Listen to the full episode, here.
John Norris (00:30):
Well, hello again, everybody. This is John Norris at Trading Perspectives. As always, we have our good friends, Chris Cooper. Chris, say hello.
Chris Cooper (00:36):
Hey John, how are you doing?
John Norris (00:37):
I’m doing fantastic. Now last night, as you know, Chris, we were able to have a good night out. A vendor from Chicago come down, take us out, we have a nice dinner. I’m just glad I didn’t have to sign the check on that bill. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was certainly more than what the dinner at the house might have been. Is that fair enough?
Chris Cooper (00:54):
Very fair.
John Norris (00:55):
And that kind of got us to thinking about just about the cost of things just in general, the cost of having fun in particular, and just how much that has gone up over the years. Now, obviously, Chris, I’m a little bit older than you are. You’re laughing. I’m just a little bit older than you are. And I really tried to focus on several things that people, even my generation, perhaps your generation, even people younger, maybe in high school with some exceptions, might be able to identify with. And the first one is kind of like the cost of seeing a movie. I mean, back when I was coming along, back when I was in high school, back when I had to drive my Flintstones car there, back of dinosaur, all that stuff. But dinner in a movie or really taking a girl out to a movie was a legitimate date.
(01:46):
And so I did a little bit of work and it seems as though a movie theater ticket back in the day would cost about three bucks.
Chris Cooper (01:53):
Wow.
John Norris (01:54):
About $3, depending on the movie, of course, and all that stuff. Sometimes we had dollar movie theaters. I mean, just a dollar and a soda would cost a couple bucks and maybe popcorn would cost $3. And then you multiply that by two. And I could take a girl out to watch a movie. Not going to say that was the best date that that young woman’s ever been on, probably not, but I could do it for about 20 bucks. Now, that was not necessarily cheap. Money was hard to come by when I was a teenager. But now fast forward to that to today, and it’s all over the place. I tried to go online and tried to find out exactly how much a movie theater ticket would cost, and it was all over the board. So I decided, okay, I’m not going to take a look at national ones because in Manhattan, you’re paying 25, $30 a ticket.
(02:37):
And if you’re paying for great seats and all that stuff, Lord knows how much it is. But I went to the AMC Vestavia movie theater here in town, and depending on the movie and depending on the time, it’s going to be around 15 to 20 bucks for a ticket. Fair enough? Fair enough. 15 to 20 bucks for a ticket. And then I took a look at the soda prices, the concession prices, and it was like $11 or something thereabouts to get popcorn, another six, seven bucks in order to get a soda. You kind of add it all up. Oh, by the way, Chris, you’ve got kids, right?
Chris Cooper (03:17):
Right.
John Norris (03:18):
So you probably want to get a babysitter if you and your wife want to go out to the movie theater, right?
Chris Cooper (03:23):
I don’t want them to hurt themselves.
John Norris (03:24):
Of course. And so you kind of take a look at that now and it’s like, holy smoke, you’re going to be paying, I don’t even know what it is. I mean, I Googled it. It said in Birmingham, you could expect to spend 15 to 20 bucks also on a babysitter. So I’m going, all right. So I’m going to add this all up. And I’m going to read this here. I’m going to do tickets 15 a pop times two. Some might be less expensive, some might be more. Babysitter, $17. I don’t know how much are you paying for that?
Chris Cooper (03:55):
I won’t lie. We’ve got some parents in town.
John Norris (03:58):
Okay. Well, fair enough. If you have to go get the Sanford student or the local teenager, almost always a young woman. 17, 20 bucks an hour. I’m saying 17 bucks here times three. Fair enough? Three hours. I mean, that’s kind of cutting it tight actually.
Chris Cooper (04:12):
It’s cutting close.
John Norris (04:13):
But I’m going to do three. Popcorn, $11 times two. Soda did $7 times two. And so people in New York might be going, “Man, I need to move to Birmingham. It’s cheap down there.” And then meanwhile people in Clio, Alabama are going, “What’s a movie theater?” Not Clio, but
(04:30):
What I’m trying to say is it’s going to be a little bit different. That’s the way it is in Birmingham, Alabama. And you add it all up, that comes up to be $118. $118 for three hours at the movie theater. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t. Now compare that to my taking some very unlucky girl out for a three hour evening. I didn’t obviously have the babysitter, but even then 20 bucks was doable. Now it’s like six times that for someone your age with children to go do that. Now you tell me, if you’re in a situation, go out with Allison. Are you thinking about movies or what are you thinking about doing? And if you’re not thinking about movies, why?
