You’re a coalition of multinational corporations. Imagine this deal: Invest $1 in lobbying. Get a return on investment of $220. Save $100 billion on taxes, too. Nice, eh?

That’s the conclusion of three University of Kansas professors who undertook an empirical analysis of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 to study rates of return for money spent on lobbying, reported The Washington Post in an April 12 story by Dan Eggen.

This law — this shady excuse for a law with a name only charlatans could love — allowed companies that had earned profits overseas to inexpensively bring that money back into the States. The customary tax rate on such profits was 35 percent. But this elegantly named process — repatriation of profits — gave companies a one-time chance four years ago to haul the money home, paying only 5.25 percent.

The act was a tax holiday sought by a coalition of companies, primarily big pharmaceutical and high-technology corporations, all because they sought to pay little or no taxes on profits generated overseas — and they concocted a successful scheme to pull it off.
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I expect the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a newspaper I’ve long admired, to go belly up — even though I have no specific information about its finances and whether it is, indeed, in danger of folding.

But this week, it gave its product to me for free. I would have gladly paid up to 5 cents to read just one of its stories. But the JS didn’t charge me. What kind of business model allows me to consume a product for free?

I learned of the story through an e-mailed version of Romenesko, the legendary (or infamous, depending on your POV), media news page at Poynter. org, the Web site of the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank.

The Poynter e-mail contained this tease: “Wisconsin university football coach bans student reporters (http://www.jsonline.com/business/43539347.html).” I clicked on the link and —ta da — there it was, a story written by JS reporter Don Walker. Free. Didn’t have to pay a penny. And I would have. Gladly.

I know this isn’t a rare phenomenon. I suspect you’ve read news for free online, too. Bet you kinda expect it to be free, even demand that it be free. Perhaps you think it’s some kind of birthright. But in the long run, if you do not pay for the product of professional journalists, you will lose one of your best defenses against secrecy, corruption, and tyranny.
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If you’re not familiar with the term “bankster,” it was coined, writes Harold Evans for BBC, “by an American immigrant, a fiery Sicilian-born lawyer by the name of Ferdinand Pecora. He was the chief counsel to the US Senate Committee on Banking set up in the early 30s to probe the origins of the Crash of 1929.” Full Story »

“Come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry. And then either do one of two things, resign or go commit suicide,” said US congressman Chuck Grassley in an interview on radio station, WMT.

He was discussing AIG, and apologised later for the heat of his language. Many people probably feel that he was too polite.

It must be very cathartic to lay all of the blame for the financial crisis at the doors of bankers and investment brokers. No-one has yet asked how it is that a single industry has managed to attract nothing but liars, lunatics, imbeciles and pathological hucksters while the rest of the world is filled with wide-eyed softies who have been taken for a ride. Full Story »

“Psssst. Hey, you. Yeah, you, over there with the really fat checkbook.

“Wanna make some serious money real fast — and legal? Yeah, really — legally.

“All you gotta do is give me about $114 million. That’s all — and I’ll give you an ROI of 258,449 percent. Yep. You heard right — 258,449 percent. You’ll make $295.2 billion.

“That work for you?”
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A business ought to make a profit if it’s properly capitalized and wisely run. If it is neither, it fails. Today, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, joining the Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, in the red-ink tank.

With assets of $493.2 million and liabilities of $661.1 million, the Strib, as it’s commonly known, certainly qualifies as undercapitalized. (Yes, we know: Declines in print advertising revenues had a great deal to do with this.) Wisely run? Less than two years ago, then-owner McClatchy Co. sold the Strib to a private equity group, Avista Capital Partners of New York, for $530 million.

So what does a gaggle of “seasoned professionals” — whose Web site says its “Global Partnership Strategy of focus, collaboration and expertise in business and investing—will enable us to do more than just make ‘good buys’ in today’s market … and supports management and enhances operational performance, creating real value” — know about newspapering?
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For 20 years, I was a newsman. A damned good one. I learned the craft from good newsmen who learned it from other good newsmen before me. No steenkin’ journalism school for me.

