The Political Octagon

Every automotive manufacturing company in the world is going through a contraction. The Japanese, Germans, the Swiss, the French, and others all suffer from the same problem, a severe reduction in auto sales. The economy is in the tank, consumers have stopped consuming. On average, manufacturers have seen a 40 percent retraction, with Ford actually coming in at the low end of 30 percent.

US companies supposedly steeped in free trade and capitalist traditions, are the only corporations in the world demanding a taxpayer assisted bailout.

What is wrong with this picture?

Foreign manufactures seem to be sucking up the loss in sales and have taken measures to absorb the reduction and wait out the recession to come back and compete in the open market another day. With a reduced labor force, middle management restructuring, and lower output goals, companies are smaller, but remain solvent. Some may and will just die off and fade away, which is how it works in a capitalist, free market system. Not even countries that have socialistic tendencies are rushing in to ‘bailout’ their failing companies with taxpayer funds.

Workforce shifts have been in flux for time and memoriam. Business die and new opportunities come into play.

Not so for American auto manufacturers’, they want a taxpayer bailout to ride out a storm, due partly of their own making. Billions of dollars are being demanded to keep them afloat, for what, another four months of survival. The plans the big three presented this week indicate they will retool and build Smart Cars and be good manufacturers to become profitable again in the first half of next year. In the past, it has taken a decade for manufactures to retool a plant. Now they say that can do it in four months. Whom are they kidding besides Nancy Pelosi and her band of idiots?

The problem with this pie in the sky plan is that consumers will not flood in because American manufactures have suddenly become aware. In the second quarter, they will waddle back in their Bruno Magli’s, for a third time, begging the compliant liberal/socialistic congress for more taxpayer funds to ride out the storm, again.

When will it stop?

It will not end until unions; particularly the UAW is put out of its misery. Automotive union laborers are the best-compensated workforce in the world, even when laid off and not working, the UAW has negotiated almost full pay for its members to stay home and watch CNN at 95 percent of their original salary per year. The laborer that affixes the union label on the finished product garners in excess of $120,000 per year in salary. Pensions plans, salaries and health-care benefits rival that of elected officials whom have ‘gamed the system’ to live in comfort while the middle class struggles to fund them.

The cost of over-priced American made roadway conveyances is the real problem for the so-called, big three. Union represented labor has literally inflated values of the automobile and positioned American manufactures into a non-competitive environment.

The bailout funds demanded by the UAW via CEO’s are needed to fund a bloated workforce, to stand idle, while sales continue to plummet and factories close. Retooling and reduced management will not save the auto industry as long as the unions will not entertain concessions in salaries and eliminate pay for the unemployed hoping for a comeback in their dying industry.

Taxpayers should not be required to foot the largesse that unions have extorted in unfair bargaining agreements with management, which have all but bent over, and continue to pass inflated labor costs onto consumers with unrealistic sticker prices on poorly built and inefficient gas guzzlers.

It is time for the union shops around the country to understand the pain of over-reaching and greed. Just allow the automotive companies to claim bankruptcy, retool under non-union labor, and come back, lean mean and ready to build quality automobiles.

The wakeup call for American manufactures is this economic slowdown. Asking taxpayers to fund the high cost of union labor and the continued demands of UAW leaders for a larger piece of the action, has contributed to their collapse. No matter how much in taxpayer funds the liberal Congress throws at funding auto manufacturers, in the end there will be no forward movement. Union pay scales will not change and the cycle will continue anew.

Shed the burden of the union label and Americans will buy American made cars again. Shedding the UAW label will reduce overall costs, spur sales with competitive pricing, and rebuild a workforce in retooled plants, proud just to have a job.

Union representation is not doing labor a favor when there are no plants to work in. The big three need to go to the UAW and demand concessions, or cut and run, and leave taxpayer funds alone to pay for the largesse of our elected officials. For the American taxpayer, funding the congressional thieves is enough of a burden.

Funding Wall Street and now Detroit is beyond the pale, Americans must muster the courage to say enough is enough and avoid doing business with companies that carry the union label or fall under the Citigroup umbrella.

