Consultant and big thinker Umair Haque took a look at some of the dollar figures being thrown around in the wake of Michael Jackson's death including reports that sales of his recordings have "generated more than $300 million in royalties...since the early 1980's". Haque did little math and asked:
"If the world's biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels' pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made Britney and Lady GaGa. And that's how they killed themselves: by underinvesting in quality, to rake in the take....
The world's top hedge fund "managers" regularly pull in hundreds of millions. That's an order of magnitude difference...
That's the big problem behind the zombieconomy. We don't reward people for creating, growing, nurturing, or even remixing assets. We just reward them for allocating the same old assets. That 's not an economy: it's just a game of musical chairs."
Video: How To Fight Zombies -
Haque believes that the antidote to the attack of the Zombieconomy is to be authentic and create real value. As he explains in this video, while he's speaking about the overall economy, the implications for the music industry couldn't be clearer.
Penny For Your Thoughts - Umair Haque from Sander Duivestein on Vimeo.
