Thursday, January 8, 2009

Bailouts Gone Wild!

EPJ regular, Nick, appears to be on top of the porn industry, and sends a link to a DealBook story headlined: Bailouts Gone Wild! Porn Chiefs Seek $5 Billion

Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt seems to have his tongue, in of all places, his own cheek and has issued a joint press release with Joe Francis, the producer of the Girls Gone Wild.

The release claims the recession “has acted like a national cold shower.” Flynt said in a statement that, “It’s time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”

Flynt and Francis said that sales and rentals of adult DVDs fell 22 percent over the past year. But, as any good Austrian Economist knows, this can't be the full story. There has to be more to the story as porn would certainly be classified as a consumer industry, and a recession is all about a move toward consumption industries.

And, of course there is more to the story. Viewers continue to move away from DVD's to the internet for pornography. Flynt and Francis report that adult entertainment Web sites — including the ones that they run — are now attracting more than 75 million unique visitors a month.

But then again it is hard to see how a porn bailout wouldn't be stimulating, perhaps we can send investigative Austrian economist, Bob Murphy, to do some on the ground research after he finishes his book on FDR and the Great Depression.

1 comment:

  1. I think my wife would want me to recuse myself from the project.

    ReplyDelete