Just recently, L’Oreal was found guilty of racial discrimination by the French Supreme Court. The conviction stems from the company’s policy that Garnier sales staff should be “bleu, blanc, rouge” — the colors of the French flag but also the company’s code for white French people. What were they thinking? That people won’t likely buy lipstick from a person who’s not white? It’s just stupid beyond words. How can they even think their bottomline can be affected by the ethnicity of the sale staff. I want to buy hairgel, I won’t care if the salesperson’s from Mars, okay, I probably would, but only in so much as I’d want to strike up a conversation with a person from another planet.

In this day and age, it’s quite shocking that a company as progressive as L’Oreal would still propagate discrimination. It just reeks of bad taste offensiveness. I mean, the French has been described as rude and aloof but, I don’t believe they’re racist. L’Oreal is giving the French people a bad reputation.

Come on, L’Oreal guys! I think you know that beauty is not just skin deep. Merde!

Which brings me to the whole point of this post. We all know that China is the world hub for imitation goods. Name the fake item and most likely it was manufactured in China. I think it would even be fair assumption that the whole underground economy of the country is firmly entrenched in bogus and fake goods. But what most people fail to realize that manufacturing counterfeit goods actually have a far more significant effect than just fueling China’s underground economy and the proliferation of fakes around the world. By reverse engineering all sorts of stuff, the Chinese are actually learning what makes each quality item tick, what makes it expensive and ultimately be able to actually learn the skills to manufacture something just as good (if not better, in the most extreme circumstances). I respectfully submit that this thriving industry of fakes is going to be the real force that will make China the undisputed world economic power.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s simple. What would stop the Chinese from actually learning the secrets and taking advantage of the technology transfer that happens when a big manufacturing company transfers its operations to China? What would prevent them, for example, to learn the ropes of aircraft manufacture from established leaders like Boeing and Airbus if these are contracted to Chinese factories? I won’t be surprised if, in a decade or two, we’ll start seeing Boing 868s and AirTaxi B400s flying the friendly skies.

In last night’s episode, one of the inmates got imprisoned for luring a man and then beating him to death. Apparently, the prisoner, along with two other people, beat up the man in order to steal money for AIDS medicine. It was quite a chilling case, made more chilling because the inmate refuses to go out of his cell for fear that the prison is not a safe place for him. There are a lot of ironies here that are just too many to mention. But in this present economic climate, one can’t help but think about the people who do not have the support system or the capabilities to keep themselves afloat as the whole world tries to weather through the crisis. Hopefully the health system all over the world will not be affected as much because sick people really need help. And no amount of “kissing the boo-boo” will help really ill people.

Borat reflects the more austere fashions of cash-strapped Cannes

But this year, it looks like Cannes is also going through its own belt tightening measures to reflect the crisis that has cast a pall on the world economy. It’s safe to say that the business of entertainment is tiptoeing through this crisis just like other businesses.

Advance bookings for the film festival shows that there is a 15 percent drop in attendance. What this means is that there will be far fewer distributors on the lookout for films to buy and far fewer investors who would want to put their money on a movie — stocks in trade of the whole Cannes festival.

Things have become so surreal that Steven Spielberg is practically panhandling looking for investors for the now independent Dreamworks Studios, one of the more successful movie companies in Hollywood. Just the thought of Spielberg — arguably the most successful director in Hollywood history — begging for spare million dollars from investors sends shivers up my spine.

Because of the still bleak economic outlook, Hollywood is now adapting by lowering film budgets, down to 20 percent in some cases. This could mean Michael Bay may have to limit the cars he destroys in his next action movie from 60 to just 50 — the horror! But more alarming though is that there may be movies that may not see the light of day because the projected returns may not just be worth it. For this, the real losers are the art films and the independents that already make do with minuscule budgets and non-mainstream appeal.

Art does suffer during an economic crisis.