Constant Viewer Ponders The Movie Business

Not so very long ago a movie had to gross $100 million to be considered a bona fide summer blockbuster. Today, however, $200 million is the new $100 million and a movie that grosses a mere tenth of a billion doesn’t even hit the top 400 all-time domestic grossing movies. That’s not adjusting for inflation, by the way. Gone With The Wind grossed a mere $198 million dollars, but, hey, they were 1939 dollars and a dollar bought just a teeny bit more back then. (In round inflation adjusted numbers, GWTW grossed around $1.5 billion.)

The summer of 2008 has had its fair share of blockbusters, in any case, even at the new $200 million threshold: Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Hancock, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man and The Dark Knight, the last three having already grossed over $300 million each and several, especially including The Dark Knight, still raking in the box office cash.

The interesting question to Constant Viewer at this point is how far The Dark Knight can go. Obviously, it’s got sprinter’s legs, having beaten Mummy III this weekend and stayed in the #1 slot in its third week out. But, let’s face it, Mummy III is probably the weakest of this summer’s big movies. Still, earning so far just $5 million shy of the $400 million mark, The Dark Knight now ranks 8th all-time in domestic gross, probably marking the first time Warner Brothers has had a film in such rarefied company since Bogart. (Okay, CV just made that up. Basically, however, aside from the Harry Potter franchise, WB hasn’t exactly been a major player for a long, long time. And CV has the handfull of Time-Warner shares to prove it, too!)

This isn’t going anywhere, in case you were wondering. CV simply finds the business of show business, the industry part of the film industry, interesting in and of itself. So when a movie like The Dark Knight comes along (and CV actually plunks down the purchase price of a ticket twice for it!) he wonders just how big it might end up being.

One thing’s for sure. The Dark Knight is not going to come anywhere close to striking range of, oh, say, Titanic. Here’s a Box Office Mojo page devoted to comparing the two, together with Shrek 2 and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace just for good measure. Notice that Titanic (a) didn’t open all that big, but (b) ended up with a domestic gross of over $600 million. That makes it the biggest PG-13 movie and roughly the fifth or sixth highest (inflation adjusted) grossing movie of any sort, period. Why was it so big?

Because it was a romance men didn’t mind going to see. Or it was an action / disaster movie women didn’t mind going to see. Take your pick. But the next huge, history making movie isn’t likely to involve superheroes or animated characters of any sort and it won’t have to be rated PG or G, either. Somewhere in Hollywood someone is studying Titanic and figuring out that romantic adventure, not romantic comedy, is where the money’s at. At least that's Constant Viewer's best guess. Now, if only he could figure out a cleverly tragic, romantic way for the hero to die in front of his lover in the last act of his screenplay!

We Interupt Rush Limbaugh for This Important Message...

It should come as little surprise that, the likes of Air America having failed so miserably, the "progressive" left is abandoning (yet again) the notion that it can compete in that metaphorical “marketplace of ideas” better known as talk radio. Their solution?

...any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs. We suggest three ways to accomplish this:

-- Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.

-- Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

-- Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

So, in a nutshell, the perspective here is that because leftist talk fails to “compete” in one particular news and information medium regardless of how predominant it may be in all the rest, the public interest justifies greater regulation to require its inclusion, the public's actual preferences be damned.

On a personal note, I’m not a big fan of most of the programming from the big radio chains (or, for that matter, conservative talk radio) any more than I am of the boringly identical mall chain stores and restaurants one finds everywhere in America these days. I search out Mom & Pop restaurants when I am traveling and I miss the (often cheesy) programming of independent radio and television stations of my youth. But whether my preferences are optimally served by changes in these markets is irrelevant to whether this poses some sort of action requiring public interest crisis.

But what I find most amusing about these recommendations is the third. Thank you, Center for American Progress, for frankly, albeit indirectly, acknowledging that “public broadcasting” is an essentially left wing enterprise.

Do Recent Female Graduates Face Wage Discrimination?