Chris Cooper (05:08):
Well, for young families like mine, you’re exactly right. It’s not so much just the price of the movie ticket. We really just don’t have the time or you add up all the other expenses that come with it and it just doesn’t make sense. Especially, I’ve never really been a huge movie goer, but like you were talking about earlier, I used to go to several movies a year, maybe on a date, maybe on a summer break or something around the holidays, kill some time. But now most movies and shows are available to stream anyway. Netflix, if you wait long enough, it’ll come out, Disney+, whatever, a couple months later. So it’s easier to stay home and watch a movie or show after the kids go to bed anyway. And it’s not just about having children. It’s part of a broader post – COVID trend. Movie theaters are selling out or selling only about 63% as many tickets as they did in 2019 is a figure that I just saw.
(06:01):
So all that being said, if there was a movie I really wanted to see in a theater, I’d probably just pay the $15 or $18 or whatever it might be and maybe go with just a friend instead of having to make some big night out of it.
John Norris (06:17):
Yeah, because that counts as your date night.
Chris Cooper (06:22):
Right. Yeah. I complain about the $15, $18, whatever it is, but we wouldn’t go often and just like you said, 20 bucks or more for a popcorn, that’s where I draw the line. I’m not doing it, John.
John Norris (06:33):
You see, I got to do it, man. But that’s part of it. Although I’ve been trying to watch my carbs and certainly my soda. Thank you. But I’m also trying to watch my soda intake. And so even so when I go to the theater, that’s just part of it for me. And I’m not alone with that. Some people will sneak snacks in and all that stuff and that’s fine. But I mean, for me, part of it’s the popcorn and the soda at the theater. And I sound like a horrible northerner by saying soda as opposed to Coke. It’s what kind of Coke? A pop. Yeah, a pop. Soda, pop, soft drink. But let me give you actually the math going back. I mentioned it was three, four bucks or whatever I said back when I was in high school and that’s about right. I went to a couple of websites and found out at the end of 1989, and I graduated high school in ’86, so probably 1989, at the end of that year, just right before we start the 1990s, the average ticket price rounding is about $4 a pop.
(07:28):
If you take the average CPI, the CPI, just consumer price index between December of 1818, about like that, 1989 and September of this year, you’ll see that the ticket price would have gone up to about 1075, 11 bucks. So when we’re talking about the movie ticket over at the movie theater in Estavia being 15, it’s gone up more.
Chris Cooper (07:51):
It’s outpaced.
John Norris (07:52):
It’s outpaced it. But then when you add it all up, and that’s one of those deals, you’re going to talk about relatives versus absolutes. The relatives says, “Okay, yeah, but the absolution is so much more money.” And so when you take a look at that and that’s like, okay, gosh, okay, the cost of entertaining right there has gone up more than the overall rate of inflation. Now I’m going to talk about concerts and I don’t think you’re as big a concert goer as I am, but I’m going to tell you a little bit of a story here. I used to like Jimmy Buffet. You probably didn’t know that. I liked Jimmy Buffett and when he came into town, he used to come to Birmingham most years because he grew up in lower Alabama, all that. I think it was covered off to see the lizard tour.
(08:35):
I think that was the name of it. And I actually camped out to get seats. There was a theater box office that had a mainframe computer, did the tickets for the various venue sites around town. And I camped out strong. They opened up at eight. I got there like 5:30 in the morning. I was maybe second, third in line and I ended up getting second row seats. Second row seats to Jimmy Buffet concert. That was a little bit of a parrot head back in the day. And this is July 27th, 1989. So I mean that’s back when it was. And $35 a ticket. I remember that because I thought myself something of a fool for spending $35 to do that. Now $35 back then was a lot of money. I’m not going to tell you that it wasn’t 35 bucks, that’s probably about 100 bucks now.
(09:23):
I mean, just give or take five bucks or something like that. So let’s say 90 to 100 bucks. So that wasn’t a cheap ticket, particularly for me. I was a lifeguard that summer. Less with a bunch of cash.
