Re: Re: "How to Kill Orchestras" - NY Times


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Posted by Bill Nazzaro on July 03, 2003 at 11:09:01:

In Reply to: Re: "How to Kill Orchestras" - NY Times posted by Socialist on July 02, 2003 at 00:25:09:

I wanted to respond to this thread, and picked this place as a spot to reply to some things I read along the way. I am not commenting on this post, as much as the thread that it spawned.

First of all, debt is a lousy way to fund a group that depends on donations. No church should run a debt unless they are building to expand (thus increasing revenue) or purchasing land (to increase in size, to increase revenue). No orchestra should run a debt unless they are building or purchasing land (and frankly, in either type of organization, having a fund drive for capital expansion is better than taking on debt).

People should not run a debt (boy, I wish I knew that 10 years ago). Yes, we take on mortgages and school loans, but individual debt in this country is too high.

Government debt is too high. In a recession, the government should run a debt and increase spending, short term, as a stimulus. When the economy is back on its feet, the government should pay off that debt. The Republican administrations of my life (excluding Ford) have done a great disservice to this country by placing us in so much debt. The current administration is running about $290 Billion in the red so far this year, but does nothing to curb spending or fund government. We have troops in two conflict zones, and yet we finance this with more borrowing while we cut taxes on unearned income. If your adjusted gross income is over $56,800 (married filing jointly) working a job, you are now taxed higher than if you earn that same amount of money through capital gains or dividends. Why is work valued less than investment? Aren't both important to society?

I digress, my pointis that debt is bad. I think the problem facing orchestras is that they are unable to live within their means. That is a management issue. Something Chester Schmitz said to me was that the BSO was the best job in the country because it had the Pops. And that institution has such broad appeal, people in Boston line up on cold winter mornings to get tickets for the Holiday shows. Rick is right in saying that orchestras should look more to Hollywood composers to try and lure new audiences to their concerts.

Regarding federal spending on music. I checked the NEA website. There are 16 disciplines listed, including music, opera and musical theater as three separate categories. Just on "music" (not opera, not musical theater), the NEA paid grants in 2002 totalling over $4 million dollars (ranging from $5K to $140K) to 174 groups. The average donation was over $24,000. The median donation is about $15,000. (These are all my own calculations, so the accuracy can and should be checked.) We spend money supporting the arts. The question becomes, do we care if in the long run, only New York, Philadelphia, LA, Boston, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas and Chicago have orchestras? If we cut funding to music, the major orchestras would survive, because tourism and local and state governments will pick up the slack there. It is the Savannahs and the Louisvilles and the San Joses that we should worry about. Maybe they will not make it. Hopefully they will. I have said before, the majority in this country work too hard for too little so that the few can have too much. We continue to lose jobs, but productivity grows (fewer people working harder). We are not put on this planet to make money. We are here to live. To do that, we have invented capitalism as a way to manage the division of labor. But it is not a perfect system, and there must be controls. We don't eat contaminated meat in this country because of the FDA. The air we breathe is cleaner because of the EPA. Government is not bad. Yes, local control is better than federal control for some things. But if everything were dispersed locally, the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer.

Finally, I leave with this thought from out of left field. Single payer universal healthcare will save money compared to the system we have now. Why? Doctors provide service, not insurance companies. However, insurance companies make money providing insurance. A not for profit entity that disbursed money to doctors to pay for patients would be more efficient than the piecemeal we have now. Where doctor choice is limited by your insurance company, and your insurance company is limited by where you work. And if you lose your job, you now get to pay for your insurance out of pocket, just what you need when you are looking for a job. And emergency rooms don't send people away if they can't pay, so those who can pay are paying for themselves and for those that can't. And productivity would be better if people spent more on preventative medicine than once they can no longer work, or have to miss work for procedures and sick days. And small businesses would be able to compete better for workers if they didnt' have to provide healthcare.

Take it away, Rick.

Bill Nazzaro
If you've read this far, you either really love me, or really hate me ;)


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