Well.

Music industry analyst Mark Mulligan’s MIDiA Consulting has published a new report exploring the ‘superstar artist economy’. It suggests that while artists’ share of total recorded-music income has grown from 14% in 2000 to 17% in 2013, the top 1% of musical works are now accounting for 77% of all those artist revenues thanks in part to a “tyranny of choice” on digital services.

“The democratisation of access to music distribution has delivered great benefits for artists but has contributed to even greater confusion for fans, ironically culminating in an intensification of the superstar effect, with the successful artists relative share of the total pot of musical works getting progressively smaller,” as he puts it.

...

The report takes pains to point out that “superstar” artists aren’t necessarily just those signed to major labels, noting that a number of independent artists have broken into the 1% tier. It’s also clear that this isn’t just a digital phenomenon – witness the 75% share that the top 1% of artists take in physical sales. But the report is likely to fuel more arguments about whether streaming pays off for smaller artists.

Whether they're "independent" or not, they're still the top 1%. Technology is making the idea of a "record company" obsolete to the point of quaintness, anyway.

I'd be interested in hearing from the top 1% of the recording industry about their thoughts on the top 1% of earners in all other fields -- and why they (presumably) support their own claim to the vast majority of all income, but oppose 1%ers in other fields similarly taking home a greatly disproportionate share of all revenues.

Stratospheric revenues are had when someone is either selling the same thing (the same book, the same song) to a massive group of people (like the huge American market) or when someone is in charge of a large corporation serving a huge national market (NABISCO -- the National Biscuit Corporation -- demonstrated this 100 years or so ago).

Some jobs will never pay all that much, either because it's too easy to find someone else to do the job (too much supply) or because the worker spends a great deal of his personal time on each run of production. A brain surgeon, for example, has a skill in ridiculously high demand -- people would, if needed, trade most of their income just to live. But a brain surgeon, unlike Beyonce, cannot just print up 100,000 copies of his brain surgeries and sell them to people. Every surgery requires at least days of research and consultation and at least a day of actual surgery. No matter how important his skill, he can never sell it in a massively reproduced way such as to make as much money as Jay-Z.

This is the way of the world. It's not fair, but it's also not plainly unjust, either.

But I do notice that people who can reap the huge benefits of massively reproduced labor being sold many times -- such as movie stars -- never seem to notice that they themselves are the beneficiaries of the same basic principle that makes the CEO of a large corporation so rich.

Years ago, Warren Beatty was asked about this unfairness -- the unfairness that a star like him could (at one point) command a fee of $5 million or more while most actors were paid scale or just above it, and could barely find work 8 months out of every year. He was asked to reconcile this with his own well-known socialist leanings.

All Beatty said was this: "The star system is central to how Hollywood makes movies." As if this answers the question at all.

What he was really saying is "That's just the way it is, and I'm the beneficiary of that system, so eff you, I'm fine with it."

Would that he were capable of generalizing from his own experience.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (454)
Post contains 707 words, total size 4 kb.

Interesting document.

You should know going in she's not firmly against global warming theory. But she is honest enough to confess that the theory, as currently understood, is wrong, at least in important details, and she's willing to "go there," at least in a speculative way, and consider the possibility that the theory is wrong in the main as well.

She seems extremely skeptical of last year's spin that the ocean is "hiding" huge amounts of heat by some unexplained mechanism.

She does seem to see some plausibility in another theory, the "stadium wave" theory, which isn't terribly surprising -- the Stadium Wave hypothesis is her own pet theory.

One of the most controversial issues emerging from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is the failure of global climate models to predict a hiatus in warming of global surface temperatures since 1998. Several ideas have been put forward to explain this hiatus, including what the IPCC refers to as ‘unpredictable climate variability’ that is associated with large-scale circulation regimes in the atmosphere and ocean. The most familiar of these regimes is El Niño/La Niña. On longer multi-decadal time scales, there is a network of atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes, including the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

A new paper published in the journal Climate Dynamics suggests that this ‘unpredictable climate variability’ behaves in a more predictable way than previously assumed. The paper’s authors, Marcia Wyatt and Judith Curry, point to the so-called ‘stadium-wave’ signal that propagates like the cheer at sporting events whereby sections of sports fans seated in a stadium stand and sit as a ‘wave’ propagates through the audience. In like manner, the ‘stadium wave’ climate signal propagates across the Northern Hemisphere through a network of ocean, ice, and atmospheric circulation regimes that self-organize into a collective tempo.

The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why climate models did not predict this hiatus. Further, the new hypothesis suggests how long the hiatus might last.

But this seems to me a pure speculation. She's offering a possible explanation for how various forces come together (well, they nearly conspire) to push temperatures down (which then offsets, I guess, the increase in temperatures predicted by Global Warming theorists).

