Chasing dimes while dollar bills fly out the window

It really wasn’t all that long ago that newspaper conglomerates such as Gannett were basking in the glory of 50% profit margins while companies such as Exxon Mobile were mired in much more conservative figures that in the last 10 years never exceeded 12%. Now newspapers are bleeding red ink by the barrel.

Why then is money baron Warren Buffet spending money in an industry that just three years ago he claimed had the proven potential for repeated and unending losses?

According to Bloomberg News, Buffett recently struck a deal to purchase 63 newspapers, and may buy more, as he gives voice to the idea that there’s money to be made if only the newspaper industry would stop giving away its content. The problem with that premise, as I’ve witnessed over the years while working in print media, is that there’s long been a drive to charge for content that freely makes it to the web. The problem with Buffett’s notion is that people have come to expect information via the World Wide Web to be free. Changing that mindset isn’t going to be easy. Maybe Steve Jobs could have done it, but he’s no longer with us.

I don’t know about you, but given the quality of newspaper content these days, what passes for local news — and even national and international information — is already overpriced. But that doesn’t seem to be where Buffett is going, at least as I read it.

Buried within the Bloomberg report is this little nugget: “Berkshire will … favor towns and cities with a strong sense of community.”

What does he mean by “sense of community?” Could he mean those newspapers that operate under the premise that serving the customer (namely the reader) is job one? And, practically speaking, what does this look like for newspapers as they move ahead through the electronic age?

Still, Buffett seems to believe that newspapers should be “indispensable” to their communities. Could that mean the printed word on newsprint will still be the model as we move through the electronic age where smart phones and tablets continue to gain prominence?

The indispensability factor is going to be a mighty tall mountain to climb since many of the communities I’ve lived in over the past decade seem to have a more “leave it” than “need it” attitude when it comes to their local newspapers. It’s common to hear jokes about the local newspaper and the ever-shrinking amount of time it takes to peruse it for valued information. It’s certainly the case in my local community.

I still recall the small, community newspaper I once worked for in rural northeastern California and the “must-have” attitude of the public when it hit the streets every Thursday morning, rain, snow or shine. It’s my understanding that people still wait outside the offices of the Modoc Record in Alturas, Calif. for the print edition of the newspaper that has published only local news for well over a century. Yet in keeping with the times, subscriptions can now be purchased online and the newspaper read by computer, tablet or smart phone.

Bloomberg quotes Buffett from a Berkshire company memo: “Our future depends on remaining the primary source of information in certain subjects of great importance to our readers. Technological change has caused us to lose primacy in various key areas, including national news, national sports, stock quotations and employment opportunities. So be it. Our job is to reign supreme in matters of local importance.”

Buffett nails it! Maybe the newspaper model of the future isn’t the “be-all” attitude of the smaller dailies that once thought they could compete with the larger, regional dailies. Maybe size does matter, but rather than larger, the new model is for smaller geographies of reporting. Maybe what the newspaper industry needs is an entirely different focus — one that dials in the premise that local news is king and begins to hire reporters and editors who are willing to role up their sleeves and wade into their communities in search of the issues, rather than the failed practice of parking themselves in front of a computer monitor and telephone as junior editors dole out press releases and complain about the quality of information reporters are regurgitating from their assigned news releases.

Related articles

• Buffett in newspaper investment (bbc.co.uk)
• Why Warren Buffett Really Likes Newspapers (businessweek.com)
• Buffett set to buy more newspapers (news.smh.com.au)
• Buffett eyeing more papers, and not going to publish free content (worldmediatrend.wordpress.com)
• Buffett to buy newspapers – but says online readers must pay (theweek.co.uk)
• Did Warren Buffett Just Save the Newspaper Industry? (dailyfinance.com)

Exodus is symptomatic of California’s foundational faults

If things continue on course, the State of California may wind up as uninhabited as the former mining town that in its heyday had money flowing as freely as the spring runoff from the nearby Sierra Nevada.

The Sacramento Bee reports that more college-bound Californians are fleeing to other states, in spite of the higher sticker price for out-of-state tuition costs.

That’s because California’s liberal legislature and its growing full-time bureaucracy, have succeeded in running what was once the world’s 5th largest economy, into the proverbial toilet, but you won’t get that part of the story by reading the Bee article alone.

Based on the Bee’s Page-One story, even the higher out-of-state tuition costs are not a deterrent for students wanting to learn valuable and marketable skills within a reasonable amount of time. The reasons, from the story, are two-fold: California in-state tuition rates continue to climb at an astronomical rate; and, colleges are cutting back on the number and availability of courses, turning a typical four-year degree into a 5 or 6-year process.