Chris Cooper (09:36):
You got to save a lot of lives to make 30 bucks.
John Norris (09:37):
I really did. That’s why I threw so many kids in the deep end. So did that, but that’s how much it was. Had a great time. It was weird that night. Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes was there, Rita Coolidge. It was a great show, man. I enjoyed seeing it. Now fast forward to today, for that level of concert, and I’d say that’s probably, it’s a BB plus. I mean, Buffet was big, but he wasn’t like seeing Coldplay today or something like that. It wasn’t like seeing Taylor Swift. So what would you think maybe a second row seat for an equivalent sort of type concert would be?
Chris Cooper (10:17):
Maybe $150 to $200.
John Norris (10:19):
Man, you really don’t go to concerts, do you? You really don’t because I did a little math on this. I’m a little bit of a nerd and obviously I knew I was going to try to at least present that I knew what I was talking about. The Jonas Brothers. Remember the Jonas Brothers?
Chris Cooper (10:33):
I love the Jonas Brothers.
John Norris (10:34):
Jonas Brothers are coming to Birmingham. Coming to Birmingham, coming to Birmingham. And to get seats on the floor in front of the stage, but this is 20 rows back. This is in the second row like your boy had back in 89. 20 row seats, according to whatever website that I click on at the tour it takes me to, cheapest seats I could find $359 a piece.
Chris Cooper (10:55):
Whoa.
John Norris (10:56):
To go see the Jonas Brothers. And I would say the Jonas Brothers, listen, they’ve got a couple tunes I’m aware, Paranoid and a few others. And I would tell you that they’re okay, but they’re not Jimmy Buffet. So that’s like 10 times more. But then when you really think about it, when I go back and take a look at all the concerts I went to go see, and I think maybe that is a generational deal because back then groups toured to support their albums. They made their money off of the album. So the concert was sort of a lost leader in a lot of ways. I went to go see, you ever heard of Eddie Money? I have not. Okay. It’s either five or 10 bucks. So I spent to go see Eddie Money. You ever heard of The Monkeys?
Chris Cooper (11:32):
I’ve heard of a Monkey. I don’t know about that.
John Norris (11:33):
You’ve never heard of The Monkeys? Okay, great. I spent five to 10 bucks to go see them. Five to 10 bucks is about what the general ad ticket was out at the Oak Mountain Amphitheater back in the late 1980s. These days, concert tickets are astronomical through the roof. It’s all part of some much larger experience. What do people your age say about this kind of thing?
Chris Cooper (11:54):
Well, we talked about my lack of interest, I guess, in concerts, and I’m going to sound twice my age. I guess I’m just not a concert goer. I’d really rather listen to music on Spotify. It’s clean. It sounds good. Again, stay at home, watch movies, listen to it on speaker. I’m good with that. I mean,
John Norris (12:10):
I’m going to have to take you out.
Chris Cooper (12:12):
Hey, 359 bucks. Not going to Jonesboro. I can understand why people would definitely be interested in concerts and just the stigma around it. I’ve got a though around here. You ask about young people affording these kind of concerts and entertainment alike. I think about young Americans these days and how we’ve discussed this before, but how unaffordable housing is and how unaffordable these big ticket items, having children, these big large life events can be. And so if a mortgage would cost $3,000 a month, let’s say a 450, $500,000 house around over the mountain in Birmingham, Alabama, seven and a half percent, maybe it’s around $3,000 a month. Well, decent rent for a one bedroom apartment, maybe you’re in a two bedroom and splitting it with a buddy, maybe that’s 1,200 to $1,500 a month. So technically speaking, you’ve got an extra $1,500. Maybe you couldn’t afford the $3,000.
(13:12):
Maybe you could afford $1,800 or maybe $2,000. So you’ve got that extra $500 maybe or so of discretionary income and maybe you’re saying, “Hey, the Jonas brothers are coming to town. I’d like to go hear the Jonas Brothers play. I’ve got $500 to spend this month.”
