Bright Hall

Former Space Man Talks Politics, Accomplishments

Joshua Chaney — 2009-04-23T17:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, Culture, The Economy, Muskingum College

Perhaps one of the most distinguished and certainly one of the most recognizable people in American history spoke humbly of his life accomplishments and reviewed Obama's first 100 days earlier this month.

On April 9, 2009 - 50 years ago this month - John Glenn was named a member of the Mercury 7, the United States' first astronauts. Glenn grew up in the village of New Concord - a small, college town in southeastern Ohio. He was a member of the village band and eventually a student at Muskingum College.

Since those days, his name has been one that is familiar to most anyone. He was a fighter pilot, a test pilot, one of America's first astronauts, the first man to orbit earth in space, an Ohio senator, a presidential candidate and later the oldest man to fly in space.

"It's hard for me to believe it's been that long," he said. "Part of that is because it seems to vivid to me."

One thing made clear by speaking with Glenn is his keen interest in politics and history. In fact, Glenn, a former Ohio Senator from 1974 to 1999, ran for president in 1984 but was unsuccessful. A close friend of the Kennedy family, Glenn was with Robert Kennedy when President John Kennedy was assassinated in Texas.

Glenn campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 and President Barack Obama in 2008. Glenn has said Obama is "doing an exceptional job" dealing with America's economic crisis.

"I can't speak with any certainty about the economy, because nobody knows what's going to happen, and I think we had to do something because this was the biggest drift down since the Great Depression."
Glenn's father was a plumber without work during those days. Eventually, Glenn explained, he found work through Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration program.

"There were things like that that really primed the pump and helped things and it took awhile," he said. "We didn't recover for many years after that"

Pundits have already started rating and reviewing Obama's first 100 days in office with mixed reviews.

"I think he had to do something and I certainly hope this works," Glenn said. "What he's doing to try and prime the pump now is running up an enormous national debt that we're going to have to deal with, but that's something I think he had to do. I don't think we could let this thing go the way it was. Even in just the last few weeks here I've noticed in the papers and magazines a lot of talk now about that this is a recovery that is starting and things like that and I certainly hope it's true."

Glenn's service was marked most notably for his work in foreign policy. While in office, Glenn was the chief author of the 1978 Nonproliferation Act and served as the chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1987 until 1995, and sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees.

"I think his first foray into foreign policy in Europe and Turkey and those areas has been a big success from everything I can read," Glenn said.

Obama's effort to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons in the world "strikes a very responsive cord with me because that was one of the areas I worked very hard on all the time I was in the Senate, nuclear nonproliferation."

Glenn serves on Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which he explained has met for more than a year, toured various nuclear development locations around the country, and is to decide whether or not the current military weaponry arsenal is adequate or can be adjusted.

Sen. Glenn is an adjunct professor of political science at the Ohio State University, where he helped establish the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, a wing he started in 1998 to encourage public service.

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Obama Announces $13 Billion Train Project

Adam Kirchner — 2009-04-17T00:11:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, National News, The Economy, Towson University

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced a $13 billion high-speed American rail transit development project on Thursday.

The transportation project will be funded by an initial down payment of $8 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds and an additional $1 billion per year for five years, beginning with the 2010 budget.

Ten regional rail systems have been identified for the project: the California Corridor, the Pacific Northwest Corridor, the South Central Corridor, the Gulf Coast Corridor, the Chicago Hub Network, the Florida Corridor, the Southeast Corridor, the Keystone Corridor, the Empire Corridor and the Northern New England Corridor.

Amtrak, the passenger rail system founded in 1971, operates with revenue below expenses and receives an annually increasing federal subsidy reaching $6.3 million for fiscal year 2013, as mandated in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

Additionally, Amtrak received $1.3 billion of the 2009 ARRA funds.

The difference between the existing rail transit system that operates at a $6.3 million annual deficit and the proposed rail transit system which will presumably operate at a staggering deficit, as well, is that the new rail transit system will have 150-mile-per-hour trains. Why have one underutilized, operationally inadequate transit system when American travelers can have two that are rarely used?

Of course, the new $13 billion high-speed train system is meant to serve as a disincentive for American travelers to drive the 100,000 automobiles that the Obama Administration encouraged them to buy three weeks ago.

Spend lots of money on more cars, while already spending lots of money to subsidize one underutilized rail transit system, then spend lots of money to build another rail transit system, then stop driving the cars that cost lots of money and ride the new underutilized rail transit system that cost lots of money to build and costs lots of money to operate, instead, while there already was an underutilized transit system?

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Bank Failures in 2009 Outpace 2008 Five-Fold

Adam Kirchner — 2009-04-12T22:26:00+00:00

Filed under: The Economy, Towson University

Two bank closings announced on Friday bring the tally of bank failures in 2009 up to 23 in just 15 weeks.

New Frontier Bank of Greeley, Colorado closed with $2.0 billion in assets and $1.5 billion in deposits. Cape Fear Bank of Wilmington, North Carolina closed with $492 million in assets and its $403 million deposits were absorbed by First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Charleston, South Carolina, according to FDIC Bank Failures and Assistance records.

The announcement of bank failures early in the second quarter of 2009 outpace those in 2008 five-fold. From January through May, 2008, four banks had failed. Throughout 2008, 24 banks closed nationwide, just one more than 2009 to date. In 2007, only three banks failed, according to FDIC records. There were no bank failures in either 2006 or 2005.

The results of recent bank stress tests are expected to be released by the end of April.

