Borders closing many stores, in Chap. 11
Jenn
bankruptcy/
Closing 200 stores.
MiNe 109
<jennconductsREMOVETHIS...@news.eternal-september.org
>,
Jenn <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote:
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-borders-
> bankruptcy/
>
> Closing 200 stores.
I wonder if this will cut down on the Borders coupon spam. Maybe the
latest ones being ads for non-Borders products was a clue of some kind.
Stephen
J.Martin
>
Can't say I'm surprised. Wonder if they might have fared differently
had they not turned away from selling CDs.
Bob Harper
I doubt it. Between ebooks and Amazon, they're in a tough spot. Powell's
in Portland, the Leviathan of brick and mortar stores, is experiencing
layoffs for the same reasons.
Bob Harper
mark
Exactly. About the only thing I buy from brick-n-mortar stores these
days are groceries, gasoline and take-out Chinese food. I do almost
all of my other purchasing online.
Before we romanticize the Borders CD-buying experience, let's remember
that their prices were always on the high side and that their
selection varied greatly from store to store, while in the main
sticking to new releases and catalog titles from the über-artists like
Bocelli and Bernstein. The last few years of browsing at Borders was a
very unsatisfying experience, especially when one could shop online
and find anything you wanted at a lower price.
Jenn
Bob Harper <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Powell's
> in Portland
A national treasure...
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in
news:smcelroy2-94E00...@5ad64b5e.bb.sky.com:
> In article
><jennconductsREMOVETHIS...@news.eternal-september.org,
> Jenn <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-borders
>> - bankruptcy/
>>
>> Closing 200 stores.
>
> I wonder if this will cut down on the Borders coupon spam. Maybe the
> latest ones being ads for non-Borders products was a clue of some kind.
I was getting so many of those, I shuffled them off to an email account I
check only rarely.
Science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle was advising people last month to
use their gift certificates as soon as possible. I had $15 in Borders
Bucks appear in my account on February 1st, and I used it right away (on a
book, not a CD, because they have nothing interesting any more). This was
part of a "Rewards" plan where you take surveys and they give you credits
that you can apply toward various things. Practically all that's left is
airline miles, so I'm dumping the surveys.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
Read about "Proty" here: http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/proty.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers
Matthew B. Tepper
to be typed in news:86e62864-2d10-4113-a138-e5a0ff21c597
@w7g2000pre.googlegroups.com:
The Westwood store was really competitive with the nearby Tower Records,
once upon a time.
J.Martin
> > Before we romanticize the Borders CD-buying experience, let's remember
> > that their prices were always on the high side and that their selection
> > varied greatly from store to store, while in the main sticking to new
> > releases and catalog titles from the über-artists like Bocelli and
> > Bernstein. The last few years of browsing at Borders was a very
> > unsatisfying experience, especially when one could shop online and find
> > anything you wanted at a lower price.
>
> The Westwood store was really competitive with the nearby Tower Records,
> once upon a time.
>
Yes, there was a pretty good one near me, too, enough so that I
usually stopped by there whenever they went to 40% off.
I don't want to romanticize Borders in particular, but I do continue
to lament the death of brick and mortar music stores, for all the
usual reasons. But it's clear that the market has spoken.
weary flake
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-borders-
> bankruptcy/
>
> Closing 200 stores.
from the above article:
"That the Borders Group has filed a Chapter 11 petition is not so much
news. Its fate will undoubtedly be blamed on e-books and Amazon.com, but
big box retail companies like Borders, Barnes & Noble, Blockbuster and
Circuit City long ago decided to compete solely on the basis of price,
and they rise and fall on that basis alone. It seems to me that this is
not so much about e-books as competition with a lower priced rival."
That's a much smarter paragraph than usually shows up in
the newsmedia about things like this, even if not true; low
price alone (of stuff I don't want) is not enough to get me to
go to the store. May I suggest it is actually consolidation
that causes failure? The whole "raison d'etre" of the "trendy"
chain stores is to consolidate in a predatory manner, with no
goal in mind but crushing the competition, with all the enormous
corporate resources dedicated to such; so, once these stores
have become dominant, "the only guy on the block", there is no
more longer any official reason left for them to exist but to
become bankrupt themselves. In hindsight, sweet wonderful
hindsight, when these chains presented themselves to city and
county councils and such demanding all sort of "sweetheart deals"
with local legislatures, instead of obliging them, should have
been told to "fuck off"; but, in such case, 100% of the current
"journalists" gloating about the current failures of the chains,
would have, in hindsight again, been very angry about councils
that refused to "spend a little to get a lot", under the currently
forgotten dictum that "chain stores are always more efficient".
Gerard
The "free market" at work, isn't it?
jrsnfld
> Jenn <jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote:
> >http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
> > bankruptcy/
>
> > Closing 200 stores.
>
> from the above article:
>
> "That the Borders Group has filed a Chapter 11 petition is not so much
> news. Its fate will undoubtedly be blamed on e-books and Amazon.com, but
> big box retail companies like Borders, Barnes & Noble, Blockbuster and
> Circuit City long ago decided to compete solely on the basis of price,
> and they rise and fall on that basis alone. It seems to me that this is
> not so much about e-books as competition with a lower priced rival."
>
> That's a much smarter paragraph than usually shows up in
May I suggest that it was not the case for Borders in particular? They
certainly could out-price the small independents, but price was not
their claim to success. The reason they were popular was also that
each store was much bigger and better than competing stores. Sure, in
a select few major cities and college towns, there were better stocked
bookstores nearby, but in the days before Amazon, such stores were
very rare.
Borders typically was a pleasant place to shop and far better stocked
than any other bookstore for miles around. When I was growing up, pre-
internet, I would have been overjoyed to have a Borders in town. (As
it was, I was lucky there was one an hour's drive away.)
--Jeff
jrsnfld
Actually, I wonder if they might have fared differently if they had
not jumped into selling CDs just about the time when the market was
beginning a long decline instead of focusing on creative ways to do
what they used to do so well--sell books.
--Jeff
William Sommerwerck
Businesses like to make as much money as they can. But the ready access to
on-line stores from anywhere in the world tends to increase competition and
drive down prices.
It's conceivable that, as B&M stores disappear, on-line stores might try to
create a "personalized" shopping experience that would justify higher
prices.
For example, should AI get sophisticated enough, * a buyer might be able to
"talk" with a real-time avatar that would help them make purchases.
* On last night's Jeopardy!, Watson utterly blew Final Jeopardy, giving the
name of a Canadian city in the "U. S. Cities" category! Duh...
Steven Bornfeld
> On Feb 16, 10:16 am, weary flake<wearyfl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Jenn<jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote:
>>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
>>> bankruptcy/
>>
>>> Closing 200 stores.
>>
>> from the above article:
>>
>> "That the Borders Group has filed a Chapter 11 petition is not so much
>> news. Its fate will undoubtedly be blamed on e-books and Amazon.com, but
>> Circuit City long ago decided to compete solely on the basis of price,
>> and they rise and fall on that basis alone. It seems to me that this is
>> not so much about e-books as competition with a lower priced rival."
>>
>> That's a much smarter paragraph than usually shows up in
>> the newsmedia about things like this, even if not true...
>
> May I suggest that it was not the case for Borders in particular? They
> certainly could out-price the small independents, but price was not
> their claim to success. The reason they were popular was also that
> each store was much bigger and better than competing stores. Sure, in
> a select few major cities and college towns, there were better stocked
> bookstores nearby, but in the days before Amazon, such stores were
> very rare.
>
> Borders typically was a pleasant place to shop and far better stocked
> than any other bookstore for miles around. When I was growing up, pre-
> internet, I would have been overjoyed to have a Borders in town. (As
> it was, I was lucky there was one an hour's drive away.)
>
> --Jeff
I sympathize with folks in rural or suburban areas that have few
alternatives to the "big box" stores. It also makes the difficulty some
of these retailers breaking in to some big urban markets more
understandable.
Barnes and Noble was a privately-owned bookstore (though a big one) on
lower 5th Avenue for many years before the brand went public in 1993.
It was a far different place before Lou Riggio took over.
If a free market means retailers can cut better deals with
manufacturers because of fear, and big boxes can compete because of poor
labor practices here and exploitation of workers elsewhere in the world,
then they can shove it. And if they are put out of business by smarter,
more nimble e-retailers, well there's some kind of justice there.
Steve
--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
jrsnfld
wrote:
> Barnes and Noble was a privately-owned bookstore (though a big one) on
> lower 5th Avenue for many years before the brand went public in 1993.
> It was a far different place before Lou Riggio took over.
In this way, Borders and B&N are very similar: huge, private, well-run
local icons that went public and changed their character into big-box
chains in the process.
