Subsidy

Counterparties: The lessons of tuition inflation

Felix Salmon dismisses the effect of loan subsidies on rising tuition costs by pointing out that the loans get repaid with interest, so that means it is not a subsidy.  Besides being a very weak argument, whether or not it is labeled a subsidy is immaterial. It is credit which allows people to pay more. Without a cap, colleges wouldn't be able to charge as much, and hire so many useless administrators. The cost of college is out of control. Watching the online disruption is fun. Would love to find a way to get more involved....

Money for Music

Reading this semi-widely shared piece by Damon Krukowski- I really think the analogy is wrong. Pandora is like having your song played on the radio, not like selling 7" of vinyl. When I buy a piece of vinyl, I can listen to it as many times as I want, or at least until the grooves run down. He tries to compare the royalty for 7,000 plays of a track on Pandora to 7,000 sales of a single?? It's more like a radio station with 7,000 listeners playing it once. How much is Galaxie 500 making in radio royalties? I haven't heard them on the radio for 15 years. They should be comparing their $1.21 to $0.00.