The basic FDIC insurance coverage limit for depositors is $250,000 per account, raised from the previous limit of $100,000 through December 31, 2009.

The FDIC provides a tool to help depositors of failed banks determine if their accounts are fully insured.

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College Seniors Leaving Jobs to Search for Employment

Joshua Sharp — 2009-04-12T22:06:00+00:00

Filed under: Small Campus, Big Story, Featured Stories, USC, The Economy, Recession on Campus

Bright Hall explores the far-reaching effects of the financial crisis on the youth and campuses of America. Click here for the full series.

In an e-mail to fellow student workers in a university office, my colleague penned a letter which was at once both sad and terrifically ironic.

"I'm having a much harder time finding a full-time job after graduation than I anticipated," my friend, a senior majoring in print journalism, wrote.

"Unfortunately, I am going to have to cut back on my hours ... in order to dedicate more time to the job search," she said, asking if anyone could pick up her Friday shift for the rest of the semester.

The mood among campus seniors hinges on whether one has plans for after graduation. With final exams approaching and graduation ceremonies only a few weeks away, a sense of anxiety is increasingly apparent -- and it's not just the print journalism majors who are struggling.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 13.9 percent of adults between the ages of 20 and 24 were unemployed last month, well over the national average of 9 percent. Adults ages 25-34 face similar odds, with 10 percent unemployed.

The New York Times today rightly points out that even though older Americans have lower unemployment rates, they face longer periods of unemployment and are paid substantially less in new jobs.

But breaking into the job market is proving to be an especially difficult task in the current economic climate. Many college seniors have already completed one or more unpaid internships, and the idea of beginning another -- a common piece of advice -- is both unappealing and often financially impossible.

My friend's on-campus job is her third part-time position this semester, in addition to a full class schedule. With her apartment lease ending, she's searching for a new apartment, in which city she knows not, and faces dauntingly high security deposits upon reaching a decision.

Perhaps sleeping on the parents' couch in the interim isn't such a bad idea. But for graduates of an elite institution, the prospect of temporary unemployment despite a hard-earned four-year degree is only now fathomable in the incredulous minds of students.

And so, some seniors are cutting hours at their campus jobs ... to spend more time searching for employment.

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Obama Okays Purchase of 17,600 American Cars

Adam Kirchner — 2009-04-11T15:31:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, Breaking News, The Economy, Towson University

The Obama Administration pledged to buy thousands of cars from American automakers that have been practically insolvent for months, in a press release dated April 9.

"The General Services Administration will spend $285 million of Recovery Act Funds to purchase about 17,600 commercially available fuel efficient vehicles for the government fleet before June 1, 2009," the press release states. "All purchases will be made from manufacturers with an existing contract with the GSA, which are General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. This includes the purchase of 2,500 hybrid sedans that will be ordered by April 15. This is the largest one-time purchase of hybrid vehicles for the federal government fleet in history."

Chrysler and GM had already been collectively granted $17.4 billion worth of Troubled Asset Relief Program loans in December, with the obligation to present the Obama Administration with restructuring plans to avoid bankruptcy by March 31. Having missed the deadline, they were granted another 30 and 60 days, respectively.

In other automaker bailout news, "the IRS is launching a campaign to alert consumers of a new tax benefit for auto purchases made between February 16th and the end of this year: if you buy a car, you may be able to deduct the cost of any sales and excise taxes," president Obama said in his remarks on March 30 regarding the failure of Chrysler and GM to restructure before the deadline. "This provision could save families hundreds of dollars and lead to as many as 100,000 new car sales," he added.

What part of spending $17.4 billion and then another $285 million in public funds saves taxpaying families hundreds of dollars? Or is "saving" a euphemism for relatively less rampant government spending?

And is that 100,000 new car sales plus the 17,600 purchased by the government, or is that actually just 80,000 new car sales plus the 17,600 purchased by the government to total "as many as 100,000 new car sales"? Because that sounds like the administration will be responsible for about 20% of what it suggests the private sector will do.

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Predictions Begin for End of Recession

Adam Kirchner — 2009-04-09T23:21:00+00:00

Filed under: The Economy, Towson University

White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers predicted that the U.S. economy's "free fall" will end mid-year, speaking at an Economic Club of Washington event on Thursday.

Summers' statements are in complete contrast with data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics within the past week.

"Labor market conditions continued to deteriorate in March," Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall announced to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress on April 3. "Total non-farm payroll employment decreased by 663,000, and the unemployment rate increased from 8.1 to 8.5 percent."

"Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007," Hall continued, "job losses have totaled 5.1 million, 3.3 million of which occurred in just the past 5 months. These declines have been widespread across industry sectors, but particularly sharp in manufacturing, construction, and temporary help services. Together, these industries have accounted for nearly two-thirds of the job loss during the recession."

In fact, the last time that unemployment did not increase, month-over-month, was a year ago when there were 145,000 fewer unemployment claims in April than there were in March. From April 2008's trough at 5.0 percent unemployment, the rate has risen to 8.5 percent. Hall added that the employment-to-population ratio in March reached the lowest point since July 1985.

Again, in spite of the BLS report, White House National Economic Director Lawrence Summer stated "I think we can be reasonably confident that [economic trends are] going to end within the next few months and you will no longer have that sense of free fall."