BTW, I agree with you that once these stores become big chains and
push their way into markets elsewhere, they deserve to live and die by
the competitive forces they once manipulated. But we have to remember
that competitive forces are not simply economic in nature. Big boxes
often trade promises of jobs, suburban proximity, or urban renewal in
exchange for discounts on property taxes to gain market access. On the
other hand, now internet retailers take advantage of sales tax breaks,
transportation subsidies; they turn these built-in political
advantages into economic advantages over brick and mortar chains just
as chains exploit political advantages over local mom-and-pop stores.
This complicated web of political deals, public priorities, and actual
business acumen is difficult to untangle.
--Jeff
Steven Bornfeld
I'm not as aware of the tax breaks web retailers have, so I cannot
comment. I think they're supposed to collect sales tax, but enforcement
is inconsistent. OTOH, relations between commercial interests and
political power are well-known. Bloomberg is well-known to have favored
pals with real estate interests.
Randy Lane
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
> bankruptcy/
>
> Closing 200 stores.
>
This link will show you the stores that are closing:
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_borders0216_20110216.html
Randy Lane
Actually this PDF file is even more useful (sorted by State, ordered
within each state by city.
Bob Harper
> weary flake wrote:
>> Jenn<jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote:
>>
>>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-borders-
>>> bankruptcy/
>>>
>>> Closing 200 stores.
>>
>> from the above article:
>>
>> "That the Borders Group has filed a Chapter 11 petition is not so much
>> news. Its fate will undoubtedly be blamed on e-books and Amazon.com,
>> Blockbuster and Circuit City long ago decided to compete solely on
>> the basis of price, and they rise and fall on that basis alone. It
>> seems to me that this is not so much about e-books as competition
>> with a lower priced rival."
>>
>> That's a much smarter paragraph than usually shows up in
>> the newsmedia about things like this, even if not true; low
>> price alone (of stuff I don't want) is not enough to get me to
>> go to the store. May I suggest it is actually consolidation
>> that causes failure? The whole "raison d'etre" of the "trendy"
>> chain stores is to consolidate in a predatory manner, with no
>> goal in mind but crushing the competition, with all the enormous
>> corporate resources dedicated to such; so, once these stores
>> have become dominant, "the only guy on the block", there is no
>> more longer any official reason left for them to exist but to
>> become bankrupt themselves. In hindsight, sweet wonderful
>> hindsight, when these chains presented themselves to city and
>> county councils and such demanding all sort of "sweetheart deals"
>> with local legislatures, instead of obliging them, should have
>> been told to "fuck off"; but, in such case, 100% of the current
>> "journalists" gloating about the current failures of the chains,
>> would have, in hindsight again, been very angry about councils
>> that refused to "spend a little to get a lot", under the currently
>> forgotten dictum that "chain stores are always more efficient".
>
> The "free market" at work, isn't it?
>
>
of politicians (of all stripes!!) to sell themselves would make any
prostitute blush. It should be illegal for any unit of government (city,
county, state) to offer such 'incentives' to private corporations,
including (especially!) sports franchises, whose wealthy owners so often
demand a new stadium at public expense with the implied--or even
explicit--threat that not doing so will result in the team's departure
for some locale willing to pony up.
In other words,l crony capitalism isn't really capitalism, and it sure
as h--- isn't the free market at work.
On the general subject under discussion, here's a quote I've always
found it useful to keep in mind:
"There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a
little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on
price alone is this man's lawful prey."
— John Ruskin
Bob Harper
Allen
Allen
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:2efe4f2d-90db-4588-a353-adb6434ce6a1
@k15g2000prk.googlegroups.com:
There goes Sherman Oaks, no surprise; with the decline of Second Spin's
classical stock, and with my discovery of a Panda Express closer to home, I
have little reason to visit that part of town any more, unless I want to
take up Lazer Tag.
Unfortunately, there also goes Pasadena, which at least still has Vromans;
And Glendale, but then, I usually go to Mystery & Imagination and Brand.
Century City is on the hit list too, but I rarely go there any more unless
I have to bring one of the office Macs to the Apple Store.
Westwood seems to be safe. For now.
Matthew B. Tepper
be typed in news:03cd912c-0f48-4f9d-963a-4635487b0732
@w9g2000prg.googlegroups.com:
Part of my fondness for brick-and-mortar stores is based on what I call the
"stride factor." That is, I could stride into a Borders or a Tower
Records, physically examine the stock and turn it over in my hands and read
whatever verbage might happen to be showing, make my selection, go to the
counter and buy it, and then stride out again with books or recordings I
could consume immediately (well, usually, just after arriving home again).
In the old days, if a bookstore or music store didn't have in stock what
you wanted, they could offer to order it for you. Nowadays, that makes no
sense at all, because if I wanted to wait, I could do exactly that myself.
Therefore, to me anyway, not having an item in stock could mean a lost
sale, because I could go to the online elsewhere to make my purchase.
Not to press the point, but just today at the office I received three boxes
from Amazon.com of items that were not available in local bookstores.
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in
Almost, but not quite: The media honchos have ordered the sheep, over and
over, to change their habits. The sheep have heard what they have been
ordered to do, and have meekly obeyed. Baaaaaaah! It is the thus-
manipulated market which has spoken.
Matthew�B.�Tepper
letters to be typed in
> Jenn <jennconduct...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-borders
>> - bankruptcy/
I think you are wiser than the usual newsmedia drones; but then, you're not
under orders to promote high-profits and low-cost-delivery.
Randy Lane
> jrsnfld <jrsn...@aol.com> appears to have caused the following letters to
>
> - Show quoted text -
Whether online, or in a Big Box store, the availability of merchandise
these days seems a bit absurd when compared with the amount of retail
merchandise 40-50 years ago.
I recall when I was in my teens here in teh Livermore-Pleasanton-San
Ramon valley (Northern California) that my only opportunity to look at
books. records, and cassettes came when the family travelled into the
more urban parts of the Bay Area. And that was at teh equivalent of a
modern day K-Mart/WalMart store. Slim pickings.
I've always thought B&N and Borders were prime examples of retail
overkill, extravagance. And I do believe the times are proving my
thoughts worthy.
Oscar
>
> > This link will show you the stores that are closing:
>
> >http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_borders0216_20110216.html
>
> There goes Sherman Oaks, no surprise; with the decline of Second Spin's
> classical stock, and with my discovery of a Panda Express closer to home, I
> have little reason to visit that part of town any more, unless I want to
> take up Lazer Tag.
>
> Unfortunately, there also goes Pasadena, which at least still has Vromans;
> And Glendale, but then, I usually go to Mystery & Imagination and Brand.
> Century City is on the hit list too, but I rarely go there any more unless
> I have to bring one of the office Macs to the Apple Store.
>
> Westwood seems to be safe. For now.
Westwood has been dead for five weeks, last day was January 4. Panda
Express??!!!!!!!!
MiNe 109
<2efe4f2d-90db-4588...@k15g2000prk.googlegroups.com>,
Randy Lane <randy...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ouch. Three Austin stores.
Stephen
Gerard
We're not talking about sports.
> whose wealthy owners so often demand a new stadium at public expense
> with the implied--or even explicit--threat that not doing so will
> result in the team's departure for some locale willing to pony up.
>
> In other words,l crony capitalism isn't really capitalism, and it sure
> as h--- isn't the free market at work.
Oh, no; capitalism = capitalism.
But to be sure: in your view free market = captilism?
>
> On the general subject under discussion, here's a quote I've always
> found it useful to keep in mind:
>
> "There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a
> little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on
> price alone is this man's lawful prey."
Which is the "free market" at work, isn't it?
(Striving for the worst sellable product? - Or is that capitalism? - Or both?)
Gerard
I don't see that pdf file.
(You forgot the URL?)
Randy Lane
>
> - Show quoted text -
Here's the missing URL
tp://tinyurl.com/4ebfmxm
Randy Lane
>
> - Show quoted text -
Here's the missing URL for teh PDF file
Kip Williams
> On Feb 16, 1:58 pm, "Gerard"<ghen_nospam_drik...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Randy Lane wrote:
>>> On Feb 16, 11:54 am, Randy Lane<randy.l...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Feb 16, 8:10 am, Jenn<jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
>>>>> bankruptcy/
>>
>>>>> Closing 200 stores.
>>
>>>>> --www.jennifermartinmusic.com
>>
>>>> This link will show you the stores that are closing:
>>
>>>> http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_borders0216_20110216.html
Click on a header and the spreadsheet-type list will reorder by
category. I clicked on state to see what was closing around here. (Not
much!)
Kip W
jrsnfld
> jrsnfld <jrsn...@aol.com> appears to have caused the following letters to
It's a point worth pressing, because it separates our respective
approaches to this hobby.
