>Information is demonstrably unlike other commodities - in terms of
>implications for degrees of exploitation, market power, internal cleavages
>in the working class, uneven development, cultural imperialism,
>difficulties to do with externalities/artificial scarcity, distortions of
>investment to do with difficulties in stock valuations, and generally
>further blurring the liberal distinction between the public and the
>private, and blurring some leftish ('workerist') distinctions between
>'real' work and white-collar wankers. I hold 'information economy' means
>enough to warrant some investigation, anyway.
How big is this info economy, anyway? There's a guy at the Philly Fed, Leonard Nakamura, who fills their review with New Paradigm stuff. He has a piece in the current issue <http://www.phil.frb.org/econ/br/brja99in.html> arguing that if you add R&D to investment then the stock market isn't so overvalued and investment performance looks a lot better. The NIPA and business accounting standard is that R&D is a current expenditure, not an investment. The BEA economist who does the investment accounts says that it's nearly impossible to account properly for R&D - for one it's impossible to depreciate - so the consensus of almost all national statisticians involved in the System of National Accounts process at the UN is to treat it this way. Nakamura also suggests that patents, even advertising, be added to investment. He cites the examples of IP protection and marketing expenditure for Gilette's Mach3 ($1 billion development costs), Viagra, and the Titanic movie as examples of wealth creation in the New Economy. I can see maybe thinking of part of R&D as investment, but schemes for creating and protecting monpoly rents? Though I do like that Mach3.
>BTW, anyone got any tips for me on that telecommunications costs/prices
>query (he almost begged in desperation)?
Talk to Jamie Love <love at cptech.org>, an economist who does Nader's info/telecoms stuff. Knows lots.
Doug