Always happy to provide a reason

Via Matthew, we have this:

Marginal Revolution: Why the growth rate is important

The importance of the growth rate increases, the further into the future we look. If a country grows at two percent, as opposed to growing at one percent, the difference in welfare in a single year is relatively small. But over time the difference becomes very large. For instance, had America grown one percentage point less per year, between 1870 and 1990, the America of 1990 would be no richer than the Mexico of 1990. At a growth rate of five percent per annum, it takes just over eighty years for a country to move from a per capita income of $500 to a per capita income of $25,000, defining both in terms of constant real dollars. At a growth rate of one percent, such an improvement takes 393 years.

That’s me quoting me, from a book I am just starting to write. The tentative title is “The Welfare Economics of Human Tragedy: A New Approach to the Theory of Economic Policy.”

If I had to explain, in one sentence, the reason I am not on the political left, I would cite the enormous long-run benefits of economic growth. Of course it still can be argued that various left-wing policies, properly understood, will contribute to long-term growth. But in my view, if you are not supporting growth-maximizing economic policies, you better had a pretty good reason in your pocket.

Luckily for Tyler, I happen to have one. Which is that the Left seems to have better policies for maximizing growth.

Dwight Meredith did the math in late 2002, comparing growth under Democrat vs. Republican administrations over the last 40 years. He concluded:

The economy grew in 19 of the 20 years in which Democratic Presidents submitted a budget and in 16 of the 20 years in which Republican Presidents submitted a budget.

For the twenty years for which Republican presidents submitted budgets, the average rate of GDP growth was 2.94%.

For the twenty years in which Democratic presidents submitted budgets, the average rate of GDP growth was 3.92%.

Almost the full percentage point that Tyler was looking for.

Put another way, if the averages held and we had Democrats instead of Republicans for all 40 years, instead of just 20, we’d have economic growth of at least 465% instead of just 385%.*

*Yes, I’m oversimplifying the last bit. I don’t feel like doing the big calculation, which would be to add .98% to the actual performance of each Republican presidential year. But it’s close enough for illustration.

Somewhere, John Fogerty is smiling

Saul Zaentz is suing New Line Cinema claiming that the studio has reneged on a deal calling for him to be paid a percentage of the adjusted gross profits of the three Lord of the Rings films, Daily Variety reported today. Zaentz, who bought the rights to the Tolkien novels in 1976, claims that he has been paid a percentage of the film’s net receipts instead — and that he is currently owed $20 million.

It occurs to me…

…that the best way to respond to that Swift Boat Vets ad where soldiers who theoretically served with Kerry claim that Kerry lied about his heroism in Vietnam and is unfit to command would be to make a similar ad attacking Bush for his time in the Alabama National Guard.

Of course, that would require finding somebody who actually served with Bush.

Damn, Rove’s clever.

All right, what’s his excuse this time?

Some of you have asked why I haven’t posted in a few days. Actually, they’ve been more along the lines of Why haven’t you written anything for your blog, you bum?

Sadly, as I mentioned, I’m on a bit of a deadline.

So? I hear in reply. What’s to stop you from posting some of those witticisms and bon-mots that are your hallmark?

Well, you see, the editor I’m working for reads the blog too. [Vir Cotto wave] So if he reads this, he’ll rightfully ask why I haven’t delivered the manuscript to him yet.

Isn’t he going to read this, too?

I did wave to him, didn’t I? Waggled fingers and everything.

So what are you going to tell him?

Um– warm-up exercises. Yes, this was all a warm-up so I could write funny stuff for the story.

You need to warm up more. Try some of that left-leaning stuff you post instead.

Fine. [grumblegrumblegrumble] Go read Brad DeLong’s website instead. He has a nice thing on how “the second most important political executive in our country claims to be ignorant of one of the key business decisions his company made during his tenure as CEO”, reprinted from that bastion of liberal pandering, BusinessWeek.

Comics online

A lot of people have asked me over the years, “Why didn’t you do e-comics with BiblioBytes?”

Of course, that never stops the black market.

I’ve been keeping quiet about this for a while, in the hopes that my voice wouldn’t be responsible for making it spread. But ever since Warren Ellis shot his mouth off about downloading the first issue of Astonishing X-Men in the first installment of his new weblog, keeping it quiet is no longer an option.