Some interviewed for the story claim that this will further exacerbate California’s “brain drain,” as younger, smarter, more energetic people will leave the state and won’t return. Inserted in this premise is the notion that jobs and a lucrative income tax base is important to the well-being of the state.

Blame California’s brain drain in large part on the state’s absurd and onerous tax structure. Coupled with its blatantly anti-business stance in Sacramento, where career politicians learn quickly how to insulate themselves from the real world, California has succeeded in forcing the state’s best and brightest to greener pastures in states such as Texas and Florida.

That’s okay though, because California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has a plan to raise taxes and force through a multi-billion bullet train to transport people from the sticks into the collapsing cities where jobs are as scarce as common sense in Sacramento.

Not long ago the Sacramento Bee also reported that the state’s population of illegal immigrants, who were welcomed with open arms across a porous border, are now themselves fleeing back to Mexico because… wait for it… there are jobs to be had.

Mexico currently boasts an unemployment rate of around 5% and a GDP 2-3 times that of the United States. Given that California’s unemployment rate is somewhere north of 12% (50% in some local communities), and that the political climate is about as anti-business as one can get, it’s rather comical that even the undocumented Democrat voters are abandoning ship.

California’s problem is foundational. The Democratically-controlled legislature has for decades bled the most productive of Californians dry while the state agencies they amply fund with taxpayer dollars, do their best to further fleece businesses through draconian policies and laws passed by their legislative buddies.

Kudos to the Bee for pointing out another symptom of California’s disease. At least someone at the paper had the guts to point out a serious problem. One can only hope that the lawmakers and policy wonks in California can piece together the symptoms with a proper diagnosis and a radical, but necessary treatment program to bring California back to life. Otherwise, a lot more people will be permanently leaving what was once this nation’s 5th largest economy for lands of opportunity elsewhere.

Related articles

• For Chronically Unemployed, More Bad News In Calif (wspa.com)
• Open Thread: The Great California Exodus (newsbusters.org)
• Destroying the California Dream (Guest Voice) (themoderatevoice.com)
• California! Liberal Paradise (cowboypress.wordpress.com)

Federal overspending made simple to understand

The following comes from David Barton at Wallbuilders. It puts the federal budget into numbers that are much easier to comprehend for those of us who don’t deal in millions, billions and trillions!

If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in debt on their credit card. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. That is a cut of $3000 per year. They are still going to overspend their income by $14,000 each year. So in another 10 years they will owe about ½ million dollars on their credit card.

These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we canunderstand.

Here’s another one that was published on The Wall and Broad Report:

The USA Has NO BUDGET since OBAMA has Become President!!!

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so federal spending needs to be broken into simple terms to be understood.

Let’s put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:

• U.S.income: $2,170,000,000,000
• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let’s remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to their high-interest credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

Because the Jones’ realized they’re in trouble, they decided to become responsible and cut their spending. After a lot of posturing and wrangling, they agreed to cut a whopping $385 from their budget.

Either way we’re in a heap ‘o big trouble in America and our elected representatives — OUR EMPLOYEES — are committing malfeasance on a daily basis and we the people seem to be powerless to stop it. Well, we’re not!

Some unanswered questions and thoughts of a former journalist

Let’s see if I understand this correctly: I can own a private enterprise that is quite profitable and makes lots of money for me; those who choose to invest in my company and my employees. I can play by the rules and still get hauled before a bunch of self-important, pious egotists masquerading as esteemed Senators to defend my business acumen because somehow, somewhere, the premise was proffered that my legal business, which pays millions of dollars in taxes to support these government hacks, is somehow evil.

Meanwhile, the same government hacks that I support with the taxes generated from my private business, can support programs that run guns across international borders so that foreign agents can then execute a war against the country that my taxes support, but when I ask my congressman why he won’t assume his constitutional authority to declare war against the people firing at my neighbors from across the same international border, I’m laughed at as if my suggestion is ludicrous. Imagine if we’d had the same attitude on Dec. 7, 1941.