John Norris (13:27):
That’s fuzzy math, Chris. That’s generational differences right there. I mean, you’re not saving money because you’re not… I mean, that’s not savings. It should be savings. You should put it into savings so you could end up buy the house. But I know the point you’re trying to make and I know you’re absolutely right. I’ve got some family members, I’m not going to discuss what their relation is with me, but think about their finances in certain ways. I’ve got extra money this month. I’ve got extra paycheck on this type of thing when there is certainly no such thing. I think that’s certainly more of a generational type deal. I would tell you that while I spent the 35 bucks to go see Jimmy Buffet and while I’d spend five, 10 bucks to go see the monkeys or Eddie Money or some of these other groups that you’ve never, with which you’re not familiar, to use the English correctly, I would tell you that for the most part, I’m pretty stingy guy.
(14:25):
I didn’t go to the movie theater that much, but concerts are one of the things that I did among going to go do, and that was kind of my one expense. And it certainly wasn’t restaurants like the Segway. Oh man, you like the like that.
Chris Cooper (14:36):
That’s great.
John Norris (14:37):
It was certainly not restaurants because when I was growing up in Birmingham, Alabama in the 70s and 80s, Birmingham did not have very many restaurants and really a lot of other towns our size. Yeah, you had what we call meet and three, steam table type food, barbecue restaurants and a couple of higher end places. But really, I would say the upper end dining, and this is a very bad generalization, but it’s fair enough for me to make the point. The higher end dining largely was in the private dining clubs and then also the country clubs here in town. I mean, there were a couple places that you would say, “Oh, you went there.” But it’d be like maybe John’s or LaVois or Leo’s or some such or Gigi’s in the park, places that aren’t even around any longer. But now when you take a look at dining out, there are just so many places.
(15:29):
I mean, Birmingham for a city of size has unbelievable number of choices and all of them, just like we have James Beard Award winners here. We have Michelin sort of, not starred, but Michelin, take a look here, whatever they call it. They came to town and said you have 10 restaurants here, so we have that. So there are so many more restaurants available that… I though taking a date out in high school to go get a piece of cheesecake at the Cabana Cafe was a big deal. I mean, that was about it. That was just not how we spent our money really to anywhere near the same degree. I mean, you’d go get a burger or something like that, and that was the way for a long period of time. Now it’s like kids these days. Going out to very nice restaurants, even in college.
(16:14):
I mean, in college, my senior year of college girlfriend, we’d get buy one, get one free type stuff and go to a local pizza place, a place called The Grotto and one’s in Salem. Absolutely fantastic. I think we might have put them out of business with the buy one, get one free. But I go through all that because the restaurant scene has certainly changed. Younger people were spending a lot more. I don’t even know would be the fair comparison because now prices are all over the board. You have fast food, you have fast casual, you have places in between, then you have upper end and all that. But if you’re really trying to take that dinner that we had last night, I’m not going to name the name of the restaurant, but I think my steak was 59 bucks. I think yours was –
Chris Cooper (16:53):
65%.
John Norris (16:54):
65, something like that.
Chris Cooper (16:55):
It was great.
John Norris (16:55):
It was fantastic. There are more expensive steakhouses in town. We got the two appetizers, all that stuff. There’s three of us there at dinner. This bill was probably before tax, 325, 350. It was $100 a person plus. And so if you’re going out for a nice night out on the town, you’re trying to impress a young woman or what have you, trying to have a nice date, I think you reasonably should expect you’re going to be dropping 50 bucks even if you’re in college.
Chris Cooper (17:24):
At least.
John Norris (17:25):
But if you’re out of college, anniversary dinner, it’s probably $100 per person, all that stuff. And to put that kind of perspective, it’s not an apples to apples comparison. If it is an apples to apples comparison, it’s Fuji versus Honey Crisp or something along those lines. But back in the day, it’s no longer around, but going out to 80, there was a Mexican restaurant. You know where the Wendy’s is out there. It was behind the Wendy’s, I think where Salvatore’s was for a little period of time. Before that was a place called Extopo. Extapa Mexican restaurant, it wasn’t so good that I was going to drive all the way from my house and then at the time Crestline to go drive out there. But when I was out in that area, it was worth going to. I remember this one time Beth and I ate there.
(18:07):
I remember because I had an accident leaving the restaurant, but that’s how I remember it. I remember the bill that night. I had a burrito and Beth had taco salad. We had chips and salsa. I had one Bohemia beer and Beth had a margarita. With tip, it was $18. And so that would have been, I forget, it was probably about 25 years ago. I think we might have had a babysitter, but that’s how much it was. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t even get lunch for myself for $18. I would tell you that whatever the inflation gauges say or don’t say, I’d say this is one of the biggest ones. I mean, concerts are one thing, but concerts, I mean, hey, that’s not as frequent as going out dinner. This is where I say inflation has just… I don’t know how you calculate it because there’s so many different choices, but I would say the definition of what is a nice meal out has certainly changed.
