While the second installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series didn’t exactly blow the roof off the box office, I definitely didn’t see this coming.

As Hollywood grapples with the difficult economics of its business, Walt Disney Studios has canceled plans to partner on the next film in the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”

A Disney spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that the Burbank studio decided not to exercise its option to co- finance the third movie in the franchise based on C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s books because of “budgetary considerations.”

In 2005, Disney produced the first modern film of the Chronicles of Narnia. Costing about $180,000,000 to film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe pulled in more than $745,000,000 worldwide. When you make three quarters of a billion dollars, you know you’ve got a popular product. The sequel cost a bit more, around $200,000,000, but it pulled in about $420,000,000 worldwide. Neither of these totals includes DVD sales and rentals.

This drop in profits — from around 565 million dollars to a mere 220 million — is what prompted Disney to back out of the project. The Voyages of the Dawn Treader (my second favorite book in the series) could cost even more to make, as it is a sea story with dragons and ocean battles and visits to multiple islands, and pools that turn things to gold, etc. etc. etc.  (Walden Media hopes to find another financial partner and start shooting the film in the spring.  Here’s crossing my fingers that they do!)

Not big enough profits is why the franchise that’s actually turned a profit is the one that they’ll cancel.  For the likes of dismal movies like “Valkyrie”???

While both movies have made changes in plot and story (Caspian more so than the first - I didn’t care for the rivalry between Peter and Caspian), Disney wanted changes in this installment as well, changes Walden Media did not care for.  I’m wondering if the ability to “soften” the Christian themes (as they have already done to appeal to a mass market) becomes more and more difficult without destroying the plot is part of what is making Disney chicken out, not just diminishing profits.  After all, it does conflict rather strongly with the worldview and many themes in Disney movies of late.

I love puns — especially bad ones.  So I’m going to share this one, courtesy of Pearls before Swine:

I love this story –

Dressed head-to-toe in military fatigues, her camouflage pants tucked into combat boots and her hair pulled back in a tight bun, Maureen Peltier stood nervously outside a classroom at Eastmont High School Friday morning waiting to spring the first of three Christmas surprises.

A little more than a day earlier, she left her National Guard unit in Iraq for an unexpected two-week Christmas leave.

Peltier was about four months into a year-long tour of duty in Iraq with the Seattle-based 81st Brigade when she got word she would be able to come home for the holidays. She initially thought she would be traveling home on Christmas Day, but the trip was moved up a week.

She kept her impending visit a secret from her three children. …

She first surprises her son.

As they waited out of sight, Principal Mark Marney walked into Susan McCray’s Spanish class and announced he had an early Christmas present for one of her students.

The teens all looked toward the door as Peltier timidly walked in and scanned the room for her son, Michael Aspen. She quickly spotted him on the far side of the room and hurried toward him as her eyes filled with tears. The 16-year-old looked stunned and didn’t say a word.

“You don’t have to cry in front of everybody,” she said. “I will.”

Michael wiped away tears, as did several of his classmates.

Go read the article to see the reactions of her 12 and 9 year old daughters…and if you’re not misty-eyed by the end of it, you’d give the Grinch a run for his money.

Snow falls seldom enough around here, that it’s a delight (rather than a chore) when it does.  So dog and I went for a walk.  This is outside my front door:

And when we got back, this is inside my front door:

Perfect!

From the Washington Post article, “Advocates for Action on Global Warming Chosen as Obama’s Top Science Advisors.”

President-elect  Barack Obama has selected two of the nation’s most prominent scientific advocates for a vigorous response to climate change to serve in his administration’s top ranks, according to sources, sending the strongest signal yet that he will reverse Bush administration policies on energy and global warming.

The appointments of Harvard University physicist John Holdren as presidential science adviser and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which will be announced tomorrow, dismayed conservatives but heartened environmentalists and researchers.

Holdren is a physicist who’s best known for his dire forecasts of overpopulation, which doesn’t exactly seem an inspired choice as a science advisor.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here at home just outside of Seattle, with temperatures at my house around 20 degrees (about 15-20 lower than average) last night, waiting for an unseasonably large snow fall to hit tonight and they’re going to tell me that it’s getting warmer?

Okay, okay, I know the fact that it’s cold and snowy doesn’t disprove global warming.  But can we at least stop trying to pretend that the science is settled?

Look, most of the stuff they want to do doesn’t bother me in the least.

Alternative energy so we aren’t giving $billions to countries who want to destroy us.  Clean air.  Clean, uncontaminated water.  Less landfill.  Becoming a culture that is not so enamored with ‘throw-away’ goods.