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Filed under: Bailout, Finance

In a perfect world, it would be grand if we could sell our homes at current values assessed by the mortgage banks or by local tax assessors ending in 2006. In the real world however, in this depressed market, the value of most everyone’s home falls somewhere near 2002 levels. Caught between inflated value and actual value, the hope for selling in this market, at current assessed values is all but a pipe dream.

In most states around the nation, property assessments for tax purposes are continuously adjusted annually, up or down, based on market conditions.

Most states, that is, except Maryland.

In Maryland, government revenuers use a subjective three-year cycle based solely on the needs of the states revenue stream and spending desires. No matter what the market does in a three-year period, the Governor, and his allies on the State’s Public Works Commission mandate the assessment increases by whatever arbitrary percentage deemed necessary to keep state coffers solvent. Local or county governments adjust the Cap based on local spending predilections. No matter what your county cap is, the overall increase rolls over into the next year and so does the yearly tax.

Some counties are on the low end of the Cap at 3 percent and some will eat up the entire cap of 10 percent as Carroll County has done for most of Julia Gouge’s political career. In fairness, last year Gouge did favor taxpayers with a token gift and adjusted the rate to 7 percent. Gouge apparently did not see the crisis that was to loom over the county with the disintegrating home building market.

Albeit, understanding how we reached this point is not so complex. The accelerated uptick in the housing market coincides with the Clinton administration, which renewed efforts to broaden the scope of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA,) the brainchild of the Carter Administration.

The graph below bears out the extraordinary rise in values in relation to the CRA and the Clinton administration’s propensity to favor the bankers and gut the middle class and the elderly.

As indicated in the graph when CRA regulations favored bankers the real estate bubble began in 1998 and peaked in 2006, a year before the recession hit. We are now experiencing home prices depreciating, relative to inflation. Based on falling values, prices may still decline an additional inflation-adjusted 20-30% to bring the market back within historical norms. The housing correction in the 1920’s took 20-25 years to rebound and this bubble has peculiar similarities.

Overvaluing accelerated housing prices to keep up with the inevitable foreclosures the Wall Street bankers knew were coming. Forced to offer toxic loans, by liberal politicians, to those that could not afford them, bankers tended to overvalue properties, through willing brokers to unsuspecting consumers. Government bureaucrats were ecstatic, and not to be outdone, Maryland Governors, past and present, aware that the market was not sustainable under those conditions, stopped doing outside assessments and relied on paper-thin assessments furnished by Realtor/brokers. The entire lot became surrogates under the umbrella of Citigroup Wall Street scoundrels.

The unwary homebuyer that unwittingly purchased a home on the high side paid their 1-4 points up front with the standard 20 percent down to cover the eventual meltdown. Ultimately, the hard working homeowner subsidized the Community Reinvestment Act, enabling banks to offer zero down interest only loans. Mortgages were offered to folks that could not afford the purchase with down payments or sustain mortgage payments for the overinflated home down the street.

What the bankers and profiteers did not consider was the accelerated new home building market. As home contractors and developers built to fill the demand for young impressionable homebuyers, children of the baby boomers, government created an entitlement class or no-income buyers, the free market over saturated the market with an overabundance of new homes. Not only were ther too many new homes, baby boomers were in the beginning stages of cycling out of the homes left empty without buyers.

When the defaults came, the bankers assumed that there were enough buyers to fill the void and buy up the foreclosures at the overinflated values. The problem for lenders holding toxic loans became evident when buyers fizzled out. Baby-boomers whom far out-numbered generation x and y’s, were settled in their homes and are now suffering under the weight of greed levied by the banking industry and with government by over taxation on property that is valued and only sellable at 2002 prices. Boomers are literally being forced out of their homes by the greed still levied by government. The glut in homes both new and resale remain empty without buyers. Government has not and shows no willingness to adjust for the downside in Maryland.

In today’s market, desktop assessments have become the norm for lenders and assessors who have all but stopped going out into the community to do door to door real property assessments. Computer based analysis on so-called comparables have replaced the personal contact that at one time was the model for appraisal by the assessor’s office and lending institutions.