I learned to parse cop code by making daily phone calls to the cops to get the police log — and often walked to the cop shop and read it myself when the damned desk sergeant wouldn’t read it to me. I learned by paying attention to details. I listened to what sources said — always more than one, y’know — and wrote it down. I had a newsroom godfather who taught me well: “Get it right. Period.” I only used anonymous sources three times in 20 years.

One day Editor Bob said he’d heard somebody was going to build a nuclear plant up river. “Find out,” he said. I did. I had to learn how nukes operated in less than two hours before going to the presser for the announcement. I was the only newsman who asked: “Will this be a boiling water or pressurized water reactor?” Hell, the PR types didn’t know. I did. I knew the in’s and out’s of each. Score one for me. I learned the beat quickly. I reported what the utility and the government didn’t want my readers to know. I wore a button given to me by my news editor: “Question Authority.” I found facts — so my readers found out something they needed to know.
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The first domino has fallen.

The Tribune Co., publisher of what used to be some of America’s best newspapers and operators of 23 television stations, has filed for bankruptcy, citing nearly $13 billion in debt compared with $7.6 billion in assets.

Let’s make book: Who’s next?

Could it be McClatchy, the nation’s third-largest newspaper chain, which is looking for a buyer for its flagship, the Miami Herald? Or the New York Times Co., struggling with debt and trying to cop a $225 million mortgage on its year-old grand edifice of a headquarters in Manhattan to get more cash on hand?
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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remains the archetype for whenever we consider the collapse of any great structural entity. But the current entity the Decline now relates to is no longer a national or political system; it is economic. Full Story »

Several times in recent years I have said that while I’m certainly and unapologetically a progressive, I’m in no way, shape or form the kind of conventional “liberal” that a lot of people think I am. My views on a variety of issues simply don’t map onto our brain-dead, one-dimensional notion of “left” vs. “right,” and even the slightly more nuanced Political Compass fails to explain a lot of how I think. I suppose I’m instinctively a non-partisan oppositional type - that is, no party really reflects what I believe so I tend to stay mad at whoever is in power. As such, I have “caucused with the Democrats” for the past few years, and I trust the reasons are self-evident.

I begin with this because in the last month or two some of my progressive allies have been getting on my nerves. Full Story »

Wealth is created through an economic sleight of hand. All the money in circulation is a promise, not only of the value already in existence, but of the future value that people have promised to create.

When you pay for groceries with a credit card, you are making such a promise. You are declaring that, through the power of your effort, you will create sufficient value during the month ahead to earn an income. You do not earn your salary merely by showing up at a place of work. You earn it by applying your skill and time to performing a task that creates value. The more of the intellect and learning you bring to bear on that task, then (hopefully) the greater that pay-check.

Only once you have earned that money can you pay off the debts — the promissory notes — that you incurred. You, through your behaviour, have brought new value and new cash into the world.

Only with this ability to borrow money that does not yet exist can we overcome the inertia of needing cash to create new value. Without being able to borrow we are limited by what we already have. Debt creates real opportunities for equality. Full Story »

The city council of San Francisco has issued an ordinance that pharmacies are not allowed to sell tobacco products. The intent is to eliminate mixed messages about a pharmacy, ostensibly devoted to healing people, selling unhealthy tobacco. But two companies are suing the city of San Francisco in federal court to overturn the ban. The first, Walgreens, is suing because only stand-alone pharmacies are affected by the ban - grocery stories and big-box stores with pharmacies are not affected. Their legal logic is that the tobacco sales ban is discriminatory toward stand-alone pharmacies, and they have a point. Whether it’ll hold up in court is another question (the federal judge refused to delay the ban, due to start on October 1, while the lawsuit is being heard), and one I’ll not even attempt to address.

The second company, Philip Morris, is suing using a totally different legal logic. They say it’s an unconstitutional abridgment of their First Amendment right to free speech. Full Story »

Yo, Barack! Hey, John! I know you’ve been busy, cruising around the country, giving those same ol’ stump speeches over and over again. (Doncha get tired of that? We sure do.)