Writing in the Washington Post, Amy Joyce reports on a new study by the American Association of University Women concluding that women "earn 20 percent less than men at the same level and in the same field one year after college graduation." If the study is sound, it undercuts standard explanations for the wage gap based on women working fewer hours or in more family friendly jobs or taking time off for child rearing. Moreover, Joyce reports:

Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning 69 percent of what men earn. A 12 percent gap appeared even when the AAUW Educational Foundation, which did the research, controlled for hours, occupation, parenthood and other factors known to directly affect earnings.

Unfortunately, the study itself is not readily available. I'm not sure why. (Ms Joyce, did you have access to the full report and examine it yourself, or are you relying on the AAUW press release?)

Even if it is only subconscious, discrimination may be the primary cause of both the initial and the subsequent delta. Alternatively, Carnegie Mellon economist Linda Babcock suggests that a significant factor may also be that women are less likely to negotiate effectively or negotiate at all for higher salaries.

Babcock conducted a study in 2002 that looked at starting salaries of students graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with master's degrees. The starting salaries of men were 7.6 percent higher, or almost $4,000 more, on average, than those of the women. It turned out, however, that only 7 percent of the female students had negotiated, but 57 percent of the men had asked for more money. The students who negotiated increased their starting salaries by 7.4 percent on average, or $4,053. That's almost exactly the difference between men's and women's average starting pay.

I can offer only anecdata here, but both my own experiences fresh out of college and my observation of my college age son's job market experience to date suggests to me that few, if any, recent graduates do much serious negotiating unless they are in sufficient demand that they have multiple offers. Still, I certainly don't deny that could be a factor, nor for that matter that discrimination is at play. What else could be at play that might count toward explaining the pay gap immediately out of college? What was available at the AAUW site included the following:

Men and women remain segregated by college major, with women making up 79 percent of education majors and men making up 82 percent of engineering majors. This segregation is found in the workplace as well, where women make up 74 percent of the education field and men make up 84 percent of the engineering and architecture fields.

Okay, so there are over four male engineering or architecture graduates for every female and roughly three female teachers for every male. My guess, and it is only that, is that the education market is more likely to pay a premium for diversity than the engineering or architecture market; that is, that school systems seek male teachers and pay more for them more than engineering firms seek or are willing to pay a premium to have female engineers in their employ. I'd also guess there are far more teachers than engineers in the U.S., so it would be useful to see how those numbers broke down by field of work and how, in turn, they were aggregated to show an average pay gap.

Do I have any evidence for this? Not a whit. Might this sort of possibility be taken into consideration and discounted or otherwise accounted for in this new study? Sure. Conjecture about a study as reported in a newspaper is little if anything more than sheer speculation.

So much for speculation; now for a little ideological ax grinding. Discounting government jobs for which there are pay bands and such, employers are supposed to hire the best people at the lowest salaries acceptable to those employees. Thus, for example, and regardless of general or average differences in the psychological perspectives or negotiating skills of men and women, a prospective employer wishing to hire a well qualified but insecure man and an equally well qualified but highly confident woman will rationally offer the woman more than the man for the same job. That isn't discrimination any more than vice versa; that's business.

So, too, we are often told that, for example, equally qualified black engineers earn less than white engineers. This could be a function of discrimination if only in the sense that a black engineer may believe, correctly or not, that his job opportunities are fewer than his white counterpart and so be willing to work for less. But if a rational employer knew he could hire equally well qualified black engineers for 80% of what he was paying his white engineers, he'd be a fool not to hire black engineers and realize the cost savings until, as it inevitably would, the greater demand for black engineers closed the gap. Now, any number of employers may be both fools and racists (or sexists) but they aren't all discriminating fools. Some capitalist who values profits over people (and isn't that the leftist stereotype of a capitalist anyway?) will jump at the chance of hiring cheaper labor; hence, the outflow of many jobs to foreign, cheaper labor markets. That will in turn pressure his competition to hold down or reduce labor costs, also reducing any gap caused by discrimination.

The point here is that there is a market for employers just as there is a market for employees and both such markets are subject to market forces. Moreover, whatever discrimination may exist in both those markets may just as often be attributable to employee attitudes and dispositions as to such attitudes or dispositions on the part of employers.

Meanwhile, before we all go jumping to conclusions about a sexual pay gap among recent college graduates, might we at least take a look at the study making that claim?

