2023 Time Person of the Year

[Typist Clerk]

Irrelevant to this discussion, but can someone explain the popularity of Jennifer Coolidge.

Yes, I know she started an entire genre from
American Pie. I don't watch White Lotus, but I don't think the Discover commercials are clever or funny in the least.
Is it just a goof of her playing a ditzy blonde?

I've seen her in interviews and she was terrible. Really gave vague answers and was not funny at all.

What am I missing?

I thought they were making fun of people with Alzheimer's and couldn't for the life of me figure how that would sell a credit card. I've not heard of Ms. Coolidge so didn't know this is apparently a famous actor.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Those stories made me laugh.

The billions people spent on her wasn't all new spending. It was mostly spending that was being drawn from forms of entertainment that people would have spent on instead -- a substitution effect. People can't measure the unseen dollars that would have been spent elsewhere if Taylor Swift hadn't come to town to do a concert, and you got a lot of misguided stories falsely giving the impression that she was adding money to the economy. Yes, her fans were spending a lot of money. But spending money is not the same as adding money to the economy. You need to not only look at what you can see (her fans spending money), you need to also be able to account for the unseen (that limited money her fans have not getting spent elsewhere because they decided to see her concert instead) to understand the true economic effect. Bastiat, a French guy from the 1800s, explored this, writing about "that which is seen and that which is not seen."

Listen, after decades of stadium-funding stories touting how much money they generate for local economies you can't be shocked by this.

 

[TigerVols]

Seventy-five percent of people walking by a cover at Wal-Mart or Target wouldn't know Greta Gerwig's face.

At first thought I'm inclined to agree with you but isn't she in Fox News' Great Villains Club? Seems like the only time I see reference to her is some random Fox News retweet.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Listen, after decades of stadium-funding stories touting how much money they generate for local economies you can't be shocked by this.

Related maybe. Public funding of stadiums redirects where money is spent. .. again, it's the seen and the unseen. That stadium doesn't improve the economy, it just reallocates people's money. And to the extent that politicians spending that money in their handpicked way is a much more ineficient and worse allocation of resources than the ways people would have chosen to spend that money if it remained in their pockets, it can actually have a negative economic effect relative to the "unseen" we never got. So in that way, it's not like Taylor Swift. ... where people made a choice for themselves to see her concert instead of spending their money on something else.

On the consumer side, public funding of stadiums, essentially makes person X pay for person Y's entertainment. Bastiat had something to say about that one, too, actually: "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Welcome back. Ragu.

 

[Starman]

At first thought I'm inclined to agree with you but isn't she in Fox News' Great Villains Club? Seems like the only time I see reference to her is some random Fox News retweet.

Yes, because she's (Taylor more than Greta) come out as an enemy of Fatfork. Either you're with the god emperor or you're agin' him.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Welcome back. Ragu.

Thx. I appreciate it.

 

[Starman]

Public funding of "municipal" stadiums was originally sold on the societal basis that large communities needed facilities which could host large scale collective events to provide the opportunity to participate in common activities and experiences.

This is actually true to some extent but the overwhelming reason for public funding of sports stadiums is so the billionaire owners of the sports franchises can make billions and billions more dollars.

The current shift in emphasis from the taxpayers not only paying for the stadiums in the first place has now expanded to include "stadium districts" including parking, dining, entertainment (including casinos), retail and residential, is simply continuing the trend of redirecting more (ultimately all) of the much vaunted (usually wildly exaggerated) economic benefits of stadium construction straight into the pockets of the billionaire franchise owners.


Whatever communal benefits there may be to the community or society at large are entirely coincidental.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

What's kind of funny is Coolidge is probably best known for playing a milf and she's never had children.

It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.

 

[maumann]

Those stories made me laugh.

The billions people spent on her wasn't all new spending. It was mostly spending that was being drawn from forms of entertainment that people would have spent on instead -- a substitution effect. People can't measure the unseen dollars that would have been spent elsewhere if Taylor Swift hadn't come to town to do a concert, and you got a lot of misguided stories falsely giving the impression that she was adding money to the economy. Yes, her fans were spending a lot of money. But spending money is not the same as adding money to the economy. You need to not only look at what you can see (her fans spending money), you need to also be able to account for the unseen (that limited money her fans have not getting spent elsewhere because they decided to see her concert instead) to understand the true economic effect. Bastiat, a French guy from the 1800s, explored this, writing about "that which is seen and that which is not seen."[/QUOTE

Glad to see you as well! And hopefully well.

 

[Alma]

You could, you know, click the link and find out for yourself.

I'll be really honest: It just ain't what I find that interesting in art.

But I know it's hard to get interviews with her. And Beyoncé - Beyoncé doesn't give them, I don't think.

 

[playthrough]

Those stories made me laugh.

The billions people spent on her wasn't all new spending. It was mostly spending that was being drawn from forms of entertainment that people would have spent on instead -- a substitution effect. People can't measure the unseen dollars that would have been spent elsewhere if Taylor Swift hadn't come to town to do a concert, and you got a lot of misguided stories falsely giving the impression that she was adding money to the economy. Yes, her fans were spending a lot of money. But spending money is not the same as adding money to the economy. You need to not only look at what you can see (her fans spending money), you need to also be able to account for the unseen (that limited money her fans have not getting spent elsewhere because they decided to see her concert instead) to understand the true economic effect. Bastiat, a French guy from the 1800s, explored this, writing about "that which is seen and that which is not seen."

Talk about unseen dollars, I wish there was some way to know how much money she generated on the ticket resale market. I sold a couple and it was friggin' glorious.