Liberal Writer Bemoans SXSW As A “Huge , Exploitative Scam”

Why South By Southwest Is A Huge, Exploitative Scam

 

 

 

” The city of Austin is often the only part of Texas that makes sense to solid-blue progressives. It’s a connection that is embodied by the South by Southwest festival currently underway, the annual event to which lovers of music and human inventiveness like to flock.

  It is thus with regret and a sense of intra-tribal disloyalty that I come not to praise the festival but to — well, probably not bury it, because SXSW is a cultural juggernaut and I am not. But I come to call on my fellow lovers of music and human inventiveness, and most especially my fellow liberals, to stop with all the praise. Because the for-profit, privately held entity that is South by Southwest annually turns a handsome profit from nearly immeasurable amounts of unpaid labor.

  In this, SXSW — which started as an itty-bitty thing before becoming a corporate behemoth —is hardly alone. The American cultural scene and labor market writ large are chock-a-block with people profiting from unpaid labor. It’s just that, traditionally, progressives are supposed to oppose that sort of thing. Not pay anywhere from $650 to $1,745 to attend.

  South by Southwest happily touts the financial benefits it brings to Austin (“in 2013, SXSW was responsible for injecting more than $218.2 million into the Austin economy”), but is rather more shy about revealing its own profit margin (“as a privately held company we do not make our financial statements public”).

  However, between ticket sales, merch ($75 “interactive sunglasses,” anyone?), and colossal corporate sponsorships, it seems safe to assume that the margin isn’t slim — and all that bank is made on the backs of thousands of artists and volunteers who are in every meaningful sense unpaid. Volunteers get festival passes; artists get to choose between a tiny honorarium, or festival passes. Neither goes very far at the grocery store.”

 

The Week has more liberal whining about the profitability of SXSW 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Meet The Special Interests Driving The War On Drugs

A Public Service Announcement From The Alabama Medical Marijuana Coalition

 

 

The Top Five Special Interest Groups That Lobby Against Medical Marijuana

 

 

 

 

For some simple facts to back up the assertion on the poster above the reader is invited to check out this link .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Don’t Be Fooled , Zuckerberg Called Obama To Serve His Own Business Interests Not Your Privacy

Mark Zuckerberg’s Call To Obama Was Not About Privacy

 

 

 

 

 

” Mark Zuckerberg is not happy with the way the American government conducts surveillance on the Internet, so much so that he called President Obama to complain about it and then wrote a post Thursday on Facebook to vent his frustration. “The U.S. government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat,” he said.

  Some observers have pointed out that Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments are ironic because Facebook, the company he co-founded and runs, has a spotty record when it comes to protecting the privacy of its users. The company has been criticized for changing its privacy policy in ways that make it harder for users to control who can see the information that they have posted to the social network.

  But it is worth noting that Mr. Zuckerberg never mentions the word “privacy” in his post.”

 

 

    All appearances to the contrary , Zuckerberg’s concerns lie with profit not privacy . The man cares not a whit for your privacy or anyone else’s . He only cares that the NSA surveillance has unmasked exactly how co-operative the web giants have been with the Feds and so is interfering with their bottom lines . Typical hypocrisy .

 

 

” In other words, Mr. Zuckerberg has not really transformed into an advocate for greater privacy. He is just protecting the interests of his company.”

 

 

 

Read the entire Times piece

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Incandescent Ban Is Result Of Crony Capitalism Not Greenies

Industry, Not Environmentalists, Killed Traditional Bulbs

 

 

 

” The 2007 Energy Bill, a stew of regulations and subsidies, set mandatory efficiency standards for most light bulbs. Any bulbs that couldn’t produce a given brightness at the specified energy input would be illegal. That meant the 25-cent bulbs most Americans used in nearly every socket of their home would be outlawed.

  People often assume green regulations like this represent the triumph of environmental activists trying to save the planet. That’s rarely the case, and it wasn’t here. Light bulb manufacturers whole-heartedly supported the efficiency standards. General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — the three companies that dominated the bulb industry — all backed the 2007 rule, while opposing proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescent technology (thus leaving the door open for high-efficiency incandescents).

  This wasn’t a case of an industry getting on board with an inevitable regulation in order to tweak it. The lighting industry was the main reason the legislation was moving. As the New York Times reported in 2011, “Philips formed a coalition with environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for higher standards.” “

 

Continued …

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yahoo To Acquire Tumblr For $1.1 Billion

 

 

” Reports say the Yahoo board has approved a $1.1 billion cash deal to acquire Tumblr. Yahoo’s board reportedly approved the deal in a meeting on Friday.

 

According to All Things D, the deal was a unanimous vote and it will be announced Monday morning.

 

Part of the deal stipulates that Tumblr CEO David Karp, will stay with Yahoo for at least four years and retain control over day-to-day management of the online service allowing the Tumblr brand to continue, but Yahoo will be helping to develop advertising.