Park for a minute and tell us something. After you’re elected president, what are you gonna do with those buffoons running the Minerals Management Service that collects each year oil and gas royalties of $10 billion from oil companies? The Interior Department’s inspector general says top officials there have been involved in “financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.”

And while you’re at it, what about Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission? You plan to let her keep on defending “trips she took that were paid for by the industries that her agency regulates“? You gonna let her keep on telling Congress that her agency does not need a larger budget to police the the industries that produce the nation’s consumer goods?
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Y’know, these days, so many people with so many different motives are trying to tell me in so many ways what the “truth” is that I wonder whether I’d recognize a “truth” — any “truth” at all.

I give up. I’ve collapsed under the oppressing weight of lies, prevarications, deceits, “policy adjustments,” rhetoric, no-longer-operative statements, attack ads, Perino-isms, cunningly packaged spin, and Rovian stump speeches with the rhetorical content equivalent to the unflushed contents of a toilet bowl.

Would someone please make possession of a Teleprompter a federal crime, punishable by listening to Rush Limbaugh 24/7 for life? Or Al Franken, for that matter? Can we stop the incessant harangue so reminiscent of “Father Knows Best” or, in the event Sarah Palin is speaking, “Mother Knows Best”? Or Hillary or Bill: “We Know Best”?
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With the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Reagan revolution has at last realized the robber barons’ dream: privatize the profits and socialize the debt. Nicely done, fellas.

— a letter to the editor of The New York Times from Candida Pugh of Oakland, Calif.; Sept. 10; emphasis added.

We now see the compensation wasn’t deserved. I don’t think taxpayers want their money to go to the C.E.O.’s of these very large institutions.

— Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the exit pay packages of Daniel H. Mudd of Fannie Mae and Richard F. Syron of Freddie Mac who, The Times’ Eric Dash reports, are eligible for as much as $24 million in severance, retirement benefits and deferred compensation; Sept. 10.
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The object of the political war is not to shrink the state or shut it down; it is to capture the thing and run it for your constituents’ benefit.

— from “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule” by Thomas Frank; p. 39; emphasis added.

When our economy is hurting, the last thing we should do is raise taxes as Barack Obama plans to do and has done. The American people cannot afford a Barack Obama presidency.

— statement from Republican presidential candidate John McCain after the Labor Department reported that the national unemployment rate rose to a five-year high of 6.1 percent last month as American companies cut about 84,000 jobs; Sept. 5.

Today’s jobs report is a reminder of what’s at stake in this election — John McCain showed last night that he is intent on continuing the economic policies that just this year have caused the American economy to lose 605,000 jobs.

— statement from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama following the jobs report release; Sept. 5.
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This Olympics, 2008, we mortals have been in the company of gods. Michael Phelps. Eight golds. Seven world records. Usain Bolt. Two golds. Two world records.

No-one who watched Usain Bolt actually break stride, look around, slow down and beat his chest in victory 15 METRES BEFORE THE LINE could have any doubt that you are watching a supreme athlete.

Athletes are the supreme example of physical genius. Full Story »

If you’re a CEO whose company has shorted its customers on quality and safety, you’re breathing a little easier today.

If you’re a politician who has traded favors with the über-rich in exchange for campaign cash, you’re relieved.

If you’re a government official who has allowed ideology or bribes rather than dedication to public service to shape your decision-making, you’re home free.

That’s because there will be fewer journalists nosing around on your turf.

Gannett Co. is eliminating 1,000 jobs across its newspaper operations, including 600 layoffs. That includes 84 dailies such as The Arizona Republic and the Detroit Free Press as well as nearly 900 non-daily publications but not USA Today, reports the Chicago Tribune. That means fewer journalists available to defend the public’s interest.
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Yahoo! (YHOO) is a famous listed company. At the height – back in 2000 - of the Dot Com bubble, their shares were worth almost $120 each. Heady days. Heady days.

Anyhoo, that was then. The company is a little less sanguine these days, trading range-bound around $20 a share. Unimaginative management can think of little more than rearranging the furniture in the hopes that something exciting happens. Full Story »

I don’t have pet peeves. I have major, psychotic hatreds.

— George Carlin, who died early this week at age 71; June 23
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