Crime, traffic, smog and no NFL and all they have to show for it is their crappy bankrupt newspaper

An occasional look-in to see what the L.A. Times is up to.


In analyzing the unfortunate closure of a BMW parts distribution warehouse in Ontario, the Times business writer Michael Hiltizik would have you believe that BMW was quartering troops in its employees home or something.

On Monday, the Fourth of July, Americans will gather to celebrate the overthrow of tyranny. But the ease with which we allow corporate employers to impoverish their loyal workers should make us pause under the fireworks and think about how over the ensuing 235 years we've simply substituted one set of tyrants for another, the new ones immeasurably more heartless and bloodthirsty than the ones we shed.

Maybe Hiltzik has a point regarding the $3.6 billion loan BMW received from the U.S. tax payers back in 2008 as justification for keeping the warehouse open.

But doesn't this thought only reveal the larger narrative of the dangers of these defacto public-private partnerships where the government levies commands to privately-held interests with respect to their own business practices?

The irony of Hiltzik bemoaning the oppression of tyrannical corporations unopposed by a government he sees as unwilling to impose it's own dictations upon those corporations is not lost on us.


Crony capitalism, economic fascism and picking winners and losers at its finest, baby!

California budget update

And now some news from a little closer to home here in California.


File this under What could possibly go wrong?

Abandoning negotiations with Republican lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown struck a deal with Democrats for a budget that assumes billions of dollars in fresh revenue — but could lead to major service cuts if the money doesn't materialize.

The proposal, which Democrats said they would pass as soon as Tuesday, does not include the renewed tax hikes that the governor had been pushing to put before voters. But it does contain some charges that Democrats believe they can legally raise without GOP support.

How optimistic are the Democrats? The budget plan is based on an expectation of $4 billion in extra revenue in addition to $6.6 billion in unexpected revenue that was forecast last month. Nearly $11 billion in new revenue that will magically appear. That optimistic.

With California's current business climate, one has to wonder just where Governor Moonbeam and his Democratic colleagues think this addtional revenue is going to come from?

And spending cuts are one thing but Brown does not show any inkling of addressing the pension and benefit packages of the state's public employee unions.

Republicans had demanded changes in pension, regulatory and spending policies in exchange for supporting an election. No such moves are included in the latest package, and GOP lawmakers accused the majority party of bending to special interests.

"The Democrats have proven once again that they are unwilling to stand up to the unions that fund their political campaigns and adamantly oppose meaningful pension reform," said a joint statement by four Republicans state senators who had been negotiating with Brown: Tom Berryhill of Modesto, Anthony Cannella of Ceres, Bill Emmerson of Hemet and Tom Harman of Huntington Beach.

And dig the closing paragraph of this article from the L.A. Times.

Democrats said they would gather signatures to place an initiative on the November 2012 ballot to ask voters to raise taxes, although they did not specify what taxes. Political strategists believe the electorate will lean more Democratic with President Obama on the ballot next year.

Two things: 1) Obviously, we don't know the language of the initiative but we see scant chance of people voting to raise taxes on themselves regardless of how many Democrats turn out and 2) a lot can happen in the next year and half or so but if the trend line continues, the L.A. Times will have grossly overestimated their hoped-for Democratic voter turnout for the President.

Recessions rock!

L.A. Times columnist not quite grasping the reality of the current economic landscape:

Corporate America, it's time to spread the wealth

Businesses are sitting on a record hoard of cash, but they're not using it to hire workers or pay existing ones better wages. Broadly distributing the fruits of economic growth is the only way to sustain that growth.

Michael Hiltzik hits on the fact that non-financial institutions in this country are setting on record amounts of cash and wonders why they are not lavishing it upon their workers or on new hires.

Because frolicking in their respective vaults and having pillow fights with the cases filled with green backs is what big business fat cats like to do. Seriously... this is what they live for. Instead of participating in the economy, producing, innovating and generating the profits that got them to where they are, they welcome recessions where they can just sit on the sidelines and not produce and not innovate, rather doing backstrokes through the sea of cash they've built up around them.

It never dawns upon Hiltzik that the reason this may be is because of the economic uncertainty that is 2011. 2011 that will see the end of the Bush tax cuts and the further encroachment of the administration's regulatory regime via ObamaCare and the potentiality of energy bills and more Keynesian hocus-pocus that will only lengthen or worsen the current recession.

Yep, those fat cats got to where they are precisely because they didn't hire employees and weren't vigorous participants in the economy. Just ask health insurance providers.

