Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Who Put These Guys In Charge?

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Last March, Time Magazine noticed that, “Over the past few weeks, the U.S. newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline.” Past few weeks? Anyway, Time reported on 10 major metro dailies that are gone or going. Meanwhile, even the New York Times has dumped hundreds of jobs as employment at newspapers keeps reaching new lows.

Obviously, nobody reads newspapers anymore.

Except I do. As do 44 million other Americans every day.

I wrote op-ed columns for the Burlington Free Press back when Dan Costello was Editorial Page Editor. We also subscribed to that paper for years and I read it regularly. We stopped subscribing, though, not because they stopped publishing but rather because they stopped delivering. They kept billing us, though.

That seemed like a poor business model to support.

The Freep certainly wants my business back. Or someone’s. They used the U.S. Postal Service last fall to mail a beautiful 4-color tri-fold on legal size card stock to “R Harper or anyone else more-or-less breathing at” my North Puffin address. The flier offered 52 weeks of Sunday newspapers delivered for just $22. That’s less than they pay the carrier. [Editorial note: that may not be true. It is true that they tack more than $22 on to subscriber bills for motor route delivery.]

But wait! There’s more! Sign up now and get the Thursday and Friday papers as well!

All for just $22.

The promotion worked.

I was in South Puffin when the flier arrived, so I waited until just before Christmas to take them up on it. I mailed them a check a month ago. I didn’t include an email address on the registration form, but they emailed me at my most private address a couple of weeks ago anyway.

Thank you for subscribing to The Burlington Free Press.

You will receive your newspaper 3 days a week. We’re sure you’ll enjoy everything we have to offer.

And they cashed the check.

The Christmas offer I took advantage of expired 12/27/09. I just received a new one in the mail with the same pitch. The new offer mailed this, the first month of 2010, expired 12/27/09, too.

A month has passed. I looked for the paper religiously every Sunday. OK, I skipped 1/3/10 since we weren’t here but I looked on the 10th, the 17th, and again yesterday. Between the first of the year and today, I figure that makes about 11 newspapers. That makes quite a pile of fish wrap. Or fire starting material. I tried the link to my account they sent in the confirmation email. There was no login button anywhere on that page, on the “contact us” page, or even on the front page of burlingtonfreepress.com. I called their 800 number.

“I show that service started on the 21st,” the Customer Service rep said.

Of this month?

“I’ll send a note to the carrier, Mr. Harper,” she promised. “Let me check the details of your order.” She confirmed my street address, phone number, and zip code and asked me to sign up for automatic billing. I declined. When she read off my very private email address, I asked her to remove it from the system.

“I can do that,” she said.

I reminded her that we hadn’t had a roadside newspaper delivery “tube” since the firebombing incident.

“Do you want me to request a tube?” she asked.

No, I think it would be more productive to schedule an air drop down my chimney.

We both hung up. I puttered a bit. And the computer announced, “Sweetheart, you’ve got mail.” The computer has a little bit of a lisp and sounds remarkably like Humphrey Bogart.

Thank you for notifying us that you did not receive delivery of your newspaper on Thu, Jan 21, 2010, Fri, Jan 22, 2010, and Sun, Jan 24, 2010. We have notified your carrier to ensure proper delivery in the future. Your account has been credited for the missed delivery.

The email came to my very private email address, the one that Customer Service assured us is no longer in the system.

A month has passed since I placed the order. I used to wonder why people think newspapers are failing. I haven’t received a paper. I don’t wonder anymore.

When the Numbers Just Don’t Work

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According to Frank Rich in a New York Times op-ed, the Massachusetts Massacre “was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America.”

Huh?

I don’t want what Mr. Rich is smoking; that’s too much milk and honey for my blood.

With identical approval/disapproval ratings of a record low 47%, I’m thinking he isn’t as popular as Mr. Rich would have us believe. Nixon had a 56% approval and only 20% disapproval rating a year after his inauguration. Even Jimmy Carter was still 51% approval and only 28% disapproval after a year. Reagan had slipped to 49% and 39% by then but was back to 63% to 29% immediately before he left office. Bush 41 was 79% to 10%, far better than Clinton’s 53% to 38%. And, not surprisingly, Bush 43 had 84% approval and only 13% disapproval a year after his inauguration.

