Juxtapositions; or Kindle to the Rescue

The latest word on the possible Boston Globe closedown is that the Union blinked. The Globe will stay in business, for now.

Full disclosure: The Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times Company, as is the other site I write for, About.com. A couple of months ago the company announced it was cutting the stipend for those of us who write for About.com on contract. Of course, we don’t have a union, so there wasn’t much we could say about it.

But also in today’s New York Times — will Kindle come to the rescue? I’ve never used one (although if you buy one from Amazon, please click through using the kindle widget on the sidebar so I get a cut, thanks). However, I can foresee a time when most of us will have broadband kindle-type devices with us all the time so we can download and read current news wherever we are. I would like that. No paper, no ink, no printing, big cost savings for newspapers. Not so good for printers, of course.

Paul Krugman discusses falling wage syndrome. Lots of people are taking wage cuts, and falling wages create more economic stagnation. Bill Anderson at LewRockwell sniffs,

You see, Krugman believes that there should be no consequences to an unsustainable boom, and that once a bubble bursts, then the spending that occurred during the boom must be continued at all costs. That is not economics, folks. That is nonsense.

Krugman wrote that an economy needs spending, or else it is stagnate. And if an economy is heading for stagnation, it needs more spending. I don’t see how anyone could argue with that. One thing defines the other; like if it doesn’t rain for a long time, it’s a drought. In other words, it’s not about what should happen, or what Krugman wants to happen, but what will happen. Hardly nonsense. But you know libertarians; Ann Coulter will win the Nobel Peace Prize before libertarians will admit Krugman might be right about something. He could say water flows downhill, and they’d argue with him.

The righties must have worn themselves out over the weekend defending the honor of hedge funds, because so far they’ve been quiet about the President’s plan to crack down on multinational corporations that use tax loopholes to avoid paying U.S. taxes. But Andrew Leonard writes,

But the president’s announcement Monday morning of a push to crack down on tax loopholes that allow multinational corporations to avoid paying what they owe to the U.S. government is already spawning half-hearted chatter on the cable news shows: It’s more proof of Obama’s antipathy to business.

The criticism is muted, however, because it’s just not a winning political proposition to defend multinational businesses that offshore jobs at a time when populist fervor rages so high.

Well, yeah. And if you missed it, be sure to catch the story about the Bush Administration’s American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 and how well that worked. It was great for business but bad for the economy, a circumstance that ought to cause heads to explode at LewRockwell.

Never fear for the rich, folks. Steve M tells us that in the past 100 days they’ve dropped $100 million on the George W. Bush Presidential Library. If they’ve got that much money to waste, I can’t feel too sorry for ’em.