In the near future, The Galaxy cinema will collapse on itself. Its high celestial ceiling dotted with fiber optic stars will plummet to the ground, likely resulting in a thick cloud of dust that will surround the lot in the heart of Cary. But from the rubble a Harris Teeter will be born — thank the heavens for that, Cary needs a tenth Harris Teeter. But where there’s despair, there’s arbitrage opportunity.
The theater had narrowly escaped the guillotine months earlier in July 2012 when its landlord chose not to pursue legal action (totaling $160,000 in overdue fees and lease payments). After the landlord, York Properties, finally reclaimed the building in November (bringing about the death of the cinema), the bits and pieces were left for deal scavengers to fight over remains, to be picked apart and ripped out of the skeleton of the theater — vultures, hyenas, ravens … call them what you want, I was one of them.
Despite the thrill of fighting others for the right to some of Galaxy’s remains, I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. I had never once visited the cinema, but I couldn’t help but feel grimy for so willingly profiting from someone else’s demise. But the immediate gratification of winning a $300 projector for $55 and a row of four theater seats for $8 outweighed any feeling of guilt or wrongdoing, and that speaks to the more large-scale American mindset.
While The Galaxy was preparing to be gutted, earlier this month AIG Inc.’s board of directors were contemplating joining a lawsuit against the federal government (filed by former CEO Maurice Greenberg) claiming the stipulations of its $125 billion bailout package were unfair and detrimental to the firm’s success.
AIG’s board eventually decided to not join the suit — but the fact that they even sat down to listen to someone make a case for it is offensive to all taxpayers. For the price of $125 billion, we could have bailed out 781,250 galaxy cinemas which, at the very least, would accept it with sheer gratitude.
Why is it that an ungrateful insurance giant, deemed “too big to fail,” gets helped, while the tiny Bollywood cinema that, for some people, was a place filled with cheerfulness is allowed to go under?
It has been proven debt in the private sector contributed largely to the financial meltdown in 2007-2008. According to the International Monetary Fund, household debt is at 86 percent of GDP, lower than it has been in the past six years, but it’s nothing to be proud of.
Because we have easy access to credit, American’s developed bad purchase habits. We buy bigger houses and nicer cars because we can get a loan. But because the house is bigger than we need, we can’t keep up with payments on mortgage or home insurance (how we fed the AIG monster). And because that Mercedes is a depreciating asset, it was worth more when we bought it than it is now — not a good investment. But, being the consumerist, capitalism-loving people we are, to us, having something now is better than later.
No, AIG had nothing to do with The Galaxy closing its doors. But the market we’ve created allowed a beloved cinema to be demolished and another Harris Teeter to take its place, while also permitting ungrateful financiers and insurers to bite the hand that fed it. Is it more important to nourish the soul, or consumption?
