UN Flunks Economics Again

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Copps (Minister of Canadian Heritage for eight years from the late nineties until 2003) laughed about the vehement U.S. opposition. "It's ironic, because if it wasn't for the U.S., we never would have had the instrument in the first place," Copps told The Tyee.
http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2005/10/28/CanadaUNVictory/

Too bad the policies predate her experience by anywhere between 20 and 60 years.

[Nostromo]

Sodomy

[Fake Boris]

Imran, stop being silly. Do you think that the world's attitude would be different if it was Chinese movies taking over 85% of the market?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Imran, stop being silly. Do you think that the world's attitude would be different if it was Chinese movies taking over 85% of the market?

Perhaps not, but then the world would be singling out Chinese culture. Since the US is on top, the world is singling out the US... because we are the ones who've whipped your asses .

[Fake Boris]

Where do you come from already?

[Imran Siddiqui]

New Jersey, in the USA .

[Adam Smith]

Been gone for a few days. Time to answer the mail...

Originally posted by Spiffor
I really don't see how you consider your question any relevant.

Apparently you did not grasp the irony. Its not just a question of whether you define a film to be US or NZ. The irony is that many posters here have justified the restrictions on the grounds that local film producers just can't make it without these restrictions. But here is an NZ producer who benefited from the existing system. So the existing system clearly does benefit at least some local producers.

Originally posted by Spiffor
The UNESCO decision allows countries to use protectionist measures (or more accurately, it prevents the WTO from destroying this possibility) in order to defend their cultures.

I take this as an admission that the UNESCO policy is protectionist.

Originally posted by Spiffor
There is no reason to believe that the US will be singled out...

Other posters in this thread have adequately addressed this point.

Originally posted by Spiffor
So, in short, the people at UNESCO don't give a rat's ass about Peter Jackson. And they don't give a rat's ass about the practicalities of the protectionism.

There's that word again.

Originally posted by Spiffor
The French TV series suck, and they are not in a protected market. AFAIK, there are no quotas on TV, which is why the TV afternoons are filled with cheapo American crap TV series.

My neighbor was talking about French TV series, not American ones. Since there is no objective way to ensure we are discussing the same thing, I will not address this point further.

Originally posted by Spiffor
(there are even economic models about the choice of a partner and the choice to have children).

I've always thought Gary Becker's work was somewhat silly, and I won't defend it here. It makes no difference to my point.

Originally posted by Spiffor (I agree that the banana thing was purely about economics and realpolitik.

So again, this is about protectionism.

Originally posted by Spiffor I find all your other examples, however, either to be justified or irrelevant - the protection of national champions had nothing to do with culture

Again, about protectionism.

Originally posted by Spiffor
Of course, in your perspective, you could tolerate that maybe one or two items are like that, but you cannot imagine that your perspective is actually completely skewed, and that a huge bunch of human activities escape pure economics. As such, when you often hear that "it's not about economics", you immediately believe that it's a show of bad faith. When it is actually simply another perspective.

One that happens to be sensible

I am not saying that everything is "about economics", and the perspective is not "completely skewed" as you put it. The point I am making, after 14 pages on this thread (and 7+ years on this site) is that a large range of policies, adopted for whatever reason, and called whatever you like, have significant economic impacts. The effect the policies you advocated and tried to justify in this thread is to protect domestic producers of films, bananas, pharmaceuticals, whatever, and harm everyone else. This is known as protectionism.

If this perspective is so "sensible", why has it not been applied at the local level? Why doesn't each province, each department, each town, or even each individual protect their own producers, restrict imports from other areas, or develop their own provincial champions"?

The historical Adam Smith explained the problems with protectionism over 200 years ago. Napoleon tried to institute protectionism on a grand scale with his Continental System, but it did far more harm to Europe than it did to Britain. The wealth of East Asian countries has grown exponentially with increased of trade. Economists estimate that one third of US growth since 1990 is due to trade. Even Civ recognizes the central importance of trade. The lessons are there, but they do not seem to have sunk in yet.

In closing, you have expressed your perspective and you are entitled to it. But what is "sensible" about a policy that advantages French producers and harms everybody else? Why would you or the French government expect other countries to continue to agree to such policies? (The slow erosion of the CAP is prime indication that other countries are not willing to continue such policies.) And what will you do in the long run, when French products become too expensive on export markets?

edit: formatting

[Fake Boris]

You know, Adam Smith, cultural products are not all that sensitive to production costs, mainly because their value (or, at least, their effects) does not come from their material part.

I highly doubt that the costs to produce a similar film or music album is different from place to place, save perhaps the wages of low level peons.

[Toby Rowe]

Ok,

I've realised that it is mainly kiddie programming I'm touchy about here in the UK, as TV is a major cultural influence upon the nippers.

Even the BBC realised it had gone too far, It announced several weeks ago that it would clamp down (on its self) for poor quality children's programming.

A saturday morning nippers' show: "dick and dom in "da" bungalow" is still showing. If the BBC won't support correct english, how can the UK government justify trying to protect our cultural identity from low quality US imports with slang American-english in every second line.

Ps, I'm badly spoken and written, but then I grew up on bruce lee, kojak and other such Yank rubbish, and loved it.

Toby

[Kuciwalker]

A saturday morning nippers' show: "dick and dom in "da" bungalow" is still showing. If the BBC won't support correct english, how can the UK government justify trying to protect our cultural identity from low quality US imports with slang American-english in every second line.

"low quality US imports"



the implication that British English is superior to American english

[Toby Rowe]

Yes, within the UK it is, within the US, American-english is superior to english, in each nation it is important that you grow up learning the correct language of your nation.

I prefer "the" to "da".

Toby

[pchang]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
You know, Adam Smith, cultural products are not all that sensitive to production costs, mainly because their value (or, at least, their effects) does not come from their material part.

I highly doubt that the costs to produce a similar film or music album is different from place to place, save perhaps the wages of low level peons.

You would be wrong. Reduced costs is the primary reason Vancouver is rising a production site for films and television shows.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by pchang


You would be wrong. Reduced costs is the primary reason Vancouver is rising a production site for films and television shows.

and lower costs is also cited why some "Hollywood" films are being shot in Alberta.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by pchang


You would be wrong. Reduced costs is the primary reason Vancouver is rising a production site for films and television shows.

And you would not have gotten the point. I was saying that low production costs are not a significant competitivity factor, because they don't affect the selling price of the product much.

Last time I checked, it costed the same to see LOTR and Lost in Translation.

[Kuciwalker]

And you would not have gotten the point. I was saying that low production costs are not a significant competitivity factor, because they don't affect the selling price of the product much.

And you wouldn't have thought this through, despite the explanation in the quote you posted. Different regions are more competitive in attracting producers because of low costs.