I guess Mr. Obama’s “most popularness” is “as compared to Adolph Hitler.” Or to Barney Rubble.

Oddly, David Pogue used his New York Times column this week to decry manufacturers who fudge their numbers.

Maybe Yes, Maybe No

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Are “Big D” Demorats capable of answering a direct question? My friend Rufus thinks the answer is a resounding “No!” Today’s 800 words are dedicated to trying to get a one word answer.

I posed a question on Facebook over the weekend: do you think businesses should make their customers absorb the taxes those businesses pay? Yes or No?

Here’s the back story. President Obama now plans to crank up the tax on banks. The Star-Ledger , an actual newspaper in New Jersey, reports that the sharp increase in the taxes paid by the nation’s largest banks will raise $90 billion or so. Demorats just love these regressive taxes: sales taxes, taxes on hospitals, fees on dollar stores.

Wikipedia defines a regressive tax as one that “imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich — there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer’s ability to pay as measured by assets, consumption, or income.”

Put more simply, pretty much everyone who deals with a big bank will see their fees go up a buck or two per month in response to the tax. If your income is $500 per month, a buck or two could make the difference between getting that $4 generic prescription or not. If your income is $50,000 per month, a buck or two won’t make difference in getting that $15 Viagra™.

Former North Puffin car dealer Buster Door and Democratic party official took up the challenge.

“Learn the difference between tax policy and a business model,” he replied.

It was a yes or no question, Buster.

Singer Jimmy Buffett had a thought or two about ducking these difficult queries:

Some say life isn’t fair,
Hey, I don’t know, I don’t care.

Ambivalent, well, yes and no.
Hey where did all the hippies go?
Our conversation sounds like actors’ lines.
Is it time for your medication or mine?…

If you’re looking for a quote from me
I’ll be under the mango tree.
Just can’t say how I’ll get there
Hey, I don’t know and I don’t care.

I love the liberal approach: when faced with facts, obfuscate, deny, point to someone else as the problem, and leave.

Tell us, Buster, I asked, do you think businesses should make their customers absorb the taxes those businesses pay? Yes or No.

“We raised prices when doing so made sense in the context of our business plan…” he replied.

Ignoring the fact that pricing goes in a marketing plan (not a business plan), that is perhaps the best obfuscation printed in politics this week. In fact, I’m sure I’ve heard a similar phrase come out of Washington: “We would never raise taxes unless doing so made sense in the context of the growth of revenue in the private sector …”

Huh? It was a yes or no question.

Tell us, Buster, I asked again, do you think businesses should make their customers absorb the taxes those businesses pay? Yes or No.

“Typical binary wingnut thinking: YES or NO?” he answered. “I think that businesses decide, on a case by case basis, which costs to absorb and which to pass on.”

I wrote, “Tell us, Buster, do you think businesses should make their customers absorb the taxes those businesses pay? Yes or No?” That asked for a 1 word answer. Buster wrote another 100 words. Businesses do indeed make their own decisions but he never answered the question.

Tell us, Buster, do you think businesses should make their customers absorb the TAXES those businesses pay? Yes or No?

“Are you really having trouble reading and comprehending the statements, ‘Taxes are a cost, Dick. Like all other costs, they are absorbed or passed along on a case-by-case basis.’? Or are you just wallowing in some bizarre thread-length bit of ego-boo?”

You’re right, Buster, this thread is not about taxes; it’s all about me and my ego. When asked for a one-word answer (YES or NO in case anyone forgot), Buster delivered dozens and dozens more words and still didn’t answer the question.

Buster crawled down the presidential “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” rabbit hole with his final response to the question: “What’s the square root of pi, Dick? YES or NO?”

“Pretty typical, innit,” Rufus commented.

I wouldn’t dream of putting words in Buster’s mouth but methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. You, gentle reader, could conclude that, in answer to the question of whether businesses should pass new taxes along to their customers, Buster would give a resounding “No!” Which begs the question of whom he thinks will pay the new tax?