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What's Really Funny About Tribune's April Fools' Prank

Matt Negrin — 2009-04-03T03:11:00+00:00

Filed under: Breaking News, Boston University, Media, The Economy

The bankrupt brains at Tribune Co. sure had a laugh Wednesday. After filing for bankruptcy, shrinking their papers' Washington bureaus and firing hundreds of employees across the country, Tribune thought it could make it all better with a joke.

So on April Fools' Day, they issued a press release -- accompanied by a mysteriously well-designed homepage -- that boasted the creation of something called the "Accelerator," some kind of super-communications thingy that threatens to make the Internet obsolete in a year. It uses nanotechnology, it displays holographs, it has voice recognition in every language, and it has a plutonium battery. All this (and so much more) is detailed on Tribune's release and website, which looks like it took hours, and maybe days, to perfect.

When crafting this prank, Tribune's idea men -- Sam Zell, Lee Abrams and Randy Michaels -- must have put a lot of effort into it, maybe even working overtime. Michaels, the chief operating officer, says in the fake news release that the Accelerator team "put in long hours, many of them sober. And this marvelous device is the result -- The Accelerator(TM) will mean billions in revenue, and the end of the extremely competitive advertising environment in which we've been operating."

Nobody laughed very hard upon reading this. And given Abrams's propensity for writing "think pieces" full of misspellings, ALL-CAPS DECLARATIONS and stream-of-consciousness ideas from a dream-like state, it's no surprise that the Tribune team made its highest priority for April 1 wiping out its Tribune.com website to promote a product that isn't real. (Abrams's style is not representative of the papers his company owns; in addition to not proofreading, he also doesn't check facts, which is evident in this January blast about a quote from Mariah Carey that she never said.)

So who was the joke intended for? Investors who wanted to see how the flailing company is performing after the first three months of 2009? Editors of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times who wanted to see if their newsrooms would be losing more money this month?

Perhaps the group laughing the least is the growing number of laid off journalists who have felt the slice of the mighty Tribune sword. Former reporters of the Tribune's Hartford Courant, which fired 100 employees in February, have formed an "Alumni Association and Refugee Camp." One of them, noting that the folks in the Tribune Co. tower have more time on their hands than those at the struggling papers who are picking up more work for less wages, visited the Hartford newsroom and saw that the journalists "are in no mood for jokes -- at least corporately produced jokes."

(I know for a fact that Courant reporters love good fun; when I was an intern there last summer, the staffers dug out the eyes of CEO Zell's face on a cake before devouring it, in between two waves of buyouts.)

For what it's worth, though, the press release for Tribune's phony gadget has a glimmer of truth in it -- but not for the Accelerator. Rather, for Tribune.

Take, for example, this quote from Tribune Interactive President Marc Chase (real person): "There are still a few bugs to be worked out." Like the billions of dollars in debt that Zell heaved onto the company when he overtook it in December 2007?

Chase also says, "We're confident that we're in the end-stage development phase." That may be a bit foreboding for a company operating under Chapter 11 and not showing any signs of ever seeing numbers in the black again.

Michaels, though, was more direct in his triumph. "The game is over," he said. "We win."

Hilarious.

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The 3 Most Awkward Recession Stories

Tony Romm — 2009-03-31T20:32:00+00:00

Filed under: Media, The Economy, American University

It is hardly a secret that journalists relish crises of all flavors. Distress, economic or otherwise, satiates our inner-most desires to break important news. Occasionally this excitement verges on nauseating.

If that general prognosis immediately conjures images of economic recession stories gone sour, you're probably not alone. In the months that have followed the controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program, journalists have penned countless stories -- some veritably profound and insightful, many alarmingly pathetic and unsound. Here's a sampling of the best of the worst:

1. Recession Sex!

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch posed a question for the ages last Friday -- does the chilly economy heat up the boring bedroom? Presumably, the author augurs, "People are spending less, especially on entertainment and restaurants. They're staying in and looking for cheaper ways to have fun." And because the sex industry has also suffered -- brothels in Nevada are now attributing their staggering losses to the recession, while the pornography industry has all but lost its clientele -- married men and women are hedging their wedding stock options (err, vows) and finally enjoying themselves. The result, experts allege, has been a manifest (yet unmeasurable) increase in relationship success rates. However, if recession sex is anything like its cacophonous predecessor terror sex, the fun won't last long. Case in point...

2. Recession vasectomies!

"In troubled times, vasectomies snip and prosper" -- or so says CNN, which published the story on Tuesday. According to writer Madison Park, a number of males recently left unemployed by the recession (and thus, without health benefits) have sought the "symbolic snip" as the ultimate contraceptive. Some clinics, including one profiled in the CNN article, have even tried to capitalize on this trend with creative gimmicks like "Vas-Madness" -- an awe-inspiring combination of the male community's fear of pregnancy with the popular NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. "[Patients] would love to have a procedure, go home and sit there when you've got all-day programming, watch basketball," the mastermind doctor told CNN. True, you may not be able to afford a television on which to watch those games, but...
3. Ode to an airplane repossessed! You would think from The New York Times' diatribe last week on aviation foreclosures that airplane repo men are the modern-day equivalents of Revolutionary era British tax collectors. The newspaper treats the 100 personal jets at risk of foreclosure this year as the biggest national epidemic since, well, the recession itself. Adding to the lament of lost luxury is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report about the revival of frugality (as if college students ever let it die), the Economic Times "castle sales" eulogy, and Bloomberg touting Japanese fasionistas' robot model troubles as microcosms of a larger, global financial crisis.

Of course, that's not all: Since November 2008, journalists have penned additional pieces attributing a number of other odd trends to the recession, including a rise in shoe repair transactions, a jump in dollar store profits and an increase in cremations.

