There seems to be some confusion over how fees work, so I think it could be a good to describe it in one place. If it is already explained somewhere, please let me know and I can put a link in place of this post! NOTE: the numbers are not consistent since I pulled them across different blocks, but they are close. Also, these are the fees as of 8/5/2014. They may change.
When you perform a blockchain operation (e.g., register an account or register an asset), you pay fees. Before paying the delegate, your feels are added to a running total of fees to be paid out. You can see the total running fees that still have to be paid out here:
"blockchain_accumulated_fees": "122,421.75559 BTSX"
Once the fees are added to "blockchain_accumulated_fees", the delegate producing a block will get paid the following fee:
blockchain_delegate_pay_rate=specific_delegate_percentage_pay_rate * blockchain_delegate_pay_rate
where
blockchain_delegate_pay_rate = blockchain_accumulated_fees/(number_of_blocks_produced_in_two_weeks)
the rest of the fees are destroyed and blockchain_delegate_pay_rate is the pay rate when a delegate has a 100% pay rate. This smooths out large investments such as registering assets. The current maximum pay, that is when a delegate as a 100% pay rate, can be seen with the console command get_info:
"blockchain_delegate_pay_rate": "1.01193 BTSX"
Delegate registration fees are equal to:
(blockchain_delegate_pay_rate * number_of_blocks_produced_in_two_hours)/number_of_delegates
That means that a delegate breaks even if they are a delegate for two hours with 100% pay rate.
This can be seen with "blockchain_get_info" console command:
"delegate_reg_fee": "7.20891 BTSX"
Asset registration fees are based on the total fees delegates should receive over a two week time, which (at this moment) is the same as "blockchain_accumulated_fees" and can be seen with the command "blockchain_get_info":
"asset_reg_fee": "122,320.80000 BTSX"
Hopefully this clears up some of the misconceptions and helps the discussion going forward!