After all, when Buster crawls under the mango tree, I simply can’t help but hear the echoes of Ronald Reagan: The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.

Despite Buster’s liberal application of fancy footwork, banks aren’t the only businesses that quietly pass along taxes to consumers. Sirius XM added a $2 RIAA tax its monthly bills to pay the court-ordered “royalty” tax for listening to satellite radio. Customers of SECO, the Sumter Electric Cooperative in Hernando County, Florida, will see a $50 increase in their monthly electric bill when Congress passes Crap and Trade. Every phone bill has a line item for “Regulatory and Compliance Fee Recovery.” That’s phone company speak for baldly passing on a tax the government imposed on the business (it’s up about 50% since last year on my bill.)

And the banks themselves raised credit card interest rates and fees last month in anticipation of new laws forbidding higher credit card interest rates and fees.

The words quoted in this piece are real. Only the names have been changed to protect the dumbfounded.

This just in. Campaigning in Massachusetts President Obama said, “Bankers don’t need another vote in the United States Senate. They’ve got plenty.” I expect this tax to fail the same way bankers beat back the heavy Wall Street bonus tax. Of course, Congress can always raise the needed $90 billion by adding a tax to the three health care policies they haven’t exempted from new taxes. That would be your policy, Rufus’, and mine.

Salvo after Salvo

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A Florida writer celebrated on Friday: “It’s a cold, gray, drizzly New Year’s Day,” she wrote. “It can only get better from here, yes? Crossing fingers.”

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”

We started the decade with the biggest salvo yet fired in the least conventional World War ever fought.

Hundreds of Muslims have since blown themselves up to terrorize thousands of their neighbors, most of whom were also Muslims. (Somehow the MSM overlooked the hundreds of Christians who blew themselves up to terrorize thousands of their neighbors, many of whom would also be, well, Christians.)

On the other hand, explosive bolts hold the Space Shuttle to the launch pad. The Shuttle will be the final entry in the Cash for Clunkers program this year.

After a couple years of layoffs and firings and RIFs, about 12 more people have jobs in January, 2010, than did in January, 2000. They all work for the government; private-sector employment declined for the period for the first time on record. And, before you do the liberal happy dance, understand that we don’t have 12 more people in these United States than 10 years ago; we have 26 million and 12 more people in these United States than 10 years ago.

On the other hand, Bret Favre came out of retirement, retired, came out of retirement, retired, and got yet another new job with a different employer. And he did all that last year.

Adobe, like Microsoft, learned the real key to keeping customers happy: change the file format of your major product to force people to upgrade.

On the other hand, the Veteran’s Administration application for benefits is only 23 pages long.

Adjusted for inflation, my little house here in South Puffin is worth about the same as it was in 2000. Maybe a little less.

On the other hand, the new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium replaced the house that Ruth built in 1923. The Yanks cut costs where they could, though, and the new space is only the second most expensive stadium in the world behind the $1.57 billion new Wembley Stadium in London.

Thanks to inflation and cutbacks, our family income has dropped every year since 2000. Part of that is the ever increasing cost of health “insurance” but the reality is Anne kept getting cut back and my business was flat for several years and is down now.

On the other hand, Wile E. Coyote has never gotten a raise nor filed an insurance claim.

And it doesn’t look as if we can retire unless Anne simply never finds another job and is forced to accept retirement as her full time gig. Our retirement accounts, like those of every other American, suffered from the bank meltdown and the government theft of General Motors. I had 1,000 shares of GM. Guess who owns it now? The market is wandering around above $10,000 now, but stocks like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Metlife, Manulife, Morgan Stanley, and Toronto Dominion Bank will never come back.

On the other hand, Capital One founder and CEO Richard Fairbank received $73,182,560 in compensation in just one year of the decade.

It has been a decade that I hope we can skip repeating.

On the other hand George Santayana, father of the Law of Repetitive Consequences, was an optimist. Besides, I do have some good recipes for Soylent Green.

Happy New Year.

Actually, I’m also an optimist. We need to make this a better decade and we can do it. After we throw da bums out of all their lairs, all we need do is change the nature of crooks and politicians. But I repeat myself.