Think Locally, Act Globally

“The church of global free trade, which rules American politics with infallible pretensions, may have finally met its Martin Luther,” writes William Greider in The Nation. I wasn't aware that free trade advocates had been selling plenary indulgences, but Luther in this case turns out to be retired IBM executive and current president of the Alfred P. Slone Foundation, Ralph Gomory. Gomory wrote in collaboration with economist William Baumol, a book entitled Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests some seven years ago. As Greider puts it, the “book languished in academic obscurity and until recently was ignored by Washington policy circles.” As C. Montgomery Burns might say with a view to the latest elections, “Recently, eh?”

I haven’t read the book, but the gist of Greider’s lengthy review is an approving belief in Gomory’s thesis that the rise of multinational corporations engaged in free trade on a global level has resulted in and will continue to result in a net real loss to the U.S. economy. “If nothing changes in how globalization currently works, Americans will be increasingly exposed to downward pressure on incomes and living standards.”

Lucky for us, Gomory has a solution which Greider reports as follows:

Gomory's vision of reformation actually goes beyond the trading system and America's economic deterioration. He wants to re-create an understanding of the corporation's obligations to society, the social perspective that flourished for a time in the last century but is now nearly extinct. The old idea was that the corporation is a trust, not only for shareholders but for the benefit of the country, the employees and the people who use the product. "That attitude was the attitude I grew up on in IBM," Gomory explains. "That's the way we thought--good for the country, good for the people, good for the shareholders--and I hope we will get back to it.... We should measure corporations by their impact on all their constituencies.

Should we, now? And if so, can’t one make a reasonably good case that the constituencies of a truly multinational corporation include the world’s population and not merely the home nation of its incorporation?

Greider trots out the usual snippets about how other nations both protect their own economies and lure U.S. corporations to outsource primarily manufacturing facilities and acknowledges that this constitutes a win for both the emerging nations’ economies and for the corporations. But, alas, “there is another effect beyond the benefits for those two parties--high-value-added jobs leave the U.S.”

Well, yes, if your idea of a high-value-added job is working on an assembly line in a semiconductor factory. Exactly how high paying such a job can be and for how long it will remain so is another matter. Yes, various Asian nations effectively took the electronics manufacturing market and a good chunk of the automobile manufacturing market away from the U.S. over the past two or three decades. And now as the standard of living and cost of labor have risen in those nations, they, themselves, are facing essentially the same phenomenon as those very same manufacturing operations are now beginning to be outsourced to other, less developed nations. Golly, imagine the third world actually having the opportunity to work and grow its way out of poverty. Why, somebody ought to do something about this!

And, sure, the U.S. continues to import more and more goods and services as more and more goods and services at lower prices (and sometimes higher quality) become available. As a result, ignoring for a moment the lost U.S. jobs this process necessarily also entails, we nonetheless all benefit as consumers. And, sure, such benefits accrue only so long as we do, in fact, have jobs and, what’s more, jobs paying enough to be able to afford those foreign bargains.

So what about those lost jobs? Greider says, “Free-trade believers insist US workers can defend themselves by getting better educated.” Well, yes and no. On the one hand, the days of a U.S. labor force in the manufacturing sector earning salaries commensurate with that of their parents and grandparents in the manufacturing sector is probably gone for good and it is unrealistic to expect that the remaining blue-collar work force will be able en masse to educate itself to a comparable earning level in a different sector.

On the other hand, just as we are on average vastly better off economically in this post-industrial economy than we were during America’s primarily agrarian economy, it is far more likely than not that our expanding economy will continue to create a new job market as well, and not only of the burger flipping variety. (For that matter, when, oh when, is someone going to build robots to replace the largely incompetent workforce in what, once upon a time, was called the fast food industry?) Refresh my memory, how many computer related jobs were there in the U.S. thirty years ago?

But, sure, the notion that everyone is a winner all of the time in a free market is absurd and, yes, the disparity between the per capita wealth and earning capacity of the U.S. and other Western nations vis a vis the rest of the world will eventually close in a global market. Yes, also, although that is primarily because such a global market will result in an expanding economy on a world-wide basis, it is also a function to some extent of supply and demand in the labor market – more people capable of performing factory jobs or, for that matter, computer programming or any other jobs capable of outsourcing will result in downward pressures on the price of such local labor.

