THE VOTE PUMP

A GOOD THING TO REMEMBER

SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY COVERAGE BEGINS LIVE AT 6 P.M. EDT

LARRY O'CONNOR LOOKS FOR THE YOUTH VOTE IN SOUTH CAROLINA

 


BreitbartTV Editor -In-Chief Larry O'Connor looks for the "youth vote" in South Carolina.

DR. MEL PASSES AWAY

Dr. Mel passes away at 66: wtnh.com

Here is Dr. Mel's Final Forecast for WTNH.

 

Dr. Mel's farewell forecast: wtnh.com

THE STORY BEHIND THE PARAMOUNT LOGO

 
  
Myfilmviews.com has the inside story behind one of Hollywood's most iconic images.

POLITICAL CARTOON OF THE DAY

TWINKIES IMPACTED BY THE ECONOMIC CRISIS?

Hat Tip: Big Journalism 

It appears that Hostess, the makers of all that good food we love,  is going into bankruptcy.

Although Hostess has sales of $2.5 billion annually, that’s not enough to keep up with the rising costs of ingredients like flour and sugar …
… Annual sales have been hovering around the $2 billion mark, but unfortunately these sales have not been able to keep up with rising costs … Rumors are also swirling that Hostess will try and renegotiate labor contracts with local labor unions such as International Brotherhood of Teamsters, as well as the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Unions. The Wall Street Journal quotes a source close to the situation saying that Hostess is facing debts in excess of 800 Billion, but does not identify where these debts are coming from …

Can’t tell from where the debts originate? Read a but further into the explanation [my emphasis]:

… Hostess, a privately held company based in Irving, Texas, has outstanding debts of more than $860 million and owes over $50 million to vendors, an economic situation that sources attribute to rising prices for sugar, flour and other ingredients and higher labor costs which the company’s approximately $2.5 billion in annual sales have not been able to cover.

 If Hostess goes out of business a good 70% of the country would go into depression. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

But, you know, Hollywood’s money-driven, not political. It has to be true. The entertainment media told me so.

John Nolte 

AMERICAN AIRLINES TO CANCEL SERVICE TO BOB HOPE AIRPORT

Very devastating news for people who need to fly out of LA from today's from the LA Daily News.

American Airlines announced today that it will end its service at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank next month.

The airline, whose parent company AMR Corp., filed for bankruptcy in November, also announced plans to lay off about 150 people and shutter its service from Chicago to New Delhi.

"Our objective is to make our company competitive and more efficient in an increasingly challenging industry," according to an American Airlines statement. "We will continue to respond to operational and market changes, as we always have, and make adjustments to ensure we are competitive."

The airline will continue offering service at Los Angeles International Airport.

Bob Hope airport is often a great alternative to LAX since it is much more closer to the Bank of Kev Compound and is often less of a hassle as well. This reduction of service is going to be devastating since many flying VIA DFW like to depart arrive at Burbank rather than LAX.

GORDON GEKKO WAS RIGHT

From The Campaign Spot.

With the Bain Capital layoffs in the news — the Wall Street Journal offers a great, comprehensive review of Romney’s deals at Bain here – you’ll probably hear someone citing the famous speech from Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie, Wall Street, with the punctuated line, “Greed is good.”

I went back and checked the scene, and was struck that Gekko, villain extraordinaire, gives this speech while denouncing corporate fat-cats who are held unaccountable. Seriously, you don’t have to change a word to fit it into a typical rant at an Occupy Wall Street protest:

Gordon Gekko: [at the Teldar Paper stockholder's meeting] Well, I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me Mr. Cromwell as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That’s right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes. 

Cromwell: This is an outrage! You’re out of line Gekko! 

Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

The speech is remembered as a celebration of one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but it’s really about accountability; Gekko cites greed to motivate the other shareholders to hold the company’s management responsible for terrible performance and a culture of waste and complacency.

It's worth reading the whole thing.

UNEMPLOYMENT DROPS TO 8.5%

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics via HotAir.com

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 200,000 in December, and the unemployment rate, at 8.5 percent, continued to trend down, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in transportation and warehousing, retail trade, manufacturing, health care, and mining.

Since unemployment went down you get a GregaLogue

WHAT IS ALING HOLLYWOOD?

Many have thoughts.

Nolte: Top 10 Ways Hollywood Can Win Its Audience Back

Analysts: Hollywood's only hope next year is ticket price increase


Deadline: 2011 Movies: Brands, Budgets, & Bankability Still Don’t Explain Why Studios Are In Crisis

 Universal jettisoned an ambitious adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series that Ron Howard was to direct with Javier Bardem starring, with three feature films and two TV series runs planned. More shocking was Universal’s decision to unplug At the Mountains of Madness, the Guillermo del Toro-directed adaptation of the HP Lovecraft tale that had Tom Cruise poised to star. Because Universal would not make a $150 million horror film without a guarantee from the director that it would be PG-13 and not R-rated. At year’s end, Legendary Pictures halted plans to begin production in January on Paradise Lost, the epic-sized Alex Proyas-directed film about the battle between good and evil inspired by the John Milton poem and starring Bradley Cooper as Lucifer. The problem: the $120 million budget already had been exceeded by 10%-15% because of the high green screen visual effects costs needed to stage the celestial battles.

TheWrap:  What Ails Hollywood? Six Movie Experts Weigh In On a Cure