Tag: boston globe

At the end of the day, I’m certain our bid was higher and could have been a lot more higher if they had just asked. I’m just stunned. [….] From the beginning, I don’t think they wanted to sell to us.

John Lynch, the chief executive of U-T San Diego, circling back to let us all see the obvious synergies his corporate DNA had with a potential Globe purchase. More Higher! is just the sort of cutting edge construction today’s newspaper business needs in 70 point Comic Sans. That and plenty of boobs on page 2. What else could keep the lights on?

Ryan’s Unicorns

Krugman on Ryan:

Ryan is claiming that unemployment will plunge right away; that by 2015 it will be down to the levels at the peak of the 1990s boom (and far below anything achieved under the sainted Ronald Reagan); and that by 2021 it will be below 3 percent, a level we haven’t seen in more than half a century.

[…]

According to the CBO analysis, a typical senior would end up spending more than twice as much of his or her own income on health care as under current law. As Dean Baker points out, this means that seniors would end up paying most of their income for health care. Again, right.

[…]

Ryan is assuming that everything aside from health and SS can be squeezed from 12 percent of GDP now to 3 ½ percent of GDP. That’s bigger than the assumed cut in health care spending relative to baseline; it accounts for all of the projected deficit reduction, since the alleged health savings are all used to finance tax cuts. And how is this supposed to be accomplished? Not explained.

Now that’s what I call a truly serious and courageous budget proposal. Obviously it won’t pass, but it’s not meant to. It is meant to move the debate rightward. And it already has. Dread Liberal Mouthpiece the Boston Globe has already run a “Where’s the Democrat Version of Destroy Medicare?” editorial. The implicit expectation is, again, that Serious People know the sensible outcome is, by definition, in-between Ryan’s plan and status quo: thus the GOP moves policy ever rightward while The Democrat simply stays in defensive crouch, hoping to scratch out minor concessions along the way. Forever.

How’s that been working out for you?

Ryan’s Unicorns

Got this offer from the Boston Globe today. What the Globe (and, by extension, its parent company the New York Times) can’t quite sort out: this price should read: $0. If you subscribe for a year or two, we will GIVE YOU a kindle so long as you agree not to receive the actual paper-paper. That’s because printing the damned thing costs twice as much as simply giving all subscribers the kindle and calling it a day.

Newsprint: To survive, you are going to have to shed your old ideas about what your business model is. I’m not sure how much more simply it can be put. Change or die.