a sense of perspective

rw wrote:

The cost of one day of the war in Iraq could pay for one year of health
insurance for 400,000 uninsured children.


stunning, isn't it. wonder what we could do in the education field with
those funds? my state has a ridiculously hig drop out rate in high
school. have you seen the latest cuts proposed in congress to help with
the impossible budget crisis created by shrub and his minions?
appalling...

i think i can see the writing on the wall..."abandon all hope ye who
enter here".

Jeff Miller wrote:
rw wrote:

The cost of one day of the war in Iraq could pay for one year of
health insurance for 400,000 uninsured children.


stunning, isn't it. wonder what we could do in the education field with
those funds? my state has a ridiculously hig drop out rate in high
school. have you seen the latest cuts proposed in congress to help with
the impossible budget crisis created by shrub and his minions? appalling...

i think i can see the writing on the wall..."abandon all hope ye who
enter here".

Do you remember that they told us the war would pay for itself with oil
revenues?

http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/iraqquotes_web.htm

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 07:18:44 -0500, Jeff Miller
wrote:

rw wrote:

The cost of one day of the war in Iraq could pay for one year of health
insurance for 400,000 uninsured children.


stunning, isn't it. wonder what we could do in the education field with
those funds? my state has a ridiculously hig drop out rate in high
school. have you seen the latest cuts proposed in congress to help with
the impossible budget crisis created by shrub and his minions?
appalling...

Hmmm...from the NC Department of Public Instruction:

During Clinton's last term:

"The dropout rate for students in grades seven through 12 was 4.6
percent in 1998-99. A total of 25,578 students dropped out last year in
these grades. In the previous reporting year, the rate was 3.61 percent
representing 19,541 students dropping out in 1997-98."

And the latest under Bush:

"North Carolina’s annual high school dropout rate was released for the
2003-04 school year, showing that 3.29 percent of students in grades
7-12 "

i think i can see the writing on the wall..."abandon all hope ye who
enter here".

Would that be on the wall of UNC or NC State? Oh, OK, for the
terminally-serious, G

Seriously, I'm sure you know those numbers are, um, "generous," but how
is spending more money going to help? It isn't going to be a matter of
throwing more money into a bottomless pit, it's going to be a matter of
spending whatever money in more meaningful way. And the biggest part
of the problem isn't educating the kids, it's educating the parents.

TC,
R

stunning, isn't it. wonder what we could do in the education field with
those funds?

Our society is hugely wasteful in the private sector, too, Jeff. I'm
retired now, so my data are not the latest; but I'll bet it's still
true, as it was 20-30 years ago, that we spend more money on
advertising every year than on all of higher education.

(Think of the thousands of poor kids we could send to college with the
money spent just on tobacco advertising!)

During the first decade of the space program, when we sent a man to to
moon and back, we spent five times as much on advertising as on the
space program.

Some of it (e.g., the Yellow Pages) served a useful purpose; most of
it served no socially-useful purpose at all. It merely enabled the
advertisers to reap monopoly profits.

vince

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...
stunning, isn't it. wonder what we could do in the education field with
those funds?

Our society is hugely wasteful in the private sector, too, Jeff. I'm
retired now, so my data are not the latest; but I'll bet it's still
true, as it was 20-30 years ago, that we spend more money on
advertising every year than on all of higher education.

(Think of the thousands of poor kids we could send to college with the
money spent just on tobacco advertising!)

During the first decade of the space program, when we sent a man to to
moon and back, we spent five times as much on advertising as on the
space program.

Some of it (e.g., the Yellow Pages) served a useful purpose; most of
it served no socially-useful purpose at all. It merely enabled the
advertisers to reap monopoly profits.

I think that depends on who you mean by "the advertisers". If it's the
folks paying for the advertising, it's debatable at best. While there have
certainly been cases of monopolies (or near monopolies) reaping profits
attributable at least in part to successful advertising campaigns (Roland
Marchand's "AT&T: The Vision of a Loved Monopoly"* is an excellent treatment
of just such a case), it is more often the case that vast ad budgets benefit
the producers and distributors at least as much.....if not much more
than.....those paying for it. Moreover, those huge budgets are typically
the provenance of companies locked in deadly competition with equally (or
near enough) large and prosperous (and all too often indistinguishable)
opponents........Coke-Pepsi.......Ford-GM.....Miller-Anheuser Busch.....the
various tobacco companies, etc.

Wolfgang
* in "Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America", Jack Beatty (ed.),
Broadway Books, New York, 2001, pp. 179-205.

Some of it (e.g., the Yellow Pages) served a useful purpose; most
of it served no socially-useful purpose at all. It merely enabled
the advertisers to reap monopoly profits.

Gosh, a full reply to your reply would take many pages, Wolfgang, but
here's a quickie:

I think that depends on who you mean by "the advertisers". If it's the
folks paying for the advertising, it's debatable at best.

Nicholas Samstag, lifelong ad man and ad director of Life mag, wrote a
book circa 1970 called _Bamboozled: How Business is Bamboozled by the
Ad Boys_. Theme: business firms are bamboozled by ad agencies into
spending far too much money on ads, because the ad agencies get 15% of
all they spend; the real winners are the agencies. (And the media,
which get 85 % of the money.)