We are very far from "The Science Is Settled" when we're still thrashing about for the best speculation as to why temperatures aren't rising as predicted.

You can't say "the Science is Settled" and then propose the speculation that maybe the ocean is "hiding" heat by some unknown mechanism (and hiding it, by the way, in some place we can't actually find or measure), or the speculation of a chaotic system that self-organizes towards a cooling tendency.

Either of these speculations may turn out to be true -- but at the moment, they are mere speculations, which not only aren't proven but are still in fairly early stages of theorization.

That is, they're still pretty half-baked. They're hardly past the brainstorming phase.

A theory is as strong as it its weakest proof. Global Warming now relies, unavoidably, not only on mere speculations, but on speculations people can't even agree upon (in a "The Speculation is Settled" sort of "consensus").

This reduces all of global warming theory to the level of mere speculation.

Posted by: Ace at 02:27 PM | Comments (237)
Post contains 599 words, total size 4 kb.

Well, if it weren't already apparent, I'd say that neocon idealism is officially dead.

Many people -- especially those on the left, of course, plus those who are bewitched by sharply-creased trousers -- call Obama's foreign policy "realist." It is nothing of the sort. It's the left's version of idealism.

For 50 years, the left endeavored to defend Soviet aggression by constantly casting it as defensive in nature. Read Howard Zinn, or listen to Oliver Stone's simpering apologism, and you'll hear the same claim a dozen times: Every evil, murderous act committed by the Soviets was caused by justifiable fears of US aggression.

Of course, we should note this fear-of-the-aggressor apologism is highly selective; Zinn, Stone, and fellow travelers never offer a defense of the United States based on the US' quite-legitimate fear of Soviet aggression. They excoriate the US, for example, for attacking the Taliban, despite the rather ample evidence of justified US fear of the Taliban and their guests, Al Qaeda. Thus, the Soviet Union is relieved of responsibility for brutally crushing the Czechs in the Prague Spring of 1968 -- an invasion of 200,000 Soviet troops with 20,000 tanks -- but America receives no such dispensation on the basis of the 3000 murdered Americans of 9/11.

If this pro-Soviet agitation were limited to the pages of The Nation, it would not be cause for great alarm. The problem is that Obama is so steeped in this Zinnian narrative that he conceives of virtually every dictator's viciousness of being, somehow, the product of American Imperial Sin, and has therefore cast his entire foreign policy as one of No Threatening Moves.

From the "Russian Reset" to blocking Polish anti-ballistic-missiles, Obama's Plan A for the defense of the United States is little more than "don't scare the Russians," or "don't scare the Iranians," or don't scare any country or non-state actor which is, itself, scary.

There's an inch of truth in the idea that countries act out of fear, just like there's an inch of truth in virtually everything. But Obama seems to read the Russian/Soviet narrative, issuing from its state propaganda organs and relentlessly re-transmitted by its reliable toadies in the US and Europe, as if is an honest account of Soviet/Russian intention. In fact, 90% of it is false. As Hillary Clinton recently observed, Hitler's pretext for invading Czechoslavakia was to save the German ethnics of the Sudetenland from the predations of ethnic Czechs and the untermenschen Slavs.

People are rarely honest about their actual motivations for committing horrific acts, and few are more dishonest than tyrannical politicians backed by a state media and a totalitarian system of punishing internal dissent.

So sure, some amount of Russian foreign policy is based on fear, and some of that fear can even be credited as rational; but so is part of the American foreign policy, and so is the foreign policy of the UK, and France, and Australia, and India and every other country on the face of the earth.

But most of Russian foreign policy is rooted in simple Want. Putin Wants something resembling the Soviet Union back. Putin Wants to surround his country with satellites and satrapies.

And the way to keep someone from acting on his more repulsive Wants is to assign a cost to achieving those Wants such that he will restrain himself from acting on every Want.

I don't actually fault Obama for speaking of an idealistic foreign policy, one in which peace is maintained largely by countries simply not threatening each other. It's a noble goal. I wish for that goal myself.

But it is extremely naïve, not to say dangerous, to act as if the meaningless action of Wishing for something to be wills it into existence.

My problem is that he not only has no Plan B -- the more realistic, tough-minded plan for when Plan A (almost inevitably) fails -- but that he slurs his fellow Americans by suggesting that they're too stupid and crude-minded to Wish for Plan A to work.

Nope. We do wish for Plan A. We do wish Putin would understand that real strength is demonstrated not by how many millions you can bully and dominate, but by how many millions you can set free.

I wish Putin would understand this. I wish every aggressive tyrant would understand this.