(19:02):
And so this is exponentially more expensive than it was when I was growing up.
Chris Cooper (19:05):
No, food has become very expensive. Eating in, eating out, whatever it is. Did you see that savings.com study recently?
John Norris (19:12):
I don’t know.
Chris Cooper (19:13):
It found that about half of parents with millennial or Gen Z children were giving roughly $1,500 a month to cover basic expenses such as housing, groceries, childcare. That’s what the study reports at least. And maybe some of that money is helping to fund these nicer experiences out at restaurants,
John Norris (19:32):
Right? I mean, it could be. We have a new sort of go-to restaurant, go-to strong, Beth and I. It’s down on Morris Avenue in Birmingham, so right around First Avenue North. It’s a French restaurant. It’s not the most expensive restaurant in town far from it, but it’s not Buffalo Wings either if you catch my drift. The last time we were there, perfectly great evening, I saw a group of young ladies that were younger than you. I mean, out of college, but not 30, in there. That Saturday night, and I’m thinking to myself, what in the world do they do for a living that they’re coming here and this is what they do on a Saturday night? I was thinking to myself, golly. Then I looked at the plates. They were all having a great time, but no one had what I would consider a real entree.
(20:24):
They were going out, they’re having a cocktail, getting the chopped salad or something along those lines and having that. The experience was going out, but they weren’t blowing up the bill by actually eating at the restaurant. Are you familiar with this type of thing? Because that was kind of a new one I’m in.
Chris Cooper (20:40):
Somewhat. Actually, my wife’s birthday was a few days ago. We actually went downtown to a nice Lebanese restaurant and we had a great night out. We looked at each other after dinner though and said, “The appetizers were phenomenal. I enjoy the appetizer.” You’re talking 12, 15 bucks for a couple appetizers. We could stop in and just have a nice little, small little dinner out just with the appetizers, come back home and eat the ground beef that we’ve stored up from.
John Norris (21:08):
You went to the fresh market and got for three nights. So that’s what people your age are doing. I mean, just going there and not doing it up with cocktails and all that stuff and have maybe apps or salads and calling a date. That’s fantastic. You’re getting that experience, but restaurants don’t stay in business very long if everyone’s coming in there just getting cocktails and apps. So I guess my generation just has to subsidize you guys again. That’s what
(21:35):
It sounds like. We’ve been subsidizing the boomers for too long. Another thing, so we’ve hit on three. Another one I want to touch on is sporting events. I mean, sporting events have absolutely gone through the roof. And this is where it’s hard to find kind of a good comparison. I went and took a look at what Baltimore Orioles ticket prices were back, but it’s like which game? Are the Red Sox in town, the Yankees in town? Where are you sitting in the field? What part of the season? All that stuff. So it’s hard to get sort of an apples to apples comparison. So I was thinking to myself, what can I do to make this comparison? I’m going to go back. We’re not originally from Alabama. My parents moved here when I was three. When you live in Alabama, probably in other states, but when you live in Alabama, people are going to ask you two questions.
(22:27):
Who do you pull for and what church do you go to?That’s just what it is. These two questions hangs everything. Dad, growing up in Maryland the way he did and going to college in Connecticut the way he did, he was a Baltimore Colt fan. I actually had to explain that to Jack last night. The Colts were actually in Baltimore before they were in Indianapolis. It’s been 42 years since they moved, but in any event, and I grew up a Baltimore Colt fan, but when we moved to Alabama, people go, who do you pull for? Dad goes to Colts. They said, “No, no, no, no. Not talking about the NFL. Who do you pull for? Alabama or Auburn?” And he ended up in business knowing more people in Auburn, just what he was doing. And so we became Auburn fans growing up. And so periodically dad and I would go down to maybe once a year, once a couple times every three years, something along those lines.