I rarely order (books, music) from anywhere. I don't have to. Between
the radio and the brick and mortar stores here, I can barely handle
what I find by serendipity. So I feel no need to search for anything.
I guess in that way I am a supremely lazy "collector," if that term
applies at all. I am deluded into thinking that I'm searching
selectively for quality stuff, but compared to you, who seems to be on
a dogged hunt for particular prey, I am just sleepwalking through the
land of plenty.
--Jeff
Gerard
> Randy Lane wrote:
> > On Feb 16, 1:58 pm, "Gerard"<ghen_nospam_drik...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Randy Lane wrote:
> > > > On Feb 16, 11:54 am, Randy Lane<randy.l...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On Feb 16, 8:10 am, Jenn<jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com>
> > > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > > >
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
> > > > > > bankruptcy/
> > >
> > > > > > Closing 200 stores.
> > >
> > > > > > --www.jennifermartinmusic.com
> > >
> > > > > This link will show you the stores that are closing:
> > >
> > > > >
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_borders0216_20110216.html
>
> Click on a header and the spreadsheet-type list will reorder by
> category. I clicked on state to see what was closing around here. (Not
> much!)
>
>
When I visited that site the first time, no headers were visible (it was a flat
table).
But since a few minutes it works like you describe.
J.Martin
> over, to change their habits. The sheep have heard what they have been
> ordered to do, and have meekly obeyed. Baaaaaaah! It is the thus-
> manipulated market which has spoken.
>
I'm always up for a good conspiracy theory, especially when it
involves the music theory. But in this case, it seems hard to believe
that the Illuminati (or whoever controls the media) would have pushed
for a system that decimated profits all around. Music sales have been
dropping by double digits each year for the past ten years or so, even
when downloads and online sales are included.
Buying music online offers better price/selection/convenience for the
vast majority of consumers who don't happen to live within a few
minutes of an Amoeba or similar retailer. But it's curious to note
that even as CD prices have come down, selection has gone up, and
buying is as simple as clicking a mouse, sales have plummeted.
I don't have an explanation. Illegal downloads are a factor, I'm
sure, but my own sense of it is that people--especially younger
people--have decided they'd rather spend their free time playing video
games, texting, watching youtube, etc, rather than listening to CDs.
Brick and mortar retail in general has the problem of competing with
online retail, but music retailers also have the problem of a
shrinking market.
O
<26f0f5eb-de45-4154...@n16g2000prc.googlegroups.com>,
Randy Lane <randy...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Whether online, or in a Big Box store, the availability of merchandise
> these days seems a bit absurd when compared with the amount of retail
> merchandise 40-50 years ago.
> I recall when I was in my teens here in teh Livermore-Pleasanton-San
> Ramon valley (Northern California) that my only opportunity to look at
> books. records, and cassettes came when the family travelled into the
> more urban parts of the Bay Area. And that was at teh equivalent of a
> modern day K-Mart/WalMart store. Slim pickings.
It really is amazing what we can get from typing into a computer that
we had to either travel very far to get, or it just wasn't available
when I was younger.
> I've always thought B&N and Borders were prime examples of retail
> overkill, extravagance. And I do believe the times are proving my
> thoughts worthy.
I think they were fine for the economic times that spawned them, not so
good now. I believe B&N is still fairly solid, they not willing to
stoop their prices to get foot traffic, like Borders.
I wonder what will happen with all the little "Borders Express" stores
that are at airports and small malls. They didn't carry CDs, but they
did have a fairly good selection of impulse buy books.
-Owen
Bob Harper
> Bob Harper wrote:
>> On 2/16/11 10:28 AM, Gerard wrote:
>>> The "free market" at work, isn't it?
>>>
>>>
>> To the extent that it is manipulated by politicians, no. The
>> willingness of politicians (of all stripes!!) to sell themselves
>> would make any prostitute blush. It should be illegal for any unit of
>> government (city, county, state) to offer such 'incentives' to
>> private corporations, including (especially!) sports franchises,
>
> We're not talking about sports.
Professional sports franchises are big business. How much are tickets
for an Ajax match?
>
>> whose wealthy owners so often demand a new stadium at public expense
>> with the implied--or even explicit--threat that not doing so will
>> result in the team's departure for some locale willing to pony up.
>>
>> In other words,l crony capitalism isn't really capitalism, and it sure
>> as h--- isn't the free market at work.
>
> Oh, no; capitalism = capitalism.
> But to be sure: in your view free market = captilism?
>
Do you understand the meaning of 'crony capitalism'? Your simplistic
remark makes me believe you do not.
>>
>> On the general subject under discussion, here's a quote I've always
>> found it useful to keep in mind:
>>
>> "There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a
>> little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on
>> price alone is this man's lawful prey."
>
> Which is the "free market" at work, isn't it?
> (Striving for the worst sellable product? - Or is that capitalism? - Or both?)
>
Markets work better than central planning. Abuses happen, but there is a
self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the
government doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather than
enforcing the agreed upon rules as a disinterested referee. That's hard
to do, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't tryi.
Bob Harper
Edward Cowan
and then reorganized from the top down -- meaning that local outlets
could no longer control their local inventory, everything being dictated
from headquarters. Before that time, several Borders stores here in the
DFW "Metroplex" had very impressive classical CD holdings, and some of
them even had classically-oriented staff to help the customers. Now, as
MBT has noted, the classical CD offerings are essentially nil, being
deemed as "unmarketable" by the higher-ups. Locally, only a large
Borders store in Dallas offers in its newsstand titles such as ARG, BBC
Music, and other classical music publications. --E.A.C.
--
hrabanus
Dave Cook
> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-borders-
> bankruptcy/
>
> Closing 200 stores.
>
Only 2 stores in the San Diego area are on there, one in the Gaslamp
district (where I imagine rents are very high), and one in El Cajon in a
a somewhat forlorn shopping center.
Dave Cook
Ray Hall
Affected are all the Angus and Robertson stores in Australia.
Ray Hall, Taree
Matthew B. Tepper
to be typed in news:160220111804169469%ow...@denofinequityx.com:
If you want the current crop of bestsellers, yes. As it happens, I don't.
Matthew B. Tepper
0a2be2...@z3g2000prz.googlegroups.com:
>> The media honchos have ordered the sheep, over and over, to change their
>> habits. The sheep have heard what they have been ordered to do, and
>> have meekly obeyed. Baaaaaaah! It is the thus-manipulated market which
>> has spoken.
>>
>
> I'm always up for a good conspiracy theory, especially when it involves
> the music theory. But in this case, it seems hard to believe that the
> Illuminati (or whoever controls the media) would have pushed for a system
> that decimated profits all around. Music sales have been dropping by
> double digits each year for the past ten years or so, even when downloads
> and online sales are included.
Setting aside my pet peeve regarding the misuse of the verb "to decimate"
(which does NOT mean "to wipe out," but rather, "to reduce by one-tenth"),
I'm afraid I didn't quite make myself clear. The crumbling of the music
market began as the *inadvertent* doing of the industry chieftains, due to
their greed and their failure to understand that the digital age would remove
their "edge" completely. Once they finally grasped that, they moved more or
less eagerly into the avenues of digital delivery of product because it
reduced overhead, shipping, warehousing, and the jobbers and other middlemen
who insisted on a cut of the profits. Once they "got" the idea, they
delivered on it with a vengeance; and their chattel journalists have been
pounding away ever since on the idea that consumers have to forswear physical
CDs because consumers are forswearing physical CDs. Does that sound, you
should pardon the expression, circular? Well, it is.
> Buying music online offers better price/selection/convenience for the
> vast majority of consumers who don't happen to live within a few minutes
> of an Amoeba or similar retailer. But it's curious to note that even as
> CD prices have come down, selection has gone up, and buying is as simple
> as clicking a mouse, sales have plummeted.
Buying is simple. Finding what you want, accurately described, well, that
can be iffy at times. For example, without consulting an online Furtwängler
discography, can you easily tell the dates of performance of the various
Beethoven 9ths that might be available at Amazon.com or Arkivmusic.com?
> I don't have an explanation. Illegal downloads are a factor, I'm sure,
> but my own sense of it is that people--especially younger people--have
> decided they'd rather spend their free time playing video games, texting,
> watching youtube, etc, rather than listening to CDs. Brick and mortar
> retail in general has the problem of competing with online retail, but
> music retailers also have the problem of a shrinking market.
Or in other words, as some bozo writing in the Los Angeles Times way back in
1992 put it, "We have many forms of entertainment competing for our leisure
dollars, and even records must price competitively or lose out."
http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/bad_idea.htm
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in
> Markets work better than central planning. Abuses happen, but there is a
> self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the government
> doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather than enforcing the
> agreed upon rules as a disinterested referee. That's hard to do, but that
> doesn't mean we shouldn't tryi.
