:


> This could be called an 'alternative fact' that has been spread by right-wing capitalist as long as I live and is taken for granted by too many badly informed people. It is completely *untrue* that taxation amounts to 60% of your salary.


Here's a country-by-country comparison of effective tax rates. Nobody seems to hit 70%. The US is way down on this list, but: (1) The US has substantial state income taxes in some states that isn't included; and (2) The US may have lower tax rates but borrows heavily each year to cover its rather large deficits. Scary stuff.

http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-highest-effective-personal-tax-rates-2013-1


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Well, there you have it. There is no country that comes close to 60%. Belgium leads the list with 47% (income tax + social security). Most countries are between 35-40%.

US debts are scary I agree completely. There is also no economic reason at all for Trump's tax reduction for high incomes at present. It only further increases US-debt.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Casebearer said:


> There is also no economic reason at all for Trump's tax reduction for high incomes at present. It only further increases US-debt.


I suggest you look beyond the sound bites at the new US tax structure. It will certainly benefit me, percentage-wise, far more than the evil rich. As for the effect on the deficit, I can only hope that you're wrong. In any event, I'm not fortunate enough to have your degree of certainty.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Well please inform me then. Although I got my 'sound bites' from a serious business radio channel. Nevertheless I quite agree we work with images more than facts when it comes to what Europe and America think of eachother.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The key to the new tax structure isn’t lowering individual rates on the rich; it does not, on balance, have that overall effect (regardless of what the press has claimed, though that has stopped). It is in the reform of corporate tax rates. Look up “double taxation of dividends”, something most economists have decried for years, to find out more about this. The effect should be to encourage more actual equity investment in business enterprises rather than simply taking on more debt for growth.

The question is whether the anticipated growth in GDP, which the markets now seem to believe will occur, will be sufficient to offset the loss in tax revenue from lower corporate rates. The administration believes that it will. We’ll see. My own view is that the US problem isn't a lack of investment, it's the loss of our competitive advantage worldwide compared with the past. Tax reform is unlikely to address that.

But even so, the government can best address this by simply getting out of the way. Active measures are very unlikely to "help"!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The U.S. debt is a many splendored thing. Between 2008 and 2016 the Fed bought up 4-5 trillion in government & mortgage-backed bonds/securities i.e. quantitative easing (QE). By most accounts, the money required was simply printed. Now that QE is almost over, the Fed has a problem as to how to release these bonds back into the system. But the more interesting fact is that 4-5 trillion was added to the financial system without a blip on the radar screen. Perhaps as much as half of US debt or more could be paid off by simply printing the money...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

However simply "printing the money" might result in hyperinflation, a la Venezuela, and is quite illegal in any event. Yes, quite a quandary!

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” --Alexis De Tocqueville, ca. 1830

Sometimes those Frenchies can be pretty bright.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting that classical music fans with their swollen consciences support prying open the public purse (other people's money of course) to support their enthusiasms rather than to aid people elsewhere who live short, miserable lives in poverty and want. Now _there's _a curious ordering of priorities.


Another straw man from you Ken as no-one has said that.

Try again.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

The concern over public debt is misplaced in a country like USA which is the sole issuer of its currency. I can't explain here as it is OT and longwinded. However, if you wish to discuss further, you could request an invitation from Dogen to join the State of Britain Group. It would be good, in particular, to have you there Casebearer.

On the subject of high taxation reducing the incentive to work, this is not true.

Also, discussing tax levels is putting the cart before the horse. The total tax burden is money cancelled from the economy in order to prevent inflation. It is a residual figure, resulting from increased money injected by both the government and non-government sectors.

Again, I'd be happy to discuss further in the Groups.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> Again, I'd be happy to discuss further in the Groups.


Please do so......................


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Please do so......................


Of course, that will not stop me from pouncing on neo-liberal myths being propagated in the main forum where it is relevant to classical music.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Tulse said:


> Of course, that will not stop me from pouncing on neo-liberal myths being propagated in the main forum where it is relevant to classical music.


I do not know what you mean by neo-liberal myths but the word "neo-liberal" seems to have a similar effect on you like red color on a bull. 
You first need to understand the concept of the free market and it is NOT easy to understand. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
Take for example bananas. How many bananas get imported and their price is decided by the demand for bananas and how many were harvested. Would you like some government agency to intervene and decide how many bananas should be imported and how high the prices should be? No. The agency would be wrong and either too many or too little bananas would be imported and the demand would not be met. And it works similarly with the job market. No agency should decide how many jobs should exist in a certain industry, becase the demands of the society would not be met. The market insures that those industries, businesses, jobs that are not needed (there is no demand for them) dissappear. The free market is no ideal but it organizes the economy better than any central planning authority.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tulse said:


> Of course, that will not stop me from pouncing on neo-liberal myths being propagated in the main forum where it is relevant to classical music.


