Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
If I understand correctly, some here are proposing that the publishers decrease their revenues by charging libraries substantially less than what their business people have determined are optimum prices.
Questions:
-- Who should the publisher take this money away from?
Executives? (easy answer, but these are publishing executives, not computer executives, so I doubt there is enough money for the purpose in that well).
-- Is it any different if the publisher is non-profit? A lot are. Should Harvard reduce financial aid to pay for this?
|
I'd say a combination of cutting the dross from the management layer (say, a 60% reduction in management fte), and reducing management pay levels.. Everyone else has been suffering from stagnant wages for decades already, why not them?
Also, a lot of companies have been saddled with debts to their investor owners, with the effect being largely the same as paying dividends -- if cast in a different legal form for tax (evasion) purposes. Often in such cases, the loan sum is given back to the investor/owner as a 'superdividend' or whatever the euphemism is; if those kinds of structures were forbidden/recognized for the tax dodges they were, publishers would have more money left over for actual publishing (at lower costs)..
A bit off-topic, but why on earth should Harvard (etc.) UP reduce financial aid?
As I see it, they have lots of options.. to name just a few:
1.
Sue Larry Summers for mismanagement of Harvard University leading to the loss of the something like $2B, and force him to give up everything he owns from now until his death..
2. dial down the super-star salaries for their tenured faculty
for moral purposes and give non-tenured faculty and other workers more reasonable wages instead; cut away the management layer that has sprung into existence over the past 30 years or so.
3. I don't know if the profits from harvard's (etc.) publishing arm are required to go into student aid, but if not, I'd say Harvard could do with a few less prestige projects (new, dysfunctional but pretty or imposing buildings...), while continuing to offer 'student aid' at the low levels they do today, justified by the
ridiculous fees they charge for access.
To sum up, I have doubts about your implicit suggestion that the companies are being run 'efficiently' in a meaningful sense of the word..