News From the Control Tower - 05/06/2020
This week's reads feature:
1. Berkshire Hathaway conducted their annual shareholders meeting virtually this year. Warren Buffet cautioned investors not to be overconfident, while proclaiming “You can bet on America.”
Warren Buffett’s Optimistic? Pessimistic? No, Realistic
2. Both David and Danielle love the moviegoing experience, and are on AMC’s side in this dispute with Universal over the Trolls World Tour movie.
AMC Theatres Refuses to Play Universal Films in Wake of 'Trolls World Tour'
3. In honor of May Day: a labor success story for Domino’s workers in Southern California.
Domino’s Is Raking in Money. What About Its Employees?
4. We’ve seen a lot of press about meatpacking plants, but Coronavirus has also infiltrated other critical food factories, including a bread mix factory in Southern Illinois.
5. Is anyone else itching to go see a live concert? Rolling Stone provides an in-depth look at the state of the concert business. It’s not just fans and musicians hurting, but also the venues, their employees, bouncers, roadies, and more who work summer concerts and festivals. Current estimates put lost revenues for the live-music business between $5 and $9 Billion this year.
The article also includes this hopeful insight from Micah Nelson:
Micah Nelson, an avant-garde musician and son of Willie Nelson, has turned to Isaac Newton for inspiration. “During the plague in Isaac Newton’s time, he had just completed study at Oxford,” Nelson says. “He was slotted to join faculty. The epidemic caused the university to shut down for two years. He went to a private cabin and created the foundation of what would evolve into quantum physics. Who knows what people will create when they are faced with four walls and the sudden contrast to an assumed freedom? When the beast gives chase, even the most numb of minds remember that they are alive.”
Inside the Week That Shattered the Concert Business
Bonus: Americans without retirement savings are increasingly moving in with their millennial children. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has predicted that half of today’s workers will not have enough savings to sustain their standard of living when they retire.