“The best surprise,” a Holiday Inn commercial crowed, “is no surprise.” “Never varies,” proclaimed the ad-men for Dewar’s Scotch. And here we have our former paper of record, the New York Times. It never disappoints. “Slice him where you like,” Bertie Wooster observed, “a hellhound is always a hellhound.” Regular readers know that I rarely see the Times these days. It’s been several years since I cancelled my subscription — O frabjous day! — and I confess I have never missed it. Occasionally a preposterous piece by Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, or some other left-wing fantasist comes to my notice, but by and large I, like some many others, have consigned the paper to the great mental recycling bin marked “irrelevant.” So it is always gratifying when I come across a physical copy of the paper and discover — lo! — all my prejudices are yet again confirmed.
Consider today’s paper. I am up in Northwest Connecticut visiting friends for whom perusal of several papers, including the Times, is a daily ritual. So what’s up in the paper today? How’s this for the lead front-page headline:
“Wealthy Reduce Buying in a Blow to the Recovery”
Can you believe it? O, those naughty rich folk, daring to cut back on spending during hard times. The aura of disapproval suffused the article, written, amusingly enough, by someone called Motoko Rich. Just as Paul Krugman has been shouting that the problem with the most profligate administration in history is that — wait for it! — it has not been spending enough money, so Ms. Rich implies that the wealthy are somehow to blame for being cautious about spending at a time of grave economic uncertainty, not to say “peril.” Never mind that one reason many affluent people are affluent is that they, unlike the U.S. government and many states, are careful not to spend more than they take in. We must put that out of our minds if we are to play the game of “blame the rich.”
Why has the recovery stalled? The real answer is because of the stupid, wealth-killing policies of the Obama administration. But it pleases the Times, just as it pleases Washington, to pretend that “the rich” are somehow to blame. And what a nice hook to hang the charge upon: in these tough times, the rich are closing their wallets just when Obama says they should open them.
I couldn’t help but snort with irritated disbelief when I cast my eyes over that story. I suppose I should have been pleased. After all, it amply confirmed my conviction that the New York Times occupies a airless eyrie far removed from reality. Really, it’s less a newspaper than a public nuisance.
I, like some many others, have consigned the paper to the great mental recycling bin marked “irrelevant.
Oh yes.
One September a few years ago I requested that they cancel my weekend subscription. They kept delivering the unwanted newspapers every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until January of the next year, which made me speculate as to the accuracy of their readership/subscriber numbers…
One up on you, Fausta. I canceled the Times, when I realized, belatedly, that it had become silly and irrelevant, but they continued to deliver it until I canceled twice more. Then they billed me for the unwanted papers! I will leave it to you to guess whether I paid.
I wonder where Ms. Rich and the NYT got that idea? Several weeks ago I saw and heard a spokeswoman for the O.Obama administration make the very same claim — frugal people hurt the economy!!!! Unfortunately I cannot remember her name.
The usual suspects, AP, Yahoo, etc., are running similar stories at the moment. All just a crazy coincidence, I’m sure.
Anyway, get those credit cards out and spend, spend, spend.
I cut my VISA Credit card up in 1981
So, . . . yer able t’see th’writin’ on the wall—are ya’?
When th’spending splurge swizzles down to a dribble an’ even th’little kids are sayin’ th’Pres, is not wearing anything—who’s gonna be t’fault?
That’s right, Pal; it’s been all over th’net fer months and months. They been tellin’ us, loud-n-clear, the rich have been just strangling this great country—and, lookit what they did; that’s just what they wanted—bring this nation to’er knees; an’ that’s just how they did it. They wouldn’t support this nation’s first black president—just clamp down on spending.
They could’a bought new cars an’ boats an’ motorcycles—they’ve got the money—don’t tell me, they could’n'a done something. They’ve got all the money—how did they get? They’re smart and have all the education—they know how to keep a economy going, if they wanted to.
Congress has to pass some laws, . . . give the little guy a chance, . . .
