Nov 8, 2016 - The lesser of two evils?
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beast of the east
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Please quantify your response with a credible source. I am unaware that the US would be ranked last in a list of funding for the arts, so if you are correct, you must have a source.
beast of the east
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I'm not offended by an "inspired" (filled with vitriol) artist using excrement to create images of Christian religious figures. However I'm deeply offended by liberal hypocrites who would defend such called artists right to express themselves but would have sharply reversed course if the same "artwork" was used to express an opinion of Islam or Judaism. To use tax dollars to fund either is more excrement than the artist's choice of medium.
beast of the east
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What is most offensive about Hillary Clinton is that there isn't a single moral value or political position she wouldn't sell out on if it meant getting elected President. Well, that could actually be secondary to the fact that she is incapable of telling the truth except if the truth benefits her.
She even lied when she answered the question, "Do you always tell the truth?" It was funny to listen to her waffle around a response, clearly uncomfortable and ruffled because she knew what the answer was but obviously couldn't answer it truthfully. Funny, but pathetic.
Others on here say that it is Republicans mired in the Obama/Hillary rhetoric. I would say it is the opposite. Because our (emphasis on OUR) President isn't Obama or Hillary, most liberals are hell bent on disrupting and destroying any chance that Trump could have a successful Presidency. Fortunately, America is watching this behavior, and although just enough registered Democrats voted fro Trump for him to win battleground states, if the election was held today according to recent polls, Trump would defeat Clinton by the popular vote as well. That is despite all media outlets except Fox doing their best to discredit Trump daily and continually.
She even lied when she answered the question, "Do you always tell the truth?" It was funny to listen to her waffle around a response, clearly uncomfortable and ruffled because she knew what the answer was but obviously couldn't answer it truthfully. Funny, but pathetic.
Others on here say that it is Republicans mired in the Obama/Hillary rhetoric. I would say it is the opposite. Because our (emphasis on OUR) President isn't Obama or Hillary, most liberals are hell bent on disrupting and destroying any chance that Trump could have a successful Presidency. Fortunately, America is watching this behavior, and although just enough registered Democrats voted fro Trump for him to win battleground states, if the election was held today according to recent polls, Trump would defeat Clinton by the popular vote as well. That is despite all media outlets except Fox doing their best to discredit Trump daily and continually.
What's odd is that despite the differential between government spending relative to the arts, US cultural influence is hegemonic and European influence is impoverished. Jazz, blues and blue grass are American art forms and Hollywood dwarfs the rest of the world artistically. France spends 20 billion dollars a year on the arts and the result is the veneration of Jerry Lewis, a second rate american comic. No one cares about opera or ballet. American orchestras are every bit as good as European ones. Literature is hard to compare, but if there is a novelist as talented as Cormac McCarthy anywhere he's in rarefied company.
Exit question. Sweden spends 3 percent of its national budget on the arts, which is 100 times what the US spends in relative terms, about 15 billion dollars. Name a Swedish musician (ABBA?) or film maker remembering that Ingmar Bergman's dead. Pro tip: you can't.
Class of 72
Active member
.....and needless to say no musical group in Sweden possessed, to quote Wiki, "exacting recording standards, and intelligent use of sardonic, sarcastic, historic, political and scatological themes in their lyrics" as The Weasels.
Excerpt from an article from 2012:
"Arts supporters in the United States often look to our more cultured brothers and sisters across the Atlantic Ocean with longing for their civilized systems of arts funding that provide far more capital per resident than our own. The numbers just look so inviting: Germany’s federal government, for example, plowed some 1.22 billion euros, or about $1.7 billion, into its cultural ecosystem in 2007. That investment of over $20 per German citizen absolutely dwarfs the 41 cents per red-blooded American provided by the NEA. What artist wouldn’t want to live there?
But that comparison is deceiving, because United States has a secret weapon: the charitable tax deduction, and more importantly, the culture of private giving that has grown up around it. It turns out that the counterpart to all that money that Americans give annually to the arts just doesn’t exist in Germany, or any other developed country for that matter. Oh, to be sure, it would be inaccurate to say that there is no private giving in Germany – there is, and there are tax incentives for it too. But according to a 2006 analysis by Charities Aid Foundation, the USA’s charitable giving is more than seven times that of Germany’s as a percentage of GDP – and no other country in the sample comes even as close as half. Assuming that the percentage of money given to the arts is comparable between countries, we can figure that German arts organizations receive something on the order of $250 million per year in private funding, compared to $13.3 billion on our side of the pond. How do you like them apples, Berlin?
Perhaps that’s why, in the face of recession-induced cuts, a number of governments in Europe are starting to give the American model more serious consideration – and a number of European arts organizations are going after American donors. Which highlights another downside of a government-dominant system: any shock to public revenue streams could be life or death to grant recipients, rather than just another challenge to overcome. A survey of arts groups in the UK found that more than a ninth of those who lost their funding in a round of government cuts intend to close up shop, and another 22% considered themselves at risk of failure. And this was after relatively mild cuts of 15% from Arts Council England, which is already a bit of a hybrid between the European and American system. Dutch cuts of 25% last year resulted in a dramatic reshaping of the national cultural landscape that particularly affected smaller and grassroots institutions. Following federal government cuts of 100% in 2010, staff at Sarajevo’s National Museum have gone unpaid for seven months! Here in the US, we fight hard every year for the NEA to survive, and we should – but there is nevertheless some comfort in knowing that if it goes away, the arts won’t be dragged down the drain with it"
Think we're doing just fine supporting the Arts as compared to other countries.