Add to those tangents an onslaught of awkward photos -- perhaps struggling newspapers should compile their numerous "sad investor" pics into a calendar and sell it to stay afloat -- and it's easy to understand why the Obama administration now offers online resources for Americans suffering from "recession depression."

Such questionable reportage threatens to saturate the "information marketplace," further contributing to Americans' disinterest in the country's economic affairs. It also depicts us reporters as tasteless, veritably bitter and, frankly, just not very good.

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'White People With Blue Eyes' Caused Economic Crisis?

Joshua Chaney — 2009-03-28T09:42:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, News, The Economy, Muskingum College

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently blamed the global economic crisis on "white people with blue eyes," and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people's mistakes, the Financial Times reported.

Standing next to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a joint press conference in Brasilia, Lula da Silva told reporters: "This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing."

"I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis," he added.

What a fun position Gordon Brown found himself in!

"I'm not going to attribute blame to any individuals," Brown said, probably wishing he would have skipped out on the Brazilian stop of his five-day tour of Europe, the United States and South America.

Brown's tour was in preparation for Thursday's G20 summit. Brown made a joint appeal for the world's biggest economies to pledge $100 billion to boost global trade.

Adding to his analysis of the economic crisis, Lula da Silva likened protectionism to addictive drugs.

"I compare protectionism to a drug," he said. "Why do people use drugs? Because they are in crisis and they think the drug will help them. But its effects pass quickly."

While not as shocking as the first pronouncement, this isn't winning a Nobel any time soon either. Such extreme statements also won't help Brazil's campaign for a bigger voice in international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Forum. At least until their president drastically alters his thinking.

And that might be the only positive development to come of all this.

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Since When Do Politicians Care About Newspapers?

Matt Negrin — 2009-03-24T23:36:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, Boston University, Advise & Dissent, Media, The Economy

Animated disagreement between coworkers is a venerable tradition often denied to Bright Hall's far-flung, break room-less staff. Advise & Dissent is an attempt to fix that. Click here for past debates, and click here to read Tony Romm's argument against nonprofit newspapers.

The difference between a newspaper and a press release from a senator's office is that the first usually contains the whole, objective truth, and the latter is full of spin and bias.

So it may be striking some political and media observers as odd that politicians have begun lining up to offer federal help to print journalism. The latest effort comes from Senator Benjamin Cardin, who on Tuesday introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to get a bunch of tax breaks if they work as nonprofits.

There is a catch, though -- they would be barred from political endorsements on their editorial pages.

Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, said his effort is aimed at helping local papers, not big conglomerates that also dabble in TV and radio. Unprecedented numbers of newspapers big and small are on the verge of disappearing, and many have already declared bankruptcy or stopped printing -- like the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The cause is a deadly cocktail that is part terrible economy and part old business model, which relies almost solely on advertisements, which have been steadily declining for years.

"We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy."

The Tribune Co. -- which owns big state papers like the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun -- filed for bankruptcy last December. One of its papers, the Hartford Courant, shed 100 jobs last month, bringing the newsroom to a shadow of what it once was.

Other papers -- like the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle -- will likely stop publishing in mere days if a miracle doesn't arrive (like a rich buyer). Although to save the Chronicle and other Bay Area papers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked the Justice Department to consider allowing some of those publications to merge.

And at the beginning of January, a Connecticut lawmaker, Frank Nicastro, asked the state government to consider bailing out the local Bristol Press, a scrappy paper in danger of shuttering its printers.

Why would politicians -- who thrive on mastering control of their carefully crafted messages -- step up to the plate to help newspapers, which have a history of uncovering political secrets and at times bringing down elected officials?

"[Pelosi]'s been a big fan of newspapers her whole life," spokesman Brendan Daly said to the Chronicle about the California Democrat's letter to the attorney general. "She wants to ensure their survival, but is also very concerned about antitrust laws."

But not all of Washington's suits are backing dead-tree journalism. Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, a Democrat, earlier this month took partial credit for the Rocky's death and argued it was "mostly for the better."

Still, even extreme ideas like shoring up a federal bailout for newspapers isn't a totally new idea. But the problem lies in what makes newspapers unique -- their inherent objectivity and independence from government. The fourth estate operates as the most established watchdog of public office. If federal, taxpayer dollars were injected into its ink, could the press on one hand thank the government for the help but on the other hand continue to ask dogged questions of leaders?

Perhaps the debate is too idealist, if newspapers are on the way toward obsolescence as many suggest. And maybe the time has come for the industry to think of the bigger picture. Former Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler, now my dean at Boston University's College of Communication, told Fox News, "I truly believe that no democracy can remain healthy without an equally healthy press. Thus it is in democracy's interest to support the press in the same sense that the human being doesn't hesitate to take medicine when his or her health is threatened."

Yet there are a lot of angry readers out there who would like nothing more than for newspapers to cease -- and the sooner the better -- despite not understanding the barriers between newsroom reporters and opinions on the editorial pages. As one commenter wrote on this very blog, "When the media changed from having a responsibility to having an agenda then the fourth estate lost its credibility."

One thing is for certain. Whether you agree with a newspaper's editorial positions or not, it is tough to refute that both local and national newspapers do serve a public good. You can whine all you want about how The Washington Post endorsed Barack Obama or how your local paper backed Sarah Palin. But to think that those papers don't spend every day trying to report what's happening in your community and the world is just naive.

