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What’s in today’s issue
✈ The fall of Spirit Airlines
🎮 GameStop’s confusing eBay bid
📜 New mental health study
Hi friends!
Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. Over the past week, I’ve flown from Chicago to New York and have been taking a big train trip back! This started out as a cute, fun way to visit friends on the way home, but it also proved to be really practical as a major airline fell apart and fuel prices continued to skyrocket, lol!
Dave’s covered all that and more while I’ve been on the train. With that, let’s dive in.
Requiem for a budget airline
Spirit Airlines went under during a week when I luckily decided to live lavishly and fly basic economy on American. The airline and the Trump administration discussed a $500 million bailout that ultimately didn’t pan out.
That deal would have handed over control of the airline to the federal government. But sources reportedly told CNN that officials worried about giving that much money to an airline with a shaky financial record.
Why did they go under now? Skyrocketing fuel prices because of “recent geopolitical events,” according to Spirit Airlines court filings. Those geopolitical events likely include the war in Iran, which has caused fuel prices to drastically rise.
In an effort to make those prices go back down, President Donald Trump announced a plan to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that’s important to the world’s oil supply and that’s been closed throughout the war. Trump then said his plan is no longer happening. NBC News reported that’s because Saudi leaders wouldn’t let the US use its airbases.
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Can GameStop buy eBay?
GameStop made a $55.5 billion bid to buy eBay. GameStop’s market value is only about $11 billion. And I’m no mathematician, but that looks like GameStop does not have enough money to buy eBay. People who have way more experience covering the business world than I do are describing this using words like “baffles” and “stunt” and “unsolicited.”
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen hasn’t really cleared up answers about it. CNBC asked him how he would afford the deal, and he responded “it’s half cash, half stock.” That does not answer how he would come up with the money he does not have. It’s also how I’m going to start justifying buying a coffee out every day. If this deal does happen, Cohen could get richer off of it. If GameStop boosts its market value, its CEO stands to make a lot more money.
This brings us to our media literacy tip of the week from our friends at MediaWise! If you (like me) don’t understand a blessed thing about the economy, find a summary or explanation from a trusted creator who speaks in terms you do understand, then dig deeper into the details. That’s why I watched Dave’s video five times before even attempting to read a CNBC article!
LNI sponsor Harry’s partnered with Signs of Suicide on a study of construction workers, miners and fishermen. It found that men in these fields experience depression at a much higher rate than the national average. These professions are also much likelier to die by suicide.
Factors like high stress, being stereotyped, and being disconnected from the people making decisions about their jobs all contribute to this, according to the study. A lack of healthy tools to deal with their coworkers dying by suicide or overdosing also fuels this crisis.
What can be done? The study recommends peer support, more counseling, and expanding awareness around exisitng employee assistance programs. If you or a loved one need support, you can find resources here.
Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!
Well, I finally did it. I bought a green screen suit. Here’s some important takeaways and thoughts:
🧍🏼 They should sell slightly taller green screen suits.
Stretched to the limit.
This is an issue I have with full body costumes in general. The longest green screen suit I could find was for 6’2” people, so the suit was quite snug on my 6’4” body.
💡 The more lighting, the better.
Unaltered shot, initial keying, and then some finessing.
Keying green screen is hard enough with a green screen backdrop. With a green screen suit, there are so many additional shadows just from my body being three dimensional. Still, these shadows helped create an outline around the “invisible man” effect I was going for in this video, so it worked out.
🪜 Set up your shot before putting the green screen suit on.
“Don’t mind me, neighbor. It’s a video about mental health!”
For one thing, you can’t see that well once the suit is over your face. And once it’s on, especially if you have one that’s two inches too short, it’s very hard to take it off.
Also, now my neighbors are even more confused by my job, having seen me climb a ladder to my roof in a full body green screen suit … all for a 4-second clip.
🧼 Wash the suit after every use.
Gonna need Harry’s to send me more shaving cream.
This is especially important if you putting shaving cream all over it. It’s very hard to get that off.
🎥 Try not to shoot in front of a green wall.
What the shot looked like after I keyed out the green and before I did a lil movie magic.
I know better than this, and still did it for the shot in my office. There are work arounds and I made it work, but it was a headache for sure.
Overall, I’m very pleased with this purchase and will be expensing it to Local News International’s parent company, Family Loser LLC. Yes, that is what I named our company. I will not be taking any further questions at this time.
How do you pack so much into a “short” video? Love it!!!
If you made it all the way to the end of this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Killian!
This picture unsettles me and I’m trying to interrogate why. Killian did nothing wrong.
Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt. Every week, I hide a non-news related link in the body of this email and wait until down here to tell you where it is! In the blurb about GameStop’s bid to buy eBay, I linked out to Lisa Simpson urging Marge to buy something and saying, “You don’t need to rationalize everything.” Words the GameStop CEO seems to have taken to heart.
Until next week!
Chris