The government isn't the only entity that can fake results. It seems to me
that a bunch of hedge fund managers had some slight effect on the world just
a few years ago.
Jenn
MiNe 109 <smce...@POPaustin.rr.com> wrote:
Wow. Ours was spared. Some surprises, like Hollywood/Santa Monica
Blvd, Pasadena/Lake St. San Francisco/Market St. Might make sense,
though, as the overheads must be very high.
Gerard
> On 2/16/11 1:50 PM, Gerard wrote:
> > Bob Harper wrote:
> > > On 2/16/11 10:28 AM, Gerard wrote:
> (snip)
> > > > The "free market" at work, isn't it?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > To the extent that it is manipulated by politicians, no. The
> > > willingness of politicians (of all stripes!!) to sell themselves
> > > would make any prostitute blush. It should be illegal for any
> > > unit of government (city, county, state) to offer such
> > > 'incentives' to private corporations, including (especially!)
> > > sports franchises,
> >
> > We're not talking about sports.
>
> Professional sports franchises are big business. How much are tickets
> for an Ajax match?
There are many other things tha are big business.
Also not relevant.
> >
> > > whose wealthy owners so often demand a new stadium at public
> > > expense with the implied--or even explicit--threat that not doing
> > > so will result in the team's departure for some locale willing to
> > > pony up.
> > >
> > > In other words,l crony capitalism isn't really capitalism, and it
> > > sure as h--- isn't the free market at work.
> >
> > Oh, no; capitalism = capitalism.
> > But to be sure: in your view free market = captilism?
> >
> Do you understand the meaning of 'crony capitalism'?
Tell me the Dutch expression.
> Your simplistic
> remark makes me believe you do not.
> > >
> > > On the general subject under discussion, here's a quote I've
> > > always found it useful to keep in mind:
> > >
> > > "There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot
> > > make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person
> > > who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey."
> >
> > Which is the "free market" at work, isn't it?
> > (Striving for the worst sellable product? - Or is that capitalism?
> > - Or both?)
> >
> Markets work better than central planning.
Really? That's a form of belief.
>
> Abuses happen, but there
> is a self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the
> government doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather than
> enforcing the agreed upon rules as a disinterested referee. That's
> hard to do, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't tryi.
>
> Bob Harper
Do "we" still have to try it? Until when? Hasn't it been tried enough already?
Oscar
>
> Wow. Ours was spared. Some surprises, like Hollywood/Santa Monica
> Blvd, Pasadena/Lake St. San Francisco/Market St. Might make sense,
> though, as the overheads must be very high.
The Santa Monica Boulevard store is actually in Century City Mall.
Also on the hit list is Howard Hughes Center (just south of Culver
City), Sherman Oaks, and Pasadena. Westwood closed on Jan. 4, Beverly
Hills-adjacent (La Cienega) in 2009, and Santa Monica Promenade in
2008. Hollywood/Sunset + Vine Street will be the sole Borders store
in LA, to the best of my knowledge, and its CD selection is meager --
Amoeba is a short block down the street.
Jenn
<2e0ec570-0aa1-444c...@f36g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
Oscar <oscaredwar...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, my mistake. I was picturing the Sunset and Vine one as Santa
Monica Blvd. I've never been in there though. I do know that it is the
former site of the most famous recording studio in L.A. other than
Capital.
Gerard
> Bob Harper <bob.h...@comcast.net> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in
> news:S2Z6p.677670$De6.2...@en-nntp-01.dc1.easynews.com:
>
> > Markets work better than central planning. Abuses happen, but there
> > is a self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the
> > government doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather
> > than enforcing the agreed upon rules as a disinterested referee.
> > That's hard to do, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't tryi.
>
> The government isn't the only entity that can fake results. It seems
> to me that a bunch of hedge fund managers had some slight effect on
> the world just a few years ago.
And those guys have completely different aims, are uncontrolled, are not chosen
by elections etcetera, etcetera.
But I'm sure that the Harpers in this world are very happy that those guys are
so much more important than governments.
Steve de Mena
>> Closing 200 stores.
>>
>
> Can't say I'm surprised. Wonder if they might have fared differently
> had they not turned away from selling CDs.
How naive.
Steve
Steve de Mena
>> in Portland, the Leviathan of brick and mortar stores, is experiencing
>> layoffs for the same reasons.
>>
>> Bob Harper
>
> Exactly. About the only thing I buy from brick-n-mortar stores these
> days are groceries, gasoline and take-out Chinese food. I do almost
> all of my other purchasing online.
I'm even ordering my Chinese food online now. :)
Steve
Steve de Mena
>> I don't want to romanticize Borders in particular, but I do continue
>> to lament the death of brick and mortar music stores, for all the
>> usual reasons. But it's clear that the market has spoken.
>
> Almost, but not quite: The media honchos have ordered the sheep, over and
> over, to change their habits. The sheep have heard what they have been
> ordered to do, and have meekly obeyed. Baaaaaaah! It is the thus-
> manipulated market which has spoken.
Does anyone else believe this?
Steve
Steve de Mena
> Setting aside my pet peeve regarding the misuse of the verb "to decimate"
> (which does NOT mean "to wipe out," but rather, "to reduce by one-tenth")
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decimate
3. Obsolete . to take a tenth of or from.
Steve
Steve de Mena
> Buying is simple. Finding what you want, accurately described, well, that
> can be iffy at times. For example, without consulting an online Furtwängler
> discography, can you easily tell the dates of performance of the various
> Beethoven 9ths that might be available at Amazon.com or Arkivmusic.com?
One has virtually unlimited resources when buying online, versus what
you would find in a brick and mortar store. How could anyone think
different? Reviews, Google, Gramophone reviews, etc.
Steve
Ray Hall
>
> And those guys have completely different aims, are uncontrolled, are not chosen
> by elections etcetera, etcetera.
> But I'm sure that the Harpers in this world are very happy that those guys are
> so much more important than governments.
Governments, rightly, are much more important.
However, the brix and mortar outlets haven't changed their model and are
now outmoded because they have not adapted. Maybe some will adapt for
those into downloads? ......
In my email this morning, Amazon UK offered Australia, NZ and South
African customers FREE delivery up until May for orders over $44 Aus (25
British pounds), and at very cheap prices for books and CDs, only an
idiot or one with unlimited funds would shop at brix and mortar.
As a consequence I have ordered nearly all of the Cocteau Twins output,
which may not be relevant here, but vip to moi.
Ray Hall, Taree
Oscar
>
> > Setting aside my pet peeve regarding the misuse of the verb "to decimate"
> > (which does NOT mean "to wipe out," but rather, "to reduce by one-tenth")
>
> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decimate
>
> 3. Obsolete . to take a tenth of or from.
>
> Steve
Ouch!! :-) Tepper boobing off again.
And decimate...means to wipe out, e.g. an company decimated by
recession, i.e. Borders.
1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of
2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from <poor as a decimated Cavalier —
John Dryden>
3
a : to reduce drastically especially in number <cholera decimated the
population>
b : to cause great destruction or harm to <firebombs decimated the
city> <an industry decimated by recession>
Oscar
>
> > Almost, but not quite: The media honchos have ordered the sheep, over and
> > over, to change their habits. The sheep have heard what they have been
> > ordered to do, and have meekly obeyed. Baaaaaaah! It is the thus-
> > manipulated market which has spoken.
>
> Does anyone else believe this?
>
> Steve
Totally ridiculous, Steve. Of coursen't.
Oscar
>
> > Exactly. About the only thing I buy from brick-n-mortar stores these
> > days are groceries, gasoline and take-out Chinese food. I do almost
> > all of my other purchasing online.
>
> I'm even ordering my Chinese food online now. :)
>
> Steve
Panda Express, I hope!
Oscar
>
> Thanks, my mistake. I was picturing the Sunset and Vine one as Santa
> Monica Blvd. I've never been in there though. I do know that it is the
> former site of the most famous recording studio in L.A. other than
> Capital.
Gold Star was at Santa Monica + Vine. http://tiny.cc/km270
Edward Cowan
Royal got the axe -- this was the Borders of choice here, not only for
its sheer size, but for their carrying the classical music magazines
that several others did not carry. OTOH, the smaller and comparatively
negligible Borders in Arlington TX was spared... --E.A.C.
MiNe 109 <smce...@POPaustin.rr.com> wrote:
> In article
> <2efe4f2d-90db-4588...@k15g2000prk.googlegroups.com>,
> Randy Lane <randy...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 16, 8:10 am, Jenn <jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote:
> > > http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
> > > bankruptcy/
> > >
> > > Closing 200 stores.
> > >
> > > --www.jennifermartinmusic.com
> >
> > This link will show you the stores that are closing:
> >
> > http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_borders0216_20110216.html
>
> Ouch. Three Austin stores.
