The old phrase: "Give your little finger to other people and they take the whole hand."

[Fading Fast]

Ever write for Financial Markets&Trading? Favorite commodities periodical...

I have not.

 

[emigran]

Welll...this thread has certainly taken a nice fork...
My initial thought about the OP message is quite light. My Dad used to always miscombobulate these well worn phrases and exclaim this one as " give'em and inch and they'll take the whole damn arm..." We'd all roll our eyes and try not to laugh out loud...

 

[Fading Fast]

The opposite is true of academics in the social sciences, for whom the use of the most tortured theoretical prose possible is essential to their identity. I read quite a few ponderous works of this nature before I realized they weren't writing to educate or inform the public, they were writing only to impress each other with their erudition. One of the most annoying books I ever read was a dense semiotic study of "the vaudeville aesthetic," which managed to leach every last possible bit of joy out of the topic. Nuts to that.

Academic Economic papers, symposiums, etc., have become a recondite language unto itself. Even with an undergraduate degree in Economics, my eyes glaze over reading that stuff. Fortunately, away from the insular world of academia, it is well understood by working-in-the-real-world economists as all but useless. And it is, IMHO, those real-world economists who are advancing the discipline for use in the real world.

 

[Harp]

... away from the insular world of academia, it is well understood by working-in-the-real-world economists as all but useless. And it is, IMHO, those real-world economists who are advancing the discipline for use in the real world.

Academic boiler plate polishing is analogous to the admixture of economics with other ingredients, academic or secular,
often resulting in a bastardized hodgepodge palatable to certain disciples of whatever stripe, cause, philosophy.
The University of Chicago Economics Department, and the late Milton Friedman, continue to serve the discipline and practice with a firmly established foundation.

 

[Fading Fast]

Academic boiler plate polishing is analogous to the admixture of economics with other ingredients, academic or secular,
often resulting in a bastardized hodgepodge palatable to certain disciples of whatever stripe, cause, philosophy.
The University of Chicago Economics Department, and the late Milton Friedman, continue to serve the discipline and practice with a firmly established foundation.

+1 to everything and super +1 to what I bolded of yours

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ah, the dismal science.

 

[scotrace]

I've been writing professionally for thirty-five years, and it was my sole source of income for about half of that time. During those full-time years I had to give up any notion of writing what I wanted to write about and learn to write about things I didn't care about in the least -- which turned out to be the best writing course I could possibly have taken.

The deregulation of the broadcating industry in the '90s meant the end of that career -- local radio news disappeared, and I wasn't inclined to throw myself into the shark-pit of competition for the few jobs that were left. But I found other writing to do on a freelance basis -- just enough to realize that if I wanted to eat regularly and stay out of the cold, I'd better find something else to do. I've been asked more times than I can imagine to write for free for this publication or that website and my response is always the same: No. Period. The only "free" writing I do is for this place. And I tell kids who want to be "writers" that if they want to be writers they'd better have a backup plan in place -- maybe a job selling popcorn.

My experience is almost identical. I'm making a living as a freelance writer at the moment, but it's a precarious existence and the lights or heat might be on or not, depending on who has paid up or who sits on the money until they're damn good and ready. Last month, I got everywhere I needed to go via bicycle for three weeks while waiting for one of three organizations to pay up. Freelancers get paid per piece, per page, and perhaps. But I'm doing what I want to do, and that has overriding value to me. I'm off this morning to interview a female judge who just got elected to a fourth term and it promises to be interesting enough to make up for the piece about the downtown Christmas sales in Amish country the day before.
I also never work for free, outside of here or for my church.

 

[Harp]

I'm off this morning to interview a female judge who just got elected to a fourth term and it promises to be interesting

Please ask her opinion regarding the Felony Murder Doctrine and intrinsic embrace of adversarial agency assign thereof.

 

[tonyb]

My experience is almost identical. I'm making a living as a freelance writer at the moment, but it's a precarious existence and the lights or heat might be on or not, depending on who has paid up or who sits on the money until they're damn good and ready. Last month, I got everywhere I needed to go via bicycle for three weeks while waiting for one of three organizations to pay up. Freelancers get paid per piece, per page, and perhaps. But I'm doing what I want to do, and that has overriding value to me. I'm off this morning to interview a female judge who just got elected to a fourth term and it promises to be interesting enough to make up for the piece about the downtown Christmas sales in Amish country the day before.
I also never work for free, outside of here or for my church.

What had me going for straight work was getting stiffed for $1900 by a publisher -- a person who got in early at Microsoft and got out with a substantial wad -- who bankrupted her publishing business, leaving me and the landlord and the printer (among others) unpaid.

Count this among the reasons I take a generally dim view of business bankruptcies. Getting stung for that kind of money, at that point in my life, was a real hardship, for me and for another freelancer who was facing the prospect of losing her housing.

And the publisher? Her personal assets were shielded, of course. If she suffered any discomfort, she gave no indication of it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the advantages of membership in the National Writers' Union is that they will pursue grievances on behalf of freelancers who've been stiffed, and they maintain a list of known deadbeat publishers. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

[tmal]

"A friend in need is a friend indeed."