A.J. Duffy advises against reading the L.A. Times

Back on Monday, we praised the L.A. Times for the work they did in exposing the outrageous salary and compensation packages garnered by the elected officials of the city of Bell, CA and then pleaded this vanguard of old media that if they were going to go down at the hands of new media, then do so in a fiery ball of 4th estate integrity and competence.

That glow you see, friends, is the L.A. Times taking on the teachers' union.

The Los Angeles teachers union president said Sunday he was organizing a "massive boycott" of The Times after the newspaper began publishing a series of articles that uses student test scores to estimate the effectiveness of district teachers.

"You're leading people in a dangerous direction, making it seem like you can judge the quality of a teacher by … a test," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has more than 40,000 members.

You might remember Duffy who was quite prominent in a reason.tv video we featured a while back regarding the struggles of Locke High School in Los Angeles and the reform efforts of the principal there that Duffy was doing everything in his power to thwart.

Because it provides such a stark contrast between the parents and children on one side and the teachers' union on the other, we're providing another look at the aforementioned reason.tv video below.





If embed no worky, then please, click here.

Not so random thought of the day

It's not too late... is it?


Jeff Gottlieb, one of the two L.A. Times journalists (Ruben Vives is the other) that broke the devastating story of the outrageous salaries and compensations of Bell, CA city officials, was on Chris Reed's outstanding Top Story radio show last week.

Reed casually joked with Gottlieb that both he and Vives were on the "glide path" to a Pulitzer prize in journalism. Gottlieb somewhat sheepishly observed that all they really did was use freedom of information/sunshine laws to obtain the information. He then said something that we thought was extremely important: (paraphrasing) What we did could only be done by a newspaper and a big one at that. A blogger could not have done what we did. When the city of Bell initially stone-walled us from obtaining salary and compensation documents, we simply told them that our lawyers would be the next people they would hear from. The muscle and prestige afforded by a renowned institution like the L.A. Times made breaking this story possible.

Gottlieb is 100% correct. We couldn't do what the Times did. And we don't think that say, either, The Liberator Today or The Scratching Post have the time and resources to essentially threaten the city of Bell with legal action if they did not release the documentation the Times was seeking.

This is why it is so important for the newsies to re-commit themselves to upholding the trust that exists between they and their readers with respect to being that watchdog of democracy.

For as much crowing as we like to do over the ascendancy of the new media, it's still the good ol' fashioned old media that is doing the vast majority of yeoman's labor when it comes to breaking stories like this.

We're newsies at heart - we grew up reading the newspapers and consider ourselves news geeks to the point that we can rattle off the dailies of about every major metropolitan area in this country and that is why it pains us even more to see the traditional print media behave so poorly of late. Technological and socio-cultural advancements are one thing, but there is no need to grab a shovel to assist in your own grave-digging.

So, c'mon newsies! If you are going to go out the way of the buggy whip, do it with some pride and integrity!


Welcome Hot Air commenters and readers! Many thanks to Leslie over at Temple of Mut for the link to this post.

Headline of the day

From the L.A. Times:

SEIU Attacks Rival Union's Tentative Deal with L.A.


When speaking of the purple people beaters one can never be sure whether or not it is in the context of a physical act.

The 'Beaters are miffed over a potential deal brokered between the city and one of its unions, the 4,800 member Engineer and Architects Association and with respect to some concessions the 'Beaters view as "dangerous" in return for the Association getting some furlough days back.

Central to the negotiations is what the Association will be asked to kick in for their healthcare.

Under the proposed pact, workers in the engineers' union would pay $20 per doctor visit, up from $10. Its workers would no longer receive $15 per month to enhance their life insurance and disability insurance. And union employees would pay 5% of their monthly healthcare premiums, according to city officials.

Civilian city workers who rely on Kaiser Permanente currently pay nothing toward their premiums.

Exit question Pt. I: How many of you have health plans that are anywhere remotely as generous as this?

Exit question Pt. II: Does this not paint a picture of just how intractable the problem of state and city debt is when dealing with the compensation packages of the foot soldiers of the ruling class?

How's Your Glass?

"Housing prices in Southern California continued their record-setting decline in May, falling 27% from year-ago levels, as lenders continued to depress median prices by dumping foreclosed homes in rising numbers, according to DataQuick Information Systems. Housing prices have now rolled back to early 2004 levels, DataQuick reports" (italics ours)

Or…..

"Buoyed by a 27% drop in housing prices from a year ago and reflecting a buyer’s market, potential first-time buyers and investors are hopeful that this decline is further evidence of prices falling back in line with historical trends."

Story here.