Based on the way assessments are handled, by today’s computer generated comparables, the State, for all intent and purpose, can consolidate local county offices into a central location in the Governor’s mansion. It would save the State millions per year to change the system to an annual market base formula. Closing county assessor offices that in no way assist taxpayers anyway, will not be missed. It will also eliminate the corruption in the assessor’s office that favor local government and elected friends. It happens, take your head out of the sand.

Let’s face it, when was the last time anyone has seen an assessor do site surveys to determine your home value. It no longer happens for the most part, because everything is done in the office and through the mail in the form of a bill. Even the appeal process has been turned into a convoluted system by self-important legislators that make it all but impossible to refute or argue against the arbitrary system in place. It is almost to the point that homeowners will need the aid of an attorney to argue their case for a reduction in property assessment. In fact, that art of intimidation is the rule by the self-important bureaucrat whom all but tells the weary taxpayer that the analysis is much too complicated to understand. Arguing a case for a reduction in the over assessment is a test of wills and normally is rejected out of hand. Ask any retiree if they feel confident in their dealings with Assessment and Taxation department representatives.

The problem with desktop assessments, fueled by government pressure to meet budget largesse and Smart Growth social engineering schemes, is that established neighborhoods are being penalized with newly constructed overbuilt new homes in the community that do not necessarily fit in the overall arrangement. Comparables become distorted as a 3,800 square foot home, on a quarter acre lot; in a neighborhood of older 2,200 square foot homes on one acre parcels, older smaller homes are unfairly inflated in value. The land is worth more than the dwelling with Smart Growth meddling in established neighborhoods.

Smart Growth policies are meant to force the evacuation of older homes clearing out old neighborhoods and compressing or clustering new homes to replace the one per acre lots with four per acre. They call this consistent with economic growth policies to justify building strip centers and larger office space for the government bureaucrats that contribute to the overall destruction of the established community for a larger piece of the tax pie. Smart Growth policies include the token moderate and low-income housing tucked and hidden away behind some industrial complex to provide a work force for the low paying jobs locally in the strip centers the commuter will patronize in their precious little off hours.

Nonetheless, homeowners do have an option to refute or challenge the assessment yearly, but must jump through numerous challenges to prove their argument. The state does not advertise yearly petitions but they are available to all property tax payers. In most cases, the homeowner’s argument is rejected outright though, and grievances must be detailed without assistance from the assessment office. They may know the market is down, they will not acknowledge the fact, and the burden is on the homeowner. In today’s market, whereas everyone knows that values do not match assessments and the powers to be are rejecting applications because there are no actual comparables in a market that is all but dead. If there is no house being sold there are no comparables, therefore there will be no adjustment.

To further the pain, assessments that are currently being done in a third of each county throughout the State, values are not being adjusted down, assessments are actually increasing and will for the subsequent three years. The Governor is promoting outright theft in collecting taxes on non-existent value to protect a runaway budget. The Governor is violating state law, which clearly states that assessment cannot exceed market value.

In these untoward times when no one has a handle on what home values really are or will be, it is clear that wishful thinking is driving the assessment process. We do know what the market will not bear and that is its current assessment values purported by the State. From the federal government to local county officials we hear the cry, that if real estate value can be sustained the economy will benefit and government can continue to fund pork projects.

We hate to break it to you, but hoping the market will rebound quickly is not going to sell homes or strengthen the market. Keeping assessments at current levels is a violation of state law and demands redress. The wishful mindset is actually deepening the pain for both homeowner and the State. Government spending continues as if all is right in the world as far as assessment revenues continue unabated.

The current housing condition we find ourselves in is a long overdue correction. State government must acknowledge that correction and adjust accordingly. The correction is due to various factors resulting from Smart Growth policies and greedy bankers that have overinflated home values with desktop assessments to garner the most ‘bang’ out of government promoted toxic loans, under the auspice of CRA.

If anyone in government or the banking industry tries to convince you that the market values are going to return or home purchases are a great investment, are pulling your chain and simultaneously grabbing at your wallet. They have lied for so long and profited so much, their credibility is as worthless as AIG, Fanny and Freddy stock value.