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Obama Dances In Boring Press Conference

Joshua Chaney — 2009-03-24T22:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, News, The Economy, Muskingum College

Who's sick of hearing the President blame all of his problems on the previous administration?

Evidently some in the press.

The answer to a tough question usual begins with an Obama answer along the following lines: "Well, I would say you have to remember, I inherited (insert any current national crisis or issue here)."

The president didn't disappoint in delivering that answer at a press conference in which he spent most of the night defending his $3.6 trillion budget, saying the budget "is inseparable from this recovery."

Overall, the press conference seemed dull, highlighted only by Obama's eloquence in dancing around each question, giving long-winded answers normally that had little - if any - to do with what was asked and usually ended with health care reform or green energy reform and green jobs.

CNN's Ed Henry and CBS' Chip Reid called the president on the hypocrisy. Asked on the question of whether his budget tramples wishes not to "pass on our problems to the next generation," Obama kicked off his answer by blaming President Bush and Congressional Republicans.

The following is a portion of the press conference transcript from CNN:

Reid: Thank you, Mr. President. At both of your town hall meetings in California last week, you said, quote, "I didn't run for president to pass on our problems to the next generation." But under your budget, the debt will increase $7 trillion over the next 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office says $9.3 trillion. And today on Capitol Hill, some Republicans called your budget, with all the spending on health care, education and environment, the most irresponsible budget in American history.

Obama: Yes.

Reid: Isn't that kind of debt exactly what you were talking about when you said "passing on our problems to the next generation"?

Obama: First of all, I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them. That would be point number one.

Later...

Henry: Thank you. Mr. President. You spoke again at the top about your anger about AIG. You've been saying that for days now. But why is it that it seems Andrew Cuomo seems to be in New York getting more actual action on it?

And when you and Secretary Geithner first learned about this 10 days, two weeks ago, you didn't go public immediately with that outrage. You waited a few days. And then you went public after you realized Secretary Geithner really had no legal avenue to stop it.

And, more broadly, I just want to follow up on Chip and Jake. You've been very critical of President Bush doubling the national debt. And, to be fair, it's not just Republicans hitting you. Democrat Kent Conrad, as you know, said, quote, "When I look at this budget, I see the debt doubling again."

You keep saying that you've inherited a big fiscal mess. Do you worry, though, that your daughters, not to mention the next president, will be inheriting an even bigger fiscal mess if the spending goes out of control?

Obama: Of course I do, Ed, which is why we're doing everything we can to reduce that deficit.
Look, if this were easy, then, you know, we would have already had it done, and the budget would have been voted on, and everybody could go home. This is hard.

And the reason it's hard is because we've accumulated a structural deficit that's going to take a long time, and we're not going to be able to do it next year or the year after or three years from now. What we have to do is bend the curve on these deficit projections.

And the best way for us to do that is to reduce health care costs. That's not just my opinion. That's the opinion of almost every single person who has looked at our long-term fiscal situation...

Henry: But on AIG, why did you wait -- why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage? It seems like the action is coming out of New York and the attorney general's office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, "Look, we're outraged." Why did it take so long?

Obama: It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.

The president again used a hand-picked list of journalists to direct questions to, oddly leaving out many major print sources like Newsweek, Time, The New York Times and the Washington Post. In an obvious effort to fend off his teasers, Obama also chose to ditch the familiar glass teleprompters he often uses for a large flat screen television in the back of the room instead.

Defending a budget idea to reduce the tax deduction that wealthier families can take when the make charitable donations, Obama said it is "the right thing to do."

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The Bonuses: Who Is To Blame?

Joshua Chaney — 2009-03-22T10:50:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, The Economy, Muskingum College

It has come to light in the past few days that the Obama Administration pushed the Treasury Department to urge a change in the stimulus bill protecting the AIG bonuses that the country has become enraged over.

Yet Obama has walked away virtually unscathed; not many are blaming him. In listening to him speak, I almost expected him any minute to deflect blame in his usual way by blaming the Bush Administration, but that didn't happen. Obama said he "didn't write the contracts," but that the "buck stops here."

The president will announce a plan this week that seeks increased oversight on all executive pay for banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies. The House voted Thursday to place a 90 percent tax on the bonuses.

There is much more rage aimed at Chris Dodd, the Democratic senator from Connecticut and chairman of the Banking Committee, who has essentially said Obama's Treasury Department coerced him into making the change for "technical" reasons. If only he had known, he would have not made the change, he said.

If only he had known what he was doing. Great excuse, Senator.Dodd cinched a solid nomination in the flip flop Hall of Fall after he claimed Tuesday he had no connection to the change that allowed for the bonuses, and then Wednesday admitted he was the guilty one.

Dodd may be in serious trouble come election time. A Quinnipiac University poll taken before the AIG flap shows a potential seat opponent one point ahead of Dodd - and those results came before he admitted to playing a roll in this week's fiasco.

Some heat has been directed toward Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has already had a rocky start. Geithner, taking a page from Dodd's book, admitted his office pushed for the change, but said he had no idea about it up until last week. Several Republicans have called for his resignation, which he he has deflected. Obama has already said he wouldn't accept the resignation.

Democrats have said repeatedly that the lack of oversight by the previous administration has led to problems. It has got to be hard to deflect the blame onto Bush this time.

Whether we figure out who is to blame or not, the competition amongst politicians on who can express the most outrage will continue. Although it's hard to beat calling for the executives to quit or commit suicide and the whole sucking sound of "sphincters" tightening.