Change We Can Believe In!

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The ups and downs of the decade. We made a bunch of great closeout deals but this column has room for only a few. Here are the top nine of 2009:

The downside: We may not have changed many of the Old Guard of pols but we surely did change how they do business inside the Beltway. They no longer throw billions of We the OverTaxedPeople’s dollars at problems.
The upside: Now they throw trillions.

Hoo wee. That’s change we can believe in!

The downside: President Obama (praise be his name) stole General Motors from its rightful owners (that would be small stockholders like thee and me) and put Ed “I Came from the Phone Company So I Don’t Know Anything about Cars” Whitacre in charge.
The upside: Thanks to the soybean lobby, your new Chevy Condescension will be the first model to come with tofubags instead of the dangerous and expensive airbags as well as the new OnStar-by-AT&T. Rumors that OnStar service will also be available on your iPhone have not proven out.

The downside: Democrats were appalled when President Obama nominated Senator Judd Gregg, R-NH, as his Secretary of Commerce. The U.S. Department of Commerce fosters, promotes, and develops business and industry. Democrats called Senator Gregg “too pro-business.”
The upside: Caroline Cartwright of Great Britain was arrested for noise levels that ranged between 30 and 40 decibels, with some squeaks “being 47 decibels” during sex. Bird calls are generally 44 dB.

The downside: Congress passed without reading a $787 billion “stimulus package” that, instead of stimulating We the OverTaxedPeople who provided the money, all went for swine flu shots to bankers. Vermont had a looming two hundred million dollar budget deficit so the Democratically controlled legislature there decided to spend three hundred million dollars of its portion of that G.R.A.F.T. Act windfall to “stabilize” its budget. Since that wasn’t enough, the Democratically controlled legislature also raised taxes by $24 million dollars in order to make up for the revenue shortfall.
The upside: The Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize posthumously to Michael Jackson.

The downside: The Environmental Protection Agency ruled that political science trumps actual science as a danger to human health and to the environment.
The upside: Millions of people flocked to Al Gore’s house in the Belle Meade neighborhood of Nashville where his Christmas decorationsand the upturned smiling faces were photographed from the International Space Station.

The downside: Just two years ago, world leaders of 193 countries pledged to reverse the course of climate change in Denmark this year. When the hot air cleared in Copenhagen this month, there were two inches of snow on the ground, two pounds of faked “global warming” emails, and $200 billion dollars in a Global Relief fund. Guess who they want to pick up the tab?
The upside: Each world leader flew to Denmark in one or more private airliners thus reducing the worldwide surplus of Jet A and Jet A-1 petroleum-based fuels.

The downside: In a strange coincidence, the International Olympic Committee also meeting in Copenhagen voted not to award the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago for fear that a fire in former Governor Rod Blagojevich’s hair might undermine the new “pay to play” Olympic game category.
The upside: The one billion dollar Cash for Clunkers program which cost three billion dollars left an estimated 643,000 1974 Ford Pintos on Illinois and Michigan highways as entry level vehicles for migrant farmers and high school students.

The downside: The Environmental Protection Agency said it will increase the percentage of ethanol in gasoline to 15% by next June. Ethanol producers and most newspapers say the higher blends will increase fuel economy, create more jobs in the industry, and increase government payments to ethanol producers by $787 billion.
The upside: The Social Security Administration announced that since Congress will lock fuel prices at $4.599 per gallon through 2012, the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) can remain fixed at 0% for the same period.

The downside: The U.S. economy has shed 15.4 million or more jobs including those once held by Rufus, Biff, and my wife, Anne.
The upside: The $787 billion “stimulus package” has created an estimated 643,000 brand new jobs (roughly identical to the number of saved 1974 Ford Pintos). All the new employees are dedicated to maintaining the White House website that tracks new jobs.

We have, as a nation, spent the entire decade unwilling to learn from our mistakes. Change We Can Believe In! certainly changed all of that and we are this >||< close to ObamaCare to prove it.

You can’t make this stuff up. Happy New Decade, everyone!