Not bad things. The bad part of the program is using unproven science to guilt and coerce people into “spreading the wealth” around by enforced confiscatory fees, taxes, credits, etc.  Which will cost us, big time.

After saddling taxpaying Americans with about 2 trillion in bailouts and handouts due to the mess they made in the mortgage industry,  Congress is congratulating itself once more by bumping up its own pay.

“A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay. Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.”

Not that long ago, lawmakers demanded that high-paid executives work for free to help their financially struggling companies. Evidently, legislators are not willing to at least freeze their generous $169,300 annual salary (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes $217,400 and minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100) for the good of the nation.

It’s symbolic of an institution so out of touch with everyday life — and that’s what really ticks me off.

It should come as no surprise that I am deeply opposed to the auto bailout.  The House passed it, and the Senate is debating it today.    “It” is a $14 billion bailout — excuse me, loan to the Big Three car makers.  All of which is to be overseen by a “car czar.”

A “car czar”?  Are you kidding?  Who is this unknown genius who can pull industries out of the tank? What a man of mystery he must be, since with talent like that, he should be worth billions — or writing for Dr. Seuss.  Frankly, the $14 billion would be better spent giving it to a monastery and asking them to pray 24/7 for a miracle.

Look, the problem is pretty simple.  In 2007, GM and Toyota sold almost the same number of vehicles, about 9.36 million vehicles. 

But GM lost some $30 billion and Toyota made $17 billion.  The “something” wrong with that picture is pretty obvious, and throwing money at the manufacturers’ unions is not going to make this better.  I believe reorganization under chapter 11 is the surest way to success.  Get out from under the union thumb, gather some consumer confidence by building cars Americans WANT. The alternative is bad on too many levels. 

You grow up, get married and gain debt, just like pounds, whether you like it or not. You can not avoid it. What speaks well of you is if you manage your debt and not let your debt manage you. My wife and I have tried to do this as well as we can given we are living on one income. Our mortgage is paid every month right on time. So are our taxes and credit bills.

But Congress wants to penalize me and 90% of the country for being responsible. They want to take my tax money and bailout the other 8% of the country because they were not responsible. I say 8% because I would bet that roughly 2% of the ongoing foreclosures were not the fault of the people who own those homes. I think 2% may be a little high, but there have been a lot of layoffs lately because a lot of companies want to keep the profits at the levels they had a year ago and that simply is not going to happen.

If you think that the percentages are off, first check out how many total foreclosures there are now against the total number of mortgages currently in the US.

When we got our mortgage, we were required to pay off all of our other debt, like credit cards, car loans, etc. It was a requirement if you wanted the loan. So when we got our brand new mortgage, it was the only commercial debt we had.

Any responsible person getting a mortgage would make sure they had the income. It is simply good family economics. When we bought our house, we considered what would happen if we lost one income and looked for a house keeping that thought in mind. As a result, we bought a house in an area that created an hour commute for either of us. Responsibility obviously does not stop at a first mortgage, but any mortgage you get.

According to the New York Times, published on November 18, 2008, in part says:

The Treasury secretary, Henry J. Paulson, Jr., on Tuesday rejected pleas to use money from the $700 billion bailout program to help homeowners avoid foreclosure or to stave off bankruptcy by Detroit’s Big Three automakers.

Facing a barrage of complaints from Democratic lawmakers that he was ignoring the will of Congress, Mr. Paulson dug in his heels and said he wanted to put money only into financial institutions.

“The primary purpose of the bill was to protect our financial system from collapse,” Mr. Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee. “The rescue package was not intended to be an economic stimulus or an economic recovery package.”

Democrats pummeled the Treasury secretary in response, with some accusing him of carrying out a “bait and switch” by discarding his original plan and others expressing fury that the Treasury had allocated $290 billion for banks and insurance companies but nothing for individual homeowners.

But Sheila C. Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation warned that the country could expect a tidal wave of up to five million foreclosures over the next two years if the government took no additional action.

Under her plan, the Treasury would refinance mortgages for people if it is possible to reduce their monthly payments to about 32 percent of their monthly income. To encourage existing mortgage lenders to settle for lower payments, the government would accept responsibility for half of the losses if the homeowner defaults a second time. Democratic leaders have strongly endorsed the idea.

According to Reuters, December 10, 2008, Official: Re-Defaults are high after mortgage modifications:

More than half of mortgages modified in a bid to avoid foreclosure fell delinquent within six months, a top U.S. banking regulator said Monday, casting doubt on a proposal to rewrite home loans en masse.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said it is unclear why so many borrowers ran into trouble again so soon after getting help.

