Wired 13.01: The Bit Torrent Effect

Cohen knows the havoc he has wrought. In November, he spoke at a Los Angeles awards show and conference organized by Billboard, the weekly paper of the music business. After hobnobbing with “content people” from the record and movie industries, he realized that “the content people have no clue. I mean, no clue. The cost of bandwidth is going down to nothing. And the size of hard drives is getting so big, and they’re so cheap, that pretty soon you’ll have every song you own on one hard drive. The content distribution industry is going to evaporate.” Cohen said as much at the conference’s panel discussion on file-sharing. The audience sat in a stunned silence, their mouths agape at Cohen’s audacity.

America, the Indifferent

Almost a third of the way into the program, the latest available figures show that the percentage of United States income going to poor countries remains near rock bottom: 0.14 percent. Britain is at 0.34 percent, and France at 0.41 percent. (Norway and Sweden, to no one’s surprise, are already exceeding the goal, at 0.92 percent and 0.79 percent.)

One point which I saw raised on some discussion sites was what these number look like when private giving is factored in. Apparently US tax policy rewards charitable contributions by making htem deductible (in effect subsidizing them) while Europe’s VAT style lacks a similar exemption. So I think the question of giving by the American people is hard to interpret based on governmental grants alone. How much money is collected by organizations like the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, etc. from private donors in the US vs. other countries?

Merry Christmas Everyone!

WSJ Opinions Section

Mr. O’Donnell’s complaint seems to be that blue states like Connecticut pay a much higher average tax rate than do red states like Oklahoma, making them carry a disproportionate share of the federal tax burden. If that is so, enacting John Kerry’s proposed tax hike on high-income earners would only have made things worse.

The entire idea of states subsidizing each other seems to bring out the worst in current national politics regarding the budget. Instead of policy designed to maximize common benefit, the budget and appropriations process seems to have devolved into who can bring home the most pork. We reward representatives who can grab the most federal dough by re-electing them.

While I’m not sure how we can fix this, I do think that switching to some kind of consumption tax (Fairtax being a leading candidate) would improve the situation by making the true cost of government spending more obvious. If people saw a hard number everytime they bought something (like 20%) I think the costs of government spending would be further in the forefront of our minds.

business2blog: Companies Cut Benefits to Gays

Massachusetts companies, some of which pioneered so-called domestic-partner benefits for unmarried, same-sex partners, said they are now withdrawing them for reasons of fairness: If gays and lesbians can now marry, they should no longer receive special treatment in the form of health benefits that were not made available to unmarried, opposite-sex couples.

Among the companies doing this: IBM Corp., Raytheon Co., Emerson College, Northeastern University, the National Fire Protection Association, Boston Medical Center, Baystate Health System, and The New York Times Co., which owns The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

I’ve been playing with MarsEdit, and must say that I’m impressed. The biggest problem for me would have to be the fact that I spend so much time on a PC at work, that I don’t feel like I can get tied to too many Mac only programs. If only Firefox supported spell-checking as you type then maybe I’d be able to deal exclusively with blogging from a textbox.

business2blog: Where the Jobs Are

Cnet maps the top IT-job producing cities. Not a lot of surprises: San Jose, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Long Beach, Calif.; New York; Chicago; Boston; Oakland, Calif.; Seattle; and San Francisco.

I don’t think this map would really surprise anyone. It’s interesting to see the concentration of tech jobs around certain urban areas however. With all the talk about telecommunications enabling the outsourcing of jobs to India, I’d think there would also be a greater outsourcing of jobs to cheaper places like Alabama, or the midwest.

Free Credit Report Rollout Begins Wednesday

Beginning September 1, 2005: Eastern states (Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia), Puerto Rico, and all U.S. territories.

Consumers may choose to order free reports from all three nationwide consumer reporting companies at the same time, or stagger their requests over the course of the year. The law allows consumers to order one free copy from each company every 12 months. Consumers are eligible to order a free credit report any time after their state of residency becomes eligible – they are not required to submit their request within a certain period of time.