Some more questions and observations:

• What’s the difference between what Bernie Madoff did to private investors and what the United States government is doing to its citizens via Social Security?
• When George W. Bush sent troops to the Middle East to fight a war the media called him a warmonger and wanted to drag him to his death.
• When Barrack Hussein Obama sent troops to the Middle East to fight a war the media called him brave.
• The George W. Bush tax cuts were gifts to corporate cronies and the rich until Obama was given the choice to let them expire, then they were the right thing to do.
• Exxon is chastised for not paying its “fair share” of taxes while General Electric can pay no taxes on billions in profits and its CEO receives presidential treatment and access.
• The same communist regimes that we once touted as our enemies are more profitable, more capitalistic and run their governments with lower tax rates than we do? Did you know that Russia has a flat tax and collects more money than it ever did because of it, or that China regularly visits American businesses in order to learn how to replicate our capitalistic successes?
• How did health care become a right and the ownership of firearms by free citizens become outlawed? What constitutional amendment covers health care?
• Who decided that it was more important to pay people to literally dig through the trash of a former governor than it was to dig into the past of the man who would soon become President of the United States? Why weren’t more people alarmed when two veteran news journalists openly admitted that they knew nothing about the background of Barack Hussein Obama, or what his thoughts and motivations were?

Related articles

• Unanswered question – What about the Wall St. meeting? (politico.com)

The patriotic premises of liberals and the lies they tell

Did you know that children who attend American Independence Day celebrations are more likely to vote Republican (gasp!) when they grow up?

Don’t tell the Obama regime, otherwise they might concoct a scheme to ban the celebration altogether.

Oops! Too late: the media arm of the Obama regime has already posted the story.

It’s true. Well, almost… Not really. ABC News admits that even the study’s co-author, David Yanagizawa-Drott of Harvard University can’t match up the thesis with the facts. Not to worry folks; like the Christmas stories that proclaim Jesus wasn’t really born on Dec. 25th or that what he said and did can’t be authenticated, this is just another attempt by the anti-American media to belittle you for waving your American flags and celebrating the moral convictions of those who risked life and livelihoods to declare themselves and others free and independent from the tyranny of King George by signing the Declaration of Independence.

According to the story’s author:

One thing not addressed in the report is that nearly every kid in America attends Fourth of July celebrations, but the Republican Party is a minority party.

Minority party? So what’s the problem? If most kids grow up to be Democrats who cares?

Let’s apply a little Philosophy 101 here… If there are fewer registered Republicans in America then certainly the premise must be that there are more registered Democrats.

US voter registration in 2004.

The 2004 census statistics even bear this out. So, if nearly ever kid in America attends an Independence Day celebration in the United States as declared in the story, simply philosophy would suggest that celebrating Independence Day would make one more likely to be Democrat than Republican, even though ABC News declared the exact opposite?

Halfway through the story ABC News printed this joke: “Calls to Democratic officials were not returned because they had left their offices early to celebrate the Fourth of July.”

Really? How did the author of the story know they were out celebrating Independence Day? Come on now: George Stephanoloulos works for ABC News and is one of the Democrat Party’s biggest apologists around! Isn’t he one of the author’s colleagues? Even if he was reluctant to make up a quote I’m sure he could find someone out there to make up some lies about Republicans and Independence Day.

Of course that isn’t why they printed the paragraph. For Liberals, the time off for patriotic or religious holidays has nothing to do with celebrating the memory of the holiday. You don’t believe for a moment that Liberals actually go out and celebrate Independence Day, Christmas, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving or Easter for the rememberances that they are? That’s not the purpose of a holiday for these folks. The purpose of a national holiday for these people is just another paid vacation on the taxpayer’s dime.

As an aside, I thought that children weren’t affected by the things they watched, did or played? We’re always told that the violent video games kids play are perfectly harmless, that they don’t lead kids to violent tendencies, or that the music they listen to doesn’t encourage them to act out in ways that are counter to the morals of a good and just society.

So what’s the worry Mr. and Ms. Liberal? These kids at the Independence Day ceremonies will likely continue the practice of drinking the kool aid you serve up to their older brothers and sisters in college and continue to vote with the premise that government is good, politicians are the only people in America who have your best interests at heart and that freedom and liberty are the archaic, evil and racist outcomes of a bunch of hooligans who dared to break away from the theocratic and despotic regime of King George.

Obama to help fathers? How… like he helped the economy?

Since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law America has lost 1.9 million jobs, according to government statistics.

My first response was a bit skeptical; then it was a bit more positive, but not to worry: I got over that.

It seems that President Obama used his Saturday radio address to weigh in on fatherhood. One might call that appropriate since Mr. Obama is the father of two young girls.

After reading an ABC News blog, what made me think the most — knowing what we now know about Obama’s politics — can be found in the following paragraph:

He said many fathers don’t have the time or resources to be as good as fathers as they would like to be, in part because of the state of the economy, and touted his administration’s efforts to offer “men who want to be good fathers a little extra support.”