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The Huffington Post: Whose Side Are They On?

Matt Negrin — 2009-03-19T08:32:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, Featured Stories, Boston University, Media, The Economy

Chris Dodd, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, yesterday admitted to his role in allowing AIG to pay its executives bonuses with taxpayer money. He told CNN that he was responsible for adding language to the stimulus bill that would allow such contracts to retain their legality, despite saying Tuesday that he had nothing to do with the language.

The news isn't great for Dodd, who is already stumbling in his home-state polls. But one place you'd never suspect that is The Huffington Post.

The Huffington Post -- or "HuffPo" -- has long been a Democrat-friendly news aggregator and blog hub, known for its screaming, all-caps banner headlines pertaining to the issue du jour. So yesterday, following Dodd's admission, the Huffington Post decided to instead put the blame on the Federal Reserve.

"WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON?" HuffPo asked, above the more specific headline, "Fed Failed To Tell Obama About AIG Bonuses." That second statement has certainly been a talking point from the White House, which has insisted that Barack Obama did not know about the bonuses until just before the public found out.

That's not all, though. Below the website's main picture of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the AIG building and Obama, another sub-headline reads, "Dodd: Treasury Insisted On Weakening Bonus Provision," again playing to the Democrat's spin that he was pressured by the administration to add the language to the stimulus bill.

This should not be a surprise to many people, and this is by no means the first time such selective headlining has appeared in the Huffington Post. Yet with nearly 8 million visitors per month, the Huffington Post is trailblazing the way for online opinion molding.

Arianna Huffington, the founder of the website, has said that her creation is the new form of journalism. Yet most of the site's content is from other news sources, such as breaking news from The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press. Often, HuffPo will scream a headline that links to a page on its site with pasted text from another news publication's story. For example, in HuffPo's headline about the Fed not telling Obama about AIG bonuses, the website links the text to this page, which reads: "ABC News: Sources in the Obama administration Thursday said ..." before another link to ABC that says, "Read the whole story."

And in its current headline, "ADDING INSULT TO INJURY," HuffPo skips itself as a middleman and links directly here, to Bloomberg.

Yet despite this method of newsgathering -- called aggregation, because it is not original reporting -- the Huffington Post has defended itself as being a real form of journalism, like newspapers. One major difference, though, is its lack of fact checking. An embarrassing consequence of hasty cut-and-pasting hit the HuffPo in February when it linked to a YouTube video that had been digitally altered to make it seem as if media host John Gibson referred to Attorney General Eric Holder as a monkey. After attentive viewers pointed out the mistake, the Huffington Post put up this seemingly awkward apology, "John Gibson Did Not Compare Eric Holder To Monkey With Bright Blue Scrotum (UPDATED)."

The Huffington Post, seen as a liberal alternative to Matt Drudge's aggregating website, also defends its sense of journalism by pointing to its presidential campaign scoop during last year's primaries. A contributor, Mayhill Fowler, had attended a private fundraiser with Obama in San Francisco and taped his now-infamous comments about how Pennsylvanians "cling to guns or religion." If the Huffington Post is biased, it argued, then why would it post such a damaging piece to Obama?

The answer lies in timing. Obama made the closed-door speech April 6, and the HuffPo contributor -- who donated to Obama's campaign -- mulled over the story for five days before posting it. In objective, tried-and-true journalism, reporters don't wait for their prejudices to decide if they should post up a snippet or not, no matter whom it praises or condemns.

"Our highest responsibility is to the truth," Arianna Huffington told the Bay Guardian at the end of last year. "The truth is not about splitting the difference between one side and the other. Sometimes one side is speaking the truth. ... The central mission of journalism is the search for the truth."

It would be nice to see Huffington follow her own advice every day. The Observer has ranked the Huffington Post the world's most powerful blog, but it is simply that -- a blog, with a clear ideological preference to who benefits and who doesn't. The hub is a good source for breaking news from a variety of places, but almost always news that favors liberals -- or, more likely, items that embarrass Republicans.

"Someone is going to sue the Huffington Post," Joshua Benton, the head of Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab, told Time. "It's not just about the volume of the content that it appropriates. It's about the value."

We can all admit that the news media is transforming as the Internet eclipses disintegrating newspapers. As Arianna told the Bay Guardian, "We're all basically trying to reinvent journalism."

But let's leave the reinventing to the journalists.

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Somebody Bring Wall Street a Big Chocolate Cake

Matt Negrin — 2009-03-18T21:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, Boston University, The Economy

It seems to me that the stock market is like a bipolar kid at a birthday party. At any point he could be wailing and running around, knocking over lamps and chairs, or he could be perfectly complacent while he eats ice cream.

The difference is instead of lamps breaking, people lose millions of dollars.

Sometimes the peaks and valleys in the Dow Jones index make about as much sense as a Jackson Pollock painting, and even financial experts are befuddled. Last week, the Dow -- a composite mix of 30 "indicator" stocks -- inexplicably jumped nearly 6 percent in one day.

Why? Nobody knows. Some said it was because investors were itching to buy stocks and leaped at the first signs that the day's market wasn't dropping dramatically. Maybe traders were scanning the news looking for just a glimmer of hope, such as Citigroup's CEO announcing a profit in the first two months of the year. Citigroup's shares rose a remarkable 38 percent that day, even though the CEO's comments weren't entirely meaningful because they didn't reflect a full quarter of business.

