On not getting the point

So Andy Burnham annouces an extension of copyright on sound recordings.

Speaking to the UK Music Creators Conference in London yesterday [THURS], Mr Burnham described the current 50 year rule as "outdated". He said: "It is only right that someone who created or contributed to something of real value gets to benefit for the full course of their life." An extension to 70 years would be reasonable "given that most people make their best work in their 20s and 30s".

He's entirely missed the point of copyright altogether. We grant a temporary monopoly on such things because if everyone...

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Driven down

Does the failure of the bailout package for the US car industry mean we're going see another of those apocalyptic days in the markets?  Things certainly aren't looking great so far.  The Hang Seng index closed down 5.48 percent; the Nikkei was down 5.56 percent; and - at time of writing - our very own FTSE 100 index is down 2.63 percent.  So far as the FTSE's concerned, the big losers are the banks. Lloyds TSB down 18.86 percent; HBOS down 17.81 percent; RBS Group down 13.01 percent; the list goes on.  It will be interesting to see what the Dow Jones looks like when it opens later today.  We'll keep you up to speed with any major developments.
 

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Daily Brief

If you've been laid off from your Wall Street job and have little more to show for it than a bunch of worthless stock from your former employer, the cool, blue Caribbean waters are calling you this winter.

Or more specifically, the Elite Island Resorts are calling you. Times are evidently so tough on the islands that this luxury hospitality group will let guests pay for their vacations with shares of stock -- at prices from July 31, 2008.

Between December 5 through January 31, book a stay at the The Verandah Resort & Spa -- a value...

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Warren vs Treasury

Many thanks to Andrew Leonard, a more adept web surfer than I, for tracking down Elizabeth Warren's incendiary report to Congress on the disbursement to date of TARP funds. Unfortunately, it's not only a PDF, but it's also one which can't be copy-and-pasted; I do hope that Warren posts the report online in HTML form very soon, to make it as accessible as possible. (She has a blog, she should use it.)

This report makes a clear-eyed and compelling case that Treasury really has no idea what it's been doing so far; that...

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Spending increases vs tax cuts

Greg Mankiw, the Harvard economist who was chairmen of the of the President's Council of Economic Advisers between 2003 and 2005, has an important post on his blog about the relative benefits of spending increases and tax cuts as forms of economic stimulus:

“Bob Hall and Susan Woodward look at spending increases from World War II and the Korean War and conclude that the government spending multiplier is about one: A dollar of government spending raises GDP by about a dollar. Similarly, the results in Valerie Ramey's research suggest a government spending multiplier of about 1.4…

...By contrast, recent research by Christina Romer and David Romer looks at tax changes and concludes that the tax multiplier is about three: A dollar of tax cuts raises GDP by about three dollars.”

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