I lived on The Left Coast command center—Portland—for so long, I can do a better left-winger than a left-winger: whatever is forcefully asserted and plausibly maintained is the law, the moving party prevails, string hysterical nonsense together ’till the cows come home—right outa the tutelage of the ancient Greek schools for elocution: focused scatter-gun plan to fix blame, stir in more pablum populi, fix blame: “The party of NO, and their tea-baggers wrecked the President’s plan—no one thought it possible, but we all see and partake of the sorrow, they it, they finally did it. Modify and repeat as needed.
One more thing, although the cows won’t be coming home—ever—the chickens WILL be coming home to roost; crow that up—a chicken in every pot and, two more in the fridge, just a’waitin’. And the cows, we’ll get a sweetheart deal with Argentina for beef; and besides, really, cows are just too big anyways, so forth and so on.
And—so you wannabee rich? Well, we may cover that another time, . . .
The best (worst?) feature of this pathetic attempt at economic commentary was that no attempt was made to explain just why people might be reluctant to spend money on luxury items under the Obama regime. There was no mention of the specter of vastly higher taxes on the wealthy or of the apparent efforts of Obama’s cadres to reduce wealth accumulation by limiting executive pay and investment income. It was a bizarre variation of the usual “blame it on the rich” NYT propaganda.
And what is Motoko’s relationship to Frank, dare I ask?
Well, the headline writer for that article is an imbecile. The article itself meanders all over the hills and valleys of a drunk on a scavenger hunt.
Trying desperately to pin the failure of a recovery (intended to be built out of a year and a half of anti-business, anti-entrepreneur, anti-capitalism relentless pounding every day…and the Democrat stranglehold on the House, the Senate and the White House)…while looking to “redistribute” away every nickel they can pry from the pockets of the evil “have’s” into the pockets of political patronage hacks and other freeloaders slopping at the giveaway trough.
So, this article sways from the notion that the “have’s” represent an enormous factor in recovery if they are spending (in one breath) to…but we don’t want to give them those dastardly tax breaks to encourage spending…because (in the next breath)….we would be “helping those who are not the one’s suffering”.
How imbecilic. The thought process is this…”we have patients who desperately need a blood transfusion, but we are going to deny you a sip of orange juice and a cookie, because why would we give the donor anything…he isn’t the one who needs the transfusion”.
This is the current problem in this land of ours. We are being led by people who are so hellbent on “payback” and creating “victims and villains”…that it is more Soup Nazi than Soup Kitchen. It accomplishes nothing and destroys everything.
The NYTimes is “paper of record”, if by “record” we mean the scorecard tabulating one more imbecilic decision after the last.
Reminds me of Obama’s gaffe of claiming the government should not pay for soldiers’ operations and rehab when injured in war because “it’s an all volunteer military; nobody told them to go over there and put themselves in the line of fire.”
Damn those evil rich! Piling all their money up in big stone vaults, which they occasionally swim in like Scrooge McDuck.
However, the NYT’s Dogma Enforcement desk slipped up here- even in attacking the Evil Rich, you can never, ever admit that they *ever* do anything beneficial to the economy- like spend their money. That’s a forbidden thought, and the NYT’s standards are obviously slipping: MinTruth will have a word with them over this.
What the hell do these lefty idiots think the Evil Rich’s money is doing? Why, it’s invested- that is, propping up what’s left of bank balance sheets so they can lend (or buy Treasury play-money), providing bond funding to desperate state governments, injecting equity or capitalization into our moribund business sector.
I expect the Times’ numbnuts think all the Evil Rich’s money should be confiscated and spent on something ‘productive’, like cash-for-clunkers or Recovery Act signs.
Remember the sin tax on yachts? No purchases and employees released. Community agitator economics at work.
So it’s bad when they spend it and it’s bad when they save it. I guess unless you’re of a particular political persuasion, you’re not allowed money.
I’m reminded of when Bill Clinton was asked why he didn’t return his vaunted “surplus” to the taxpayers. He said he just couldn’t do that because he wasn’t sure we’d spend it in the “right” way. (Actually, he couldn’t “return” it to us because it didn’t exist in the first place.) Wouldn’t we be ever so much better off if we, and in particular the rich, simply handed over everything to the folks in Washington and let them distribute it in the wisest way possible? Why, of course we would. Shouldn’t even need to ask.
