mendacious

Extraordinarily mendacious post in the Times today. The head is "The Perils of Pay Less, Get More". David Leonhardt discusses the deficit as if we, the spoiled masses of the US, have ruined the economy over the last twenty years by selfishly clamoring only for more more more for us, and less less less in taxes. It is as if the Clinton budget surplus never existed, and the Dubya deficit did not gut it to slop more riches to the already wealthy.

It's not as if this was a secret. Dubya crowed at the Al Smith Dinner in 2000, "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base." This was three weeks before the election.

SEC filings show that "Top executives at the beleaguered New York Times Company reaped hefty rewards last year, with Chairman Arthur 'Pinch' Sulzberger more than doubling his total compensation to $6 million.... CEO Janet Robinson got even more, reaping $6.3 million, a 31.9 percent hike."

The financial plight of the Times company would easily be solved if they dropped the pretense and priced to sell to their community - plutocrats. Hey, 'Pinch'! Charge $50 for the daily edition, $500 for Sundays and $10,000 per year for web access. Keep out hoi polloi, drop the display ads for mass dreck like Ralph Lauren* (Hermes and Coach have new stores for men!) and embrace your base.

Why did I have to read about an $8,500 baseball glove in the WSJ? Rupert's going to drink your milkshake.

*Nothing specific against Mr. Lauren's clothing and accessories. They just happened to be in the banner when I clicked over to the Times.

>>> Firedoglake post of the day: Never mind Kucinich, here comes the fascism!