Re: [AGA-mcm] Dave & PAM

["S. Hieber" <shieber@yahoo.com>]

I've held back on this issue since my first comments
because my view of the matter seem to be at the extreme. So
I've been trying to figure out how to put my view forward
in a reasonable way. 

I think Karen did an admirable and clearly skillful job of
soothing DG, who was making a public issue of things, and
arranging for the possibility of AGA gaining further rights
at a very low financial cost. And she did so at our urging
-- the honor there belongs to Karen. Further, I think any
of us would have made the original deal for the paper PAMS,
back when it was made. It was a prudent thing to do at the
time, knowing what was known then. But despite the prudence
of the original deal and despite the low financial cost of
the new deal, I think we should turn it down for reasons
having to do with the "honor" aspect and the financial
aspect.

Honor -- I think honoring Dorothy and Neil is something
they deserve. They have given selflessly repeatedly to AGA
-- they deserve even more than AGA give back to them. 

It has been said that ". . . life membership for Gomberg 
as a similar honorary thing . . . It's not appropriate." I
don't think that's the right word. I think it is
*inappropriate* for DG to be given that honor. He does not
*merit* it. That may sound harsh, and perhaps he was
honorable in other years. But over the last few years it
seems whatever he's done has been suffused with
self-interest. I don't have a problem with someone being a
businessman, but what Dorothy and Neil have done, that's in
a whole diff league.

So I think the honoring would be wrong.

I supposed that, if the Board agrees to this further
purchase from DG, and AGA reports or announces it, then it
could be tactfully announced as being a quid pro quo for
the remaining copyrights of the defunct PAM, as something
done in financial consideration for something else. But I
suspect that's just the opposite of what would make the
deal attractive to DG. I think the essence of the deal is
offering him a badge of honor instead of more money. Take
away the badge, and he won't have much interest in what's
left for him the deal. 


Financial -- We have sold PAM stuff over the years. I think
what we sold of PAM stuff has almost always been in
connection with other stuff, like all 6 PAMs plus 4 TAGs as
a combo. Hard to tease out the marginal value but I believe
it's not very high. There are individual sales but rarely
in isolation from TAG sales. TAG sells PAMs so it would be
hard to set a value on PAM's contribution to the synergy.
Are there more sales than there would be without the PAMs?
Sure. But we could offer other things that would have the
same effect -- we could offer bags of peanuts and add to
sales. I know PAMs are not peanuts -- for one thing, they
are less rewarding financially. The PAMs have lost money
and there's no point throwing good money after bad, even if
the additional cost is mere peanuts. To use an exaggerated
example to illustrate my point: It's a bit like "averaging
down."  Averaging down was statistical technique used on
Wall Street for a while. You lose $1000 a share in the
stock market so you buy another 1,000 shares when you are
only going to lose $5 per share, so your average loss per
share is reduced to about $2,500 per share. Sounds good but
the total loss, of course, is actually worse.

So I don't think the further expenditure for acquiring PAM
is financially good for the AGA.


Instead of the new deal, we can keep a few copies in the
archives for historical purposes. If crying need for PAMs
arises years into the future, DG can always vend his own
disks. The hobby needn't suffer if we don't do the new
deal. In fact, I suspect that hard copies of most of the
PAMs will be available for many years to come. I can't see
paying another penny towards PAM as being financially
sound. Inexpensive? Yes. But financially sound? No.

So, is there any other reason to do a new deal? The only
one I can think of -- and this might just be the limits of
my imagination -- to avoid bad blood and possibly bad word
of mouth about the AGA. But this too I think is not a good
reason for a new deal. We made a small mistake (with the
"archive" disks) and quickly corrected it -- that's all. If
anyone wonders why we did not agree to giving DG an
Honorary lifetime membership, it's was simply because we
have a standard for the honor, and only a few people have
met that standard.

sh
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