Which gets to the nub of what is wrong with the notion that the U.S. needs a protectionist national policy. First, it won’t work, neither here nor anywhere else. Not, at least, in the long run; and, yes, while in the long run we may all be dead, our children and grandchildren will not. Second, national protectionist policy is simply local protectionist policy writ large. Read Greider’s article and replace in your mind every mention of the U.S. and foreign nations with, oh, say, Michigan and Georgia (as, indeed, the same sort of progressives as Greider not so long ago routinely did and sometimes still do) and ask yourself if interstate commerce has turned out to be nearly as disastrous as international commerce is now supposed to become? Ask yourself, also, just how much you would have to earn to be able to afford the vastly higher prices and lower quality and choices of a truly local economy by comparison to the market you enjoy today.

These are not, I think, questions Mr. Greider takes very seriously. But if a painless global economy is a fairy tale so is painless protectionism. And only in fairy tales do we all get to live happily ever after.

Would You Like To Donate The Change To D.A.'s Crack Habit?

Watching some DVD movie set in the 1950’s the other day, I was struck by a bit of dialog where one of the characters tells the others his new Buick cost $2,700, which means new automobiles cost roughly ten times what they did back then. That led me to remember that as a child I had a weekly allowance once of thirty-five cents. A kid could actually buy stuff with thirty-five cents then. Not much, maybe, but some things. Candy bars were a nickel and there was a store within walking distance that had a whole display case of penny candies and another store that had racks of ten cent toys. No, the proprietors of these stores were not named Ike Godsey or Sam Drucker.

And, no, this isn’t about how things are so much more expensive these days, either. According to my father, who lived through the Great Depression, a young man possessed of thirty-five cents even in 1957 had the world at his feet. Why, back in ’32 he could have booked first class passage on the Queen Elizabeth to sail him to his villa on the French Rivera and still had a quarter left over. But unlike my father, who never really grasped the notion of inflation, I understand the difference between the real and nominal value of money, so I have refrained so far from boring my own kids with stories of what vast wealth that loose change found under the sofa cushions once represented. They seem to understand inflation, too, or at least the real value of a quarter these days. They never bother picking up the change lying about the house, anyway.

Not only are we all, on average, much richer than we were fifty years ago, some goods like food and clothing are actually cheaper in real terms than they were back then. Both rising real incomes and the lower cost of some necessities has resulted in our spending a significantly smaller percentage of the former on the latter.

I’m talking middle-class here, but even the poor in America have it better in many respects than the poor of previous generations. In some respects they even have it better than previous generations of the middle-class. You want to pay 1950’s prices for health care? Are you willing, also, to get 1950’s results?

Actually, what all this is leading up to is a curmudgeonly complaint. I wanted to set the stage first, though, to make it clear that I do understand that the marginal value to me of anything less than a dollar, let's say fifty-eight cents, is next to zero. Even so, it simply drives me crazy when the cashier at the grocery store check-out line these days finishes scanning and bagging my groceries and then asks me “Would you like to donate the change to [insert charity here]?”

Where did this extremely bad idea, that seems to be sweeping the retail nation, come from? I mean, really, who’s responsible for this affront?

Okay, before I go on with this rant, it’s time for the second disclaimer. Look, I have nothing against the Heart Association or the American Cancer Society or Katrina Relief or whatever charity-of-the-month these stores are collecting for. They’re all worthwhile causes and people should support them and I personally make contributions to some of them on a regular basis. Really I do. I’m a much nicer guy than you’d guess from reading this blog. Really.

But fergawdsakes, not like that! In the first place, I went to the grocery store to buy bread and milk. Okay, so maybe beer and cigarettes, what’s the difference? The point is, that’s the deal – they sell groceries, I want to buy groceries, they’ve got a big sign out front that tells me I can buy my groceries there, so that’s where I go to buy them. Sometimes those signs tell me I can buy stamps and prescription drugs and maybe even do my banking inside, too, but there isn’t a word of warning anywhere about dunning me for a donation. And they don’t mention breast cancer in those inserts with all the coupons in the Sunday paper, either. So, basically, it’s an ambush.

