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France Goes After Actor Salaries; Sunday Shopping "Reform" French Style Posted: 13 Dec 2014 01:19 PM PST A move is underway in France to cut aid to movies if the salaries of the stars is too high a percentage of the cost of production. The Wall Street Journal reports In France, Popular Actors May Pay for Change in Funding for Films. Effective Jan. 1, the Centre National du Cinéma, the government agency that funds film production, will shun films in which the pay to the star actors exceeds a certain percentage of production costs. The limit varies depending on the budget; it is set at 5% for films costing between €8 million and €10 million.Preposterous Film Setup The entire process is preposterous from start to finish. France should get out of the movie-making business altogether. Instead it pays subsidies to films that the free market would never create, then to pay for that boondoggle it charges a tax on every ticket, every DVD, and every TV station. With all that graft, it's no wonder some actors are overpaid. Yet, it's highly likely that some are actually underpaid. The problem is government would have absolutely no way of knowing. With all the subsidies and taxes, it's impossible to know who is overpaid and who isn't. What we do know is that dozens of bad films are subsidized in the name of "preserving culture". It's the same setup in France's agricultural industry, and everywhere else one looks as well. For example, please consider Sunday shopping rules. France Seeks to Liberalize Sunday Shopping France-24 reports France Wants to Increase Sunday Shopping. The French government wants shops to open on more Sundays, according to a proposed reform to be unveiled this week, but the measure is running into opposition.Sunday Shopping "Reform" French Style
This is so controversial, debate is at the highest levels. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said "Paris in particular was at risk of seeing visitors go elsewhere to spend unless retail laws were loosened." Nonetheless, Valls noted "there will be a debate" about the proposal. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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