Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* The Eurotunnel -- or "Chunnel" -- linking England and France lost $1 billion in 2004. In 2003, the Chunnel lost $2 billion. Unless debt-rescheduling steps are taken, the Chunnel will run out of money in 2007 -- but the latest talks on Eurotunnel's debt were unproductive.

* In 2005, ad revenues taken in by Yahoo! and Google combined will pretty much equal the prime-time ad revenues of America's big-three TV networks. Yet, while the Web now represents 15% of consumers' "media consumption" (great phrase!), firms generally allocate only 2% of their ad dollars to the internet. Many young people already spend more time online than they do watching TV. (Source: the print edition of The Economist.)

* The decline in conventional newspaper-reading not only continues but is accelerating. The latest audit reveals a 1.9-percent drop in daily circulation, and a 2.5 percent decline in Sunday readership compared with a year ago. Meanwhile, in 2005 the newspaper medium is celebrating its 400th birthday.

* Forbes expects revenues from their online operations to equal print revenues within two years.

* Should prices be put on such "goods" as watersheds, fisheries, and forests? Some ecologists and conservationists are morally offended by the suggestion. But The Economist argues that doing so would help achieve environmental goals.

* Of the many, many illegal immigrants living in the Los Angeles area, around 30,000 are convicted felons. Membership in some LA gangs is overwhelmingly made up of illegals: for example, at least 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang is illegal -- the gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia. Lovely. Heather Macdonald reports on the insanity for City Journal.

Best,

Michael

On dead-tree media:

"Both newspapers issued statements acknowledging the declines and saying they were investing heavily to improve results."

One of the ways the local fishwrap is "investing heavily" is giving away free "subscriptions". They cold-called us with an offer for a free sub (I don't now recall the duration, but ISTR 3 months). After a few weeks, we realized that we weren't reading it enough to make it worthwhile to deal with disposing of the unopened editions. They were remarkably reluctant to cancel our subscription.

"The New York Times posted 0.2 percent gains." "...home delivery had expanded to 318 markets from 266...."

That doesn't look like an increase to me. Sure the per day sales are going up, but the per market sales are going down (number of markets up 19.5%, circulation up 0.2%). Not numbers that would make me happy.

Obviously this is a simplistic analysis; circulation is almost certainly dominated by NY sales. Still, they seem to be increasing their sales overhead while not especially increasing their income.

"That young people aren't reading newspapers is a pretty fatal formula for any business."

Just a misquote or misstatement, but it still struck me as funny -- "any business"?

Posted by: Doug Sundseth on May 6, 2005 4:38 PM

"Should prices be put on such 'goods' as watersheds, fisheries, and forests? Some ecologists and conservationists are morally offended by the suggestion. But The Economist argues that doing so would help achieve environmental goals."

Ah, but they’re not interested in "achieving environmentalist goals", are they? (If they were they'd be in favor of prices, but they're not - modus tolens.)

The reason most environmentalists are in the movement is to a) confirm their anti-bourgeois bona fides and b) find an excuse for bossing the rest of us around.

The book to read is Free Market Environmentalism by Terry Anderson.

Posted by: Brian on May 6, 2005 5:38 PM

Will the Airbus A380 be in the same dire straits as the Eurotunnel in the near future?

Posted by: Bill on May 6, 2005 7:35 PM

"Will the Airbus A380 be in the same dire straits as the Eurotunnel in the near future?"

Mostly Asian airlines have already ordered a decent number of 380's. Whether enough will sell to make the project a success is yet to be determined. One thing that's not likely to happen for a long time, if ever, is for any U.S. airlines to order some.

Posted by: Peter on May 8, 2005 2:03 PM

"f the many, many illegal immigrants living in the Los Angeles area, around 30,000 are convicted felons. Membership in some LA gangs is overwhelmingly made up of illegals..."

Oh, you know, the illegals, they're not such a big problem...I mean, come on, they're just doing jobs that Americans don't want to do, and for less money. You know, cleaning houses, picking lettuce, running drugs, territorial violence...

This kind of thing needs more attention--or at least more serious study. Would the same numbers of gang members exist without the border problems? I doubt it; more aliens means a swelled population in poverty with relatively few options--and a crowding out of what little economic opportunity existed in these communities. Sounds like a recipe for crime to me.

Posted by: Scott Cunning on May 10, 2005 3:55 AM






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