Perhaps you may remember that after 9/11, President Bush reommended that people keep spending money so that the economy would not collapse. He was piloreed by the MSM for being an idiot, etc. I guess it isn’t what you say that counts but who says it. Golly, I sure miss GWB.
It’s one thing to ask people to spend money to keep the economy going. GWB, after 9-11, sent out money to citizens, asking them to spend it — kinda like giving them some of their money back?
It’s quite another thing to say that the frugal are preventing the economy from recovering.
This column is far more absurd than the article. I read the article online this morning and did not hear “blaming” the rich. It gave some possible reasons for the decline in purchasing, including the recent shakiness in the market. Is it too much to ask that people respond to the specifics in the column? Yeah, I guess so. The speciality here is shoot-from-the-hip blather regarding how bad the Times is and how they always blame the rich. Read the damned article, and then cite specifics!
This is yet another example of the absurd straining to be offended by whatever liberals do or you imagine that they have done, or MIGHT have done. Liberal have their obvious flaws, but the alternatives as embodied by the responses on PJM are discouraging, at best.
Somehow this seems connected to the responses to the movie review, where people respond to something they have not seen, giving strong opinions on some vague sense of the inappropriateness of the movie. Why do so many seem stodgy, insular, and alienated; denizens of a prickly and suspicious wasteland?
As a pretty conservative person willing to believe that the Left really does regard our income as the result of government beneficence I have to agree with you. I didn’t see any blame or scorn being heaped on the rich in the article.
Blather. “Absurd straining”. “Liberals”.
Gee D-White, it’s interesting how you are what you eat.
“The speciality here is shoot-from-the-hip blather…”
“This is yet another example of the absurd straining to be offended by whatever liberals do or you imagine that they have done, or MIGHT have done…”
“Absurd straining”.
“Why do so many seem stodgy, insular, and alienated; denizens of a prickly and suspicious wasteland?”
It’s because you are sooo cooool D-White. All other opinions are simply “blather”.
Blather was thirty years old today…
Oh, to be a “Blathering” “Centrist” in 1917 St. Petersburg!
Is it always St. Petersburg in 1917 for you? You move along, cataloguing my images (it’s about time someone did that) but also lurch around in your own self-referential world, or more accurately referential to your own version of of what Ivor Winters called a “non-existent plot.”
Anyway,good luck generating some commentary that can carry it’s own weight, or maybe even say something of substance, but in the meantime you can pass for a parasite,” your version, evidently, of “You are what you eat?
“The speciality here is shoot-from-the-hip blather…”
And Lather came foam from his tongue.
D-White, do you know that tune “The Dawn of Correction?
Except that everyone knows people read the headlines, make a quick judgement as to whether that interests them and usually move on — especially when it comes to economics. A statement like “Wealthy Reduce Buying in a Blow to the Recovery” is where the lie or unsupported claim is, not in the response of critics of the opinion expressed in the headline. If it was not what the paper wanted the reader to believe they shouldn’t have stated it in the headline. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the NYTimes editor and not R. Kimball to clarify the article.
I did not read every article on the PajMed that I saw today, just the one whose headline intrigued me. The others headlines didn’t interest me so I didn’t read the articles. See what I’m getting at?
The ONLY reason to re-subscribe to the NY Times is to have the pleasure of cancelling it again the next day.
@Dwight, post#10.
>This column is far more absurd than the article. I read the article online this morning and did not hear “blaming” the rich. It gave some possible reasons >for the decline in purchasing, including the recent shakiness in the market. Is it too much to ask that people respond to the specifics in the column? >Yeah, I guess so. The speciality here is shoot-from-the-hip blather regarding how bad the Times is and how they always blame the rich. Read the damned >article, and then cite specifics!
I’ll cite something specific from the article. How about the headline?
“Wealthy Reduce Buying in a Blow to the Recovery”
Does that sound like the NYT is praising the rich for how they’re helping the recovery?