"Arts supporters in the United States often look to our more cultured brothers and sisters across the Atlantic Ocean with longing for their civilized systems of arts funding that provide far more capital per resident than our own. The numbers just look so inviting: Germany’s federal government, for example, plowed some 1.22 billion euros, or about $1.7 billion, into its cultural ecosystem in 2007. That investment of over $20 per German citizen absolutely dwarfs the 41 cents per red-blooded American provided by the NEA. What artist wouldn’t want to live there?
But that comparison is deceiving, because United States has a secret weapon: the charitable tax deduction, and more importantly, the culture of private giving that has grown up around it. It turns out that the counterpart to all that money that Americans give annually to the arts just doesn’t exist in Germany, or any other developed country for that matter. Oh, to be sure, it would be inaccurate to say that there is no private giving in Germany – there is, and there are tax incentives for it too. But according to a 2006 analysis by Charities Aid Foundation, the USA’s charitable giving is more than seven times that of Germany’s as a percentage of GDP – and no other country in the sample comes even as close as half. Assuming that the percentage of money given to the arts is comparable between countries, we can figure that German arts organizations receive something on the order of $250 million per year in private funding, compared to $13.3 billion on our side of the pond. How do you like them apples, Berlin?
Perhaps that’s why, in the face of recession-induced cuts, a number of governments in Europe are starting to give the American model more serious consideration – and a number of European arts organizations are going after American donors. Which highlights another downside of a government-dominant system: any shock to public revenue streams could be life or death to grant recipients, rather than just another challenge to overcome. A survey of arts groups in the UK found that more than a ninth of those who lost their funding in a round of government cuts intend to close up shop, and another 22% considered themselves at risk of failure. And this was after relatively mild cuts of 15% from Arts Council England, which is already a bit of a hybrid between the European and American system. Dutch cuts of 25% last year resulted in a dramatic reshaping of the national cultural landscape that particularly affected smaller and grassroots institutions. Following federal government cuts of 100% in 2010, staff at Sarajevo’s National Museum have gone unpaid for seven months! Here in the US, we fight hard every year for the NEA to survive, and we should – but there is nevertheless some comfort in knowing that if it goes away, the arts won’t be dragged down the drain with it"
Think we're doing just fine supporting the Arts as compared to other countries.
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
I don't understand why people look at Europe as the standard for anything. Never mind the long view, just look at the last 100 years.
By and large the left cherry picks which other countries they want to use as a standard for us. You won't see them using UK right now as a standard for health care, not with what's going on with little Charlie Gard. You also won't see them using Poland as a standard for immigration, in spite of the fact that terrorist attacks in Poland have been non-existent. They'd rather use France as the standard for immigration since it's worked out oh so well for them.
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
When I hear about the NHS, all I can think of is the ridiculous 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony
beast of the east
Active member
I'm often rankled by the number of PBS shows that are sponsored by the NEA. Certainly I'm a considerable fan of PBS, but so many of their productions and shows have alternative means for revenue: resale of previously broadcast shows, premium website access for content, charges to stream through other services, books. magazines, even devices, etc. I'm sure their balance sheet shows not for profit, but I'm also as confident that some productions are getting people quite wealthy.
Lots of questions about PBS:
Info on PBS:
PBS is funded indirectly by Congress through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; which funds both PBS and National Public Radio). For fiscal year 2010, $281m out of CPB's $422m appropriation went to public television, $210m to local stations and $71m to PBS directly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub...). In 2010, PBS had revenues of around $570m (http://www.pbs.org/about/media/a...), meaning federal funding via CPB accounted for about 12% of PBS 2010 annual revenues. Note that some of that federal funding for local stations will also make it back indirectly to PBS in the form of programming fees, so the total percentage could be considered higher.
More broadly, it makes sense to look at federal funding as a percentage of total US public television spending, which is much larger because the bulk of spending and production occurs at the local level. According to the Association of Public Television Stations (http://www.apts.org/legislative/...), total US public television revenues were $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2008, 19.2% of which came from federal sources (both CPB and non-CPB).
Lots of questions about PBS:
Info on PBS:
PBS is funded indirectly by Congress through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; which funds both PBS and National Public Radio). For fiscal year 2010, $281m out of CPB's $422m appropriation went to public television, $210m to local stations and $71m to PBS directly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub...). In 2010, PBS had revenues of around $570m (http://www.pbs.org/about/media/a...), meaning federal funding via CPB accounted for about 12% of PBS 2010 annual revenues. Note that some of that federal funding for local stations will also make it back indirectly to PBS in the form of programming fees, so the total percentage could be considered higher.
More broadly, it makes sense to look at federal funding as a percentage of total US public television spending, which is much larger because the bulk of spending and production occurs at the local level. According to the Association of Public Television Stations (http://www.apts.org/legislative/...), total US public television revenues were $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2008, 19.2% of which came from federal sources (both CPB and non-CPB).
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
He was one of the ten to lose the tug of war to Mr. Joseph Young of Africa
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
That's going to leave a mark.
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