Realtors, government assessors and mortgage bankers that continue to promote and advice that, ‘home value always increases,’ are in denial and frankly they are delusional. The harsh reality is that under normal honest inflation-adjusted dollars the housing market will be stale for the next decade and maybe beyond. Greed has made homeownership a lousy investment for everyone.

The bottom line here is that homeowners that are currently being assessed and those of us that are still in the three-year cycle must, in mass, demand a fair and reasonable adjustment to match the deflated market values of homes that have stagnated in the market.

The heck with the State that should suck it up and cut pork and personnel from the budget, taxpayers need the relief now and it is time to grant that relief. It is truly unconscionable that taxpayers foot the bill so government can ride out the storm secure in their jobs while the taxpayer flounders.

It is high time for boomers to raise their collective voices and change the behavior of the petulant child that runs the State House.

Doing anything less than provide immediate relief to taxpayers is outright criminal, by not only the Governor, but also the self-serving Legislators and the Citigroup disciples that make up former Senator Barack Obama’s economic team.

The public reaming must end.

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Filed under: Government Largesse, O'Malley, Property Taxes

By Alec Rawls

Defenders of the Flight 93 memorial repeatedly insist that the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent HAS to be a coincidence. It is completely determined, they insist, by the landform, the path of Flight 93, and the impact point, leaving no room for intent to enter. Of course it is crazy to think that, so long as it is just an unfortunate coincidence, there is nothing wrong with planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent (the central feature of a mosque) on the graves of our murdered heroes. About as crazy, actually, as thinking that the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent could really be a coincidence. First architect Paul Murdoch just innocently comes up with a half mile wide Islamic-shaped crescent to honor the victims of Islamic terrorism, then he innocently places the Sacred Ground Plaza between the tips of the giant crescent, in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag, then he innocently just happens to point this entire crescent-and-star-flag configuration at Mecca (and on and on and on). When the nation saw the second airliner hit the Trade Towers, everyone immediately knew that the first impact was no accident. The more airplanes that Paul Murdoch flies into the Flight 93 memorial, the more the Memorial Project thinks it HAS to be an accident. Its just TOO OUTLANDISH to think that an Islamic enemy could attack us out of the blue and unawares in such a henious way. What precedent is there for thinking that such a thing could even be possible? (Knock, knock, knock.) And so the more evidence they are confronted with, the more impossible it seems, and the more they insist that Murdoch HAS to be innocent. Okay, so they are WILLFULLY blind. Even so, they still need an excuse to hang their willful blindness on, and part of Murdoch’s evil genius is to supply these excuses. That is where this trope about the crescent design being dictated by the landscape comes from. It comes from Murdoch, and is actually one of his most brilliant deceptions. Murdoch’ PRELIMINARY DESIGN actually can be seen as dictated by the landform, the flight-path, and the point of impact Before any designs were submitted, the Memorial Project gave all the design contestants a site organization map that labeled the “the ridgeline,” “the bowl,” “the crash site,” and “the flight path.” Architect Paul Murdoch claims that all he did was combine these elements by having the flight path symbolically “break” the circular bowl shape, creating the giant Crescent of Embrace design. If you start a crescent at the point where the flight path crosses the ridgeline, and follow the rim of “the bowl” around the ridgeline to create a crescent that “embraces” the Sacred Ground where Flight 93 crashed, then you get the Crescent of Embrace design. Since this procedure uniquely determines the orientation of the crescent, there is no room for the orientation to be determined by anyone’s intent. If it faces Mecca, it HAS to be a coincidence. This argument actually works, but only when applied to Paul Murdoch’s ORIGINAL Crescent of Embrace design, which did NOT point to Mecca. Take a look: Click for larger image. The site organization map (left), shows “the bowl,” bordered by “the ridge,” along with the flight path and the crash site. Murdoch’s preliminary Crescent of Embrace design (right), uses the point where the flight path crosses the ridge/bowl as the end point for a crescent that has the Sacred Ground centered between its crescent tips. Resulting orientation: 11.1°. clockwise from north, which is 44.1° north of Mecca. The explanatory notes in the preliminary design are perfectly accurate when they describe the crescent as focused on the Sacred Ground:

A curving arc of maple trees along a walkway unites the ridge and forms an edge to the bowl, with a focus on the Sacred Ground.

