1. What is wrong with business bestsellers. This is from a new quarterly, AFFDoubleThink.
2. Here is Virginia Postrel’s new articles archive. Here is her piece on child labor.
3. The current state of French wine.
4. Greg Mankiw’s advice for aspiring economists.
5. Top grossing films of all time, adjusting for inflation.
Hmm. what bothers me about business best sellers is that most of them just take one idea and repeat it until it fills a book. Is there any (modern best seller-like) business book that has more ideas than a single post on Marginal Revolution?
Interesting list of movie grosses.
But there’s probably a bias towards older films that have been re-released like “Star Wars” was; I recall seeing it in many summer re-releases, back in the days before the VCR.
It would be nice to have a table showing only grosses from one year after release, say.
Those AFF guys have a serious comment-spam problem!
Anderson – yes, I agree with you now that I’ve read your two comments. I completely forgot that Star Wars had been re-released. Peter Biskind talks about the distribution strategy of The Exorcist and Star Wars, and I want to say that the Exorcist did not make a ton of money in its first run – although it did do incredibly well more recently when Friedkin’s director’s cut was rereleased. But you’re right – that even Star Wars benefited from those multiple releases. In the old days, I think there were second and even third-run markets for these pictures, and then on top of that studios would routinely re-release the films, as they did with Star Wars. Now, re-releases are only done in the name of releasing a director’s cut, and I imagine the expanding DVD market is going to eliminate that too. George Lucas first released an updated trilogy with new scenes (the one where Han shoots Greedo in self-defense), and now I’ve read he’s going to release the original trilogy (the one where Han shoots first). I don’t think that these DVD sales are captured by these gross revenues, because these are all box office revenues, so I suspect there won’t be much movement in that top ten from here on out.
Thanks for the Biskind ref, Scott; I need to take a look at that book.
If Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln,
William Jennings Bryan, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, and Daniel Webster, are representative
of “a peculiarly American nihilism,† perhaps
Peter J. Hansen is right about Dale Carnegie’s
How to Win Friends and Influence People.
However, if I read Carnegie correctly,
he is not saying we should be friends with
everyone.
Rather I think he is saying that
when we are with our friends, neighbors,
wives/husbands, children, parents, other
relatives, and yes customers and other
people we work with – with all these people,
we will and they will be happier and more
cooperative if we follow his principles.
I first read the book about 45 years ago.
I can’t prove that following his principles has
made me a paragon of human relations (I’m not
all that good at it), but I do know this:
Whenever I violate his principles, things go worse
– particularly when I violate them when I am with my wife.
Carnegie has been well worth studying and
practicing for peace at home. Everything else he
has helped me with is a welcome bonus.
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