Bailing Out the Red Light District
Nobody could imagine that pornographers would be brazen enough to line up at the government trough. But sure enough, Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt and Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild fame have asked their local Congressman, Henry Waxman, for $5 billion because, "People are too depressed to be sexually active," according to Flynt. Ever the patriot, Flynt says an unsexed nation is an "unhealthy" nation. "Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."
But the jobs that Joe Francis assured Fox Business that he and Flynt would create are likely to be jobs for intellectual-property lawyers, in hopes of benefiting Hustler and Francis's Mantra Films, Inc. at the expense of their innovative and creative competitors. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (17)
jason
Hmmmm, well lets see what I can write that will not be deleted. I think it is actually funny, because it just shows how stupid the bailout really is.
Published: February 11, 2009 12:32 PM
Mike
"Don't bailout Big Porno! Stand up for the little guys!"
"Porn stars don't need another shot in the arm!"
Any others?
Published: February 11, 2009 12:45 PM
David ch
Seems to me nobody is seeing Flynt's tongue in his cheek. Make no mistake, he'll take the money and the IP if he can get them. But I dont think he remotely expects to get away with it. The point he's making (inadvertantly or not) is that any rational argument against a porn industry bailout is equally applicable to any other industry.
Published: February 11, 2009 1:06 PM
Aaron Bilger
It seems Flynt's fooled Douglas French. Flynt and Francis even offered to drive a hybrid car to Washington to lobby before Congress, an obvious joking jab at the automakers. It's a joke/publicity on their part, unlike many of the real pigs at the trough I don't fear that we'll actually lose money to the porn peddlers, and I like that they are effectively pointing out the absurdity and endless 'me too!' nature of bailouts.
Published: February 11, 2009 2:25 PM
Philip Bitar
It's easy for us to say that Flynt and Francis are joking, but if we've learned anything from big-government governance, it's that what we recognize as absurd, they see as reasonable.
By now all bets are off as to how absurd the big-government program is going to become. All that we know for sure is that Obama is determined to make a name for himself by outdoing his mentor: FDR.
Published: February 11, 2009 2:45 PM
Philip Bitar
French explicitly says:
"Upon hearing the news of Flynt and Francis's panhandling, most people likely figured that it was all a big publicity stunt. But there really is a method to their madness."
He then carefully documents his assertion.
Published: February 11, 2009 3:04 PM
Whopper
This is perfect. When the current congress passes the "Fairness Doctrine" that the courts will find Constitutional then we need a vast government agency to police not just radio but the internet as well. Of course we could use the same folks to police non-government sponsored pornography.
And the perfect head of this Cabinet Post is??? You guessed it: The husband of the Secretary of State.... Appointment for should be a breeze as he is not only among the hundreds of thousands of folks in DC who are qualified, he is by far the best known.
Of course we will need more than 5bil. I mean this new Dept of Porn has a big job regulating the hundreds of soon to be licensed pros against the thousands of unlicensed and foreign competitors.
Published: February 11, 2009 3:58 PM
Jake Taylor
This is the quote of year for me so far:
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
~Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Published: February 11, 2009 4:31 PM
Abhilash Nambiar
This article is a work of perfection in so many ways, that if I go into details I may never stop typing.
Published: February 11, 2009 4:38 PM
C.Jacobs
Aw please, no! The porn "creativity" argument of the Boldrin Levine book (which has some qualities otherwise) is certainly the weakest of all those copyright arguments...
Basically Boldrin says: -“Porn is much better now than it used to be to Hustler’s times! (because now you can copy all the stuff easily and this magnifies the “social surplus”)”. He goes on describing the small street booth in Asia selling tons of sex magazines even though Penthouse is bankrupt, which shows the reader how “healthy” the industry still is (or should we say innovative?!?!)
That is pretty ironic.
The trouble which Levine (or Tucker I’m afraid) fail to see is also that... most reader will have to admit they lack the necessary expertise to establish what is “great” pornographic innovation is, or how much free porn really is to be considered “social surplus”. ( It’s time for Dr. Kinsella to set up one of his great polls I guess.)
Boldrin keeps thinking he can “evaluate the innovation” of any “idea” for us. That is funny.
Other than through quantifying some production aspects he cannot in fact. This may be relevant for a functional method, but when it comes to “artistic copyright” one must realize that this striving for quantifying innovation is quite absurd. It’s also a misunderstanding of the US constitution formulation in my opinion.
The flaw of this concept even shows in his critic of patent at some point, when Boldrin praises (in 2007, still… ) the “tremendous innovation” of “credit derivatives”… as quantified by measuring now obsolete banking profits I guess.
A few month after publishing, it is not certain that many readers will still agree as to how perfect creativity in the CDS sector was, considering the failure of the banking system that followed. And precisely, it seems it was the inflationary copy-pasting technique of the Fed, which led to a “tremendous overvaluation” of the quality of those innovations.
Finally Boldrin doesn’t fail to mention Spitzer as our great protector of “social surplus” when busting Sony BMG in the payola case… that’s another bad timing as a few month after publication, Spitzer became a much more credible expert for the Porn industry innovation of course.
Cheers
Published: February 11, 2009 5:26 PM
I Hate Sex
Sex is Evil
Sex is a Sin
If you have sex, you will go to hell, it's a hellish sin to look at girls, it's a hellish sin to think of sex or imaginating nude girls in your head.
It's sin to have pleasure, to masturbate.
I hate sex I don't want to go to hell !
Published: February 11, 2009 6:33 PM
Lee
Ha!
It's so true though. Being a software developer, I can honestly, and without any degree of shame whatsoever (learned about this in college, FYI), admit that the porn industry innovates a great many of the technologies used in all types of modern web design.
I'm just upset that it takes Mr.Flint and a publicity stunt like this to make headlines in the news. Madoff's Ponzi scheme is nothing compared to what the government is doing now.
Published: February 11, 2009 10:50 PM
Rebel Ally
As far as Porno-nomics goes, it would be funny if congress took them seriously for the long haul, and the newly created money created by the fed will be encouraged into the next boom for investors to go into porn. First it was the tech boom, then the housing boom, and next its the porn boom!
"Hey honey, lets make some home-ade porn, sell those videos, and some investor will buy our porn business and we'll be rich! Doesn't that sound great!"
"Hey lets buy the corner store's porn business and get rich by selling it! Best business idea ever!"
Published: February 12, 2009 12:36 AM
newson
"hustler" meets the hustlers!
Published: February 12, 2009 4:05 AM
Eric
I'm kinda curious, the author and one blogger here have said that the porn industry has created many innovations now used elsewhere.
How about a few examples of the kinds of innovation? What do they have, zero-click buying or what?
Published: February 12, 2009 11:09 AM
Brad
Well I think that some of the stimulus money is going to the arts, and, well, ....I assume the heirs of Mapplethorpe are waiting in the wings for their cut, so.....
But I think Flynt is quite wrong about being undersexed in this country... the Feds have been giving it to me, hot and heavy, for quite some time, more than I care for.....
Published: February 12, 2009 12:48 PM
Lee
Eric,
You COULD just do a google search, but if you're at work you might not want to. The following article probably answers your question:
PC World Article
Published: February 12, 2009 7:18 PM