As if we didn’t have enough problems with which to contend.
I’d already worried myself into a frenzy about the Hollywood writers’ strike, and now, as consistent with my worst fears, the players on the stage have joined them on the picket line.
Not literally, of course, because how can our most fabulous, photogenic lovelies be expected to parade back and forth in front of Corporate HQs, carrying signs? Each of them, I think, has a guy for that, who will do just as well.
Leading them (and their proxies) in this righteous cause is that modern day Mother Jones – Fran Drescher. That she is perfectly credentialed for the duties of President of the Screen Actors Guild cannot be disputed. She, after all, managed to complete a partial semester at the City University of New York, but dropped out, according to Wiki, “because all the acting classes were filled”.
She then enrolled in cosmetology school.
Apparently, though, the outcomes of the latter did not manifest into a lifelong career. So, college classless, she nonetheless had a nice run as an actress (reaching her pinnacle, in my judgment, during a “Saturday Night Fever” cameo, wherein John Travolta very rudely denies her romantic overtures).
But the glory days of actors, and even more so actresses, are criminally short. So, like Cagney, Reagan, and Heston before her, she eventually took up the cudgel of representation of those marvelous grease-painted toilers on the large and small screen, as the head of the organization pledged to guard against their serial exploitation.
And this past week, she made her move to seize collective bargaining immortality. Her organization has now officially given notice of its intention to withhold services — until such time as improved working conditions can be secured.
At issue, at least according to published reports, are demands to protect the membership from the evolving caprices of Artificial Intelligence.
They have my full empathy. Lotsa folks is skeerd about this, and rightfully so. I’m not sure, though, what they expect Management – who themselves may soon be replaced by chatbots – to do about it.
And then there’s this. What on earth are the rest of us, mere mortals that we be, supposed to do?
Like, for instance, on Tuesday nights, heretofore devoted to The Bachelorette?
Watch reruns of Mr. Ed?
On further consideration, that doesn’t sound so bad.
So, I reckon the unwashed masses will survive. I have, however, less confidence in the outcomes for Guild members, who may be in for a rude schooling. Because, at the end of the day, while I am sure the stuffed studio shirts on the other side of this job action deserve the nastiest outcomes that The Fates can bestow upon them, they are not in fact the primary culprits in this SAG morality tale.
Rather, it is wretched, dismal economics itself that is most to blame. The current and latent supply of produced filmed content simply overwhelms associated demand. There are, for example, over a Billion YouTube videos out there, and, if most lack the narrative nuance and production values of, say, Real Housewives of Sheboygan, at least the price is right.
I therefore suspect that the Hollywood types will be impelled to learn the hard-won lessons of other industry proles, such as auto workers, and, by the way, musicians, and authors. Which goes like this: when a product – particularly as catalyzed by technological advancement — can be manufactured and distributed more efficiently by new entrants and methods, legacy industry participants lose virtually all economic leverage, and strikes become exercises in futility.
I’m not sure if they covered any of this in cosmetology class, but the quicker Frannie figures this out, the better off she and her constituents will be.
Somehow, some way, though, the markets survived these ominous developments.
But then again, it was a week of encouraging news everywhere outside of the scope of the bright lights.
Inflation reports were Boffo, out of this world:
And if anyone is short of shocked at these developments, well, they simply haven’t been paying enough attention.
Perhaps, even probably, Pi will return – maybe with a vengeance. But meantime, it bears pausing a moment to reflect on the singular blessings of an ~70% reduction in little more than a year.
If you anticipated this and didn’t monetize accordingly, I have little sympathy for you.
But I did not. Anticipate it, that is. And I’d be a bit less astonished if the associated pricing moderation were accompanied by a significant economic slowdown, which has only been the case in every single inflation battle in recorded history. But Q1 GDP projections, with the official results set to be revealed in a mere fortnight, are clocking in at ~2%, which they teach us in economics (though perhaps not cosmetology) school is well-nigh a perfect growth number.
All the University of Michigan surveys came in on Friday as smash hits as well, and about the only negative to any of this is that 10-year yields, which had risen rather alarmingly to > 4% but then backed off, are again on the rise. But as one of my fave econ profs used to like to state – interest rates will tend to fluctuate.
The overwhelming consensus among those who give a care is that the Fed, notwithstanding the stellar inflation news, is gonna kick rates up one more time this month. Amazingly, I’m not convinced anyone will notice. Unless and until Inflation re-ratchets up, they’re probably – no matter what anyone else is saying — done after this one — for a while.
Q2 earnings and guidance, by contrast, are evolving into, if not “Must See TV”, then at least worthier of notice than I had anticipated a few weeks ago. The banks lead off with something short of a Blockbuster, but JPM blew the doors off – perhaps as reward for their patriotic willingness to accept the First Republic franchise at essentially zero cost. Their main competitors fared worse, and, of course, fancy pants outfits such as Goldman Sachs, whose names grace so many marquises, don’t even report till this coming week.
Again, this will bear watching. But the real action sets up for the following Mon-Fri cycle, when the big tech dogs begin to bark out their fortunes and prospects, when GDP tallies drop, and when the FOMC lays its next round of righteous interest rate wisdom on our asses.
It all reminds me of those special, multi-part TV plots that unfold their tales across multiple episodes.
Like when somebody tapped J.R. Like the Bradys’ (whose house is somehow still on the market) trip to Hawaii.
Like when Frannie the Nanny dragged her boss to the altar.
I don’t think I ever watched any of these shows, and now, in solidarity with the Screen Actors Guild, I will keep my TV screen dark. I am pretty sure that there were marginally happy endings to all these sagas, and I anticipate, short term at any rate, similarly pleasing outcomes for the markets.
But I will offer the following disclaimer. If, somehow, Inflation remains submerged at or below target policy levels, and if this transpires without, at some point, an accompanying nasty economic pullback, then I will be entirely gob smacked. About the only explanation I could possible identify is that the global economy has operated with a deficient money supply since at least before the Big Crash (and particularly post lockdown), and is only now, > $40T of new fiat currency later, catching up with itself.
But somehow, this doesn’t ring true to my training. So, it may be time for me to burn my economic textbooks and seek out new professional horizons.
I am indeed considering enrolling in cosmetology school. It strikes me to be as good a way as any to make a buck, and, somewhere down the road, maybe to the leadership of a mighty labor organization.
Of course, by then, we’ll probably have chatbots, or even physical robots to do our picketing for us.
Meanwhile, I can lead the action from my couch, blessedly watching reruns of Mr. Ed on my phone.
TIMSHEL