As any child knows, the slights, the insults and the criticisms last forever. The animosity this administration is creating will not be dissipated. The kiss kiss (should it come) doesn’t repair the slap slap. The slap will always trump the kiss. The kiss will always seem false because the damage done to the psyche is so raw. Instead the hostility grows until it rages out of control.
Now why would wealthy people worry about spending money? Let us count the ways:
1. Healthcare reform and related tax/funding proposals
2. The proposed cap and trade legislation and the consequent increase in energy costs
3. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts
4. The agitation for even higher taxes on the wealthy
5. The proposal to increase corporate tax rates
6. The proposal to increase capital gains taxes
7. The trial floating of the ideas of a national VAT
8. The floating of the idea of removal of the earnings cap on FICA
9. The more robust regulatory bureaucracy
10. Card check
11. Moratorium on oil drilling, which might increase energy costs
12. Financial “reform,” increasing costs and regulatory burdens immensely on banks/insurance companies, etc.
13. Debt increasing exponentially, driving up interest rates someday
14. The specter of inflation down the road
15. Recent increase in minimum wage, which drives up all labor costs
Probably 20 more if I felt like thinking further.
Damn irrational wealthy people! They have no reason whatsoever to be pulling in their horns.
NYT: tone deaf and suicidally out of touch as always.
From the article:
Nevermind that the Top 5 percent in income earners account for – wait for it – almost TWO-thirds of all income taxes paid.
Notably, this inconvenient factoid didn’t make into Rich’s
diatribearticle.America’s overburdened half – we’re not taxed enough and now we don’t spend enough, in the left’s Zero-Sum version of the economy. This was my favorite bit though:
That’s right Sam, people of means are NOT the ones who build and invest in businesses… that employ people. Keep telling yourself that lie. Much better to live in the left’s version of Bizarro World where indefinite unemployment benefits create a permanent dependent underclass.
including the recent shakiness in the market.
Er, that “shakiness” is caused by the policies implemented by Democrats.
The mindset that propels this opinion is the same one that believes that our earnings are not really ours but the government’s and the government merely allows us to have a portion of it. It’s a short walk to the government taxing us for excess savings. A sort of excess profits tax for the individual.
The faded out of touch NY Times as TO the importance to America and my self personally after carrying the flag of Marxism , Radial Socialism and Union support will be meet its doom .
One suspects they grieve not because like Obama HE TOO FAILED …….. Marx said It will take many useful Idiots TO find our ownership of MAN .
Puts me in mind of the classic headline about prison population increasing despite reduction in crime rate. Cause and effect do not exist in lefty-land.
Roger_
Why would you think that the name, “Motoko” necessarily denotes someone of the female persuasion, unless of course, there’s one of those mug shots of the author with the article? Once upon a time, when I read the ‘Times’, I always found the mug shots useful. They at least confirmed that the author was not a space alien; a matter which was often in doubt based upon the content of the article.
As to their outrage, I suspect this is due, not because the rich have declined to support the recovery, but rather that, having been schnooped by Teh Won, the rich have closed their wallets to HIM. –Unexpectedly…
Fausta-
Surely you realize that advertising rates are based upon circulation figures. So it’s not surprising that the Times might like to carry canceled subscriptions far past their actual termination date, if ya get my drift…
While slumming for ad dollars, the Times isn’t especially finicky that many of those eyeballs are, in fact, “dead eyeballs”. This would be the Times’ equivalent to tombstones voting; another matter which I’m sure they have no problem with, -as long as the tombstones are voting Democratic.
When Mr. Fedak wondered what Motoko’s relationship to Frank is, I Googled her. Since she married Mark Harrison in 2003, I assume she is a woman. I didn’t search for long but I found no relationship between her and Frank. At the least, she’s not his daughter. She’s the daughter of Junko and Peter from Petaluma, California.
She WAS a reporter for the Wall Street Journal but in 2003, when she was 33, she moved to the NYT. I’m going to guess she moved from a successful conservative paper to a dying LIBERAL one for some reason other than greater opportunity.
Surely she couldn’t have predicted that Obama would soon be president and he would likely use rich people’s taxes to resuscitate the Times?
