$1.3 Billion in debt – $34 million in cash – bailout rumors
April 22, 2009
The New York Times is running into an extreme problem, they have $1,300,000,000 in debt and only $34 million in cash. Already in congress there is discussion of a New York Times bailout, and there are rumors of bankruptcy… though the latter has not been verified.
Our problem with the bailout is that the reason the New York Times is in big financial trouble isn’t because of the recession, it’s because we get our news from something other than dead trees, wasted ink and a carbon footprint the size of Texas. That newspaper is run like a big traditional advertising agency, and is suffering from the same problems. They don’t get the internet, and never will.
The sooner congress understand this basic principle the better, the New York Times.. like all news papers.. are being replaced by technology. This is akin to bailing out the wagon makers because automobiles are becoming popular and “stealing revenue” from the wagon makers.
99% of the United States wouldn’t notice if the New York Times shut down, and the 1% that would notice would simply go to another news website… or if they are really old school will pay to have the New York Post delivered.
It’s really game over for the news paper, and it’s a clear sign of what to expect from traditional ad agencies… remember.. a large percentage of the news paper revenue was gained from ad agencies… you don’t think this is a clear sign of what is to come?
Tribble to challenge the newspaper bailout
March 24, 2009
Newspapers to get bailout – blogs want same deal. It appears that a bill in the Senate is aimed at bailing out Newspapers, online bloggers want the same deal for their sponsorship deals. Honestly at this rate we’ll be bailing out Sir Martin and Wpp Group plc.
Under the arrangement that is floating around the Senate, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.
So why the bailout for newspapers? Because bloggers and online news outlets such as Tribble, Media Bistro, Gawker, Politico, Sqlspace and others are attracting the lions share of news… respective of each industry.
So the question to be asked is, where is our bailout since they are handing it to the competitors and why is WPP group plc mentioned as the title? It’s because that advertising agency holding company places a substantial number of their clients budget with newspaper inserts and ads…. meaning that the reason the newspapers are failing is because of a mis-allocation of resources… see the newspapers should not be failing… they should have already failed years ago…
Stop propping up failed industries Washington…. the problem isn’t the lack of news.. the problem is the source of the news.. it’s coming online… Media Bistro for example has several dedicated reporters… so does Gawker… so does politico… so does Huffington Post…
This is what’s called a technological revolution that took place over a decade ago with Matt Drudge breaking the Monica / Clinton affair… So here’s our response… if you are going to bail out newspapers.. bloggers want a bailout as well… we want all our advertising revenue to be tax free… and we want to be treated as a newspaper…. complete with press pass.
In fact, if this bill goes forward… we’ll challenge it…. by claiming for all 50 cents this site earns via adsense that we are an online newspaper.
Newspapers get bailout money for “internet training”
February 24, 2009
Two Minnesota newspapers will receive a share of state grants normally given to retrain workers in manufacturing and other industries in transition. ————— It’s called Wordpress and post — they can’t be that backwards.. a 3ed grader can figure out how to put the content on a blog… In fact my 3 year old son just last week how to upload photos from a digital camera to a wordpress blog. Your tax money at work.
Minnesota Job Skills Partnership is awarding $238,000 in state funds, while the newspapers and the university will contribute about $469,000 combined, mostly by devoting staff time to training.
Half a million dollars has to be spent on teaching these dying industries how to post on Wordpress?
I can’t believe what I am reading…. how can we reward this level of incompetence… It’s not like Drudgereport was breaking stories in 1997 — so evidently a dozen years later they noticed the Internet exists?
We work for Minnesota newspapers
Washington refused to save your job
February 9, 2009
We told you guys that this bailout wasn’t going to fix the economy. In fact we wanted the government to pay off everyone’s credit card, figuring that will get the economy roaring within seconds… but what did we do as a nation? We handed a LARGER figure to the bankers. The bailout size has reached the level where it is now enough to pay off almost every Americans home mortgage.
The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world, not just the United States.. for this country a check could have been written for $30,000 dollars per man, women and child.. or better said $120,000 per average household.
Thanks for forcing the taxpayers to take a loan for $120,000 per average household of 4 … so we can hand it off to a banker so we can send him another $120,000 in mortgage payments. Boy did we get screwed.
Thanks for the Stimulus…
Senator Claire McCaskill is my new Hero
February 2, 2009
“A Bunch Of Idiots Up On Wall Street! Kicking Sand In The Faces Of Americans!” Raw anger in her speech… amazing stuff.
You need to watch this entire video, It’s a total of 6 minutes… she flies off he hook at about 1:10. This is the first politician that has echoed what the rest of the population of the United States feels.
Home Depot firing 7,000 people
January 26, 2009
Home Depot announced Monday it would eliminate 7,000 jobs and close its Expo home decorating division as dismal sales have hurt the home improvement chain. The average house has plummeted in value nearly 10% , whereas in some areas homes have lost 50% or more of their value.
Leaving homeowners underwater by massive margins. Some have advocated the “$100,000 bailout” to homeowners where $100,000 dollars will be automatically added to home values by a government guarantee. This it is felt would get the banks to start loaning money rather that hording the homeowners taxpayer money. However the chances of something along those lines passing are slim to none, as of today the working and middle classes have received no bailout money whereas billions have gone to bankers bonuses and trillions to failed banks themselves.
In other words, much of the US population is feeling like they bailed out the banks, but no one bailed them out.. and they are in worse shape.
This is great stuff, bailouts, recession, depression, automakers making cars people don’t want, houses people can’t afford, and credit card bills that people can’t pay… and a deficit so high that when this is said and done will bankrupt Washington.
And we were concerned about Advertising Agencies.
Treasury Department Bypasses Congress – Who’s in Charge of the United States?
December 12, 2008
Honestly we are highly confused, who is in charge of the United States? The Bankers or Congress? The Treasury Department issued this statement:
“Because Congress failed to act, we will stand ready to prevent an imminent failure until Congress reconvenes and acts to address the long-term viability of the industry,” said Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin.
Really? So the Treasury Department is now making the rules? Bypassing Congress? Hey every ad agency on earth wants this auto bailout because the car companies spend massive amounts on Advertising, IE: it’s an Ad Agency bailout… yes we know this… but not at the expense of killing the very fabric of the nation.
This is unsettling… very unsettling.
US asks Arab Nations to bailout American economy
November 21, 2008
With a headline that many of us most likely didn’t expect, the US has asked Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait to bail the US economy out. literally
Evidently the situation in the US so so bad that we now have to ask other nations to bail the US government out.
Al-Seyassah said Washington sought the amount as “financial aid” to face the fallout of the financial crisis
This story is developing…
10% of the bailout – $70 Billion – went to Wall Street bonuses
October 17, 2008
Let us eat cake! In a big WTF – the UK Guardian has discovered that Financial workers at Wall Street’s top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn or 10% of the total taxpayer funded bailout package – despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned. Full Story
Your AIG bailout tax money at work
October 8, 2008
This is amazing stuff we found at the smoking gun Honestly did we expect anything else with our tax money regarding the bailout? It went to St. Regis Resort… literally $40,642.67 for a trip to St. Regis Resort…
Thanks Washington!
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