Penny Lane

So, there was that little matter of Faux News having to pay most of a billion dollars to settle a defamation suit against them. Maybe we should have pointed out the most annoying part of that equation:

They can afford it. 

Elon Musk launched a rocket into what was nearly space and it blew up four minutes into what would have been its historic first mission. The entire program that would eventually put a private company, SpaceX, in charge of pushing human beings into orbit around other celestial bodies is estimated to be around five billion dollars. That big bang you heard when their rocket failed to launch? 

They can afford it. 

It brings me back to a bit that comedian Dana Carvey used to do about Paul McCartney looking for his wallet. "Hey Linda love? Didja see me wallet? It musta got stuck in the couch or somethin'. I had three quarters of a million dollars in it." It's funnier if you add the Liverpudlian accent.

The joke remains. It's funny because Sir Paul might not miss three quarters of a million dollars if he happened to misplace it for a while. Out here in the cheap seats, we're still picking up the occasional penny and putting it aside in hopes that we'll scrape together fifty of them eventually to make a roll. When was the last time you suppose Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk bent at the waist to pick up anything, much less a penny? When was the last time you suppose Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk bent at the waist?

For me it's a matter of corporations being people. Roll up enough of those pennies and suddenly you don't need to acknowledge their existence. The pennies involved in the day to day business of running Faux News. Rupert Murdoch would like you to pay approximately eight thousand dollars to air a thirty second ad on his "news network." Elon Musk would like you to pay eight dollars to put a little blue check mark next to your made up name on Twitter. That eight dollars is supposed to "verify" you. 

Last time I checked, there are still a whole bunch of people anxious to pay for either of those opportunities. If you don't advertise, you don't make money. If you're not verified, how would anyone know that you were real?

I'd love to talk about this more, but I've got to get back to looking for pennies on the sidewalk.