 

The Wall Street Journal notes that Tumblr had just started focusing on building its advertising revenue after concentrating on building its user base as an easy-to-use blogging platform. 

Tumblr has experience fast growth in recent years. According to WSJ, it had a worldwide traffic of about 117 million vistors in April, compared to 58 million the previous year, about 12 million unique visitors on smartphone, compared to about four million in the previous year. The site claims 108.4 million blogs and 50.9 billion posts. It had a US desktop traffic of 37 million in April, comparable to LinkedIn and Twitter although Twiiter has much more mobile traffic. “

 

 

 

Related articles

• Report: Yahoo to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion (wtvr.com)
• The Fabulous Life Of David Karp, 26-Year-Old Founder Of The $1 Billion Tumblr Empire (businessinsider.com)
• Why Yahoo’s $1.1 Billion Tumblr Buy Is A Great Idea (YHOO) (businessinsider.com)
• Why Yahoo acquiring Tumblr for $1 billion makes a certain horrible kind of sense [GigaOM] (gigaom.com)
• 5 Reasons Tumblr + Yahoo is Good For Users (forbes.com)

 

 

 

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Between Threatened Minimum Wage Hike And Obamacare Costs , Why Hire When You Can Automate ?

Can the Tablet Please Take Your Order Now?

 

 

 

” Carla Hesseltine is considering buying a few tablet devices for her bakery so customers can place orders for her signature M&M cupcakes on their own, straight from the counter. 

The reason: She fears the $7.25 an hour that she currently pays her 10 customer-service employees, mostly college students, could rise, perhaps to $9 an hour under a pledge by President Barack Obama earlier this month.

In order for her Just Cupcakes LLC to remain profitable in the face of higher expected labor costs, Ms. Hesseltine believes the customer-ordering process “would have to be more automated” at the Virginia Beach, Va., chain, which has two strip-mall locations as well as a food van. Thus, she could eliminate the 10 workers who currently ask customers what they would like to eat.”

 

    Government job destruction picks up speed . While the government cannot create jobs except at huge cost to the taxpayer , it certainly can and does destroy jobs and the pace is excellerating .

Related articles

• Scared of Minimum Wage Hike, Employer Considers Replacing Workers With iPads (reason.com)
• Tablet Computers Replace Workers in a Small Business! (frobertjacobs.wordpress.com)
• Using Technology to Replace Low-Wage Workers (mi021.wordpress.com)
• Just Cupcakes Virginia Beach – Social Media Done Right (socialadamantium.wordpress.com)

 

 

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Since It “Pays For Itself” , Let’s Raise The Minimum Wage To $100 Per Hour , Then Everyone Will Be Rich

Explaining To The Left (as if they’ll listen) Why Raising The Minimum Wage Does Not Pay For Itself

 

 

 

 

” On the one hand, this is so elementary, it’s hard to believe anyone argues with it. But when you’re dealing with ideological true believers, you know they will argue withanything you say if it doesn’t line up with the faith. So don’t assume you’ve won the argument just because you point this out: Raising the minimum wage will worsen unemployment because, plain and simple, it raises the cost of labor.

Not only that, but it raises by statute the cost of the least productive laborers out there. There’s a reason minimum wage earners get the minimum. Their contribution represents minimal value. An employer who decides to hire such a person is accepting lack of experience, lack of training and lack of maturity, and is deciding to invest some time developing the worker and getting whatever minimal contribution they can make until they see if the investment pays off in the person’s improvement. Usually you’re not talking about people trying to support a family. Usually you’re talking about a 16-year-old kid. If you make it even more expensive than it already is to hire such people, businesses simply will not do it.”

 

 

Related articles

• The real tragedy is that many Americans earn $0.00 per hour and live in poverty, because of the minimum wage law (aei-ideas.org)
• Obama’s Minimum Wage Plan (cato.org)
• Boehner Says No To Minimum Wage Increase (addictinginfo.org)
• Obama, business groups differ on minimum wage plan (news.yahoo.com)

Forced Charity isn’t Charity

Libertarian Party

 

  “A common misconception of Libertarianism is that we believe that everything should be driven by profit; in other words, we *supposedly* believe that all charities, research grants, space exploration, and patronage of the arts should involve making a profit from the recipients of the support. 

Obviously, that view has nothing to do with Libertarianism. We don’t think that all charity should somehow be profitable. But we do believe that it should be voluntary. If you want to support the sciences, you can voluntarily donate money, or get involved in fundraising. The same is true of any charity. And this method works. Remember how much money was voluntarily raised for Haiti?

In fact, each year, Americans donate about 300 billion dollars to charity, which is about five times TANF (what most people think of as “welfare.”) Libertarians believe that donating your own time and money, and encouraging others to do the same, is admirable.

But we oppose stealing money from others, via taxation, to support any charity.”