It is also correct to say that this crescent and its orientation are uniquely determined (to within 5° or so) by the landform, the flight path and the crash site. If the crescent arc were extended much further then it would no longer point to the Sacred Ground. (The amount of curve between the end points of the crescent does not matter. Murdoch established the curve of his original crescent by smoothing the curved shape of the ridge line.) If THIS crescent is uniquely determined by the combination of landform, flight path and crash site, then the final Crescent of Embrace design, rotated 42.3° further to the east, obviously CANNOT be determined by these factors. By extending the crescent in his final design to match the full Islamic crescent shape (covering about 2/3rds of a circle of arc), Murdoch created a crescent that no longer points to the Sacred Ground: The bisector of the crescent in Murdoch’s final Crescent of Embrace design points approximately 1.8 ° north of Mecca (marked “qibla”). Notice that the bisector of this Mecca-oriented crescent does not even touch the Sacred Ground, but crosses through the upper portion of the Sacred Ground Plaza that sits up the flight path from the Sacred Ground. While the crescent no longer points to the Sacred Ground, Murdoch still PRETENDS that it does. Asked last summer about the orientation of the crescent, Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley and architect Paul Murdoch both claimed that it points to the Sacred Ground:

Further, [Hanley] added, it is still unclear exactly where on the landscape the memorial will even be situated. It could move as much as 200 yards, she said, discounting the idea that it faces Mecca. “The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site,” she said. Mr. Murdoch reinforced that idea. “It’s oriented toward the Sacred Ground,” he said. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”

Hanley may be honestly duped, but Murdoch knows full well that the crescent does not point to the Sacred Ground. Such an orientation would ruin his mosque design, not just because a Sacred Ground oriented crescent would no longer point to Mecca, but also because it would place the graves of the infidels in the location of the star on an Islamic flag, leaving them inside the symbolic Islamic heavens. Blasphemy! Murdoch has a very different symbolism in mind for the star on his giant crescent and star flag. In the top third of the Sacred Ground Plaza, centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, in the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag, sits a separate upper section of Memorial Wall, inscribed with the 9/11 date. The date goes to the star on the Islamic flag. The date goes to the terrorists. The duping of David Beamer At this August’s public meeting of the Memorial Project, David Beamer (father of Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer) came out to counter Tom Burnett Sr.’s protests against the crescent design. Mr. Beamer declared that he had performed several months of due diligence investigating the warnings about the crescent design, by which he presumably meant that he had checked at least a few of our factual claims, like the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent (now called a broken circle). But instead of reporting the results of his fact-checking, Beamer changed the subject. He did not say a single word about the accuracy of any of our claims, but only reported how he had met with architect Paul Murdoch and was satisfied that Murdoch’s design properly honors his son and the other murdered heroes of Flight 93. If he actually did any fact checking, then he is fully aware that the giant crescent DOES point within 2° of Mecca, in which case there is only one plausible explanation for Beamer declaring the design innocent. Murdoch must have convinced him that the crescent orientation is determined by the landform, the flight path and the crash site, so that its orientation on Mecca HAS to be coincidence. If Mr. Beamer had bothered to talk to the person who has been warning of an enemy plot then Alec Rawls would have explained to him that no, these physical facts about the crash site do NOT yield a Mecca-oriented crescent. They yield a crescent that points 44° north of Mecca. It is a very strange concept of due diligence to trust the assurances of the person one is being warned is an enemy operative while refusing to talk to the person who is issuing warnings Very strange too, to think that just because one is convinced that the Mecca orientation of the crescent is a coincidence, that somehow makes it okay to deny the Mecca orientation when speaking to the press and the public, as several Project spokesmen have now done. The fact that Beamer and Hanley and other Project Partners have been duped be Murdoch”s explanations would be of little consequence if they just let the public know what they know, so the American people can decide for themselves whether the fact that it might be a coincidence makes it okay to plant the world’s largest Mecca-direction indicator on the Flight 93 crash site. Obviously the answer would be “NO!” and this nightmare would be over. It is the lying that is the problem. Hanley et. al. can be a bunch of dupes if they want, but they have no right to deceive the public about what they know.