But wishing is not a plan, and it's a slur to claim that anyone who speaks of a realistic Plan B -- in which force and coercion are employed against those who only understand force and coercion -- is a "warmonger" who doesn't himself wish peace.

Thanks to @BenK84 for linking this in the morning news dump.

Update: Jim Geraghty makes the case for a robust Plan B.

Dear World beyond Our Borders,

These are your choices:

A world where the United States government and its military, supplied by corporations you find distasteful, responds to aggression and provocations through shows of force and military interventions. These interventions — sometimes on a large scale and sometimes on a small scale — inflict regrettable but inevitable collateral damage on civilians. These actions are ones that in the past you have labeled “imperialist” and “aggressive” and that prompt you to lament that the world is being run by “cowboys” and — the post-millennial all-purpose pejorative label — “neocons.”
Advertisement

A world where the United States government and its military do not respond this way, and disputes about territory, ideology, and power beyond our borders are hashed out by the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Pakistanis, the Saudis, various jihadist factions (including those so violent and bloodthirsty that not even al-Qaeda wants to be associated with them), terror-for-hire groups like the Haqqani network, and anyone else who wants in on the brawl....

Pick one. There is no “Option C” where the United Nations suddenly becomes an effective, respected peacekeeping force. There is no “Option D” where the world’s strong men and brutes are talked into taking up yoga and become calm, mellow guys, eager to hug it out.

Yup. Hope is not a Plan.

Posted by: Ace at 07:55 AM | Comments (381)
Post contains 1057 words, total size 7 kb.

It's tough being the (nominal) leader of the free world, with people lookin' to you for leadership 'n' stuff.

Vladimir Putin has put President Barack ObamaÂ’s vacation plans on hold.

Obama is headed to Coral Reef High School in the southern part of Miami, Fla., on Friday for an event about education and the economy that first lady Michelle Obama had been expected to attend as well. What hadnÂ’t been known was that ObamaÂ’s daughters were planning to come with them, and that the four were going to extend the trip for a brief family getaway.

Now, the White House tells POLITICO that heÂ’s reconsidering.

You know, if someone had told this jagoff in 2007 that the job he thought he wanted required working the occasional weekend and not taking the Big Jet on one endless family vacation, he'd still be Senator Obama from Illinois.

more...

Posted by: andy at 09:09 AM | Comments (385)
Post contains 161 words, total size 1 kb.

Feast your eyes on all this Southern-ness.

When they're not busy making up false claims of Republican "dog whistles," they're eagerly crafting their own.

Update: Per a commenter at Jonah Goldberg's original post, NPR has now edited this clip so that they say "Democrats" instead of "Southern Democrats.

Posted by: Ace at 07:14 AM | Comments (280)
Post contains 76 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy Thursday.

Crimean lawmakers plan to hold a referendum on joining Russia.

Rep. Ryan gave BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins a sneak-peek at his CPAC speech.

Also, at CPAC, Gov. Christie will try to recover his front-runner status. According to a new poll, he's got some work to do.

More from WaPo's latest poll, with some really nifty crosstabs (click "detailed view" on the ones that interest you).

WSJ's Patrick O'Connor has a piece on CPAC speeches as a spring-board to 2016.

I can't seem to find it if ACU is planning to livestream CPAC this year like it did last, but CSPAN will have Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin's speeches around 12:40pm. (Nothing says "future of the conservatism" like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.)

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (324)
Post contains 131 words, total size 2 kb.

• In The Race For The Senate, The GOP Is In The Driver's Seat
  
• Obama In Denial
  
• Hillary Walks Back Hitler-Putin Comparison
  
• The Anti-Empirical Left
  
• Reject Naive Foreign Policy Whatever The Source
  
• The Democrats Crusade Against "Un-American" Activities
  
• The Other Right To Privacy
  
• Ukraine And The Clash Of Civilizations
  
• Seven Energy Policies To Make Russia Pay
  
• RT Anchor Resigns
  
• Russia Is Doomed
  
• We're In The Best Of Hands
  
• Wendy Davis Will Cause The Dems To Divert Resources To Georgia
  
• DNC Attendees Can't Name A Single Hillary Accomplishment
  
• Chipotle Walking Back Global Warming Guacamole Scare Mongering
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (418)
Post contains 106 words, total size 2 kb.

Ralph Peters on Obama: "He Does Not Believe in This Country"

Devastating because it's true.

The problem with being a post-national president of your country is that you end up always losing out to actual leaders who do believe in their nations.

Look, the bottom line on this is Russia has a real leader. You may not like him, and I don't, but he is brilliant and ruthless, he has clear goals and he moves straight toward those goals. The West lacks a leader. Like it or not, the president of the United States is the de facto leader of the West, and our president just is - he's incapable and unwilling to lead.