The point is that stock market trading is almost entirely psychological. Investors take risks when they feel good and draw stalemates when in lousy moods. If something as superficial as monitoring Google News for company highlights can lift the market to record heights for no material reason, surely there's a better way to revive the economy than hoping that companies begin making profits.

I'm talking about bringing some good cheer to Wall Street. The Daily Show's John Hodgman suggested last month that maybe it's time for an Emergency Christmas. At a time when market experts are just as confused as the people whose money they're handling, maybe our best advice should come from new people with radical ideas. How about Crazy Hat Day every Thursday? Weekly potlucks? Nobody seems to like Mondays; maybe we could show a funny movie on those big TVs, like "Along Came Polly."

I don't really know the legal rules about gift-giving on the floor, but would it be illegal to offer chocolate incentives for buying stock? Godiva could sponsor a week of record trading.

All of this seems silly, but so does the fact that every day, investors are waiting for good news to break as an excuse to open up their wallets. The Fed today announced that it would create $1 trillion, and the Dow, which had been down, surged to end 91 points up. But that won't happen again tomorrow. Over the past month, nearly every stock market rise was met with a fall the next day, save for a bizarre last week of trading.

Before the market begins to fall again, maybe traders should chuck conventional wisdom and heed the advice of the indulgent: Life is short; eat dessert first.

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Obama Hypocrisy: Fundamentals of the Economy Are 'Sound'

Joshua Sharp — 2009-03-17T00:02:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, USC, The Economy

"The fundamentals [of the economy] are sound," Obama economic adviser Christina Romer declared Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

The irony of the statement was not lost, even on the ears of the media elite, in light of candidate Obama's harsh rhetoric towards then-rival John McCain for saying "the fundamentals of the economy are strong."

"It's not that I think John McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of most Americans," Obama said then. "I just think he doesn't know ... Why else would he say, today, of all days -- just a few hours ago -- that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong?

"Senator - what economy are you talking about?"

President Obama last week: "If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation and dynamism in this economy, then we're going to get through this," Obama said, contradicting his own budget director's recent assertion that "fundamentally, the economy is weak."

So what has changed since the campaigns ended?

Sept. 15, 2008: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 10,917. Sen. McCain says that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Nov. 4, 2008: Election Day. The Dow has dropped to 9,625.

Jan. 20, 2009: Inauguration Day. The Dow has plummeted further to 7,949.

Mar. 15, 2009: Obama economic adviser Christina Romer says, "Well, of course the fundamentals [of the economy] are sound..." The Dow is just over 7,200.

Prompted by MTP host David Gregory to explain Obama's about-face, Romer dodged before reinforcing the McCain/Obama comparison:

DR. ROMER: I think when the president says he's focusing on fundamentals, what he means is, is we're focusing on, on fixing the fundamentals; that we've always said we're not looking at the ups and downs of the stock market, we're looking for those crucial indicators: when are jobs turning around, when are sales turning around, when do we see consumers coming to life? That's the kind of thing that--certainly that I'm looking at in terms of when's the economy going to be doing better and, and when can we see some hope.

MR. GREGORY: Are the fundamentals of this economy sound?

DR. ROMER: Well, of course the fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology. We know that, that temporarily we're in a mess, right? We've seen huge job loss, we've seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we're in a, in a bad situation.

--
You might remember that Sen. McCain also explained his statement by saying he was referring to the strength and ingenuity of the American worker.

President Obama recognizes now what Sen. McCain understood last year - consumer spending will not rise significantly until consumers believe that the economy is about to improve. While Candidate Obama rode to electoral victory by overstating the most depressing economic news and promising "change," his Administration is now burdened with a country suffering from a crisis of confidence.

That the stock market has continued to crumble since Obama's election certainly doesn't help. It would appear that governance can be a lot tougher than a political campaign.

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Sex Industry: What Recession?

Joshua Chaney — 2009-03-16T21:48:00+00:00

Filed under: Culture, The Economy, Muskingum College

When times are tough, families are forced to buckle down and focus on the stuff they just can't live without. I'm talking the absolute essentials - food, shelter and, of course, sex.

In fact, some businesses in the skin industry say they do better in a bad economy. The owner of an Ohio-based condom manufacturer said business is better than ever.

"We're doing well," Brian Frank of Undercover Condoms told the Columbus Dispatch. "There's been some effect from the downturn, but overall we're still growing."

According to the Nielsen Co., sales of male contraceptives in food, drug and mass-merchandise stores increased 6.4 percent in the last 13 weeks of 2008 compared to 2007. The number of condoms also rose 2.4 percent during that same period. Sales in January followed the same trend, up 5.3 percent compared to the previous year.

Condom manufacturers attribute the correlation to people staying home and resorting to cheaper forms of "recreation," while also being reluctant to have more kids in uncertain times.Condoms aren't the only things selling strong. The porn industry made a whopping $12 billion in 2007 and some filmmakers attending the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas in January said sales were up in December and January.

Nicholas Steele, CEO of Bluebird America, told Fox 5 in Las Vegas that his company shoots about 100 videos a month due to a steadily strong demand.

Outside of sex, being a dentist still pays well, one doctor says. Toothaches aren't waiting for more economically convenient times, even though clients are tending to opt out of more preventative procedures.

Cell phones and video games can be checked on that essentials list as well, it seems.

The nation's largest wireless provider, Verizon Wireless, is still running strong as well. Verizon's revenues are growing as more and more of its over 80 million customers send more photos, videos and text messages and run web applications.