What they do is they wait until the very last minute when you’re standing there in line, trying to find your “courtesy card” for the “discounts” and punching in your debit card pin number on the point-of-sale pad and there’s a line of fellow customers in back of you, all of them anxious to pay for their stuff and get the hell out of there too, and the woman right in back of you is already eying you suspiciously because she thinks those three apples you didn’t bother putting in a plastic bag should therefore count as three items toward your fifteen item express lane limit and your bill comes to $37.42 and then and only then does the cashier look you square in the eyes and ask “Would you like to donate the fifty-eight cents to AIDS research?”

And, of course, you can’t say no. After all, you just finished buying a six-pack, potato chips and a copy of People, so if you begrudge those noble AIDS researchers a measly fifty-eight cents you’re going to look like the world’s cheapest cheapskate and the woman standing behind you, who strikes you as just a wee bit butch anyway, will be convinced you’re a homophobe to boot!

So naturally you say sure, take the damned fifty-eight cents “but can I get a receipt for tax purposes?” No, you don’t say any such thing. You just give up the change and as you’re leaving the store maybe you wonder why you don’t feel the same mild and fleeting sense of having done a good deed, however small, you feel when you give a panhandler the same amount even though you know he’s just going to spend it on cheap wine or drugs.

The reason you don’t get even that tiny frisson of smug self-satisfaction you get from giving to the derelict is because, deep down inside, you know you’ve just been had. Regardless of the amount at stake, unless an act of charity is genuinely voluntary it’s just another strong-arm shakedown, albeit of the psychological variety in this case.

By the way, I certainly don’t blame the poor cashier. She’s got a boring, low paying job, she’s on her feet all day and she’s only doing what her boss told her to do. Sure, I’d like to fight back, maybe say to her “No, I don’t think so, but what other charitable options do I have? After all, you folks gave me a choice of four different brands of peanut butter, not to mention smooth or chunky. How about passing along my fifty-eight cents to the Leukemia people, instead?” but, of course, I don't.

It’s simply none of Safeway’s or Kroger’s business whether you or I want to contribute to charity or not just as it’s none of your employer’s business when the office jerk makes the annual rounds for the United Way and that stupid placard by the front entrance tracks the amount pledged and the percentage of employees pledging. Okay, so maybe that’s just part of the deal of being an employee, even though it shouldn’t be. You’re not likely to change jobs as a result. But maybe you should consider changing supermarkets.

Okay, maybe not even that. It would probably cost you more than fifty-eight cents, gas prices being what they are, to drive to another store and back, and besides you know where everything is at your favorite store and it has better meat or produce or whatever. And, sure, it’s a trivial matter economically and maybe you aren’t annoyed by it, anyway. Maybe you think it’s a great idea. Maybe the stores have research showing that more customers like it than not and their sales actually go up as a result. Who knows?

Maybe this is just the wave of the future. Why bother making your own charitable decisions when the good folks at Whole Foods or Piggly Wiggly can make them for you? After all, didn’t you just spend five minutes already fretting over whether to go with the Pilsner Urquell or the Anchor Steam? Life is too short and, besides, the game starts in fifteen minutes. Keep the change. Gotta run.

Is Blood Thicker Than WD30?

Returning home from a family outing today, we drove past one of those hole-in-the-wall used car dealerships one finds scattered throughout the nation. However, this particular enterprise was, if not unique, certainly different from any I’ve ever seen before. Along with the signs informing prospective buyers of easy credit financing and such was another sign prominently proclaiming “Bail Bonds.”

Now, just in case you’ve never needed to avail yourself of the services of a bail bondsman, let me briefly explain. Those charged with serious crimes typically will be held in custody while awaiting trial unless they can post bail in whatever amount the court decides is sufficient, let’s just say $10,000, to ensure the defendant will show up in court. If he does, he gets the ten thousand back; if not, he doesn’t.