>
> Stephen
--
hrabanus
O
Cowan <oldger...@nospam.com> wrote:
> And in the DFW "Metroplex," the big Borders in Dallas at Preston and
> Royal got the axe -- this was the Borders of choice here, not only for
> its sheer size, but for their carrying the classical music magazines
> that several others did not carry. OTOH, the smaller and comparatively
> negligible Borders in Arlington TX was spared... --E.A.C.
While it appears the closings are random, whether a store survived is
probably more to do with the circumstances of the lease of the space.
-Owen
J
At one point, this was part of what kept Tower Records viable--the
ability to walk in for something (however obscure), and walk out with
it. Once that was gone, customers began to drift. Then, the decline of
the CD as the dominant medium of music delivery left the company with
very little to offer. Now the bookstore is going the way of the CD
shop...
John Wiser
John Wiser
news:a0523$4d5cd2d2$53565cf2$24...@cache5.tilbu1.nb.home.nl...
JDW
William Sommerwerck
>> for the vast majority of consumers who don't happen to live
>> within a few minutes of an Amoeba or similar retailer. But it's
>> curious to note that even as CD prices have come down,
>> selection has gone up, and buying is as simple as clicking a
>> mouse, sales have plummeted.
> Buying is simple. Finding what you want, accurately described,
> well, that can be iffy at times. For example, without consulting an
> online Furtwängler discography, can you easily tell the dates of
> performance of the various Beethoven 9ths that might be available
> at Amazon.com or Arkivmusic.com?
Well, if you know what you want... I ordered the Hyperion Liszt set for $175
from some frog firm. It should be here in a week or two. (Given the low
price, I wouldn't have bought unless the transaction had been guaranteed by
Amazon.)
Nevertheless, I still purchase from a local chain, Silver Platters. I don't
want to see B&M stores go out of business, just because of a dollar or two
difference in price. Of course, if there are really big differences -- such
as the Alia Vox book sets -- I look for a low price.
Last week I carried a big box of CDs and DVDs into Silver Platters, and got
store credit for $347. The credit on my incomplete Hyperion Liszt recordings
was around $250, so I came out way ahead. Silver Platters sells its used
titles on-line, as well, so it has a world-wide market for them.
I remained suprised that the major labels haven't formed a consortium to
market classical recordings on the Web. Most classical listeners have Web
access, so why shouldn't /all/ classical labels, large or small, eventually
withdraw from retail stores and market directly? The potential for profits
and economic stability seem great.
----------------------
The economic changes we see are part of what I call "the democratization of
everything". I realized this 20 years ago when I first created entire books
for clients. Not only did I not have to live near the client, but the PDFs
were sent directly to the printing company over the Internet.
It's increasingly possible for individuals to do things with fewer
intermediaries -- sometimes none: buy almost anything you want, write and
publish a book, design a home, etc.
William Sommerwerck
> self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the government
> doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather than enforcing the
> doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Unfortunately, too many conservatives view /any/ government interference as
"an attempt to pick winners and losers". Government investment in
infratstructure and basic research is generally a good thing for both
business and the consumer.
ivanmaxim
wrote:
What's a frog firm???? Wagner fan
William Sommerwerck
GENERAL FREDERIC
Mr President? This is General Frederic. I have decommissioned the traitor Stanley. I am ready to serve you. One moment, please.
GENERAL FREDERIC searches for, and finally finds, a large Post-It™ Note pad, then a pen. He checks the pen on the pad, finds it’s dry, then searches for another pen, which works. All this is done in a tight, rapid, precisely controlled fashion, without a moment’s hesitation in moving from one thing to the next. He is nothing if not efficient.
GENERAL FREDERIC
Ready, Sir.
GENERAL FREDERIC begins taking dictation.
GENERAL FREDERIC
(quickly, mechanically)
Yes... Yes... Yes... <beat> I took shorthand in high school. Yes... Yes... Is that all? <beat> Have you considered France?
INT: OVAL OFFICE: AFTERNOON, CHRISTMAS EVE
PRESIDENT
(to MRS KILLDEVIL)
Should France be on the list?
MRS KILLDEVIL
They used to be friends with the Russians...
PRESIDENT
(thinking)
So.. the friend of my enemy is my enemy?
MRS KILLDEVIL nods in emphatic agreement.
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:iIidnUCqFerDecHQ...@giganews.com:
Well, I kind of miss the days when I could look a CD, and flip it over to
read what it said on the back. Amazon isn't there yet, at least not with
reliably large images that can be read easily.
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in
> And in the DFW "Metroplex," the big Borders in Dallas at Preston and
> Royal got the axe -- this was the Borders of choice here, not only for
> its sheer size, but for their carrying the classical music magazines
> that several others did not carry. OTOH, the smaller and comparatively
> negligible Borders in Arlington TX was spared... --E.A.C.
This is only one small symptom of the stupidity, but the Westwood store once
had a free-standing corrugated cardboard magazine rack display, with a sign
saying, "We carry hard-to-find music magazines!" The magazines in the rack
were Rolling Stone, Spin, Guitar Player, and NME.
Matthew B. Tepper
the following letters to be typed in
The reductio ad absurdam of this conservative ideal is a weak government
which does nothing but defense and roads, while Big Business does whatever
it pleases, in which case we could kiss goodbye to safe food and drugs,
just to give one example. Wipe away financial regulation and the usury
laws and eventually we'll have debtor's prisons, indentured servitude, and
ultimately (dare I say it) a return to slavery based on economics rather
than skin color.
Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is a fool.
Some of my best friends are fools, but they're still my friends.
Gerard
> "William Sommerwerck" <grizzle...@comcast.net> appears to have
> caused the following letters to be typed in
> news:ijj5n3$3hq$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
>
> > > Markets work better than central planning. Abuses happen, but
> > > there is a self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as
> > > long as the government doesn't start trying to pick winners and
> > > losers rather than enforcing the agreed-upon rules as a
> > > disinterested referee. That's hard to do, but that doesn't mean
> > > we shouldn't try.
> >
> > Unfortunately, too many conservatives view /any/ government
> > interference as "an attempt to pick winners and losers". Government
> > investment in infratstructure and basic research is generally a
> > good thing for both business and the consumer.
>
> The reductio ad absurdam of this conservative ideal is a weak
> government which does nothing but defense and roads, while Big
> Business does whatever it pleases,
Isn't that the reality over there (where the weak government doesn't even do
bridges)?
>
> in which case we could kiss
> goodbye to safe food and drugs, just to give one example. Wipe away
> financial regulation and the usury laws and eventually we'll have
> debtor's prisons, indentured servitude, and ultimately (dare I say
> it) a return to slavery based on economics rather than skin color.
Ultimately?
It's back since long.
>
> Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is a
> fool. Some of my best friends are fools, but they're still my friends.
So?
William Sommerwerck
>> as "an attempt to pick winners and losers". Government investment in
>> infratstructure and basic research is generally a good thing for both
>> business and the consumer.
> The reductio ad absurdam of this conservative ideal is a weak government
> which does nothing but defense and roads, while Big Business does whatever
> it pleases, in which case we could kiss goodbye to safe food and drugs,
> just to give one example. Wipe away financial regulation and the usury
> laws and eventually we'll have debtor's prisons, indentured servitude, and
> ultimately (dare I say it) a return to slavery based on economics rather
> than skin color.
> Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is
> a fool. Some of my best friends are fools, but they're still my friends.
Power is power, regardless of who wields it. If you're afraid of government
power, you should also be afraid of private economic power. People forget
that their lives are governed by the creation and exchange of wealth. It's
the water we fish swim in.
William Sommerwerck
> flip it over to read what it said on the back. Amazon isn't
> there yet, at least not with reliably large images that can
> be read easily.
I think you meant LP.
I remember the back of a Stan Freberg album that started "For those
fingering this album and trying to decided whether to buy Bach fugues
instead..."
One of the things I like about Amazon's book listings is that you can search
many books, including current best-sellers. If you're willing to be patient,
you can read the book for free. It's also handy when I'm looking up quotes.
Jenn
<b6c38737-c2df-409d...@o14g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
Oscar <oscaredwar...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah. I symbolically "tip my hat" whenever I drive by there.
weary flake
> "William Sommerwerck" <grizzle...@comcast.net> appears to have caused
> the following letters to be typed in
> news:ijj5n3$3hq$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
>
> >> Markets work better than central planning. Abuses happen, but there is
> >> a self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the
> >> government doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather than
> >> enforcing the agreed-upon rules as a disinterested referee. That's hard
> >> to do, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
> >
> > Unfortunately, too many conservatives view /any/ government interference
> > as "an attempt to pick winners and losers". Government investment in
> > infratstructure and basic research is generally a good thing for both
> > business and the consumer.