We are pleased that you will be here to protect members from misinformation and alien ideologies.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

QE has no effect on the economy either - inflation, GDP or employment.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I do not know what you mean by neo-liberal myths but the word "neo-liberal" seems to have a similar effect on you like red color on a bull.
> You first need to understand the concept of the free market and it is NOT easy to understand.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
> Take for example bananas. How many bananas get imported and their price is decided by the demand for bananas and how many were harvested. Would you like some government agency to intervene and decide how many bananas should be imported and how high the prices should be? No. The agency would be wrong and either too many or too little bananas would be imported and the demand would not be met. And it works similarly with the job market. No agency should decide how many jobs should exist in a certain industry, becase the demands of the society would not be met. The market insures that those industries, businesses, jobs that are not needed (there is no demand for them) dissappear. The free market is no ideal but it organizes the economy better than any central planning authority.


It's like you never learn. You are again reverting to experience of an autarkic economy and then presenting the official textbook definitions of the alternative. We all know how it's _supposed_ to work, the fairytale. However outside Wikipedia and _Macro-Economics 3rd Edition_, in cold hard reality, we know that it is widely and hugely manipulated, and that, my friend, is not much better that your dreaded planned economy. The great myth lies in the mistaken assumption that it is somehow self-driving, benign, a result of aggregate needs, for all.

Propagators of this apparently simple mechanism continually fail to recognise problems, such as: what actually drives demand beyond basic necessities? Who shapes demand?

Steering this back toward culture... Ken up there made the point about people being giving actual assistance for the things they actually want in their miserable lives. Who knows what people actually really want as opposed to what they consume in a state of perpetual uncertainty? Even more, why are there so many people in rich, prosperous countries living "miserable lives in poverty and want" anyway? That magic economic machine ought to have eliminated it.
I know that when I'm feeling depressed I'm more likely to grab a bag of crisps/chips and finish it rather than get up and cook properly. Disillusionment and quashed hope for the future makes for short term thinking and solutions. Maybe I would put on the Sex Pistols at a high volume to try to drive out the pain, perhaps drink ten beers (I'm not a drinker, so perhaps not). Why would I bother to even pursue 'classical music', especially if I've never had cause to encounter it anyway? I just need painkillers and the ones I know: quick food, sexual encounters, fast music, a big movie.....

The conservative mentality, and a view prevalent in the U.S. seems to be the mistaken idea that everyone always knows what is best for them or is fully aware of what they can do and be (unless it contradicts some deeply held conservative idea, then they need schooling about it). But starting on that topic of inbuilt contradictions in the ragged school of conservatism would be a long haul.

Personally I think there are bigger fish to fry in terms of social problems, but alongside solving those it would be nice if schools and the general public could have access to great art, theatre, music, in the way I was lucky enough to taste it before social policy degenerated. There was less money floating about then than there is now. It's not a question of affordability, but priorities.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Jacck said:


> I do not know what you mean by neo-liberal myths but the word "neo-liberal" seems to have a similar effect on you like red color on a bull.


Minor aside: bulls cannot actually see red, being color-blind; they just don't like having a flag waved in their face.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

eugeneonagain said:


> It's like you never learn. You are again reverting to experience of an autarkic economy and then presenting the official textbook definitions of the alternative. We all know how it's _supposed_ to work, the fairytale. However outside Wikipedia and _Macro-Economics 3rd Edition_, in cold hard reality, we know that it is widely and hugely manipulated, and that, my friend, is not much better that your dreaded planned economy. The great myth lies in the mistaken assumption that it is somehow self-driving, benign, a result of aggregate needs, for all.
> 
> Propagators of this apparently simple mechanism continually fail to recognise problems, such as: what actually drives demand beyond basic necessities? Who shapes demand?
> 
> ...


This is all good stuff but I regret that the mods will delete it when they see it. Why not repost it in Dogen's State of Britain group. Its a good group.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

KenOC said:


> We are pleased that you will be here to protect members from misinformation and alien ideologies.


I am pleased that you will be here to protect members from misinformation and alien ideologies.

There, I fixed that for you.


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## Guest (Jan 20, 2018)

Blancrocher said:


> Minor aside: bulls cannot actually see red, being color-blind; they just don't like having a flag waved in their face.


Well if someone raises a neo-liberal flag in my face then they are still going to get it. :lol:


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## Tero (Jun 2, 2012)

JEC said:


> The problem with being forced out on the road to perform is that you are not creating/recording new music. Ask any touring musician how fun it is to tour.


I see that was 6 pages back. No matter. Just allows me to point out that in the early 70s the album and concert ticket were about the same, no more than 5 dollars. Now the album sells for 12-15 dollars whereas the concert ticket is over 50. So the Cd or download is just an advertisement to make money at the concert to hear the songs live.


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