Personal Musings category archive

The Journal-Register Company, holder of a number of local newspapers, files for Chapter 11.

Revenue had declined 20 percent since 2006, the company said. Moreover, it carried a huge debt load, the legacy of a business strategy of buying daily and weekly newspapers in suburban areas. In recent months its stock traded at pennies a share.

I think we would all be better served if the fancy three-syllable word “leverage” were retired in favor of the short, pithy, accurate word, “debt.”

The fancy-smancy “investment bankers” have made a trade of buying companies, mortgaging them to the hilt, keeping the money, and leaving the companies in an Addams Family episode the lurch.

The “investment bankers” get rich, the companies, their executives, and their employees get screwed.

Witness the Chicago Tribune.

All that debt was not there until Sam Zell purchased the company and sucked it dry.

And then tossed it out the back door onto his trash heap.

Without his Zellmanship, the company would not be in the trouble it’s in. It would be in Little Trouble, not Big Trouble.

In the Olden Days, when I was a young ‘un, a company in overwhelming debt was a bad thing.

So now it’s called “leverage.” That way, no one but the cognoscenti will know it is, in fact, crippling debt.

nam vere est.

I agree with John Cole.

The most optimistic Pollyanna rationale that I can come up with is that the Administration is buying time because it hasn’t figured out what to do yet.

I’ll be writing letters tomorrow.

The same persons who are complaining that the stimulus package will be paid for by our grandchildren didn’t seem to care that the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq would be paid for in the same way.

God, how I love hypocrisy.

Why does every company keep changing its phone menu options?

AKA “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” (emphasis added):

Federal officials said new estimates showed that the Central Valley Project (in the San Jaoquin and Salinas valleys of California–ed.), the large irrigation system operated by the reclamation bureau, would be able to provide zero to 10 percent of its contracted deliveries.

If the zero estimate proves true, it would effectively eliminate hundreds of farmers’ principal water supply. Water supplies to wildlife refuges, cities and industrial sources would also see smaller cutbacks, but agriculture would be hardest hit.

Those cows aren’t going to be happy.

Don’t eat.

Tight state budgets have led some of the biggest farm states to leave dozens of food inspection jobs vacant at a time when hundreds have been sickened by a nationwide salmonella outbreak tied to a filthy peanut processing plant.

Fun fact, from a food inspector I used to work with: Most of the illnesses that persons attribute to “intestinal flu” are actually food poisoning. If it lasts 24 to 48 hours, it’s probably food poisoning.

A mileage tax.

We’ve already got one. It’s called a gas tax. The more miles you drive, the more gas you buy, the more tax you pay.

The lower your miles per gallon, the more often you buy gas, the more tax you pay.

Doesn’t take a GPS to figure that out.

Frankly, as I commented over at Duncan’s, I think this comes from the school of thought that says

The more complicated the technology, the better the idea.

Folks, that just ain’t so.

Afterthought: And if there is a motive beyond this to reduce actual miles driven, well, gas prices can do that too. Remember last summer.

Hope she has a big car.

They have enough money to make a getaway.

While I was looking at the headlines this morning, I remembered this building:

It’s an old debtors prison. It’s where persons who couldn’t pay their debt used to go until they could pay their debts. A student of the dialectic will immediately recognize the internal contradiction in that practice. Persons in prison generally aren’t in a position to earn money so as to pay off anything.

This is a new debtors prison:

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No. Not California.

Well, in addition to California.

Rich white guys who have jobs and work for the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama’s speeches on the economy are needlessly scaring the daylights out of the American people.

In an effort to ensure swift passage of his fiscal stimulus plan, which is aimed at arresting the recession, the president and his aides have used jargon that risks making it worse, to say the least.

Sorry, buddy. Whislin’ don’t put food on the table.

. . . makes great camping gear.

And lousy Senators.

I recently listened to this segment of Talk of the Nation (follow the link to listen to it):

Candidate Barack Obama received largely favorable news coverage during the campaign. Some critics believe that softer coverage has continued since he became President. Do you think journalists are doing a good job, and what questions do you wish they would ask?

One of the callers referred to Deborah Howell’s November 9, 2008, column, in which she analyzed the Washington Post’s campaign coverage (follow the link for the full column, which includes a lot of numbers and covers much more than the op-ed page):

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board’s endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.

The caller posited that, since the number of stories favorable to Obama was greater than the number of stories favorable to McCain, the press therefore wanted Obama to win. (Read Ms. Howell’s column; the caller put words in her mouth. The caller’s word-twisting was positively Rovian and, laudably, the panel politely called him on it.)

His reasoning is purebred invalid syllogism:

The panel on the show took issue with the caller’s assertion of favoritism on two points:

• Reporting a more favorable story doesn’t mean that the reporter is rooting for the subject of the story.
• Reporting a more favorable story may reflect who’s in the lead; winners tend to get better coverage than losers.

Note that, in the U. S. press, George Washington gets more favorable coverage than King George III of England. Left unsaid in the discussion:

Reporting a more favorable story, whether it’s a story about a football team, a restaurant, a television show, or a political candidate, may reflect nothing more than that the subject of that story is better than the competition.

Furrfu.

Japanese electronics company Pioneer Corp. will cut 10,000 jobs globally to cope with sinking sales of car audio equipment and flat-screen TVs. It will also withdraw from its money-losing plasma display business.

Yeah, I know it’s absurd. No UAW in either Japan or the consumer electronics industry.

So too are Republican attempts to blame their mess on honest working persons.

Without pay.

I do not envy the governors, mayors, county supervisors, and their colleagues faced with balancing budgets because the bottom has fallen out of the economy, therefore cutting their revenues off at the knees.

A day after New Castle County Executive Chris Coons suggested 26 furlough days for county employees, the possibility of the state taking similar action to help close next fiscal year’s $606 million deficit loomed large.

Furloughs are among many options, including reductions in employee benefits, large cuts or possible tax increases listed as measures that could be used to put the state in the black. But Gov. Jack Markell has noted that, when laying off 1,000 state employees would save just $50 million, simple furloughs would make a minimal dent in the money gap.

A typical work year contains 260 or 261 work days.

Twenty-six unpaid days = 10% pay cut.

More below the Fold

And more and more of them are like this (*.wav, 27 seconds, edited to remove name and phone number).

No, I’m not calling him back. Given the terms of my mortgage, he can’t do any of the things he promises to do.

The Masters of the Universe aren’t.

This bozo causes me to be ashamed of being a Virginian.

No. Really.

Back in the olden days, when I was a beardless boy, it was taught that the purpose of a business in a capitalist system was to provide goods and services of value, act as a responsible corporate citizen, and, in the process, make a profit.

That has morphed into provide goods and services of value, act as a responsible corporate citizen, and, in the process, make a profit.

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