Friday, February 20, 2009

The Price of My Research

As I mentioned before, I was working on a project to calculate and assess which countries would be the "best" countries to move to should the US collapse. Several of you expressed interest in the research, but as also mentioned before I would be charging for it.

Understand this is not because I wish to fleece any one individual, but once research is published it more or less can be copied and sent elsewhere and soon it's effectively free. Additionally, given the most likely corporate users of this information would be banks and financial institutions (banks and financial institutions that got us into this mess and are now taking my tax dollars), I feel an appropriate fee would be $1500 for my report.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quoth the Captain "I feel an appropriate fee would be $1500 for my report."


Good for you, hope you get it.


Punchington Out

Anonymous said...

Wow! . . . *shakes head* ditto to what Ram said.

Captain Capitalism said...

Hey, check what the Economist Intelligence Unit charges for just ONE of their reports! And my report is not only infinitely better, but more practical.

Anonymous said...

I would pay 1500 Zimbabwe dollars for it.

Anonymous said...

I can only guess...

China?

Anonymous said...

Besides... we all know what the true answer is... YOU'LL PROBABLY OVERLOOK POLAND IN YOUR REPORT (which is the best place evah).

Hot Sam said...

If you actually do analysis, you're earning more of that $1500 than most people. In my job we seek information all the time and most of it is public information that is conveniently or artfully compiled. These reports range in the hundreds to thousands each and even more for subscriptions. There's big money in data collection and dissemination if you can find customers, but marketing is your biggest expense and biggest challenge.

Set yourself up a website as an economic consultant. Prepare sample products and cull data sources so you can keep up the flow. You can make money off of one-time pass through business or continuous updates. If you have access to the Multiple Listing Service, something as simple as home inventories is actually a scarce commodity. Realtors publish that info on blogs, but you can never trust the source because, for them, it's always time to buy or sell.

"Every job is a sales job."

Anonymous said...

and has better pictures and charts and pretty things!

Anonymous said...

Good luck! I don't live in the US, so the results of your project are a mere curiosity to me.

Please report back on how "supply and demand" works in this instance!

Andrew L said...

Think of it in terms of opportunity costs, guys. If the US collapses, it's going to cost the average American a lot more than $1500 unless they get out in time. And if they pick the wrong country to emigrate to (Nepal, say, or - worse yet - France) it might cost them even more. Cappy's report would be a bargain at double the asking price if America is as screwed as he thinks it it.

Not that I'm going to be shelling out for it. I already have two things that are much more valuable: a Canadian citizenship and enough hubris to think that the American economic troubles won't penetrate the wall of oil money western Canada is currently hiding behind.

Anonymous said...

To get your customers to take you seriously, you may have to charge as much or more than your competition.
John (Shakespeare's Debtor -- aren' we all?)

Anonymous said...

You go Cap!
Caution though - if your advice is deemed valuable by the wrong people, they will demand you give it to them free. Fortunately for us, those people are guaranteed to ignore it.

Captain Capitalism said...

I did not forget Poland. And Poland is a good place.

I will inform you how supply and demand works in this instance. I have all the supply as I'm a monopoly and no other company has compiled this data. Demand is nothing right now and because of my "attitude" companies will refuse my data out of spite. But when Uncle Obammie runs out of money and is done raping the producers of this nation, I think demand will increase to the point they might be willing to shell out $1,500. Of course with the collapsing dollar I might require $150,000, but if it comes to that, eh, I'll take gold instead.

Anonymous said...

How much would the captain theoretically want if it was "for personal use only", assuming such a deal could actually be done without the risk of the report ending up being published?

While $1500 is a bit heavy for someone (like me) who is only interested in it for personal use, and has no reason to make it public, I thought I'd ask, theoretical as the question may be.

//hpx

Anonymous said...

Captain

$1500...You really are a capitalist !!

And my guess is the sovereign state of Wayzata.

Wowplayer said...

If you receive a cumulative total of $1500 for it, will you give it to everyone?

Anonymous said...

Only fair. I'm not sharing my terribly clever idea for a private K-12 school chain for free, either.