(Aside: But NOT consumers, who think they're getting "free" TV but
they're not; they pay for it every time they buy an advertised
product. "Free" TV costs consumer families hundreds of dollars per
year )

However, even if they overspend, the FTC data showed that those big
spenders enjoyed profits 50% higher than those of firms that spent
little or nothing on advertising. So they weren't "losers."

(Samstag also presents an interesting argument that ad boys get so
accustomed to telling "half truths" they become unable to tell truth
from falsehood.)

While there have certainly been cases of monopolies (or near monopolies) reaping profits
attributable at least in part to successful advertising campaigns....

A list of the top 100 national (not retail) advertisers shows that
nearly all of them are "near monopolists" -- i.e., oligopolists, in
industries in which the four largest firms have more than 50% of the
market. Economists believe that is tantamount to monopoly.

In most cases, those firms sell "parity products," aka "homogeneous
packaged goods," so it is difficult to think of any other reason for
their monopoly profits than the advertising (and other forms of
promotion.)

it is more often the case that vast ad budgets benefit
the producers and distributors at least as much.....if not much more
than.....those paying for it.

As Paul Newman once said, "I think what we have here is a breakdown of
communication."

The firm paying for the ads IS the producer-- the manufacturer. If
you mean the producer *of the ads*, then that is the "agency." In the
lingo of the ad biz, the "advertiser" is the manufacturer of the
product, the guy who pays. The firm that makes the ads and buys the
space and time from the "media" is the "ad agency." (AKA "the ad
boys." )

The agency gets a "commission" (rebate) of 15% percent of whatever the
agency spend to buy space or time for the advertiser, aka "the
client." There are also other arrangements, but let's skip them.

A primary purpose of national advertiser is to "compel" the
distributors (wholesalers, retailers) to handle the advertiser's brand
on his--the manufacturer's-- terms. That is in fact how and why
national advertising (i.e., advertising by manufacturers, not
retailers), began back around 1880.) In the trade it's called
"forcing distribution."

Can you imagine opening a supermarket and NOT handling Bayer aspirin,
Campell's soup, Heinz ketchup, French's mustard, etc. etc.?

You may *think* all those ads on tv are there to persuade YOU to buy.
Often, they are not. They are there to impress the retailer into
stocking the product, and giving it prominent display. If he does
that, you will buy it, "because it's there." (I know that sounds
stupid, that's how consumer behave.)

To say that another way, a primary function of national advertising is
to avoid price competition-- to sell the brand to distributors without
having to meet the lower price offered by less well-known brands.

This has been testified to by quite a few manufacturers.

Retail markups on advertised brands are skimpy compared with the
markups retailers enjoy on private label and generic good, which is
why they handle them. A retailer would rather sell you his private
label or a generic at one dollar, than an advertised brand at two
dollars, because he gets to keep more of the one dollar than he gets
to keep of the two dollars.

Moreover, those huge budgets are typically
the provenance of companies locked in deadly competition with equally (or
near enough) large and prosperous (and all too often indistinguishable)
opponents........Coke-Pepsi.......Ford-GM.....Miller-Anheuser Busch.....the
various tobacco companies, etc.

All that is correct except for the word "competition." Any economist
will tell you that there is NO competition among those firms. There
is "rivalry." Quite different.

The problem is that laymen think of all that advertising hoopla and
noise as "competition." To an economist, it is not. The measure of
competition is the INability of a seller to set his price. The Kansas
wheat farmer is the oft-cited "ideal type' of a true competitor. He
has no influence at all over price. He is a "price taker," not a
"price maker."

In a truly competitive market, consumers are able to buy the products
at minimal prices. Prices that just cover the cost of production,
including a normal profit for the seller(s).

I'll bet you know you are not able to buy Coke, Pepsi, Fords, Bud,
etc, at prices that just cover the cost of production.

vince

Actually, it was Strother Martin, as the Captain of Road Prison 36, who
said, "What we've got here is... failure to communicate." But I won't
argue your point.

Actually, it was Strother Martin, as the Captain of Road Prison 36, who
said, "What we've got here is... failure to communicate." But I won't
argue your point.

Thank you. I didn't see the movie, which I understand involved Paul
Newman and a black man escaping while chained together.

But I've heard that quotation a number of times. It must be one of the
most-quoted movie lines, perhaps after "Toto, I don't think we're in
Kansas anymore." (I probably got that wrong, too.)

vince

vincent p. norris wrote:

But I've heard that quotation a number of times. It must be one of the
most-quoted movie lines, perhaps after "Toto, I don't think we're in
Kansas anymore." (I probably got that wrong, too.)

Dorothy: "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Very close. Full marks.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...
Actually, it was Strother Martin, as the Captain of Road Prison 36, who
said, "What we've got here is... failure to communicate." But I won't
argue your point.

Thank you. I didn't see the movie, which I understand involved Paul
Newman and a black man escaping while chained together.


actually, that isn't the same movie. but i can't rag on you, because i
can't remember the title of the appropriate flick.

yfitons
wayno