>
> The reductio ad absurdam of this conservative ideal is a weak government
> which does nothing but defense and roads,
Conservatives also seem to favor privatizing defense and roads.
> while Big Business does whatever
> it pleases, in which case we could kiss goodbye to safe food and drugs,
> just to give one example. Wipe away financial regulation and the usury
> laws and eventually we'll have debtor's prisons,
A defense of Debtor's Prisons is that they were supposed to be paid
for weekly by the creditor, and the failure of the creditor to pay
the bill for the imprisonment frees the prisoner -- I glean this
fact from the factual story "The Moderate Drinker", recorded by
T.S. Arthur, written when Debtor's Prisons and Slavery were current,
not figurative.
> indentured servitude, and
> ultimately (dare I say it) a return to slavery based on economics rather
> than skin color.
A defense of slavery is that business had to take full responsibility
for the well being of the slave: an American Sign Language word for
slavery is to cradle an infant in your arms.
J.Martin
> Setting aside my pet peeve regarding the misuse of the verb "to decimate"
> (which does NOT mean "to wipe out," but rather, "to reduce by one-tenth")
It seems to me (and others, apparently) that I used the term quite
accurately.
,
> I'm afraid I didn't quite make myself clear. The crumbling of the music
> market began as the *inadvertent* doing of the industry chieftains, due to
> their greed and their failure to understand that the digital age would remove
> their "edge" completely. Once they finally grasped that, they moved more or
> less eagerly into the avenues of digital delivery of product because it
> reduced overhead, shipping, warehousing, and the jobbers and other middlemen
> who insisted on a cut of the profits. Once they "got" the idea, they
> delivered on it with a vengeance; and their chattel journalists have been
> pounding away ever since on the idea that consumers have to forswear physical
> CDs because consumers are forswearing physical CDs. Does that sound, you
> should pardon the expression, circular? Well, it is.
>
Let me see if this is clear: 1) music industry moved to digital
because they thought it would increase profits, not knowing it
ultimately would undermine their business, 2) media wrote that
consumers had to forswear CDs, and 3) so people did, and 4) the
industry crumbled.
I'm with you on #1, and more or less on #2, except that you seem to be
focused on the issue of downloads vs physical CDs. I'm less concerned
with the medium than with overall sales--ie, if people had simply
switched from CDs to downloads, it would explain the closing of brick
and mortar retailers, but not the rapid decline in music sales
overall.
Point #3 is where we disagree. I think it should be obvious that
online retailers are clobbering brick and mortar competition in a wide
range of retail genres, not just music. This is because people are
making their decision about where to buy music, books, clothes, cars,
insurance, etc, according to the usual criteria--price, selection,
convenience--and the online retailers can beat the brick and mortar
competition on all these counts the vast majority of the time. It's
silly to go looking for media conspiracies when the simple and obvious
facts point to a straightforward explanation.
Besides, if the demand for music had remained constant, the move to
online sales really should have been a good thing for the industry,
and yet here we are at #4. Online sales have made more music
available to more people in more formats (not just CD, but vinyl, mp3,
SACD, flac etc) than ever. And yet sales continue to fall.
> Or in other words, as some bozo writing in the Los Angeles Times way back in
> 1992 put it, "We have many forms of entertainment competing for our leisure
> dollars, and even records must price competitively or lose out."
>
Not sure what your point is. Of course they must price
competitively. And recorded music is arguably cheaper now than at any
time in history. I have to say 'arguably' because we need to take
inflation into account. A 40-minute lp cost about $3.99 in the
mid-70s as I recall, and that would amount to about $15-16 in today's
dollars. CDs were much more expensive during the 1980s and '90s when
sales were booming than they are today. I seem to recall CDs being
"sale priced" back then for $16, which would be roughly $30 today.
These days, we can easily find new recordings for $12-16 per CD, which
generally include twice as much music as the old lps, and reissues and
mp3s that are much cheaper. So I doubt pricing is the issue.
So what is it? My guess is that music-only recordings are taking a
backseat to interactive games, social networking, and other
computerized entertainment. It's beyond the brick and mortar vs
online sales, or physcial vs digital media. People aren't buying as
much music, despite increased selection and convenience and lowered
prices.
weary flake
> > Well, I kind of miss the days when I could look a CD, and
> > flip it over to read what it said on the back. Amazon isn't
> > there yet, at least not with reliably large images that can
> > be read easily.
>
> I think you meant LP.
A terrible LP "feature" was failure to include recording dates
on the packaging, at most, maybe just a "copyright year" (applying
just to the packaging, as if anyone cared!). I can almost hear the
rejoinder to this complaint that would have been made at the time
"it's in reference books, therefore there's no need to include it
in the liner notes" and that's still "true", potentially, but today,
thanks to complaints about this willful obscurantism, recording dates
are typically included when known and stuff like the "Svetlanov
Foundation" series of CDs that give no dates are an anomaly.
> I remember the back of a Stan Freberg album that started "For those
> fingering this album and trying to decided whether to buy Bach fugues
> instead..."
>
> One of the things I like about Amazon's book listings is that you can search
> many books, including current best-sellers. If you're willing to be patient,
> you can read the book for free. It's also handy when I'm looking up quotes.
But use of this feature or buying from online sources does not forbid
you from also buying from actual local stores, but lots of yakkers here
write like it's impossible to buy something from a real store if the
potential to buy such exists from online sources, as if we all lived
in some sort of bizarro world of "one stop shopping", which you know
there really is no such thing. Remind here, that buying from online
stores it's best to watch your physical mail like a hawk and never
assume what an e-provider says they shipped is actually what they
shipped; this may sound like such an obvious statement to make that it
shouldn't be said, but it ought to. I've had to "dun" amazon.com
itself when packages failed to arrive through the UPS "two day" system,
with a much worse record from the third party sellers, ebay and the
like. "Dunning" the seller is common enough, though I hate to do it.
William Sommerwerck
>> of the verb "to decimate" (which does NOT mean
>> "to wipe out," but rather, "to reduce by one-tenth")
> It seems to me (and others, apparently) that I used
> the term quite accurately.
Some people are fussy about usage. "Unfortunately", English dictionaries --
unlike the French Academy's...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_de_l%27Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise
...are descriptive -- not prescriptive or proscriptive. This allows English
to grow in interesting and useful ways (which is generally good), but also
to weaken, when words are given a variety of meanings that destroys their
uniqueness and incisiveness.
William Sommerwerck
> on the packaging, at most, maybe just a "copyright year" (applying
> just to the packaging, as if anyone cared!). I can almost hear the
> rejoinder to this complaint that would have been made at the time
> "it's in reference books, therefore there's no need to include it
> in the liner notes" and that's still "true", potentially, but today,
> thanks to complaints about this willful obscurantism, recording dates
> are typically included when known and stuff like the "Svetlanov
> Foundation" series of CDs that give no dates are an anomaly.
CDs often have recording dates -- but they tend to be hidden in the booklet.
>> One of the things I like about Amazon's book listings is that you
>> can search many books, including current best-sellers. If you're
>> willing to be patient, you can read the book for free. It's also handy
>> when I'm looking up quotes.
> But use of this feature or buying from online sources does not forbid
> you from also buying from actual local stores, but lots of yakkers here
> write like it's impossible to buy something from a real store if the
> potential to buy such exists from online sources, as if we all lived
> in some sort of bizarro world of "one stop shopping", which you know
> there really is no such thing.
As I said, I buy from Silver Platters, because I want to support local
dealers -- even though I sometimes pay a bit more. But you're right about
one-stop shopping -- there's no single source that always has the lowest
price on everything.
> Remind here, that buying from online
> stores it's best to watch your physical mail like a hawk and never
> assume what an e-provider says they shipped is actually what they
> shipped; this may sound like such an obvious statement to make that it
> shouldn't be said, but it ought to. I've had to "dun" amazon.com
> itself when packages failed to arrive through the UPS "two day" system,
> with a much worse record from the third party sellers, ebay and the
> like. "Dunning" the seller is common enough, though I hate to do it.
I've been pretty lucky. Never had a problem.
weary flake
> I remained suprised that the major labels haven't formed a consortium to
> market classical recordings on the Web. Most classical listeners have Web
> access, so why shouldn't /all/ classical labels, large or small, eventually
> withdraw from retail stores and market directly? The potential for profits
> and economic stability seem great.
[discursive rant mode, sorry]
Turning all music selling into a monopoly is not likely to work
out good, no matter how technically efficient in theory a monopoly
is; and what do you mean "directly", you mean streaming only, as
the consortium would in no doubt decree, no one has anything to own
or sell, by a centrally controlled consortium, with the maximum
rigidity that comes with it? Do you really think publishers (of music,
books, etc.,) are infinitely trustworthy with the unlimited power over
all media?? The record of publishers (and we are talking about
publishers) are dire about even maintaining the desire for keeping
their own stuff alive, and it's proven there are countless authors,
musicians, etc., that want to "kill" their previous work, but that is
no excuse to grant them a global "delete button" that could truly
permanently eradicate any work at all that a centrally controlled
system would be empowered to do.