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Filed under: Flight 93 memorial

Citigroup gets the “We can suck up the bailout money better than anyone else in the financial sector” award.

This week, Citigroup lost 60 percent of its market value fueled by investor insecurity, as the banking giant finds its way of the Dodo bird. It is pleading for an additional transfusion of bailout or Troubled Asset Recovery Program, TARP funds courtesy of the American taxpayer.

The country’s largest financial institution, with operations in 100 plus countries continues to flounder, even as it became the nation’s largest holder of general obligation bonds this month, sucking down $30-billion worth of taxpayer bailout funds delivered earlier last month.

Credit where credit is due, a Citigroup subsidiary placed itself in the middle of the bond market, selling mortgages to local governments. Low bidding (about ¾ -one percent below the Bond Buyers Index of 5.13 percent)all other TARP bank bidders, the ploy will almost guarantee public funding to keep local governments awash in pork project funding. Actually, it was clever on someones part to secure itself in this way.

This weekend, government spenders were hashing out a plan to re-infuse the beleaguered company with another transfusion of taxpayer backed funds. The feds will guarantee about $300-billion in troubled assets and infuse $20-billion in capital. Part of Citigroups financial mismanagement woes is a result of its vast portfolio of sub-prime loans that have blown-up in their faces.

Citigroup has failed to produce a profit for about a year and the feds have thrown even more money in Citigroups direction, giving taxpayers a larger share in the failing institution.

Citigroup should sell off its assets now and give up its status as too big to fail. The damage has been done, as a taxpayer, that has lost about 50 percent of its retirement funds to greed, maybe it is time for a few bankers to take the plunge, from the thirtieth floor.

To be frank, I am not going to jump for them, and neither should the American taxpayer. Enough is enough, and taxpayers should not foot the bill for the greed and largess that continues to be levied on the rest of us.

The Gunpowder Chronicle has put the whole TARP fiasco in proper perspective, and has summed it up much more eloquently than I have here, and here.

It comes as no surprise that Republican leadership has found itself as the odd party out, as this march to socialism puts the onus squarely at their door. If they had remained loyal to party values and stopped the bailout dead in its tracks, the party faithful would have remained loyal. It is also clear that Republican leadership got everything they deserved in this election because they gave up principle to become all things for all people, and a taste for power. The fact also remains that the Citigroup ilk is running the country and both sides are ignoring the conflict of interest and campaign contributions trump the peoples will.

What the Republican leadership has forgotten is that we live in a partisan world and it behooves future leaders of the party to understand that simple concept. The art of compromise is one thing, abdicating or capitulating on core conservative principles to garnish votes from the other side made Republicans look like court jesters.

Republican leadership and its RHINO candidate offerings have harmed the Republican brand. Central committee leadership, local and national, should learn a lesson from this latest rout as it would continue through 2010 until and when Republican candidates return to representing their base. The base have not lost sight of their principles or core beliefs, leadership is out of the loop. In the real world, conservatives are not centrists with liberal tendencies.

Party conservatives would rather give up a RHINO candidate than be made fools of, repeatedly, by those that could care less about core conservative principles. John McCain lost the election because he is a RHINO and the surge he received was due to Sarah Palin’s unwavering stand for conservative principles. She energized the base and McCain’s liberal predilections could not rally the final six percent of the vote needed to put the party in contention. Republican leadership demonized Palin because they unwittingly found a conservative that would hold them to account.

The Republican brand is not dead; leadership by RHINO is dead and the incumbent rout this election bears it out.  The bailout in the long run has proven to the core Republican that party leadership has abandoned them and eviscerating the politicians that favor nationalizing the financial sector. Vacillating on core conservative values has sealed their fate. Once the RHINO’s are gone, the Republican Party will shine once more, and it cannot come soon enough.

