Recall the Orlando Sentinel's editorial earlier this week, titled "Fattening Up: Local and state governments are overly generous to employees". The following bit of doggrel appeared in the opinion piece:
While businesses cut back on health-insurance benefits and replaced expensive pensions with 401(k) plans, few governments have done the same. The editors' point is clear: it is a good thing to "cut back on health-insurance benefits" and "replace[] expensive [defined benefit] pensions with 401(k) plans". We responded to these assertions with this screed: "Orlando Sentinel embarrasses itself". The editors are at it again today, throwing out this bit 'o wisdom at the end of an otherwise unremarkable editorial, to wit: public employers should be bringing pension plans and expensive vacation and leave policies in line with businesses. That is to say, it would be a good thing for public employers to join the private sector to, as the editors' put it the other day, "cut back on health-insurance benefits", and other emoluments of employment. Excuse us if we're wrong, but is there any reputable support for the assertion that "cut[ting] back on health-insurance benefits" is a good thing. Yet, the essence of the editors' argument is that, if "businesses" are cutting back on insurance, it is necessarily the right thing to do. The editors offer absolutely no support for their position other than the empty assertion that "businesses" are doing it. Of course, businesses' sole motivation - as it understandably is in our economic system - is to maximize profit. If a company could pay its workers a dollar an hour with no benefits, thereby maximizing profit, it (understandably) would gladly do so. More specifically, if business can "cut back on health-insurance benefits", it is understandable that they would do so to maximize profit. This is of course good for folks that own corporations, whether they be stockholders in publicly held companies or the owner(s) of privately companies; for example, the real estate mogul (some say slum lord), Sam Zell, who recently purchases, and serves as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Tribune Company and, in turn, the Orlando Sentinel. As to "businesses" like the Tribune Company/Orlando Sentinel, we fully understand why they think "cut[ting] back on health-insurance benefits" is wise. Things like "health-insurance" cost money and adversely affect the maximum conceivable amout of profit. Obviously, anything that maximizes the profit of "businesses" like the Tribune Company/Orlando Sentinel - like "cut[ting] back on health-insurance benefits" - is consistent with the very reason a business exists, to make as much money as possible. Greed is good and all that. [As an aside, if other employers in the marketplace - say public employers - are not "cut[ting] back on health-insurance benefits" or "replac[ing] expensive [defined benefit] pensions with [cheap]401(k) plans - it makes it difficult for an employer - say the Orlando Sentinel - to justify cutting its employees health insurance and providing employees to cheap retirement plans (like 401(k) plans where employees bear all the risk)]. Back to the greed is good philosophy, if one looks at the Tribune Company's board of directors you will find these wise souls: - Jeffrey S. Berg, who among other things, is on the Board of Directors of Oracle Corporation. As of 2005, Oracle employed more than 50,000 people worldwide and is the world's second largest software company. - Brian L. Greenspun, the chairman and chief executive officer of The Greenspun Corporation, a privately owned corporation that manages the Greenspun family assets. These "assets" include, among other things, the American Nevada Corporation, a developer; VEGAS.com, which in turn owns both "Casino Travel and Tours" and CTT Transportation (which provides limousine and motor coach services); as well as the following joint ventures: Sky Mall (a catalog that is distributed to airline passengers) and at least 50% ownership of four casinos.  - William C. Pate, chief investment officer of Equity Group Investments, LLC. Pate serves on the boards of Covanta Holding Corporation: "As of December 31, 2006, it owned and operated approximately 51 energy generation facilities, which uses municipal solid waste, water, natural gas, coal, wood waste, landfill gas, and heavy fuel-oil. In addition, Covanta Holding Corporation owns and operates a waste procurement business, landfills, and waste transfer stations, as well as a water treatment facility." Pate also serves on the board of Exterran Holdings Inc., whose "customers include international oil and gas producers; independent exploration, production and distribution firms, and national energy companies. Exterran has operations in over 30 countries worldwide". - Maggie Wilderotter, who among other things serves on the board of directors of Yahoo! and Xerox Corporation, the latter a international operation with divisions throughout the world. - Frank E. Wood, chief executive officer of Secret Communications, LLC, a venture capital company in Cincinnati. He is chairman of the board of 8e6 Technologies, an internet filtering company, and serves on the board of Chemed Corporation (Roto-Rooter) and C Bank, a new business bank. - Betsy D. Holden , a senior advisor to McKinsey & Company and the former president of global marketing and category development at Kraft Foods, Inc. (owned by The Philip Morris Company, it is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in North America). She also serves on the board of Western Union Company (with reported revenues top $3 billion annually.) - William A. Osborn, the chairman and chief executive officer and a director of Northern Trust Corporation and its principal subsidiary, The Northern Trust Company. In addition, he serves on the board of the delightful Caterpillar, Inc. Among Caterpillar's fine contributions to American society, is its embarkation upon a "southern strategy", transferring work from unionized facilities (with, yes, "health-insurance") in Illinois, to right to work states such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia, at