The weakness is phenomenal. Now, you know, we are not weaker than we were in the Carter years. I was in that military, it was pathetic. Our military today is the best in the world, best in our history, although Obama wants to dismantle it. We're also immensely wealthier than the Carter years. The problem is, that as a president Obama is far weaker than Carter, and he's probably the worst president we've ever had.

He is a man who's incapable of making a hard decision. And by the way, one other key point, Vladimir Putin believes in Russia. He believes in Russia's destiny, its mission. Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism. He does not believe in this country.

The Obama Way: If He Believes It, It Must Be So

When it comes to Iran, Obama shows an attitude that can only be described as solipsistic: what's in his mind is reality. And any other reality is just plain silly.

...It's pretty obvious to all analysts that Iran does not fear an American military strike much these days, especially after Mr. Obama's failure to act in Syria last summer. But Obama denies it, referring to himself in the third person as someone "who has shown himself willing to take military action." Drones, sure; a quick raid as well. But in Libya and Syria, he showed himself extremely reluctant to take military action. Remember "leading from behind?" If he genuinely thinks he is viewed as a scary guy with his finger near the trigger, we all have a problem.

...This is the Obama who said of his own nomination that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." If he believes it, it must be so. The Goldberg interview reveals that five years in, nothing has changed.

Sowell on Reality vs the Intelligentsia

The front page of a local newspaper in northern California featured the headline "The Promise Denied," lamenting the under-representation of women in computer engineering. The continuation of this long article on an inside page had the headline, "Who is to blame for this?"

In other words, the fact that reality does not match the preconceptions of the intelligentsia shows that there is something wrong with reality, for which somebody must be blamed. Apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.

Quote of the Day

We want the world to solve its own problems for a while. The problem is that all this - invasions, wholesale slaughter, ethnic cleansing, missile tests, naval provocations, and raw brutality - is how the world beyond our borders solves its own problems.

"Let the world solve its own problems for a while!" Oh, it does, my friends. It does. http://t.co/u95PutVyTM pic.twitter.com/7jgwhmT4Ok

- Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 5, 2014

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:07 PM | Comments (925)
Post contains 988 words, total size 10 kb.

And if you think he's not going to figure out that, hey, October 2016 is just before an important election and then delay it until May 2017, then let Rob Halford disabuse you of that mistaken belief.

Now, not only is Obama saying that these legacy plans can remain, but heÂ’s saying they can stay alive for three years longer than intended. If they can be extended for three years, the new rules may never fully go into effect (unless Obama will allow a wave of cancellations in October 2016, just before the presidential election). And maintaining these plans will further drive up the cost of insurance on the exchanges.

Remember, Obama deliberately canceled these policies in order to force them to subsidize sicker people in the exchanges. To the extent these people aren't in the exchanges, the cost for insurance on the exchanges goes up -- or, of course, Obama pays off the insurance companies through the "risk corridor" mechanism to induce insurers to set their prices artificially low.

Allah concludes:

Quite simply, Obama was forced to choose between doing something that would help his party at the ballot box but hurt his signature health-care law and doing something that would help stabilize the law financially at the risk of generating a nasty backlash to his party from consumers with cancellations. He made the political choice. Which is exactly what OÂ’s critics feared would happen as government insinuated itself further into the health-care industry via O-Care. Decisions on health-care policy are now a species of politics. YouÂ’re welcome, America.

P-Shop by @slublog

Okay, I'm under the weather and never quite woke up today. I'm doing the podcast soon. So, Open Thread.

Sorry I suck so bad this week.

Posted by: Ace at 02:58 PM | Comments (589)
Post contains 313 words, total size 2 kb.

Of course, this is Tom Friedman's great answer to everything.

How do we revitalize the American economy? Raise the gas tax, impose a carbon-tax scheme.

How do we renew America's sense of patriotism? Raise the gas tax, impose a carbon-tax scheme.

How do we lower gas and energy prices? Raise the gas tax, impose a carbon-tax scheme.

So no one should be surprised that the key to driving Putin out of the Ukraine with his tail tucked between his legs is to raise the gas tax, impose a carbon-tax scheme. (Link to NRO.)

I’d also raise our gasoline tax, put in place a carbon tax and a national renewable energy portfolio standard — all of which would also help lower the global oil price (and make us stronger, with cleaner air, less oil dependence and more innovation). You want to frighten Putin? Just announce those steps.

Gasbaggery.

I apologize for the light/superficial blogging this week. I'm just not feelin' it.

Posted by: Ace at 02:17 PM | Comments (246)
Post contains 188 words, total size 1 kb.