(23:17):
I mean, enough times where I remember them. We would go down to Auburn and scalp tickets. And when you scalp tickets, you actually talking to the guys that had physical tickets in their hands and it wouldn’t be all that uncommon for us to get two tickets for 10 bucks, two tickets for $15, just whatever it is right before kickoff. Guys are sitting there trying to get rid of anything. We’d go down to games like Southern Miss and some other ones. Went down University of Maryland. Maryland came to Auburn one year of Tommy Age just ran like crazy that day and a whole bunch of other things. That’s about what it was. I mean, college football has always been popular, but now I was trying to do that comparison knowing… And it’s not fair because we’re talking about Southern Miss Auburn back in the 70s, compare that to the LSU Auburn game that’s going on this weekend, trying to take a look at tickets.
(24:08):
The cheapest tickets I could find anywhere in the stadium for this upcoming gate on a secondary website, 150 bucks. Face value, probably 75, 80. It’s about double. These things are nosebleeds. I’m not getting any younger. I’m not going up there. For the seats that I would be willing to buy or want to purchase, the cheapest I could find was $359.
Chris Cooper (24:30):
For a regular season game.
John Norris (24:31):
For a regular season game against the four and two Auburn team, I think LSU is five and two. It’s a big game for both teams. I’m going to make a prediction right now and tell you the Tigers are going to win.
Chris Cooper (24:43):
I think you’re right.
John Norris (24:44):
I think the Tigers are going to win. So when I take a look at it and then take a look at just major events, major events, the Super Bowl, take a look at the World Series, just for the national championship game, for the big events, the stuff is still crazy expensive. However, if you want to go watch the Diamondbacks and stand in general ad during the middle of July, it’s not as expensive as maybe make it out to be. And I think I looked it up. I know I looked it up. A beer is three bucks, a hot dog’s three bucks, something like that out in Arizona. In Phoenix, you can go watch a major league baseball game for relatively inexpensive. I mean, it’s okay. I think there’s many Diamondback fans in Birmingham as there are out in Arizona, but that’s kind of deal. However, you go over all the way to…
(25:35):
Shucks, you go to Chavez Ravine or you go to the Bronx, take a look, look at those stadiums. I mean, the cheapest tickets of upper deck is 75 bucks or something like that. And beer is eight bucks and all that stuff. So it is huge vagaries there. However, I would say regardless of the differences between smaller market teams and big market teams between the event, regular season versus Super Bowl, all that stuff, I think it’s very fair to say people are spending a heck of a lot more money on sporting events and entertainment now than they were when I was a kid. I would’ve thought at some point this would’ve plateaued, but it doesn’t seem to be. I mean, in your generation, it seems like people are doing it as well. I mean, what’s going on?
Chris Cooper (26:24):
Well, we’ve talked about concerts. We’ve talked about movies and my lack of interest there. I’m actually interested in attending some sporting events, as you know. They’re a good time. I’m a sports guy, but even with young children, maybe some games are just out of the question. But I think really what we’re just describing here is supply and demand, right? Like you talked about. There aren’t that many Arizona Diamondbacks fans or it’s hard to pick on the Rays, even though they’re in the World Series.
John Norris (26:49):
Listen, we have a coworker that was recently down in Tampa. I think it was the divisional series or the divisional series. He got tickets to the game, 100 bucks.
Chris Cooper (27:00):
100 bucks. For a playoff game.
John Norris (27:05):
For a playoff game. Which people in New York are probably going, “Are you kidding me?” To go see the Rays, and it was the one before the Indians. It was the divisional series. Still, it’s a little bit less than 100 bucks, all that. I mean, that includes all the fees for Ticketmaster and stuff like wherever you use.
Chris Cooper (27:20):
So you talked about it. It’s the market. It’s the supply and demand of the big versus small markets, right? If there’s a large demand for a Yankees game, for a Red Sox, for Wrigley Field game in Chicago, obviously there’s going to be high demand for such an event, and there’s only so many seats. And a lot of these new stadiums, I don’t know if you saw this new Northwestern football stadium? No. I think only a few thousand… I mean, it’s like 30, 40,000 seats. It’s a small stadium, so they’re not making these things any bigger. They’re actually cutting seats out of some of these college football stadiums that they’ve grown to be 100,000 plus. It’s just a supply demand issue. Although the trend is we want some experiences, right? Post – COVID, we were locked up apparently six months of being locked up equals six years of just blowing it all on experiences.