the cost of nearly 20,000 high-wage union jobs in the Peoria, Illinois area. With corporate masters like these*, it is less than surprising that the Orlando Sentinel editors think that, if "businesses" are doing it, it must be the right thing to do, and, hence "cut[ting] back on health-insurance benefits" and "replac[ing] expensive pensions with 401(k) plans" is wise policy and good for the community. The Tribune's owners, directors, and editors are hardly the ink stained wretches of yore (like Edward Willis Scripps**, who hung out with riff raff like Clarence Darrow as opposed to prospective mates at the club); however, one can reasonably assume that they (at least the local editors) think themselves as cut from the same cloth and otherwise engaged in a noble calling. To be sure, readers can expect the Sentinel editors to courageously rail against the horrors of dumping raw sewage into the ocean, the elimination of no-wake zones in Manatee areas, the loss of Everglade protection and so forth; but when it comes to economic issues (as well as issues concerning labor unions (read police and fire fighter unions, among others), they obediently articulate views pleasing to their "businessmen" employers, and consistent with the Tribune Company's embarrassing history***. Stated differently, the Sentinel editors' enormous intellectual exertions tend to result in views consistent with the interests of "businesses", which coincidentally enough, include businesses just like the Tribune Company/Sentinel. The Sentinel is after all, and in the end, itself a "business". This reality in turn makes it so very easy for the "diverse" editorial board to "thrash out the issues of the day", and engage in "broad, philosophical discussion" that "reflect broad, philosophical positions". And, after "hearing all sides of the issue", and a conducting a "debate [of] the issue" among these "diverse" editors, the editors struggle to "come up with positions" that are "in the community's best interest", which "reflect thorough research and weighing of the facts"****. Ironically, as stated earlier, these considered editorial positions - specifically on economic issues - reflexively reflect the less than difficult to discern wisdom of Messrs. Berg, Greenspun, Pate, Wood, Holden and Osborn, as well as Mmes. Wilderotter and Holden. Here's our familiar case in point: the Sentinel editors conclude that it is "in the community's best interest" to "cut back on health-insurance benefits" and "replace expensive [defined benefit] pensions with [cheap] 401(k) plans". In disputing any concern that its editorials are mere "knee-jerk opinions", the Sentinel's editorial page editor grandly describes how editorial decisions are arrived it: The Sentinel's editorials are decided by the newspaper's 12-member editorial board. Their backgrounds, detailed above, are diverse, as are their opinions. The newspaper's editor and publisher are on the board, too, but usually participate only in broad, philosophical discussions. The board meets each weekday to thrash out the issues of the day. Generally, an editorial writer proposes a stand, which should reflect thorough research and weighing of the facts. The board then debates the issue before nailing down a position. After hearing all sides of the issue, the board always should be asking itself: "What is in the community's best interest?" ... The daily discussions also reflect broad, philosophical positions that we have arrived at in earlier discussions. For instance, we don't debate anew each day whether we want to protect the Everglades or raise the standards in our schools. Read it and weep. - - - - - - - - - - * We use the term "corporate masters" out of a sense of balance and fairness. The term might be considered the rhetorical counterpart to "union bosses", a phrase not unheard of in the traditional media. ** Edward Willis Scripps is the prototypical progressive ink stained wretch, who, while controlling as many as 34 newspapers in 15 states, reflected a perspective long since lost: Scripps' newspapers tended to support progressive causes and the trade union movement. He once wrote (notwithstanding his capacity as an employer): "I have only one principle, and that is represented by an effort to make it harder for the rich to grow richer and easier for the poor to keep from growing poorer." Scripps claimed that he viewed his newspapers as "the only schoolroom the working people had". He added "I am the advocate of that large majority of people who are not so rich in worldly goods and native intelligence as to make them equal, man for man, in the struggle with individuals of the wealthier and more intellectual class". *** The Tribune Company's corporate personality was defined by the tenure of a charming fellow named Robert R. McCormick, the Chicago newspaper baron who expired in 1955. Colonel McCormick was the aristocratic counterpoint to the thoughtful E.W. Scripps: consider: - "A conservative Republican, McCormick was an opponent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and compared the New Deal to Communism." - "During his long and stormy career, McCormick carried on crusades against ... Democrats, the New Deal and the Fair Deal, liberal Republicans, the League of Nations, the World Court, the United Nations ... socialism, and communism." - McCormick "continued to champion a traditionalist course long after his positions had been eclipsed in the mainstream." - "McCormick was described by one opponent as 'the greatest mind of the fourteenth century'". One might say that Colonel McCormick was ahead of his time - McCormick's views reflect the values and philosophy of the ownership (and frequently the editorial spirit) of much of today's corporate media. (The Tribune Company's reverence for McCormick (and presumably his "ideas") is reflected by its expression of "corporate citizenship" through the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.) By contrast, Scripps and his values are sadly anachronistic. **** The quoted language is from the passage quoted in the body of the post, with the quoted text indicated by underscoring. |
