Is Justin Danhoff Really That Dumb? Of Course He Is.

Don't feel bad if you don't know who Justin Danhoff is. I had no idea who he was either until I read his piece that was featured in the Christian Science Monitor about Congress, gas prices, movie theatres, and "oil profiteering".

With this summer's high gas prices, Americans are trading in their traditional vacations for "staycations" – vacations much closer to home.

But compared with other things Americans might do, driving is still a bargain.

Consider, for example, the costs of going to a movie:

Oh, great. Here we go again.

To say that conservative writers use Hollywood as a boogie-man is to overstate the obvious. What isn't as obvious is that these same writers are exploiting an ignorance within certain segments of the American population that helps further their cause, helps elect their officials, helps keep people in line.

But, as much as exploitation is a standard operating procedure within the conservative movement, let me take a moment to highlight Justin Danhoff's ignorance regarding movie theatres.

To say that Danhoff is comparing apples to oranges is bit of an understatement.

In the first quarter of 2008, Big Oil had a profit margin of 7.4 percent. Over that same period, the pharmaceutical and medicine industry earned a 25.9 percent profit, the chemical industry earned 15.7 percent and the electronic equipment industry earned 12.1 percent.

What about those movie theater refreshments? Four large popcorns and four large sodas cost $31.50. The total raw ingredient cost is approximately $7.56. That equals a 76 percent gross margin. Where is the political outrage over that figure?

That's not exactly the most clever way to present an argument, as Danhoff is stacking the "percentage" of oil profits directly against the "cost" of refreshments at a theatre without backing up where he got his theatre-snack cost.

At the time of the writing, the cost of a barrel of oil is below $120.00 per barrel.

The average ticket price for a movie, as of the middle of 2008, is $7.08.

Let's say the average price for a small bag of popcorn and a soda ( also small ) is about $10. Fair?

You see, this is where Danhoff's piece starts to fall apart.

You don't have to buy snacks at a movie theatre. So, for the average family ( mom, dad, 2 kids ) the price is only $28.32. If everyone got a soda, and there were 2 bags of popcorn to share, that would make the price $48.32. That's dangerously close to the cost of a full tank of gas for a mid-sized, American-made car.

Can't make it through a movie without snacks? There's an easy solution - bring your own. I've been doin it for years. It's easy.

There is a reason that snacks cost more at movie theatres. If a theatre can't sell snacks, there's no theatre. Pretty simple to understand.

Most of the money from ticket sales goes back to the movie studio. A film booker leases a movie to a particular theater for a set period of weeks. The percentage of ticket sales that the studio takes decreases on each week that a movie is in the theater. If the screening was arranged by an independent middleman, he also takes a slice. So the movie has to pull in sizeable audiences for several weeks in order for theater owners to make any serious profits.

"Surveying about 1,000 U.S. consumers, ages 18-54, Interpret found that 52 percent of respondents said they were seeing fewer movies at the multiplex, significantly more than the 35 percent of respondents who said they were attending fewer live sports events," according to a Wall Street Journal report about the survey, which was conducted by Interpret LLC.

more here.

Movies are a "choice". Using oil isn't much of a choice for many people. Even if you don't drive, you're still using gas in some fashion. You can wait for a movie to come out on DVD and rent or buy it, but you can't just "magically appear" at work, or make it to your moms, or go to the concert without using gas to power the vehicle to get you there.

Here's some other things that Danhoff can't seem to wrap his head around:

You don't get a "matinee" price on gas before 5pm.

The comparison of gas prices to the Grand Canyon or Disneyworld versus the cost of a movie with snacks might sound impressive, but what about admission to those vacaion spots? What about food? What about people that have further to travel to "vacation destinations" - don't they have lodging costs?

Danhoff's piece is easily seen for what it is when someone with a rational thought process reads it - conservative drivel.