Read that yesterday. My takeaway was not an attack on the rich, rather the opposite, I was beginning to wonder for the first time if the rich really should be the target of the governments attempts at stimulation. It sort of made me look at the irony of the matter rationally for the first time (rich get richer == economy gets better) Now I’m thinking I missed something important in the article that should have pointed me into an anti-rich sentiment….
Congratulations. It appears that you took away from the column exactly what Motoko hoped you would: take more money from The Rich and give it to Obama. At least that way you KNOW it will be spent.
We have some quite wealthy friends who were much enamored of Sen. Obama and agreed that perhaps the rich should be taxed more. We have avoided them since Obama’s election, but I spoke to her recently and when asked, “What’s new?” she responded that they had bought a larger boat. Too bad I didn’t think to tell her that their money would have had greater effect if they had sent it to Barack and Barney and Nancy.
Eat the Rich !!!
Eat the rich, huh?
After you’re finished, then what? Looks to me as if a whole bunch of monkeys are going to starve.
Class warfare is a losing proposition since it will consume itself. Blaming the rich can only go so far. Now–even the elitist Democrats–have turned on Obama because of his wealth-killing policies. America can start the recovery with his defeat in 2012.
I think the rich are seeing the personal storm clouds brewing- all the Bush tax cuts ending in 5 months, a VAT, and the big request to die this year so your estate doesn’t get ransacked. Imagine a proud business owner wanting to turn over whats left of the family business to his kids. This year it will transfer, next year it will be sold to pay the IRS more than HALF. It would make me want to have a boating accident.
FICA to the last dollar is particularly evil. The rich usually are self employed or have equity in the company so this is a 15.5% tax (less the credit on the income taxes of the employers half of FICA) that OVERLAPS the income tax – ie you get to pay income taxes on income before SSI, and then pay the SSI. So taking another $75K from the first $ 1M someone earns will encourage someone to enlarge the business, take risks, pay every new employee an additional $ 5K in bennies, etc. – NOT A CHANCE.
Instead he will take his Dad’s already paid for boat and go enjoy life. Atlas Shrugged seemed preposterous when I read it in college, now it appears to be non-fiction.
Applauding and congratulating each other for not reading newspapers because they challenge your worldview instead of telling you exactly what you want to hear?
If literary endeavors are to be based solely on one’s need for an ideological security blanket, it won’t be long before none of you are reading anything for fear of being challenged. How sad.
Wow. Heavy. Profound. The Modern Liberal gushes with sadness!
“Sad”? No, just lame. Lame. Lame.
Yes indeed. The Kick Me sign riveted to your ass is quite bent. Boom! Kick’s away!
Really, The Principal Liar sleazits Persons Galore, bringing this mummy out of from Cesspool Storage is soooo brilliant! Same old same old.
How about those PJM Archives? Archives…
How was the 5 on 2? Did the air mattress hold up?
Why was sleazits dumped? “Collar too tight”? Or, just a “coward” “poseur” run away thing?
Mr. Gee Toast going to hang for awhile too?
The Cesspool Master Pastor? No, that’s a deacon, right?
You made your cesspool. Love it or leave it.
Whatever.
Goodness gracious, you WERE beaten as a child, and not just by your parents.
D-White Delight!
Of course. Nothing perks up the jack booted blathering centrist like the fevered thoughts of children being beaten.
And Lather came foam from his tongue.
And sometimes he’s so nameless,
That he hardly knows which game to play…
Which words to say…
There are evidently some tunes (or voices) playing in your head, to which only you are privy. It sounds twisted enough for me to let you continue to keep your solitary secrets. Are you or have you ever been a character in the Joyce short story, “The Encounter?”
Gee D-White, do you have power over everyone?
“…for me to let you continue to keep…”
Spoken like a “fevered”, “blathering” wannabe child beating “Centrist”.
Putting oneself in a position of posed power. Bit of a fascist streak?
Jack boots ready! Mach schnell!
Commanding his very own tank
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do…
Maybe, maybe not, but you should have been. It might knock some sense into that statist, thuggish head of yours.
You seem to be suffering under the delusion that the only legitimate source of news, is a newspaper. Why should reading something that goes out of it’s way to insult you, lie to you, hide the real data from you, be the only way to keep oneself informed?
