answer depends on distribution of willingness to pay in remaining theater-going population, & how much differentiation there is in quality of seats in a given theater. shows can set vastly diff prices for diff quality seats (and do) rather than leave some unsold; challenge is…
...making sure low-priced seats are still unattractive enough (far back, partially obstructed etc) that they don't entice the higher-paying customers to buy them rather than splurge on good, expensive seats. (this is a challenge airlines, etc. face too of course.)
If not enough differentiation in quality, and huge differences in willingness to pay, then possible that shows would set prices high enough to leave some seats empty in order to maximize revenue.
Of course if theaters are still capacity-constrained because of covid (as they are now) there were necessarily be seats unsold by law!
Important point on ways to sell more seats while preventing theatergoers w/ high willingness to pay from buying cheap tix -- make cheap tix harder to find or use 3rd-degree price discrim (e.g. TDF only available to select groups like students, retirees)
If Biden cares about his legacy, he should make his great new child allowance permanent, and slash child poverty forever. But right now his plan is to just extend it a few years, cross his fingers & hope whoever controls govt in 2025 decides to renew it washingtonpost.com/opinions/biden…
relevant context for what a huge risk this is: in 2024, incumbent Senate Dems in Montana, West Virginia, Michigan and other purple/red states are up for re-election.
I'm told Biden wants a temporary extension, rather than permanency, b/c he wants to be fiscally responsible & keep down costs of overall plan. But doing a series of piecemeal extensions of child allowance would likely be MORE expensive in long run than making it permanent upfront
“They made the calculation that in political terms this would be something that could be used against them...The waffling is probably going to be used against them more than if they'd just stuck with doing the right thing.” politi.co/3eht569
Much of reporting about why Biden delayed implementing, & then reneged on, his promised 62.5k refugee cap suggests it was driven by fear of how Republicans would portray a higher cap—that GOP would conflate refugees w border surge & falsely accuse Dems of promoting "open borders"
My feeling is: There's a useful analogy in an observation made last year by now-Sec. Pete Buttigieg. As he noted during primary, no matter what the Democratic economic agenda, Repubs would accuse Dems of socialism. So might as well just pursue econ policies they think are good
White House correspondents have asked Psaki at least 6 times when Biden is going to raise the refugee ceiling/lift Trump refugee restrictions, as Biden announced he'd do. She has not answered. Response typically some combo of "Biden remains committed to refugees" + "no updates"
Feb 2 (from before Biden's State Dept sent a report to Congress on 2/12 about proposed 62,500 cap & admission categories) whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
Another survey about expected elements of Biden's infrastructure/families plans finds every item has support from majority of the public today.yougov.com/topics/politic…
Views on different elements vary by party. Here's net support (% "favor" minus % "oppose") by party affiliation of survey respondent.
When presented options for an infrastructure bill defined more narrowly (just roads+bridges) vs more broadly (those things + energy, water, housing, healthcare, manuf, etc), public prefers broader version by about 2:1.
The broader version is Biden's approach; narrower is GOP's
Lots of people have written to me arguing for cutting Biden slack, he's cleaning up Trump's immigration messes, the record-low refugee admissions we're on track for must somehow be Trump's fault, etc. Some thoughts on this line of argument... 🧵washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
I wholeheartedly agree that Trump did a lot to hobble the U.S. immigration system, including the refugee system. I wrote about this in depth last year: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
It will take a lot of work and resources to rebuild that immigration infrastructure & the refugee pipeline in particular. Not just scaling up circuit rides & other parts of the screening process, but reopening local resettlement agency affiliates that have closed, etc.
Biden has offered more pro-immigrant rhetoric, but he maintains Trump's discriminatory policies that effectively bar most refugees from African/Muslim countries. Biden announced he'd reverse these policies in early Feb, and then never signed the paperwork. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
If anything, monthly refugee admissions have *slowed* since Biden took office
Trump signed his FY2021 refugee ceiling ("presidential determination") late, on 10/27/20 (FY began 10/1). In Trump's last full month in office, Dec, 598 refugees were admitted
In March, under Biden: 271