Of course, the defendant may not have ten thousand dollars available to post bail, in which case he can go to a bondsman and pay usually ten percent of the bail, in which case the bondsman posts the bail and assumes the risk of loss. As with used car salesmen, bail bondsmen may not number among society’s elite, but they serve a useful function. Combining those functions, on the other hand, seems a bit, well, conflicted.

SALESMAN (BONDSMAN): Afternoon, sir. What can I do for you today?

CUSTOMER: Well, my brother Billy’s been arrested and I need to get him out of jail.

SALESMAN: I see. What was he charged with?

CUSTOMER: Um, vehicular manslaughter.

SALESMAN: That’s a shame. First time offender?

CUSTOMER: Oh, hell no. Billy’s had four DWI’s already and enough speeding tickets to choke a hog.

SALESMAN: Hmm. Well, then, it doesn’t look like his chances of being acquitted are all that promising.

CUSTOMER: No, I guess it doesn’t.

SALESMAN: Tell me, just out of curiosity, was there much damage to the car he was driving?

CUSTOMER: Are you kidding? The drunken fool totaled the car. That’s why I had to ride the bus to come see you.

SALESMAN: Oh dear, that is a shame. And how much was bail set at?

CUSTOMER: Ten thousand dollars.

SALESMAN: I see. Well, sure, come into my office and we can start the paperwork right away and have him out first thing tomorrow morning. If... well, if that’s what you want, that is.

CUSTOMER: Why sure it’s what I want. Why’d you ask that?

SALESMAN: Well, it’s just that will cost you a thousand dollars, nonrefundable of course. You do have a thousand dollars, don’t you?

CUSTOMER: I sure do. I’ve been saving it up, um,... for a new car.

SALESMAN: Well, now, that really is a pity because, you know, I have several extra clean late model vehicles at the moment I could let you have for a thousand dollars down. And from what you tell me, it looks like your brother is going to end up in prison, anyway. But I understand your dilemma. After all, blood is thicker than water, and I must say I admire you for your loyalty under the circumstances.

CUSTOMER: So, um, tell me. How much do you want for that red convertible?

Have You Blown Up A Ford Lately?

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally came to the rescue of better known but lower paid CEO George W. Bush last week by preventing the president from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of a Ford hydrogen-electric hybrid vehicle being demonstrated at the White House. Said Mulally, "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen. This is all off the record, right?"

Now we know why Mulally makes the big money. He's been in Job #1 at Ford for four months now, pulling down a tidy $28.2 million a year to try to salvage the auto maker from itself. Ford managed to post a record $12.7 billion loss in 2006.

No word so far on whether Mulally will personally accompany other Ford hybrid users to ensure their safety or why, for that matter, plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank is even remotely possible even for the likes of President Bush.

Google Buys All Internet Porn Sites, Launches You-bOOb (BETA)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: gOOg) today announced the acquisition of the last remaining internet porn site and launched its newest and most ambitious Google product to date, You-bOOb. "Let’s face it, 99.999% of both internet sites and internet traffic is for porn, so obviously that’s where the real money is," said Google co-founder and President Larry Page. “And we ought to know. If you took away the approximately one trillion porn searches using Google every day, hell, we could run the rest of the whole operation from a couple of old Apple II’s we’ve got sitting around up in the attic.”

Page’s Google co-founder, Sergey Brin elaborated further. “Basically, by buying up every single internet porn site – which, by the way, was effected largely by transfer of shares of our already absurdly over-priced common stock to the prior porn site owners – we have not only provided the internet porn seeker with a simplified, one-stop search process for all his pornographic needs at You-bOOb, we have also significantly enhanced the access speed for the remaining 0.0001% of internet traffic. Plus, of course, it makes it that much easier for us to data-mine the amazing amount of, let’s just say, ‘valuable’ information we’ve been collecting about the perverse and disgusting habits of the millions of internet users we’ve been keeping track of since we first launched Google.” “Oh, and also it’s lucrative as hell and we thought of it before Bill Gates did!” Page chuckled.

Industry financial analysts have already reacted favorably to the announcement, noting that pornography is practically the only thing that makes a profit on the internet, anyway, and raised Google's average one year target price estimate from $567 to $12,348,931 per share.