(28:09):
But post – COVID, that’s the trend you’re seeing, right? Is I want to have fun in life. I want to travel. I want to eat nice food. I want to have some adrenaline at a sporting event. And as long as there’s demand there and only limited supply, prices go up.
John Norris (28:23):
So you say it’s just basic economics?
Chris Cooper (28:25):
I think that’s a… Basic economics can explain a lot of things, John.
John Norris (28:29):
It certainly can. And you give the people what they want, and people really do seem to want to be entertained a lot more and we’re willing to spend a lot more on entertainment, which is why I think things like sporting events have just grown exponentially. Concerts have grown exponentially. Now people would say, “Well, we’re not selling albums any longer, so the artists have to make their money on touring.” Okay, fair. Fair enough. But even so, I mean, Jonas Brothers, 360 a pop for the Birmingham Legacy Arena. I don’t think they were selling that many albums in Birmingham. It’s pretty steep. Nothing to knock them. They do have some decent pop tunes. But when you take a look at sporting events and even a fancy night out, a nice dinner like we had last night, I mean, just like, my gosh, we as a society are really loving the experience.
(29:20):
And so much so you take a look at international travel, this is where I think there’s something might be a little bit different amongst the generations or maybe even members of your generation. People are just traveling a lot more. People your age and younger are traveling a lot more and expected to travel a lot more and want to travel a lot more and don’t think it’s beyond their means to travel a lot more. We used to have a coworker that went to Italy. I mean, it’s just like I’m sitting there watching my nickels and dimes, my farthings ensues in order to travel somewhere and he’s jetting off to Italy. I was just more power to them. I knew what we were paying them and maybe been eating ramen noodles at the house. I don’t know. But that seems to be far more of a priority, which I don’t think is necessarily that bad a thing because back before you have children, trying to get some traveling out of the way is not a bad thing, but even so it’s expensive stuff.
(30:12):
You add it all up and you keep coming back. Americans are wanting to pay for experiences and as you’re paying for experiences, the demand is just swamping supply and prices are going up.
Chris Cooper (30:22):
And we talk about the impacts and effects of social media too. I think that plays a role in it too.
John Norris (30:27):
It does.
Chris Cooper (30:27):
The more opportunities that you have to post, I’m at this sporting event, I’m in Italy, I’m at this nice restaurant. It’s all for looks and it’s all built on a house of cars or this facade of how great my life is. So that can play a role in it too of just everyone wants to have fun and look like they’re having a fun life.
John Norris (30:43):
Well, you don’t want to look like you’re the chump. No matter how successful you are, if you’re not at the hundred hour plus plate restaurant, if you’re not occasionally traveling to the continent or you’re not going to go see Taylor Swift when she comes to Nashville or something along those lines. If you’re not doing those types of things, it’s kind of like, what’s wrong with them? They must be a little overextended or something along those lines. But it’s –
Chris Cooper (31:11):
And the opposite is actually true…
John Norris (31:13):
Many times. So for me, it’s kind of amazing watching what’s happened in my life. And I’m not young. I’m not a young man. I don’t consider myself ancient. Just how much things have changed dramatically, just how much people’s spending patterns have changed. I think people might have been a little bit more diligent in saving money or at least of the lip service of saving money, trying to save up that first house or trying to just do something. But for a lot of people, it’s like I’m going YOLO. You only live once and I’m going to go ahead and do it. And as a result, we’re seeing the price of living it up, at least in some aspects, go up far more rapidly than just a hot dog at the house. Well guys, thank y’all so much for listening. We always love to hear from y’all.
(31:58):
So by all means, if you have any questions or comments, let us know. You can always drop us a line at or you can leave us a review on the podcast out of your choice. If you’re interested in reading more or hearing more of what we got to say or how we think, you can always go to oakworth.com, O-A-K-W-O-R-T-H.com. Take a look underneath the though leadership tab and find access to all kinds of exciting information, including links to previous Trading Perspectives podcasts, links to our newsletter/blog called Common Sense, link to our quarterly analysis magazine called Macro Market as well as other pieces by our advisory services group headed up by Mac Frazier amongst others. A lot of good information out there that you could only get at Oakworth. All right. Chris, anything else today to talk about this? I think pretty interesting topic.
Chris Cooper (32:46):
Have fun, but not too much fun.
John Norris (32:49):
Well said. Y’all take care.
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