Number 1,305,003
The Trib decries the Greek economy:
Greece has paid generously for services and public sector wages with borrowed money, and it is about to reach the point where it can’t pay that debt. Sound familiar?
Yes, sounds like the Tribune Company. How’s Sam Zell doing? Has anyone on the editorial board noticed the outright hypocrisy of the Tribune decrying the fiscal practices of others? Or does the editorial board think they are isolated enough from those decisions?
Of course, the Trib then goes on to bash those people who work for the State of Illinois despite the State having a relatively low public payroll. Fortunately for them, the State of Illinois cannot default on its debt like the Tribune Company did.
All of this would be moot if the Trib Editorial Board didn’t roll out the usual banality of running government more like a business at every opporutnity. The problem with the State of Illinois is it is run exactly like the Tribune Company with too much focus on cutting jobs that are necessary for quality services in favor of making high debt payments so the leaders can avoid making decisions that will hurt them personally. Instead, the product suffers.
The day that the Trib Editorial Board suggests that Illinois eliminate the sales-tax exemption for newspapers — “We’ve all got to make sacrifices…” — is the day I will take their views on state finances seriously.
But I’m not going to hold my breath.
— MrJM
http://mrjm.notlong.com
Dunno if you caught the twin posts on unemployment and the stimulus a couple weeks ago, but they were doozys. No numbers, no references, just stock anti-government-spending talking points (“government spending” of course meaning “infrastructure,” no joke, not “war” or “medicare”) contending that further stimulus would cause unemployment.
Their editorial page has just become abysmal – not so much because I disagree with their politics, although I often do, but because they just aren’t… trying. At all.