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Haydn W

Scrap the licence fee and privatise the BBC - The Commentator - 0 views

www.thecommentator.com/...ence_fee_and_privatise_the_bbc

BBC Public Good The Commentator UK government

shared by Haydn W on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The next two years will see a lively debate over the future of the British Broadcasting Corporation, with the current Royal Charter due to run out at the end of 2016.
  • According to an ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph last month, 70 per cent of voters believe that the licence fee should be abolished or cut.
  • With the licence fee scrapped, should the BBC remain in public ownership? Or should the BBC be privatised, so that it can compete on a level playing field with the global media giants that are now emerging? 
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Paul Samuelson, the Nobel-prize-winning American economist, advanced the concept of "public goods" in his classic 1954 paper "The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure", demonstrating that such goods had to be financed by taxation and could not be left to the free market. The hostility to advertising meant that broadcasting was the textbook paradigm of a "public good".
  • Still benefiting from the halo conferred by its wartime role, the BBC was by far the most influential broadcasting service in the world. Further, with the UK accounting for almost 10 per cent of world output in the late 1940s, its state-owned monopoly was a vast broadcasting business by international standards. The BBC may not have been part of the British constitution, but it was undoubtedly a "national champion".
  • Advertising is sometimes demonised by left-wing commentators as capitalism without taste or shame, and as free enterprise at its selfish worst.
  • The actual position is far more even-handed and complex. As the growing unpopularity of the licence fee has constrained the BBC's revenues, TV advertising spend is now about the same size as the total money collected by the licence fee and well above the portion of this money devoted to television.
  • But the truly spectacular development of the last few years is that both total advertising spend and the licence fee money have been surpassed by BSkyB's subscription revenue. As BSkyB also picks up advertising revenue on its channels, its annual income is well above the BBC's.
  • Haydn W on 01 Dec 13
     
    This article talks about the logistics of scraping the license fee that finances one of the worlds most famous examples of a public good, the BBC. Economic stagnation and falling wages have left many consumers disgruntled at the license fee and with the BBC failing to keep up with it's competitors in terms of revenue, costs have had to be cut at the world renowned corporation. The article explores the concept of the public good and how politicians have began to propose alternatives to the license fee.
Amanda Anna G

Is the bank ATM a public good? - Livemint - 1 views

www.livemint.com/...he-bank-ATM-a-public-good.html

public-goods

shared by Amanda Anna G on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The aftereffects of the ATM incident show that we are still ambivalent about it. Our idea of a public good is centuries old.
  • What everyone conveniently forgets is that an ATM is not tied to the mother bank—the free usage of another bank’s ATM (up to a fairly liberal limit) has made the ATM a near-public place.
  • Very early in life, I learnt the importance of the state. By now it is well-recognized that much as we deride the state, we can’t live without it.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Is the bank ATM a public good? The idea of mandating banks to provide security to ATMs betrays a pitiable lack of understanding of the changing face of public goods
  • But several decades on have we evolved enough in our understanding of what constitutes a public good that the state should provide?
  • The implied belief is that an ATM is a bank’s product, meant for the bank’s customers, and hence its security is the bank’s problem, i.e. it is not sufficiently “public”. The subtext, sometimes articulated, is that since 60% of the adult population does not have a bank account, an ATM is essentially an elitist construct, not worthy of being within the protective cover of the general law and order setup
  • Aleksi B on 01 Dec 13
     
    This article asks the question is the ATM a public good. Inside we will find the article making statements to why it is in fact a public good and why it should be considered as one
  • Amanda Anna G on 02 Dec 13
     
    This article deals with the idea of assign authority to banks to provide security to the ATM. Is the ATM a good that benefits to the society? Since the ATM is a way to give freedom to the people I would say yes, but should then the ATM be controlled by guards? In my opinion, I think it would be a good idea. Even though one might argue that the idea would take away the freedom of ATM, I think the security will provide even more freedom to the people since they can deal with their money safely.
Clemente F

Is High School Soccer A public Good? - 3 views

mises.org/2419

public-goods

shared by Clemente F on 03 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Clemente F on 03 Dec 13
     
    The article discusses how High School soccer may be considered a public good
Jakub B

Exporters shift production to countries with lower energy costs - 0 views

www.ekathimerini.com/...2014_535569

production costs

shared by Jakub B on 20 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Jakub B on 20 Jan 14
     
    The article is about Greek firms that use offshoring to reduce the costs of production. They have been shifting production to countries like Bulgaria in a greater and greater extent. As the producers claim, they can spend only a third of their former costs in countries less developed than Greece.
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