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Filed under: Bond Market, Gov. Sarah Palin, RHINO Alert

As some bloggers revel in print media’s disintegration into unconsciousness, a few in the blogosphere are under the misguided impression that they are becoming the new media.

The truth of the matter is that without print media, some bloggers would be without the fodder they rely on that makes them think they are successful or influential bloggers. The fly by night news and delusional quack blogs that think they are contributing to the overall conversation are in fact self-delusional plagiarists without an original thought in their over stretched ego’s.

Regurgitating headlines from various publications, does not a journalist make or a blog popular. The Drudge Report and Breitbart have already filled that niche, and do it pretty well.

Others, writing salacious articles attacking and demeaning media and politicians, publishing photos of trashcans, graffiti, or furniture on the front lawn of a foreclosed home, are not journalists or influential, they have an axe to grind. The lack of ethical standards ultimately will turn the community against them.

Bloggers turning on neighbors and community leaders have twisted news gathering into a contact sport; it will certainly bring about their own demise. For the most part, the celebrity they extol upon themselves is self-delusional.

That is not to say that the entire blogosphere be maligned because of the few that spew rhetoric and self-importance. In fact, the writers that do contribute productive well-articulated material, more than likely will find themselves writing for publications that will ultimately survive the contraction plaguing the publishing business today.

For the most part, media has assumed superior intellect and regard readers as children in need of guidance. The so-called media giants are slowly beginning to realize their mistake in regionalizing rather than centralizing. In the quest to manipulate rather than inform media finds itself in financial ruin lacking readership and advertising support. Publishers are beginning to understand, with the assistance of the best of the blogosphere, that the heyday for print media can and will be resurrected as they reestablish their sense of community.

The problems inherent with media today began in the seventies as a few dailies around the country found their market shares dwindling and growth stagnating. It became more important to eliminate the competition in shared markets to force advertisers into one venue. To bolster bottom lines the only thing left for them to do was buy up smaller market publishers and unwittingly removed a sense of community local papers once enjoyed. As these single market dailies narrowed the editorial slant to the left, consumers identified advertisers with the liberal slant of the publication regardless of the advertisers’ political proclivities. On some level advertisers are being harmed by the newspapers one-sided slant.

The fallacy of the ‘Green’ movement, supported by a myopic media will bear out the theory. Consumers are not the dolts publishers believe, their credibility will be challenged as readership, and advertising support disappears. Time will tell as the ‘Green’ movement is debunked and businesses that use the word ‘Green’ fail in unprecedented numbers.

Editors and journalists have circulated into markets they had no connection with, imposing ideology foreign to the community in which they are to serve. Local College professors (and we use the term loosely) do better to stay in the classroom rather than putting pen to paper on subjects they have no knowledge with, outside their realm of knowledge. The adage that says, teachers teach because they cannot do, is appropriate when it comes to opinion. (This is a direct message to the Carroll County Times that I just had to impart.)

Bloggers with diverse backgrounds speaking on subject matter they excel in will bring print media back to the community. In the end, blogging will become a niche market with journalists talking to journalists, lawyers relating to lawyers, teachers with teachers and so on. Average readers will find themselves looking for their local newspapers with traditional values, filled with local community activities, which contain the names of local celebrities’, their children.

As newspapers that serve local areas return to writing and covering local issues that directly affect their readers, circulation numbers increase and advertisers follow. When newspapers open their pages to local writers, no matter what the ideological spirit of the writer, they will have found that balance the community demands and relates too.

Daily newspapers that have forgotten their place and sense of community would do well to look at local weekly tabloids that remain solvent, published locally by publishers that live within their communities.

No one, left, right, or indifferent appreciates being talked down to by out-of-area-publishers, editors or syndicated columnists that have little or no identity with the community they serve. Until and when publishers realize that–we are not all the same–and as diverse a population from region to region, syndicated newspapers will continue their slide into oblivion. Bloggers will proliferate and old media dailies will continue their decline.

Taking notes from local blog writers that are connected to the community, newspapers can find new footing by remaining loyal to the community with which they serve.

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Filed under: Journalism, Newspapers, Old Media, Publishing