Where do we find the time or resources, Mr. President? As for time, that’s not a problem for millions of Americans; many of us have lots of that since we’re not working. Our problem isn’t time, but money. We’re not allowed to print money to pay our bills, so how do we pay those bills?

It’s no secret that the American economy sucks. Fathers all across America are worried about a whole host of economic issues that they can’t change and see no hope for ever getting better. For some of us our worries are only compounded by the little things in life such as divorce, relocation, child support, employment opportunities… the list goes on.

My question for Mr. Obama is this:

Dear Mr. President: you say that your administration has made an effort to offer “men who want to be good fathers a little extra support.” Those are your words, sir. Please tell me specifically what these efforts are and how I apply.

No sir, I’m not in line for some of your “stash money” to build me a new kitchen or buy me a fancy new ride, though I drove a nice new Ford F150 the other day… but I digress. I just want to know what you can do to maybe open some doors for me to get a good job in the state where my daughter lives with her mom (my ex-wife). You see sir, my daughter is just a little older than Sasha and younger than Malia. I just want to watch my little girl grow up and be there for her. Speaking man to man, you can understand, can’t you Mr. President?

Then again maybe I should ask Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper to elaborate since he was the one who apparently interviewed the President and wrote the blog post for ABC News. Why didn’t Mr. Tapper elaborate in his blog on just what it is that the Obama administration is doing to make life a little easier for us fathers? As a reporter I certainly would have asked that question, especially if it was my job and personal goal to make President Obama look good in the media.

Help me again, Mr. Tapper: just how has President Obama helped me and the millions of fathers across America? Weren’t we promised better economic times than the 5% unemployment under George W. Bush? Instead, Obama has presided over the loss of nearly 2 million American jobs in his first two years of office. That’s certainly not the kind of hope and change we were all expecting.

What do Pulitzer Prizes mean anymore?

Image via Wikipedia

I recall studying journalism in college when discussions came up about the notion of “yellow journalism” and how a man named Joseph Pulitzer was synonymous with the term.

For those who might not be familiar with the term, it generally means the kind of journalism that is sensational, sometimes tacky, and aimed more at attracting readers and viewers than the kind of responsible journalism one might expect from a respectable newspaper or news organization.

Think of yellow journalism as the kind of reporting we see today from most main-stream outlets: irresponsible reporting that exaggerates and downright lies, while not focusing on the real issues affecting America today. Even Wikipedia, which has regularly been called into question for its objectivity, rightly reports that yellow journalism is “a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension “Yellow Journalism” is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.”

So it seems rather ironic that Joseph Pulitzer, a man synonymous with sensational journalism, would have his name attached to a journalism award that allegedly honors those who’s work is worthy of the highest honors in news reporting.

Aside from the LA Times’ reporting of the fiasco in the City of Bell, where council members and the city manager were robbing the city blind by taking outrageous salaries and pension plans, I doubt that the rest of the Pulitzer prize-winning works will be widely recognized by the general public as true journalism that exposed political corruption and affected a positive outcome.

While I found the Wall Street Journal editorials named by the Pulitzer Committee interesting and somewhat entertaining, their heady reading is certainly not something most people are going to read, much less react to as they contemplate who to vote for in the next election.

While years of blame has been cast on the Internet and “New Media” for the downfall of journalism in America, the fact remains that journalism for the most part died a long time ago when editors and publishers stopped serving their communities and neglected their audience in exchange for cost-cutting measures and higher profit margins. While newspaper companies did enjoy double-digit profit margins for a period of time as recent as 10 years ago, newspapers over the past several years have completely lost their shorts because those earlier cost-cutting measures lead to newspapers nobody wanted to read. Once the customer (the reader) lost interest in the product, profits succumbed to a business acumen that was more interested in chasing dollar bills than the tried-and-true method of serving one’s customers and treating them with respect.

Related Articles

• Is Journalism Still Yellow? (journalistjan.wordpress.com)
• 2011 Pulitzers: The Oscars of Journalism are announced today. Who cares? (slate.com)
• 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced – New York Times (news.google.com)
• You: 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced (nytimes.com)

Democrats, the media and their terrorist agenda

America has an avowed policy against negotiating with terrorists, particularly when those terrorists are holding hostages. Or at least that’s what we’re told.

It certainly makes sense politically and militarily. If your enemy knows that all he needs to do is take something of value that you possess, then wait until you give in to his demands, the enemy has won without firing a shot; He owns you.

