Main Street USA
Fri, 2008-07-18 04:40
#1
Main Street USA
Fri, 2008-07-18 04:40
#2
[url=http://www.thestar.com/article/459507]Toronto Star Article[/url]
That would be the same Phil Gramm who still collects a handsome stipend from his directorship at UBS AG, where his expertise in non-existent crises helped the giant Swiss lender to become the world's largest loser in the U.S. subprime debacle (writeoffs of more than $30 billion U.S. to date; and whose wife, Wendy, graced the board of Enron Corp. in its final years. Gramm was also the principal 1980s champion on Capitol Hill of "supply-side economics," the reverse-Robin Hood economic strategy that helped boost the U.S. national debt to its current record of $9 trillion.
By David Olive
[url=http://www.rabble.ca/everyones_a_critic.shtml?sh_itm=c312fe4f4ec8eb0ad62... News Article - By Keith Gottschalk[/url]
This is the same Phil Gramm who still collects salary from his directorship at UBS AG, where his guidance helped the giant Swiss lender to become the world's largest loser in the U.S. subprime debacle, and whose wife, Wendy, graced the board of Enron Corp. in its final years.
Gramm, of course, was also the principal 1980s champion as a Senator of "supply-side economics," the reverse-Robin Hood economic strategy that helped boost the U.S. national debt to its current record of $9 trillion, with a brief interlude of sanity during the tenure of President Bill Clinton.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Fri, 2008-07-18 05:17
#3
Just took a second look at the dates.
[ 18 July 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]
Fri, 2008-07-18 05:22
#4
I like both of their stuff, as it becomes more informative with each read.
Fri, 2008-07-18 07:00
#5
Interesting.
In the [url=http://www.thestar.com/article/459507]article cited in the opening post[/url], David Olive is writing about US firms being bought out by non-Americans. He writes, "... all three major U.S. brewers are or will be foreign controlled: Miller Brewing Co. was snapped up by the former South African Breweries (now SAB Miller PLC); [i]and the largest investor in Molson Coors Brewing Co. is Montreal's Eric Molson.[/i]" (emphasis added)
Yet the same author, writing in the same paper, writes on Dec 3, 2007, "These are (sadly) routine events in corporate life, which generally make companies vulnerable to takeover. No additional tax breaks or subsidies, the cost of which will be borne by the public, will arrest the cupidity that pushes a major firm like Molson Cos. into the arms of a Colorado-based Adolph Coors Co." ([url=http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/281875]See here[/url].) This certainly makes it [i]appear[/i] as if Coors (American) had taken over Molson (Canadian).
It's interesting how David Olive spins the same merger in conflicting ways when it suits his purposes.
Fri, 2008-07-18 07:15
#6
Spin is part of Journalism 101. This however, is a separate issue.
Gottschalk's article on Babble is dated 18 July. Olive's TStar article is dated 14 July.
Fri, 2008-07-18 07:22
#7
Regardless of what might or might not be taught in Journalism 101, I prefer writers who prefer not to prevaricate.
Fri, 2008-07-18 16:13
#8
No folks, I simply fucked up. Oliver's story was one of several on Gramm's comments I saved to write this column over a period of days and I rewrote the information, added it to the story a day later without due diligence. That's what I get for putting columns together like puzzle pieces.
I have e-mailed the rabble editor to add the proper cite.
I am a stickler for proper citing (check previous columns). My apologies to David Olive, rabble and its readers for my sloppiness.
Fri, 2008-07-18 17:11
#9
Oh man, that sucks. So easy to do - Keith always cites when he paraphrases something someone else has said, if you look at his past articles. He just forgot to add the, "As David Olive of the Toronto Star says" to that sentence when he was putting the article together.
I know Keith and he would never purposefully leave off an attribution. He must have forgotten to slip it in when he was writing. Keith's no dummy - there's no way he would try to pass off as his own a paragraph from a recently run article in the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada on a Canadian political junkie site. He just forgot to add the cite - I'm sure of it.
P.S. I see Derrick put in the attribution.
[ 18 July 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Fri, 2008-07-18 20:32
#10
Figured it was undoubtedly one of those moments, not unlike we all experience from time to time. Read it this morning over coffee, while wondering if I was having another intense Bill Murray episode, because I could have sworn I was sitting in the exact position while reading parts of it several days earlier.
