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Closing the Hollywood
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Posted on Apr 21 2008
It is simple basic economics that businesses with a high overhead and engaged in providing more or less “luxury” items or services cannot long exist in a situation where the buying public can’t even afford the basic necessities of life. As people’s budgets become more and more strained and they begin to wonder where the next real meal will come from, there is little interest in such things as cake for desert, thousand dollar dresses, movies in a theater or a night on the town. This is especially true for the theater when you can wait a few days or weeks and rent the movie from your neighborhood video store for a tenth the price of a night at the movies.
It may not make much difference anyway if no one has power in the home to run the TV or CD player—but then neither would the movie house. And just how much would a ticket cost to cover the expenses of operating the “house” and showing a first run movie for the four or five people who might be fortunate enough to have the extra money for such an extravaganza? And what about the moviegoer wannabees on Tinian? There hasn’t been a movie theater there in 50 years!
The people of the CNMI are used to waiting for things; after all, they’ve been waiting for 30 years for a Governor to come along with something coming from the mouth besides a surgically implanted, everlasting “smile” and the same empty promise. It has been said by many wise persons that “People will not notice when you kick them in the ass as long as you do it with a smile on your face.” That system has been perfected in the CNMI during the last two years—and the people still wait.
[B]Dr. Thomas D. Arkle,Jr.[/B] [I]Formerly of San Jose, Tinian[/I]