Dear Pastor,
This is a widespread but fatuous sentiment. The NYT has no claim on my precious time when there are better alternatives for both news and opinion that recognize the difference between the two. The NYT, by your own admission, considers its mission to be challenging my worldview, like John Dewey’s ideal progressive educator. Fine, but to do this under the guise of news reportage requires not only taking liberties with the truth, but doing so in an underhanded way so as to maintain the pretense of objective reportage. I prefer to be challenged in a straightforward, honest fashion. Besides, dear Pastor, don’t kid yourself: if the NYT was purchased by Rush Limbaugh you’d be the first to say,”cancel my subscription.”
More like “challenge reality”.
Indeed, why say anything about the Rich when blaming the Poor for not working hard enough and being greedy slobs makes much better Trolling… :: ))
the economy is growing the job market is grow on a quarterly basis’s it does take time after a big crash like we had in 07 but we are on our way. I know your in denial stop drinking the cool aid it’s killing your brain cells a few more go and you be talking monkey’s
Another myrmidon, eager to prove that he’s drunk his quota of kool-aid for the day.
Well, didn’t the Bolsheviks go after propertied kulaks, blaming them for being greedy and depriving the poor? It’s just another socialist gambit by a socialist president, aided and abetted by the nomenklatura.
What could be more obvious than the paranoia of the New York left? But, their paranoid manipulation of “the poor” has been too clever by half, assuming as they do that “the poor” can’t put two and two together. Imagine if “the poor” cleaning their toilets and waiting on tables for them discover just how much these swine despise them. I didn’t read the article, but I can imagine the paranoid geniuses at the Times hatching yet another false-flag gambit to mollify “the poor” who they’ve made grovel at their feet for the food on their table.
Obama’s Rich Time Warp
When the president tires of babbling that “Bush did it!” he now has another phony mantra: Those Rich Rascally Republicans are the problem.
In his ongoing program of promoting class warfare, Obama trotted out his latest lie on Saturday when he blamed obstructionism in Congress as being caused by that party of the rich, the Republicans, citing especially Republican opposition to extending unemployment benefits.
He conveniently omitted any reference to the multi-billion dollar cost of that addition to the already bloated federal budget. He also forgot to mention the Republican effort to seek a compromise on the issue by using stimulus monies to defray the cost, which idea Harry Reid immediately shot down.
In point of fact, the Democrat Party long ago stopped being the Party of the Common Man or the Party of the Working Class and any financial advantage Republicans had over Democrats in the past is inapplicable today. The millions in Obama’s inner city base may lower the average income disparity but factor in the number of wealthy Democrats in Congress and the power they exert and that disparity disappears.
A brilliant analysis and insightful column by Star Parker on WorldNetDaily.com highlights the truth about rich and poor in America and why the poor are going to stay that way. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1792)
Next years simplified tax form.
1: What did you make this year _________.
2: Send it in!!!!
Love O
Why has the recovery stalled? It’s not policy stopping the recovery. The recovery (in the market) stalled because the 401k holders are moving a mountain of equitues into bonds for the percieved inevitable double dip. You need to get the future retirement people (not the rich) to get a comfort feeling they will not lose what they have left in their retirement investments. With all the mud slinging hitting the news these days about how Congress and Obama are creating a double dip, people think it’s actually going to happen, and that will make it happen. This recession woke a sleeping public that never looked at their 401k before the great recession. They are now aware, and active. Good luck trying to get that money back into the market, the flash crash and the evil high-frequency traders (now exposed) spooked them back into submission for a long time.
If you truely believe that the only problem facing the economy is consumer confidence, then you haven’t been keeping up.
The home foreclosure problem is far from over, and is in fact getting worse.
The business foreclosure problem is accelerating.
The number of govts facing default on their debts is increasing.
And that is just a start.
Apparently you didn’t understand my comment.. I’ll try to explain and use small words this time…
Did you see the words (in the market)? Thats what he was refering to, not to the actually economic recovery, only how the market is doing…
The market factored in forclosures, it can rally higher with the house flippers and rich people throwing in the towel on big underwater loans as a convenience to preserve wealth. Nobody really cares that the banks have write-downs, helicopter Ben will bail them out.
