The Guns of August

On the theme of Remembrance Day, Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August is perhaps the finest history book ever written, in terms of prose style.

I recommend it for a sense of the opening moves of the Great War.

Memento Mori

Some classy Hallowe'en decor: Day of the Dead pillows.

On to Jerusalem!

This really appeals to me as a Hallowe'en costume: a crusading Knight Templar.

Turkey Hat

Something fun for Thanksgiving Dinner. Too late, I know, for Canada, but not for the US. And also great for Halloween.

Corporate Welfare Bums

David Lewis in much younger days. 

The first time I was eligible to vote in a Canadian election was back in 1972. I voted for the NDP, well to the left. That might sound odd; nowadays I find myself apparently on the right. But given the same issues, I would vote the same way today. My politics have not changed. The position of the goalposts has. Or rather, the position of centre field. Or rather, the teams have changed ends.

The Liberals, in government, had imposed martial law two years earlier, during the “October Crisis” (non-Canadians may need to Google this). This may or may not have been justified, but it was an extreme step, and should not have been done without paying some price at the polls. Such a thing must not be allowed to become politically easy. As a liberal, I could not vote Liberal.

The PCs, unfortunately, the main opposition, on the right, had supported the move. So I could not vote for them as an alternative. Worse, the main plank of their platform was to impose wage and price controls, extreme government interference in the economy. Big government to the max, almost to the level of, yes, Fascism.

Leaving the NDP, the one party to have opposed the imposition of the War Measures Act in peacetime. But that's not all. They campaigned on lowering taxes. But even that was not all: the central plank in their platform was to end “corporate welfare”--handouts and breaks to big corporations.

They were then the small government, civil libertarian party. This shows how much things have changed. In those days, the left was not the party of big government, and the right was not the party of small government. “Conservative” used to mean big government, elitism, and nanny-stateism. “Liberal” used to actually mean liberal.

This reverie is brought on by the recent announcement by Amazon that it is building a second headquarters in Washington and NYC. And they are being given huge tax incentives to do it. Corporate welfare.

This is as noxious now as it was in 1972. Governments should never be in the business of favouring one business over another. This is an obvious violation of human equality, as well as lousy economics and a waste of money. It is obvious, too, that it is graft—the politicians give money to already rich corporations, and the corporations can be expected to remit back to their re-election campaigns. The elite help one another out, perpetuating themselves, with the money of the poor.

Does the payout mean more jobs for Washington or New York? I doubt it. The money paid to Amazon is necessarily taken from higher taxes on all other local businesses, money they then cannot use to hire more workers. Paul grows flush as Peter grows poor.

And it distorts natural market forces, reducing overall profitability or raising consumer costs for everyone. Is it a good thing if it really does attract Amazon to locate in a place where their infrastructure or labour is going to cost them more? With the difference paid for by the general public?

Of course, a smart businessman is unlikely to be so influenced. Trusting in future government policies is a shaky proposition. Without the tax break, one may in the near future suddenly be unprofitable.

Which means, then, that the tax break does nothing but hand over money for no public benefit.

The ideal solution would be a law at the federal level, in either the US or Canada, that prohibited such tax breaks and corporate welfare. This would be of benefit to everyone; so long as there is no such law, it is politically difficult for New York politicians, for example, not to offer tax breaks, knowing that Texas or Michigan will. And then, if Amazon locates in Detroit or Houston, they will be blamed. A similar rider could be written in to all free trade agreements, to prevent it from being done at the national level.

Amazon is pretty profitable. It does not need a taxpayer subsidy.

How about it, Jagmeet Singh? The pundits say you Dippers are struggling because you cannot find an issue to distinguish yourself from the Liberals. Corporate welfare in Canada is extreme and shameless. The Liberals won't touch it, because they are deep in that trough. They all retire from politics to jobs with Bombardier or Power Corp or Canada Steamship Lines. This issue could appeal to a wide base. Rediscover the heritage of David Lewis!

Jeff Bezos Buys the Washington Post

Budgies love it.

Jeff Bezos has just bought the Washington Post for $250 million.

One wonders why.

Newspapers in North America have been losing value hand over fist over the past twenty years; and there is really no sign of that turning around.

One obvious possibility is status and influence. For someone nouveau riche like Bezos, private ownership of the fabled Washington Post might get him into a lot of cocktail parties and a lot of private tete-a-tetes with politicians. If the Post lacks general circulation, it is still read carefully by the political and bureaucratic elite in Washington, and will probably continue to be. It is their house organ. This sort of thing has become a well-trodden path in the UK: buy a prestigious but financially troubled London daily, get a peerage.

It is also possible that Bezos wants a hobby. He is obviously in love with print, or he would not have come up with Amazon. At the current selling price, he doesn't really need to make money with it if it interests him.

There is little likelihood he's buying it to promote his own political ideas, as Sun Myung Moon did with the Washington Times. Bezos seems to be a liberal; the Post is already liberal; Washington already has a conservative daily.

But it is also possible that Bezos knows some things about the future of technology that the rest of the big money guys do not. Bezos is nothing if not a forward-thinker. I think he may see a new paradigm for newspapers. I understand that, when first approached about buying the Post, Bezos was not interested. Then he came back a few months later and said he was. Sounds to me as though he was doing some thinking in the meantime, and has come up with some ideas.

It wouldn't take that much. Currently, newspapers cannot compete on the World Wide Web, because people can get their news free, and outside linking means brand no longer matters. But there are ways of going electronic, and going to the Internet, without being on the World Wide Web. Bezos knows this well, because a lot of his business is based on one of them: the ebook platform. 

Citizen Bezos

Notably, newspapers and magazines are becoming tablet apps. These can be free, or by subscription, but still walled off from the rest of the web. And they can still be instantly updated, in order to compete with other online sources for immediacy. The cachet of the brand can theoretically attract readers; heck, a lot of people make a point of checking in at Drudge every day, even though the attraction is only his particular selection of links. And the readers can attract advertisers.

Apple and Rupert Murdoch failed at this with The Daily; but Bezos may see a better business model. The Daily had no brand cachet or reputation to build on—or rather, Murdoch's reputation for yellow journalism may have been a net minus. It seems on the face of it a dumb idea to try to build the reputation of the outlet online in order to convince people to pay for it, but expect them to pay for it before you've done this. This is putting the cart before the horse.

The Washington Post is at the opposite end of the spectrum in this regard.

The Daily was paid subscription; Bezos is on record saying he does not believe people can be made to pay for news online. Even if they can, the way this is done is the opposite of Murdoch's approach. First you offer a package free, establish value, and then sell added services on the strength of this. Bezos knows how to do this well.

But it is not just as question of what Bezos might do. If a lot of newspapers decide to pull off the web and go to apps, if this turns out to be a viable model, the links will dry up for the online aggregators, reducing, possibly even ending, that source of competition.

If so, Bezos will be left sitting on a very good brand in the middle of a brave new world.