Real life examples? Well, I recently read Spanish Testament by
Koestler, a strange book from 1937, and merely because the author
wanted to "globally delete" his own book immediately after it was
published, is no reason at all that it should have been rendered no
longer extant merely because the author wanted it gone. What is
"published" has a public claim to it, because once a work of any sort
is published, it no longer in exclusively in control by the publisher,
unrepresented by a public claim to it. This is just one example of a
book I read that, even if I don't entirely agree with it (the author
himself didn't), I don't feel it right that power should have been
granted to the author/publisher to permanently extinguish a work
merely because they want to, and it continues to exist against the
will of the author and publisher. Translate this to the terms of
the "e-world", and the book would no longer be extant, out of the
unilateral desire of the author/publisher to truly delete it, and
the published property would be robbed from the public and destroyed,
a theft. Thus, unlimited power to authors/musicians to "recall and
destroy" would be anti-consumer, so must be opposed by all consumers.
> ----------------------
> The economic changes we see are part of what I call "the democratization of
> everything". I realized this 20 years ago when I first created entire books
> for clients. Not only did I not have to live near the client, but the PDFs
> were sent directly to the printing company over the Internet.
Setting up a monopoly is democratic? In theory, sure, but only
if you don't take into account reality from Utopian Science Fiction,
and where there's Utopian there's also Distopian Science Fiction.
weary flake
> > A terrible LP "feature" was failure to include recording dates
> > on the packaging, at most, maybe just a "copyright year" (applying
> > just to the packaging, as if anyone cared!). I can almost hear the
> > rejoinder to this complaint that would have been made at the time
> > "it's in reference books, therefore there's no need to include it
> > in the liner notes" and that's still "true", potentially, but today,
> > thanks to complaints about this willful obscurantism, recording dates
> > are typically included when known and stuff like the "Svetlanov
> > Foundation" series of CDs that give no dates are an anomaly.
>
> CDs often have recording dates -- but they tend to be hidden in the booklet.
Often enough, but when I actually look into the booklet, and online
stores, and the dates aren't given it sticks out, like these
Svetlanov CDs, or the Capriccio 5 CD set of Chopin Competition CDs,
because it's the improved standard now to include the recording dates
in the packaging somewhere or other.
One curious LP I picked up fairly recently in the cheap LPs in a store
is the Turnabout LP of the "sixth" Beethoven cello sonata, and this
Casals at Prades item has liner notes about the opus being played, but
not a word about transcriptions or recording dates, etc. The packaging
did serve it's purpose, 30, 40 or 50 years (?) or so after the fact to
sell it to me, but my buying it doesn't mean I have no right to comment
on misleading practices. I see offhand a Philips CD (date?) and a Music
and Arts CD (dated, but I don't have it at hand) also have the "sixth
cello sonata" but not misidentified as such.
J.Martin
> Some people are fussy about usage.
Actually, I consider myself one of the fussy ones! And if I did
misuse "decimate" I don't mind being corrected. Taking 'decimate' at
its most literal, it could be applied to the annual decreases in sales
of 10% or more than the industry has suffered for the last decade.
But the term also can mean a more general incremental reduction that
erodes the whole by degrees, which is what I meant. (I didn't suggest
it meant "wiped out.") Only the most pedantic would insist that it
means stricly a 10 percent reduction, but I suppose that's easier than
answering the point I made about market forces, rather than some
conspiracy, being at the root of the decline in brick and mortar
retail.
mark
>
> Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is a fool.
That's a brilliant statement. I'll be using that!
Matthew�B.�Tepper
letters to be typed in
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in
operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were
not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had
occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very
glad to hear it."
>> indentured servitude, and ultimately (dare I say it) a return to slavery
>> based on economics rather than skin color.
>
> A defense of slavery is that business had to take full responsibility
> for the well being of the slave: an American Sign Language word for
> slavery is to cradle an infant in your arms.
You are John W. Campbell, Jr. and I claim my five pounds. (Campbell didn't
actually believe slavery was good, and I can't imagine you do either, but
he liked to build such arguments in order to provoke lively discussions.)
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in
>>
>> Setting aside my pet peeve regarding the misuse of the verb "to
>> decimate" (which does NOT mean "to wipe out," but rather, "to reduce by
>> one-tenth")
>
> It seems to me (and others, apparently) that I used the term quite
> accurately.
>
>> I'm afraid I didn't quite make myself clear. The crumbling of the music
>> market began as the *inadvertent* doing of the industry chieftains, due
>> to their greed and their failure to understand that the digital age
>> would remove their "edge" completely. Once they finally grasped that,
>> they moved more or less eagerly into the avenues of digital delivery of
>> product because it reduced overhead, shipping, warehousing, and the
>> jobbers and other middlemen who insisted on a cut of the profits. Once
>> they "got" the idea, they delivered on it with a vengeance; and their
>> chattel journalists have been pounding away ever since on the idea that
>> consumers have to forswear physical CDs because consumers are
>> forswearing physical CDs. Does that sound, you should pardon the
>> expression, circular? Well, it is.
>>
>
> Let me see if this is clear: 1) music industry moved to digital because
> they thought it would increase profits, not knowing it ultimately would
> undermine their business, 2) media wrote that consumers had to forswear
> CDs, and 3) so people did, and 4) the industry crumbled.
>
> I'm with you on #1, and more or less on #2, except that you seem to be
> focused on the issue of downloads vs physical CDs. I'm less concerned
> with the medium than with overall sales--ie, if people had simply
> switched from CDs to downloads, it would explain the closing of brick
> and mortar retailers, but not the rapid decline in music sales overall.
I think we are actually in agreement regarding the last point, considering
that recorded music sales have not been competing as well as they could be
with those for other entertainments.
> Point #3 is where we disagree. I think it should be obvious that online
> retailers are clobbering brick and mortar competition in a wide range of
> retail genres, not just music. This is because people are making their
> decision about where to buy music, books, clothes, cars, insurance, etc,
> according to the usual criteria--price, selection, convenience--and the
> online retailers can beat the brick and mortar competition on all these
> counts the vast majority of the time. It's silly to go looking for media
> conspiracies when the simple and obvious facts point to a straightforward
> explanation.
I'm sorry if I have to show a bit of anger here, but bullshit. I can't
even buy online a goddamn HAT that fits me; do you think I'll even try to
buy another garment if I can't hold it and look at it and feel it? And,
cough, I'm not even a woman. You know how they shop!
> Besides, if the demand for music had remained constant, the move to
> online sales really should have been a good thing for the industry, and
> yet here we are at #4. Online sales have made more music available to
> more people in more formats (not just CD, but vinyl, mp3, SACD, flac etc)
> than ever. And yet sales continue to fall.
There's that competition thing we agree on. Also, the bad will that the
music industry has created has come to bite them on the ass, repeatedly.
>> Or in other words, as some bozo writing in the Los Angeles Times way
>> back in 1992 put it, "We have many forms of entertainment competing for
>> our leisure dollars, and even records must price competitively or lose
>> out."
>
> Not sure what your point is. Of course they must price competitively.
> And recorded music is arguably cheaper now than at any time in history.
> I have to say 'arguably' because we need to take inflation into account.
> A 40-minute lp cost about $3.99 in the mid-70s as I recall, and that
> would amount to about $15-16 in today's dollars. CDs were much more
> expensive during the 1980s and '90s when sales were booming than they are
> today. I seem to recall CDs being "sale priced" back then for $16, which
> would be roughly $30 today. These days, we can easily find new
> recordings for $12-16 per CD, which generally include twice as much music
> as the old lps, and reissues and mp3s that are much cheaper. So I doubt
> pricing is the issue.
>
> So what is it? My guess is that music-only recordings are taking a
> backseat to interactive games, social networking, and other computerized
> entertainment. It's beyond the brick and mortar vs online sales, or
> physcial vs digital media. People aren't buying as much music, despite
> increased selection and convenience and lowered prices.
Let me give another example. I recently had a windfall of an Amazon.com
gift certificate, and so I went a little wild and ordered sixteen books by
Isaac Asimov that I didn't already have, from various Amazon sellers whose
orders are fulfilled by Amazon (thus saving on shipping). The descriptions
online were not exceptionally detailed, but I made a point of not buying
anything in less than "very good" condition. All of the books have now
arrived, and they are acceptable except for one (the Dell trade paperback
of A Choice of Catastrophes), which is slathered with library stickers and
blotted up all over the place with ink from a marking pen. You can bet
that one will go back.