The market can rally without small businesses, as long as the market movers are still making money. They are.
The number of countries facing default on their debt? If you’re refering to the Euro Zone countries (a.k.a.PIIGS) they’re looking to jump on the handout bandwagon as an alternative to giving up their riches.
The real problems with the global recovery (that should get you worried) is based on the fact that China’s inflation will be slowed by the Euro Zone Austerity measures, they will suffer the most, and probably bring the rest of us down a notch or 2 in the process. We are the last consumers for China right now, so they will remain pegged to the dollar to safeguard their advantage to their biggest consumer. Us. Since the Euro is headed into the toilet, China will continue to buy the Euro exchange to keep it artificially higher against the dollar to keep the manufacturing sector of Europe from sapping the Chinease export business. This currency manipulation is beginning to catch the attention of a few senators from both sides of the isle, which could really be trouble for the recovery if they act on it. You aalso forgot to mention the obvious, like the constant headline “UNEMPLOYMENT at 10%, but the real unemployment is exceeding 16%, and the Democrats are doing nothing about it!!”. Sound familiar on every newspaper in America just about every night going into the election? And who reads the local papers? Typically the middle class and seniors. All the votes the Republics are trying to convert. Scares them into shifting money around to preserve their retirement, expecting another double-dip. Does the middle class really care about what goes on overseas? Not rally.. Don’t let the hedge fund managers fool you into thinking there’s trillions on the sidelinese waiting for a place to get back in, the easy (greedy) money is in, the retirement accounts are out… Lot of money there..
So back the the Market Recovery, what you are witnessing is a range bound market with lots of sector rotation. People out of the market, are staying out thinking that the market is rigged against them. Fix the broken stock market, and it will go higher.
Of course the NY Times iomlied suggestion is that if the “rich” people won’t help out by spending their money, the government should tax and and spend it instead. Unfortunately we have learned over the past 18 months that their is no “Keynesian multiplier” on massive deficit spending (or it is less than 1). This is in all likelihood due to the great uncetainty it creates in the private and the fear of higher future taxes. Hence the stimulus has failed to stimulate. Tsking money from the productive private sector (what the NY Times refers to as the “rich”) and giving it to the unproductive public sector to redistribute according to political preferences will only worsen the current economy and make it harder to resume growth in the future.
Clearly the current generation of Sulzbergers qualify as “idle rich” who have been poor stewards of their capital. A quick review of the NY Times Company’s financial decision-making and performance will confirm this observation. But that does not mean that all private capital is poorly deployed. In setting economic policy we should place more trust in those who have financial “skin in the game” than those who would rather buy votes with our country’s hard earned capital.
You have to out of your mind. Reading the story which I urge all commenters to do, I could not find any hint of the blame game accusing the rich of being stingy, only being cautious about spending and hiring.
It is going to be hard to read any more of your articles without wondering what “slant” you bring to the table. I am no fan of the New York Times but many of us are very well aware that there are many many many…liberal rich people out there so in my opinion you are all mixing and mingling in the Hampton’s together. Everyone knows that in politics you fight with your opponent by day and have drinks with them at night.
Jesus H. Christ man, stop the Bull, we get it OK? Keep your money, keep your snide chuckles, the poor can’t go much lower than Walmart, but we do notice the influx of mercedes, porches, and benzs in the parking lot. We do notice the upside down triangle of top heavy management while the bottom works harder with less people. We get it. A poor man or woman giving their last dime to the needy is giving of the heart, and the rich man or woman giving a dime of their much is a pittance. We know that during the depression that twenty percent of the work force couldn’t find jobs while many others took care of their own looking the other way while, men, woman and children went to bed hungry and where men woman and children who went to bed with full stomachs and plenty more for the next day.
You just want to divide us even more and pretend that without you the world would collapse and we know this is not true because a better than you told us that it is better to collect riches in heaven that collect riches on earth that thieves steal and rust corrupts. Stop pretending that being rich is something special when we know that the man who gave us the richest gifts had nothing in his possession yet the poor and the rich flocked to hear his words.