“Is it because the modifications did not reduce monthly payments enough to be truly affordable to the borrowers? Is it because consumers replaced lower mortgage payments with increased credit card debt?”

“Is it because the mortgages were so badly underwritten that the borrowers simply could not afford them, even with reduced monthly payments? Or is it a combination of these and other factors?”

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, has been a big proponent of a home loan modification program that would encourage lenders to rework a greater number of mortgages by pledging public money to share the cost of defaults on restructured loans.

However, Dugan’s figures suggested that the cost to taxpayers may be high. He said his data showed that of mortgages that were modified in the first three months of 2008, nearly 36% had re-defaulted after three months, and almost 53% were behind on payments by six months.

Starting to see something terribly wrong here?

John Reich, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, said he had “concerns” about allocating too much federal money to loan modifications. FDIC’s Bair said bank regulators needed to look at the redefault data “carefully” to figure out what caused so many borrowers to slip back into arrears.

Rep. Barney Frank, the Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, told CNBC that he would agree to release the remaining $350 billion to the Treasury Department “only if they made it very clear that they were wrong in refusing (to use) it for foreclosure relief.

Yup, very mature stand there.

So who is running this runaway train? Obviously a number of government organizations believe the bailout was a mistake. There is no oversight, no advertising what they are doing with our money. Simple - you can not fix a problem you have no control over, namely the homeowners and the Banks.

If someone bought a house they could not afford, what would make anyone expect them to still be able to afford the house after they were bailed out? Obviously I don’t have the right college degree because I seemed to have missed the logic in that reasoning.

What gives a homeowner the right to walk away from their debt obligation if the value drops below the mortgage amount? No one told them to get loans up to or equal to the value of the house. But check this out - they are walking, apparently without shame and refusing to take any responsibility for their own actions.

And why should I have to bail out those who were not responsible in handling their mortgage? But I am sure that I will have to do just that, given the way Congress is acting. And no one ever asked me if they could do this, the one who has been struggling to make sure my mortgage is paid on time.

As someone told me, Congress is just pandering for votes for the next election, regardless of what the cost will be to 90% of us. Mighty expensive votes for such a small group of people.

From what I see, this isn’t anything about whether the Democrats or Republicans are responsible. The CONGRESS is responsible for Congress and whatever actions comes out of there.

Hello Congress! - Is it really worth it?

Can You Hear Me Now?

Guess what?  Those of us who warned time and time again that loans to bad borrowers are loans that cannot and will not be repaid have been (unfortunately) proven right.  People who got help to make mortgage payments earlier this year are defaulting again anyway.

According to Reuters:

“Recent data suggests that many borrowers who received help with mortgage modifications earlier this year tended to re-default on their payments,” a top U.S. banking regulator said on Monday.

“The results, I confess, were somewhat surprising, and not in a good way,” said John Dugan, head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in prepared remarks for a U.S. housing forum.”

Surprising, to whom?  Any idiot should have seen this coming.  People that bought a home with zero down and an adjustable-rate mortgage with balloon payments, all on a minimal salary still can’t afford that house.

Dugan said recent data showed that after three months, nearly 36 percent of borrowers who received restructured mortgages in the first quarter re-defaulted.

The rate of re-default jumped to about 53 percent after six months and 58 percent after eight months, Dugan said, without providing an explanation for the trend.

As Ron White would say, “You can’t fix stupid.”

Meanwhile, Congress under the ‘leadership’ of Nancy Pelosi is talking about more help for homeowners. I really should have bought that $1.5 million mansion.  With the bailout, I could have stayed in it on the government’s dime.

I thought I had seen everything but apparently not. First, the Big 3 said they need $25 billion to keep afloat. After the fiasco in fumbling their request, they are back. Apparently, after finding out about the real status of the company they are supposed to have been running all this time, they suddenly found out they need even more money - $34 billion. They didn’t know that less than 2 months ago? Nope.

Based upon what is being reported by the media, Mr. Obama has indicated he wants to give them $50 billion. Do not know if that is true, I do not agree. However, follow along with me here.

They want a huge amount of money, but they say it is not a bailout – only emergency loans. Given the extreme nature of the problem and the fact they are asking for money in the first place – it is a bailout and part of the “bailout” money not intended for them in the first place. If the Congress had not approved the $700 billion bailout money, exactly what would the Big 3 have done? Would they have simply collapsed? I don’t think so.