If I had seen this book in a store, I would have put it back on the shelf
and not given it a further thought. And now I have to go to the trouble to
send it back, or else fob it off on a friend and eat the price.
Ordering some things online is okay. Ordering others is iffy. And
ordering some items just plain does not work sometimes.
Matthew B. Tepper
the following letters to be typed in
>> Well, I kind of miss the days when I could look a CD, and flip it over
>> to read what it said on the back. Amazon isn't there yet, at least not
>> with reliably large images that can be read easily.
>
> I think you meant LP.
No, I meant CD. I have found properly-mastered (or remastered) CDs to be a
more than adequate, and often excellent, advance on the LP technology, and
I embraced them from the start. I bought my first CD player, a Technics
SL-P8, back in March 1984, probably earlier than most of my friends, and
possibly earlier than some of you.
> I remember the back of a Stan Freberg album that started "For those
> fingering this album and trying to decided whether to buy Bach fugues
> instead..."
Strangely enough, I was waiting in line at checkout at the Vons Pavilions
in Beverly Hills the other day, and the man in front of my looked just like
Stan Freberg. When he spoke, his voice did not sound like Freberg's, so
probably he wasn't. The checker is supposed to thank customers by name
(one of the not-so-subtle uses of the chain's loyalty cards), but this one
didn't, so I suppose I'll never be entirely certain.
> One of the things I like about Amazon's book listings is that you can
> search many books, including current best-sellers. If you're willing to
> be patient, you can read the book for free. It's also handy when I'm
> looking up quotes.
I don't want current best-sellers.
Matthew B. Tepper
be typed in news:39f2e96e-c95a-4496-bee4-32db5a8b90b2
@o14g2000prb.googlegroups.com:
> On Feb 17, 7:39 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oy @earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is a fool.
>>
>
> That's a brilliant statement. I'll be using that!
Then again, there is good in both ... and problems in both. I would also
fear mob rule, and I have often felt my preferred state would have a sort of
meta-checks-and-balances among Government, Business, and what for want of a
better term I will call The People. Naturally, I have no idea how or even
whether this could be instituted. These three factions must constantly be
goaded to produce their best, and carefully watched to head off abuse.
William Sommerwerck
> Vons Pavilions in Beverly Hills the other day, and the man
> in front of my looked just like Stan Freberg. When he spoke,
> his voice did not sound like Freberg's, so probably he wasn't.
> The checker is supposed to thank customers by name (one
> of the not-so-subtle uses of the chain's loyalty cards), but this
> one didn't, so I suppose I'll never be entirely certain.
Stan Freberg has gotten quite old, and his voice -- though as strong as
ever -- not longer sounds as it once did.
Why didn't you ask him? I would have leaned over and said... "When am I
going to meet your parents? I wish they'd have me for dinner..."
William Sommerwerck
"The police are not here to create disorder, they're here to preserve
disorder."
That's at least as good as anything from the Bushes.
laraine
> Dave Cook wrote:
> > On 2011-02-16, Jenn<jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote:
> >>http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
> >> bankruptcy/
>
> >> Closing 200 stores.
>
> > Only 2 stores in the San Diego area are on there, one in the Gaslamp
> > district (where I imagine rents are very high), and one in El Cajon in a
> > a somewhat forlorn shopping center.
>
> > Dave Cook
>
> Affected are all the Angus and Robertson stores in Australia.
>
> Ray Hall, Taree
Australia! Now that was ambitious...
Borders also owns Waldenbooks, which
used to be everywhere.
Here is an article about the Chicago area,
where about half of them will close:
http://www.suntimes.com/business/3852258-420/borders-closing-half-of-area-stores.html
Well, I'm glad the one in LaGrange, and a
couple others I'm familiar with will stay open.
The one in West Lafayette, IN, will close, but
that's a university town, so lots of
bookstore competition/alternatives.
And here's someone's Flickr photo of the
Michigan Ave. store that closed last month:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68295962@N00/71989639/in/set-1547739/
Nice view from the cafe!
C.
Frank Berger
> mark <markst...@yahoo.com> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in news:39f2e96e-c95a-4496-bee4-32db5a8b90b2
> @o14g2000prb.googlegroups.com:
>
>> On Feb 17, 7:39 am, "Matthew B. Tepper" <oy @earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is
>>> a fool.
>>>
>>
>> That's a brilliant statement. I'll be using that!
>
> Then again, there is good in both ... and problems in both. I would
> also fear mob rule, and I have often felt my preferred state would
> have a sort of meta-checks-and-balances among Government, Business,
> and what for want of a better term I will call The People.
Which is exactly what we have.
Bob Harper
> Bob harper wrote:
>>> Markets work better than central planning. Abuses happen, but there is
>>> a self-correcting mechanism (it's called failure) as long as the
>>> government doesn't start trying to pick winners and losers rather than
>>> enforcing the agreed-upon rules as a disinterested referee. That's hard
>>> to do, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>> Unfortunately, too many conservatives view /any/ government interference
>> as "an attempt to pick winners and losers". Government investment in
>> infratstructure and basic research is generally a good thing for both
>> business and the consumer.
>
> The reductio ad absurdam of this conservative ideal is a weak government
> which does nothing but defense and roads, while Big Business does whatever
> it pleases, in which case we could kiss goodbye to safe food and drugs,
> just to give one example. Wipe away financial regulation and the usury
> laws and eventually we'll have debtor's prisons, indentured servitude, and
> ultimately (dare I say it) a return to slavery based on economics rather
> than skin color.
>
> Anybody who doesn't fear Big Business as much as Big Government is a fool.
> Some of my best friends are fools, but they're still my friends.
>
As you have said, this *is* a reductio ad absurdum. The argument is not
about whether to have consumer protections and financial regulations,
but about the appropriate level of same. While some extreme libertarians
(Right and Left, if those terms have any meaning in this context) may
believe the answer is zero, theirs is not a conservative position.
Bob Harper
laraine
> On Feb 16, 11:35 pm, Ray Hall <raymond.ha...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Dave Cook wrote:
> > > On 2011-02-16, Jenn<jennconductsREMOVET...@mac.com> wrote:
> > >>http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/the-short-timeline-in-the-bord...
> > >> bankruptcy/
>
> > >> Closing 200 stores.
>
> > > Only 2 stores in the San Diego area are on there, one in the Gaslamp
> > > district (where I imagine rents are very high), and one in El Cajon in a
> > > a somewhat forlorn shopping center.
>
> > > Dave Cook
>
> > Affected are all the Angus and Robertson stores in Australia.
>
> > Ray Hall, Taree
>
> Australia! Now that was ambitious...
>
> Borders also owns Waldenbooks, which
> used to be everywhere.
>
> Here is an article about the Chicago area,
> where about half of them will close:
>
>
> Well, I'm glad the one in LaGrange, and a
> couple others I'm familiar with will stay open.
> The one in West Lafayette, IN, will close, but
> that's a university town, so lots of
> bookstore competition/alternatives.
>
> And here's someone's Flickr photo of the
> Michigan Ave. store that closed last month:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/68295962@N00/71989639/in/set-1547739/
>
> Nice view from the cafe!
>
> C.
Oh no! Giordano's pizza files for bankruptcy:
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/02/giordanos-files-for-bankruptcy.html
Maybe not the best deep-dish pizza ever,
but pretty good...
C.
Frank Berger
I've been downloading my pizza for years. That must explain it.
Dil
>
> > Maybe not the best deep-dish pizza ever,
> > but pretty good...
>
> > C.
>
> I've been downloading my pizza for years. That must explain it.
Chicago Deep-Dish would exceed my bandwidth capabilities.
Dil.
Frank Berger
Thin-crust greasy pizza for me. It just slithers through using minimal
bandwidth.
William Sommerwerck
>> I would also fear mob rule, and I have often felt my preferred
>> state would have a sort of meta-checks-and-balances among
>> Government, Business, and what for want of a better term
>> I will call The People.
> Which is exactly what we have.
We do? Both the Left and Right and constantly trying to distort that
supposed balance. Ever since Mr Monster was President, the balance has
tended to move toward the Right.
O
Berger <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Oh no! Giordano's pizza files for bankruptcy:
> >
> >
> > http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/02/giordanos-files-for-bankruptcy.ht
> > ml
> >
> > Maybe not the best deep-dish pizza ever,
> > but pretty good...
> >
> > C.
>
> I've been downloading my pizza for years. That must explain it.
>
It's the compression. It squeezes the scales off the anchovies.
-Owen
Frank Berger
Imagine a scale that teeters up and down around the center, but never goes
all the way one way or the other. Pushing and pulling, but forces (our
institutions) that keep it more or less "in balance." You want static
perfection? Forgetaboutit.