Many video game companies are thriving as well. Despite the retail industry projecting the slowest Christmas sales growth in six years, the video game industry was on track to increase revenues by 30 percent in 2008.

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Chicago's Sears Tower Will Change Name To Willis Tower

Kaitlynn Riely — 2009-03-16T07:50:00+00:00

Filed under: National News, News, The Economy, Notre Dame

I landed at Chicago's O'Hare Airport late Saturday night and saw, probably for the last time, the Sears Tower.

The next time I'm in Chicago, the Sears Tower will be the Willis Tower.

Willis Group Holdings, a London-based global insurance broker, announced last week that it was consolidating its Chicago-area offices and moving into the Sears Tower, which they will rename in July.

"Having our name associated with Chicago's most iconic structure underscores our commitment to this great city, and recognizes Chicago's importance as a major financial hub and international business center," Joseph J. Plumeri, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Willis Group Holdings said in a news release on the company's Web site.

Plumeri acts like he is doing Chicago a favor, and maybe he is, by investing in real estate in the midst of a struggling economy. But the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the United States as well as the entire Western hemisphere, is too iconic to have its name changed. The Sears Tower is classic; the most prominent part of the Chicago skyline. Willis Tower sounds like the punchline to a bad "Diff'rent Strokes" joke.

The Chicago Tribune reported last week that, following the announcement about the building's name change, people were stopping by the 110-story building to take pictures of the Sears Tower name before it is gone.The Sears Tower hasn't been the headquarters of the Sears department store for 17 years, since Sears took up residence in the suburbs of Chicago in 1992. The company moved into the building, then the world's tallest, after it was completed in 1973, and even when they left, the name stuck.

Plumeri seemed surprised at the negative reaction to the proposed renaming of the Tower, according to statements reported in the Chicago Tribune.

"Would you rather have an iconic building with nobody in it, which doesn't say a lot about Chicago, or someone with enough faith to take the space?" he asked. "The headline should be: A company has decided to invest money in Chicago, and if you miss that headline, you've missed the side of the building by a mile and a half."

Plumeri may be a great CEO, but I think he would have struggled in the headline-writing business.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Guessing About Economy

Adam Kirchner — 2009-03-15T19:43:00+00:00

Filed under: The Economy, Towson University

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is still guessing about the economy.

In Bernanke's 60 Minutes interview on Sunday he sagely predicted that "we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time."

Probably.

Probably, nine months or so from now the economy will stop declining. Probably some time next year the recovery will begin.

Probably next year. Maybe the year after next. Who knows?

He should! He's the Federal Reserve Chairman!

In other words, the Federal Reserve has no influence on daily, weekly or even monthly economic fluctuations. The soonest that they can speculate that their efforts might be productive is a year from now, and even then, it's not even certain.

Regarding the likelihood of a protracted depression, Bernanke commented "I think we've averted that risk. I think we've gotten past that."

He thinks; he doesn't know for certain. And if he doesn't, nobody does.

Let's just hope the economy's better than Bernanke's best guess.

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AIG Is Going to Pay Itself How Much, Now?

Matt Negrin — 2009-03-15T09:16:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, Boston University, The Economy

Giant financial monster AIG is sticking it to the man. The man being Barack Obama.

After cashing in on $170 billion federal bailout money -- the stuff that's funded by your taxes -- the company is going ahead with $165 million in bonuses to the executives who helped cause the financial crisis, the Washington Post has unearthed.

The company's government-appointed chairman, Edward Liddy, defended the bonuses in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He said the bonuses must be given to the execs because they were already promised last year.

In other words, these company "bonuses" are nothing more than guaranteed cash pinatas that are rewarded regardless of how well or terrible the execs do. For those of us not wheeling and dealing in the financial world, here is an analogy to the situation:

You break your mom's favorite plates. She gives you $100 to go buy new plates. You take the money and buy video games for yourself instead.
Further, Liddy told Geithner that the bonuses are necessary to keep the most talented executives at AIG -- presumably the supposed talented executives who lit their company on fire and gave Wall Street a heart attack.

"We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses -- which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers -- if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury," Liddy explained.

Again, that might be complicated. Here's another analogy:

Remember those video games you bought instead of the nice plates? You tell your mom you need them to keep you happy so that at some point in your life you might think about buying those new plates.

As many as 400 AIG buddies are getting the money. The most lucrative bonus is for $6.5 million. Seven suits are getting more than $3 million. That's not a typo.

Here's an analogy --

Oh, you get the idea. It's a boatload of money.

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China Worried About Money U.S. Owes Them

Adam Kirchner — 2009-03-14T16:53:00+00:00

Filed under: Politics, International News, The Economy, Towson University

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concerns about the increasing U.S. debt and the lasting recession in a news conference on Friday.

Roughly 70 percent of China's $2 trillion foreign exchange reserves are U.S. government loans. China is the biggest holder of the $10.9 trillion U.S. government debt in the world, followed closely by Japan who, along with the United Kingdom share more than 50 percent of it.

"We have lent a massive amount of capital to the United States, and of course we are concerned about the security of our assets," a recent Reuters article quoted Wen as saying on Friday.

"To speak truthfully, I do indeed have some worries. I would like [...] to once again request America to maintain their creditworthiness, keep their promise and guarantee the safety of Chinese assets."

Wen also expressed concern for the key interest rate, which the Federal Reserve bank has held at virtually zero percent for the past three months, which is decreasing the value of China's U.S. bond holdings. The rate dropped from one percent to an unprecedented quarter of one percent on December 16.

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