$34 Billion for what? That is the big question isn’t it. The Big 3 have complained for years that sales have been down, that the “foreign” companies have undercut them, etc. The unions have spouted the same thing. Yet, the Big 3 did not tighten their belts and push for a viable sales plan. Nope. They have over 100 different models available. That seems very excessive in my opinion, especially since we started with ONE model.

The general public also knows that the technology has been available to produce well-made, fuel-efficient cars, yet all three of the US companies have ignored the requests of the public. The same public they expect to pay out good hard earned money to bail them out of the predicament they and the unions put themselves in.

The unions are not exempt from this, they contributed to this mess as well.  Just like the housing market, they saw a chance to grab more and more money and pushed to do so, almost obsessively. In the right environment and circumstances, unions are a good thing. Workers get help in getting reasonable wages and benefits. But by playing politics, (we have more power than you do – politics), and getting greedy has simply put the Big 3, the unions and all of the workers in jeopardy. Not to mention all of the supporting small businesses. If you keep asking for more, eventually there is no more to give because it runs out. There ARE limits to everything, even the government handouts, before something is going to give.

Is it bad to have the Big 3 simply fail? Yes, it is because a lot of people and businesses, big and small rely on the work. The “stuff-rolls-down-hill” theory does happen and would if they fail. Will any two of the 3 be hurt if one fails? Probably because we already know how intertwined they are in operating their business in the car industry

So, I have a proposal which contains a bill of conditions.

First, provide $30 billion to the Big 3, with only $10 billion made available now and $10 billion in increments, as long as progress is made. The following conditions would have to be met:

Condition 1. Each company that receives money, regardless of whether or not it is considered a “loan”, will report on a quarterly basis on exactly how they spent those funds. This will be reported to the public in a public report. If they can afford $24 billion in annual advertising, they can afford to do this. Establishes Accountability.

Condition 2. Each company will set up at a minimum one factory, location of their choice – (NOT by the choice or option of any State), which will produce 3 different size cars which will run at a minimum of 35 mpg. I particularly don’t care what they use, they can use coal or water – but make sure that 35 mpg is the true mpg. This should be no surprise – all of them have known for years the public wants it. And the cars should cost no more than $15,000 for small, $17,000 for medium, and $20,000 for large sizes. After all, exactly who can afford a car that costs as much as a house in some areas of the country? Not the general population, unless I have been severely left out….

Condition 3. Each company that takes money will reduce their advertising budget by half, minimum. No one likes seeing dozens of TV ads for cars they can’t afford or want anyway so why spend the money? An estimated $24 billion a year is spent on advertising. Reduces Company Expenses.

Condition 4. Each company will reduce their executive-level bonuses, merit pay, and performance pay. They should not eliminate the merit pay for the workers not in management positions. After all, the workers are the mainstream of the economy and if you want good products, pay your good workers accordingly. Management obviously has not done their job or the company would not be in the situation it is in. Go ahead Mr. Manager/CEO, tell me you did not see this coming. If not, you didn’t do your job. Reduces Company Expenses and increases productivity.

Condition 5. Stop advertising “cash back” incentives – simply put one price on the car and leave it alone. If you can afford to have“$6,000 cash back”, take it off the price already. Reinforces Consumer Confidence and Truth-in-Advertising.

Condition 6. The unions sign an agreement that no further increases in anything will occur for as long as the company owes any of the money. They are willing to offer concessions now, so let them. Reduces Company Expenses.

Condition 7. Establish an oversight panel which will include an equal number of regular workers from the general public not related to any part of the automotive industry. If your panel has 15 corporate people, the same number of regular workers from the public is included. All would have equal voting rights in all decision votes and all panel members would be paid equally. Publish the list of names to the public. Establishes Oversight.

Condition 8. Mandate a specific one-time interest rate for all car sales during a specific 2 year period of time. If the housing brokers can push for lower interest rates, then this should be made possible so people who need cars can afford them.

Condition 9. Donate 10% of current vehicle inventory to food banks. These could be sold though the local dealers close to the food banks. The dealers would receive a 20% cut and the balance of the money (80%) would help food banks replenish their food supplies. Tax breaks would apply to all parties concerned. Reduces inventory, Reduces Company Expenses, Provides Community Assistance.

Obviously I do not have all of the answers, and some of these conditions might be a little overboard, but guess what? The situation can’t be worse than it is already if these were to actually be implemented and these might actually help. Yes, I know, lots of luck….

In closing, consider this. I know most of this will probably not happen, because politics has already gotten intermingled in this issue. But it would be nice for Congress, the Big 3, and everyone in between to start thinking American Yankee ingenuity, common sense and just a little less greed.