[ 18 July 2008: Message edited by: Slumberjack ]
Fri, 2008-07-18 20:54
#11
Moving on to the article then, my recent journeys around southern California was certainly an eye opener. Give away sales for empty houses on every street...million dollar houses listed at $250,000 or lower, construction industry flat lined. Politicians and the news outlets seem to be in blissful denial of how bad things really are, which I imagine is more palatable than reality, or owning up to the truth of what is to come.
Sat, 2008-07-19 04:40
#12
SL, come on, the Leader Of The Free World said there is no economic trouble in the Golden Land...
Really, have you no faith in politicians? [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
Sat, 2008-07-19 07:44
#13
quote:
Originally posted by Stargazer:
[b]SL, come on, the Leader Of The Free World said there is no economic trouble in the Golden Land...Really, have you no faith in politicians? [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]
Well...alright then....as long as you're willing to vouch....I'll take your word for it. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
Sat, 2008-07-19 13:02
#14
The GM dealer is an interesting archetype, and I am conflicted on my feelings about him.
There are a few people in every economic downturn who lose their shirts, and among those people there are a few people who deserve to lose their shirts (in this market,I would say that is housing speculators)
The GM dealer though, is dealing a line of automobiles from a really sick company, that is out-of-sync with reality on a very main street level - and the GM dealer must have known that a person who drives a Honda or Toyota, and a similar GM car for a year would almost invariably choose the import. The quality difference is astonishing.
Main Street matters to Wall Street, although maybe not as much as it should. On a Wall Street level, General Motors bet its future on the truck market - trucks sell well, because the trades and industry wear them out frequently; but if trades and industry decline the truck market invariably goes with it. If GM were building cheap, reliable cars, office workers in big cities might be able to sustain them through a tough time, everyone knows that trades and industry boom and bust. GM shares are worth under ten dollars for the first time in their history. There were/are a lot of red flags for the GM dealer.
That said, I don't think the GM dealer is a bad guy -- everyone wants to avoid a difficult future and any kind of great innovation or business idea takes a certain degree of risk.
I like to think that the social safety net functions so that if this GM dealer goes bust, that his family doesn't starve and he still has a roof over his head... but I bet everytime the issue comes up, he acts like most small capitalists and talks about "industry", "hard-work", "tax grabs", and "big spending". That kind of talk only supports the big corporations that screwed him over.
I can even frame this in terms that Main Street loves - in a Jeffersonian democracy, you have to distrust big government and big corporations. The values of "industry" and "hard work" only apply at the Main Street level, at the Wall Street level its too easy for corporations to become too powerful, or in the case of GM throw too much money behind a flawed plan and put a lot of people in a very bad spot.
Whoever wins in November won't be able to do much about it either, and I bet Wall Street will be saying that the cure to these economic ailments is "deregulation" when the opposite is probably true. What scares me, is that deregulation removed most of the checks in balances that were put in place after the Great Depression. That said, its my belief that this to, shall come to pass.
[ 19 July 2008: Message edited by: Louis Riel Trail ]
Sat, 2008-07-19 16:49
#15
I am in an interesting place right now. As I watch things falling down around the country, I find myself perched in what seems to be a bubble that's still expanding. I live in a small city in Texas and building is booming, rents are up, the real estate market is healthy, business is good. I'm not kidding.
Oh yeah, the gas prices are up and more people are riding the bus, riding bikes, talking about needing more public transit. And food prices are up too but most people have jobs so they just cut back on extras.
The Texas economy is built on oil and, as you know, things have never been better in that business - record profits. Well, the fat cats have to hang out somewhere - unless they all move to condos in Dubai.
Sun, 2008-07-20 01:11
#16
quote:
Originally posted by swan:
[b]...I find myself perched in what seems to be a bubble that's still expanding.[/b]
We have our own bubble zone...or bobble zone if you like. It's called Alberta.
Sun, 2008-07-20 01:25
#17
Keith, we all know Ottawa receives their marching orders from Warshington. We need you to keep us on the inside track of what's really happening in the big show. Read you soon eh.