DEFENSE OF NEWSPAPERS -- A RESPONSE

DEFENSE OF NEWSPAPERS – A RESPONSE

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© August 30, 2010

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A READER WRITES:

Jim,

I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding newspapers. I receive and read two Chicago dailies and the Wall Street Journal every day.

The last section of your piece made me think. Politics might be one of the more simulative elements of our economy. Think about the $70 million spent on the gubernatorial primary. It went to hiring staff with a portion of the salaries returned to the government in payroll and income taxes. Printing and distributing posters and other forms of campaign collateral gives work to print shops keeping people employed and generating small business profits. There are rallies requiring equipment rentals and setup.

This is all nice, but other than transferring money from political donors to a variety of services, it does nothing to add lasting value. Posters go to landfill, sound systems and stages go back to storage, and campaign workers go to the unemployment line.

In the end you can assume 30% of the money goes to state or federal government in some form of tax, ultimately paying (less the typical government waste) for some of the services mentioned in the column.

Michael

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DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Michael,

If I didn’t know better, I would think you were an apologist for the carpetbaggers. Sure, the money is distributed but this is a spike not a remedial measure. Whatever the system, money has been an important factor in governance, and capitalism is little different than any other system.

It seems remarkable to me that the world has survived stupid kings and emperors, stupid presidents and prime ministers, and stupid parliaments and congressional bodies. The world has survived because people are wiser and more pragmatic than their leadership. This has always been the case in the best and worst of times.

Inbreeding of class magnifies the problem. Even with the most able of leaders they are likely to have as powerful shortcomings and they have assets. Now, competence and confidence has given way to theatre.

We have billionaires such as Jeff Greene, who made his money in suspect ways when the economy went belly up, and Rick Scott, who made his money forming a healthcare company that was sued to the tune of nearly $2 billion for fraud in overcharging Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Small wonder public confidence in politicians is so low.

There were many times in my own career when I could have taken advantage of my position but was never so inclined, thanks to my da. He told me never to forget my roots as a lower middle class kid. "That is who and what you are no matter how much the high rollers may flatter you to the contrary." He then added, this man with only a seventh grade education, “Be leery of the high rollers. What you see is never what you get.” It has saved me from a life of embarrassing temptations.

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Yesterday, I watched “The Enron Story” on television. I had read a book on that affair. Somehow seeing these high rollers defrauding employees and companies and unions of their wealth while playing up the lie of Enron’s “stupendous success” with grins, slaps on the back, compelling PowerPoint slides, not to mention banquets and awards ceremonies, was shatteringly painful.

Straight white teeth and a good tan on a slim frame draped in a $5,000 suit doesn’t make a man, nor does having the right degrees from the right institutions with the right friends living in the right neighborhoods.

My problem with the $70 million is that we have become a skin-deep culture. It should be of little surprise that our leaders excel in that one-dimentionalism.

Be always well,

Jim