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Amid losses, newspapers take on debt
Response to post #6: RE your comment: "Some say that optimists believe that this is the best of all possible worlds. Pessimists fear that's so." Yup, no one really cares anymore, and even you appear to have given up on any kind of an optimistic future for your readers.— July 3, 2008 2:51 a.m.
Amid losses, newspapers take on debt
Response to post #2: Actually, after the hideous 24/7 tabloid news coverage by Fox, MSNBC and CNN during the primaries this year I don't watch any of them anymore. Yes, The Reader is one of the best of the best, but you are also one of the few to go after corruption and greed that is destroying the social, political and economic fabric of San Diego, but the saddest news is that it appears that NORC prevails. Almost all the news is for entertainment, not for thinking anymore, another testimony to the failure of our education system destroyed by the corrupt U-T political establishment. So I translate your comment: "One reason for optimism is that the pessimists are wrong half the time, just as the optimists are" to mean there is nothing to be optimistic about anymore.— July 2, 2008 12:50 p.m.
Amid losses, newspapers take on debt
It’s no wonder, our Fourth Estate is now Newspapers, TV and Internet, and today all these “news” sources thrive on tabloid journalism so much that people don’t even bother thinking about how to make the right things happen to stop themselves from continuing to go over the cliff anymore. With tabloid journalism demanded by the infamous Murdoch who is the world emperor of slime news, Zell of L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune and David Copley print news in America has crashed and burned to the point where it is now threatening American Democracy. As a sidebar, this all ties in with the failure of our education systems throughout America (Ex: U-T “School’s out (of cash) Budget --- cuts force districts to cancel summer classes” this morning). Corrupt federal, state and local politicians, both republican and democrat are guilty of this threat to American Democracy and the American family.— July 2, 2008 12:23 p.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
Response to post #31: Gad Don, you don’t even bother with hope at all do you. For a guru like you to swamp out optimism with pessimism just proves that America really is in a hopeless state. As we have discussed, a major factor is that the American education system is in extremis. And GW Bush is the poster boy example of that failure. So American Democracy and Capitalism are in grave jeopardy today as a result. On top of that, newspapers, TV and Internet news sources thrive on tabloid journalism so much that people don’t even bother thinking about how to make the right things happen to stop themselves from continuing to go over the cliff. Needless to say, our Whatever Generation is the worst failure in the History of Civilization, with Bill Clinton and GW Bush as icons of that failure.— July 1, 2008 11:55 a.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
Response to post #27: This worst-case scenario we are experiening today obviously has a way to go Don. One thing we know with absolute certainty is what we have no leadership in America today that is making the right things happen for your Gen Y readers. Instead we have worldwide conflict fueled by selfish interests who are scavengers that feed on the scraps that remain to be devoured regardless of consequences to America and Humanity. All of our institutions are dysfunctional, stuck in the Us Vs. Them mode of self-destruction. So the world for Gen Y and future generations will be as dramatically different for them as that of the post-Great Depression/WWII era was for us. As of now though, we are faced with the consequence that our Generation Whatever thrived on the legacy of The Greatest Generation and sucked the lifeblood out of The American Dream. That is unless Don Bauder et al. have something to be optimistic about that can allow the Dream to recover. Do you see any reasons for optimism Don?— July 1, 2008 3:48 a.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
Response to post #25: RE: "Japan's stock market was whacked by 75 percent or so, and still is depressed. The economy in the early 1990s really had a series of depressions, not recessions." QUESTION: Don, Are you saying that our situation cannot be expected to be far worse than theirs? RE: "--- the marketplace should teach management some lessons about what cars to produce and market, but it hasn't worked that way in the past" Don, our problem is much greater than just getting Detroit and American industry to pay attention, think ahead and make decisions to prevent growing problems from getting out of control. A worst case scenario is academia which marginalized Ike’s 1961 grave warning: “The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.” So today America is paying the price for over 50 years of an academic welfare state that failed to solve nuclear waste problems, failed to discover energy source replacements that would allow us to stop using oil, hell they can’t even forecast melting ice. The fact is that America’s failed scientific institution has been fat, dumb and happy for far too many decades. It was simpler for them to sell out to indenturement by the military-industrial-oil complex that paid them to do far simpler work instead of solving difficult problems that could save mankind from climate changes, oil wars, recession, depression, etc.— June 30, 2008 5:19 a.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
Response to posts #23 & 22: I think Detroit is hearing the message loud and clear the hard way; egregious greed bites back: "Plunging pickup sales prompt Big 3 to change" But can Ford, GM and Chrysler LLC react fast enough? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25419177/ Good point about Japan, but I think their problems do not really compare to the hideous consequences we face due to diffences in magnitude of excesses of corruption and greed that only America can achieve. But the Japanese experience demonstrates how much more hellacious our consequences are going to be since Japan is comparatively a lot better off than us already with nuclear power, hybrid cars and other fuel efficient technologies in R&D, levels of successful manufacturing that they still control in Japan and around the world, etc. By comparison, we have been sold out by Washington, Detroit, Wall Street, Main Street, etc. So if the Japanese have it bad, the consequences we face are hellacious to contemplate as "Bad Money" warns today, even though Ike warned us in 1961.— June 29, 2008 11:32 a.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
Generation Whatever shall continue to threaten the future for Gen Y as long as we continue to Fail: Fail to demand that our courts adhere to the Rule of Law instead of using political interpretations dictated by corrupt special interests Fail to demand that our politicians perform as Patriots to protect American Democracy instead of selling out America Failure of American academia to protect American Democracy Failure of Wall Street socialism to protect American Capitalism Failure of all American institutions to protect American manufacturing and the American Dream from being sold out to Communist China, India and Saudi Arabia Failure to demand a decrease in maximum speed limits to 55 mph to conserve oil and gas that is a grave threat to our economy Failure to stop watering water intensive landscaping to conserve gravely threatened clean water supplies Failure to take climate changes that result in firestorms, life and property losses seriously Failure to save for the future, remember the lessons of The Great Depression and respect the sacrifices of The Greatest Generation— June 29, 2008 5:17 a.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
Response to post #19: Too many bubbles have popped, the new mantra is becoming "Go East Gen Y" The sun has set for the Imperial American West, and now rises in the East, the new Land of Opportunity is Asia. The Neocon theocracy has destroyed the Age of American Capitalism.— June 28, 2008 2:04 p.m.
Stocks Slaughtered, Now Near Official Bear Market; Oil Almost Hits $140, Dollar Drops
GOP politicians might as well hang out a “We Destroyed The American Middle Class and The Future For Gen Y” banner as their epitaph. And the UT should change their motto to take responsibility for the fact that their deranged rant editorials are #1 on the Top 10 List of “The Most Corrupt and Destructive Ballot Recommendations in America.”— June 28, 2008 2 a.m.