Diamond International Galleries presents… COMICON.com PULSE | Comic Books News, Reviews and Criticism

Thought for the day…

The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes — that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects — this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once–and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity….

— H. L. Mencken, 1930

Media tie-ins and their place in the canon

On a mailing list I’m on, a former editor of media tie-in books wrote (and I’m paraphrasing to remove examples):

I used to PO fans all the time when I said that not only is the filmed material the only material that is canon, that’s the way is should be.

Why? Because the TV and Movie aspects reach millions of people while the books reach hundreds of thousands at best – same with any other media tie-in series you might name.

So of course the books follow behind.

This, to my mind, is complete and utter garbage.

Why? Because the books are touted as official tie-ins and that small percentage of the audience that buys the books spends far more money than the casual viewer. If you wonder why fans feel such a proprietary interest in the object of their worship, one reason is because he gives them much more money than the average consumer.

Take Star Wars. If you bought “The New Jedi Order” series new and complete, you spent approximately $250. If George decides, “Hey, remember when we killed Chewbacca? Didn’t happen. Psych!” –well, you’d be pissed. And rightly so.

George Lucas, at least, doesn’t exempt his own work from this– he’ll change his own stuff years later. (Han shot first!) But it irks when done from top down, without reciprocity, because there’s a strong aversion to “not invented here”. Sadly, this is something that’s seen more and more. If you follow some media tie-in franchises, you can easily spend a week’s paycheck a year on books. To say that this is not canon is insulting. When I write the stuff, I take care to make sure that it is canonical, that it fits with everything that has gone before.

If the stuff is good enough to take a fan’s money, it should be good enough to count as legitimate. When you sell products that say “the continuing adventures of X”, “a prologue to Y”, or “what happened between Episodes 9 and 10”, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable that they actually BE those things. As it is, this is a marketing strategy that takes your most loyal fan base and uses them like a drug dealer uses his clients– and then cuts the smack with baking soda or rat poison, figuring they’ll never notice the difference and if they do, it’s not like they can go somewhere else, is it?

Not only is this rude, not only is this deceptive, it’s horrible marketing. Ticking off your most loyal fan base, the evangelists who keep your brand alive when others were willing to write it off as a failure and turn it into a billion-dollar powerhouse, shows a contempt and stupidity that I can’t even fathom. Most brand managers KILL for that kind of user loyalty.

And it’s not like it can’t be done. All the MATRIX tie-in stuff is kept in continuity, from video games to comic books. J.K. Rowling controls the Harry Potter brand. After a bad start, Babylon 5 figured it out. And there are brands that not only work closely with the licensee, but actually adapt what the licensee does and incorporates it into the main brand– Star Wars and DC Comics lead the field in these areas. Did you know Kryptonite came from the Superman radio show?

But it requires devotion to the brand, not one section of it. And when done properly, it enhances the brand, and all the licensees involved.

Let me use a metaphor here.

Let’s say that Major League Baseball decides to start up an additional premium digital channel with ESPN for showing Major League Baseball games. At the end of the season, it’s announced that none of the games that aired on ESPN-MLB count for league standings– and furthermore, because those games don’t count, the Yankees are now league champions instead of the Blue Jays.

Is it okay to do so because customers were willing to spend money on it, but only 2% of the viewing populace of a whole? Or should baseball fans be upset because these games were sanctioned by MLB, but now aren’t because we didn’t like the way they were going and New York is a bigger market than Toronto?

No. And in fact, MLB this year started doing the exact opposite: they took the All-Star Game, a game outside league standings– outside continuity, if you will– and said that the league that won the game would get home field advantage in the World Series. Result? Ratings for the All-Star Game went up 30%. People cared again, because it had been brought into the larger fold.

The difference is that they cared about the brand as a whole, rather than one particular part of the family. And as we all know, when you favor one family member over another too much, a lot of bad blood builds up.

(Updated to extend remarks and remove unnecessary attacks, after the recommendation of a more cool-headed individual. The replies I’ve gotten, both pro and con, have been fascinating.)