Entries Tagged 'Economics and Investing' ↓

Is Your Job Already Outsourced? (part 3 of 3)

(Click here for part 1) (Click here for part 2)

From the start of this century the publishing world has gone in two distinctly different directions.

On the one hand, the number of traditional printed-book publishers has shrunk. American book publishers have been swallowed up by media conglomerates, most of them foreign.

On the other hand, brand-new electronic-book-reader technology from American chain bookstores and computer manufacturers has blossomed. And reminiscent of the “mimeo revolution” of the 60’s and the desktop publishing revolution of the 80’s, downloadable-print-publishing via the Web by self-publishers has exploded too.

Publishing means promotion not production

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National liabilities are the other side of national assets. In my last post, I didn’t discuss this side of things. Governments not only don’t track their own assets; apparently they don’t track their own liabilities either.
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Before I finish my series on the incredible transition taking place in the publishing industry, I need to comment on the current controversy about our government’s debt and deficit. There’s an important pair of terms related to debt and deficit that aren’t being discussed right now, and they should be.

Clive Crook of the Financial Times asserts that President Obama’s new budget for 2010 is only a “”minutely worded wish-list,” that most likely won’t be honored by Congress. All of us probably agree with that statement. But Crook also  believes the “only remedies [for the US debt/deficit dilemma] are lower spending and higher taxes.” I strongly disagree with that. Only one-third of the U.S. deficit is paid for by taxes, and there IS another way to approach the US government’s debt/deficit problem.
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