This world is better because he came as a poor man with many gifts, and that is what has made this world better. Don’t be a snob, because it only shows where your heart is.
“that thieves steal…”
So who is the thief here?
The article in the New York Times does not blame anyone, it only uses statistics to show that the wealthier citizens of this country are cautious about spending and hiring. This author, I suppose, took the chance that his readers would not look at the article and therefore he could use it to slant his piece to appear as if the rich were being blamed for the economic problems we are having.
I pointed out that eighty percent of the country was employed during the depression yet people went hungry. Were those people hungry because they were lazy? Were all those employed good and the unemployed bad? Did some who could have helped because they had much not step forward when they were called? I know that in Hershey Pennsylvania the riches man in town and his wife took the much that they had and helped keep the town alive and the people thrive through a horrible time in our history. That is what they are remembered for, not the fancy cars or beautiful house or the sweet chocolate, but what they gave to the neediest. Weren’t we told that the rain falls and the sun shines on the good and the evil? Doesn’t that mean that sometimes misfortune falls on the least deserving and sometimes fortune comes to the least deserving.
Division only makes matters worse. There are poor people in this country very happy and not interested in having the fanciest car, nicest boat, or biggest house yet they give of the little they have and don’t boast of it or pretend that they have the weight of the world on their shoulders or the world depends on their generosity.
A little humble pie for desert is a good thing to serve even at the richest man’s table.
You accuse the author of playing the blame game, then you proceed to dive deeply into the same game yourself.
How liberal of you.
I accused the author of playing the blame game when citing the New York Times article that in my opinion did not blame the rich for the hard economic times we are in. It only said that the wealthier citizens in this country were cautious about spending and hiring.
If you call me liberal, your partially right and partially wrong and totally ignorant.
use smaller words, he has a problem with that…
Obviously this will be used as an excuse to increase the taxes on these evil rich people so that the govt can start spending the money that is now being hoarded.
I canceled my sub to the NYTimes in Oct. 1994 and have never looked back. I love not spending a dime to read the paper and if there is a good article I just get it for free on-line. Best time to read it is when a Republican wins a surprise election (i.e. when Scott Brown won the Mass. Senate race) because the vitriol and anger drips from the Grey Lady like sweat dripping from Al Gore when he discusses G.W. Bush.
Hey Roger: Paul Krugman in today’s (that newspaper you no longer read):
“The best way for Mr. Obama to have avoided an electoral setback this fall would have been enacting a stimulus that matched the scale of the economic crisis.”
Exactly! Exactly! Let’s announce another stimulus in October…
Roger: what waere you smoking in north west CT? I read the same article. it did not lay the blame on the rich bur merely stating a fact that the rich not spending is also not helping the economy. you are really pathetic. I stongly urge you before posting any blogs, check with markthegreat. he has insight in just about everything…
The Pretender-in-cheif’s Idiots-in-Cheif puts out a lot of things that make no sense to a reasonable, responsible person, but they actually believe if enough people hear this nonsense long enough they migh actually believe it, and apparently some of the loony left do believe it.
“The sky is falling” “The sky is falling” etc.
When will the insanity end?
It seems to me that papers like The Times have devolved into the American equivalent of L’Humanite, which was the newspaper of the French Communist Party. The only difference is that the French communists were actually honest enough to admit that they were communists. American communists hide behind an ever shifting smokescreen of euphemisms and pseudonyms. They’re not communists don’t you know, they’re “liberals,” or “progressives,” or some other equally ironic pseudonym.
Well most of my friends that earn more than a million per year do not care what anybody says about them anyway. Only the working classes and the super rich sports/hollywood folks care about their reputations. My rich friends even laugh about having their own political party to represent them (the tea party), heck, life is good aint it? ha !!
1. Demonize the successful.
2. Take their money.
3. Buy more power.
This is all part of step one, laying the groundwork for raising taxes.
I wonder how much the hypocritical, sociopathic, filthy rich CEOs of the NY Times rake in every year? I’ll wager that their philanthropic donations are inconsequential, as well