Why then do the Republicans continue to “reach across the aisle” and negotiate with Democrats while the American public is being held hostage to high unemployment, high gas prices and high taxes? What is it about the mainstream media that makes the Republicans like Charlie Brown agreeing to let Lucy hold the football?

For the last several days Rush Limbaugh has been talking about how the GOP gave into the Democrats on a new continuing resolution, rather than live up to their promise to the American voters to cut $100 billion from the federal budget and further control government spending. Limbaugh, however, has been arguing that the mess America is in hasn’t happened overnight and won’t be cured by a single victory by the Republicans.

Whatever! That’s not the point.

The point, and I’ve been waiting for Rush to articulate this, is that the American taxpayer is being held hostage by Democrats, the media and their shared policies. These terrorists learned back in 1995 that their most successful weapon isn’t one that blows things up or tears flesh, but a boogeyman called “government shutdown.” You could hear it in House Speaker John Boehner’s voice when he promised that he would not shut down the government because the GOP and Democrats could not agree on a new continuing resolution to fund the government for another week or so.

Never mind the fact that when the Democrats controlled all three branches of the government that they never put forth an annual budget for the country; never mind the fact that Americans in large numbers told the Democrats last November to pound sand, never mind the fact that Obama promised to halve the national deficit within his first term, but has instead increased it more in two years than the total deficit amassed in the previous 200-plus years of American history!

This government shutdown boogeyman really has two faces. The other face is the one the GOP wants to believe will smile favorably upon them if they just say the right things. It’s sort of like Charlie Brown agreeing for the umpteenth time to let Lucy hold the football while he tries to kick it. Lucy will never let Charlie Brown kick the football and the media will never truthfully report that Democrat policies are the very reason why America’s actually unemployment is well over 10% and that Obama’s policies are why gasoline prices have surpassed $4 and are likely on their way to $6 by the end of the year.

Like the foreign terrorists who hold American citizens hostage, the media and the Democrats hold the American taxpayer hostage via our elected representatives, who we believed when they said prior to the November 2010 election would seriously cut federal government spending and the overall size of government. When the GOP leadership agreed the other day to avoid a government shutdown by cutting a paltry $38 billion from government spending, some of which had already been agreed to in previous negotiations, it was sort of like the American family deciding that while their expenses are way out of line with their income and the credit cards are all maxed out, to skip Starbucks once a week when the real solution to their overspending will require much more drastic cuts and a serious attitude adjustment.

 

Obama extends middle finger at America

Regardless of your position on same-sex marriage, Obama’s decision earlier this week on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is yet another middle finger gesture by the President of the United States at the US Constitution, and a clear and present danger to the very fabric of the United States.

The irony in his decision is thicker and juicier than the meat on the ribs Michelle ate recently while vacationing in Aspen, although you wouldn’t know it from the headline on the story, which chose instead to highlight the vegetables she also apparently ate; but I digress.

The US Constitution explicitly outlines the duties and responsibilities of Congress (Article 1); the President (Article 2); and the Judiciary (Article 3). Nevertheless, Obama apparently chooses not to recognize these clear delineations in legal authority by declaring a duly signed law unconstitutional. Obama clearly and unconstitutionally inserts himself in Article 3 by assuming the powers authorized only by the judiciary. At least his Liberal friend in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, is attempting a constitutional remedy to the Defense of Marriage Act by introducing legislation to repeal the Clinton-era law.

Meanwhile, the autocrat in chief has boldly declared DOMA unconstitutional, citing “the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.”

I thought Obama saw the Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties” and therefore he didn’t believe in it at all? He certainly doesn’t think very highly of the constitutional citations given by Judge Roger Vinson in his ruling that declares ObamaCare unconstitutional.

Related Articles

• Diane Feinstein to Seek Repeal of Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (nowpublic.com)
• Senate Dem to Introduce Repeal of “Defense of Marriage Act … (politics.blogs.foxnews.com)

The Obama Reich Ministry exposed?

Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels. Image via Wikipedia

Here’s some frightening stuff — especially for us conservative Facebook junkies — that would make Joseph Goebbels jump for joy.

Examiner.com is reporting that the US Government — you know, the criminals we employ to do little things like “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty,” are engaged in a propaganda mission against their subjects (that would be you and me, boys and girls!).

While some are claiming this story to be totally bogus, it’s still certainly plausible, given the nature and practices of the regime currently occupying the White House to employ such tactics against American citizens.

An erie comparison or careful propaganda?

Watch yourselves. If nothing else this story is making me a bit skeptical of Facebook. Then again, could that be part of the propaganda ploy of Obama’s Reich Ministry? Should we start whispering to only our most trusted and closest friends?