More Newspaper Layoffs, Card Check Filibuster and Obama’s Failing Grade in Economics
The print news industry takes another hit as The McClatchy Company, the nation’s third largest newspaper publisher, announces plans to layoff 1,600 fulltime employees.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) promises a filibuster of the misleadingly-named Employee Free Choice Act.
President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner receive failing grades in national survey of economists.
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1. TECHNOLOGY
The print news industry takes another hit as The McClatchy Company, the nation’s third largest newspaper publisher, announces plans to layoff 1,600 fulltime employees.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Policy Analyst Cord Blomquist on how Internet companies like Google are working with traditional print media:
“Long story short: the [newspaper] industry needs all the help it can get. This is where Google comes in. Along with being a giant in the search industry, Google is empowering a network of publishers to the tune of $4.2 billion in revenue passed to them in 2007—according to members of Google’s DC office, the 2008 numbers are even larger. In fact, Google knows it is better to give than to receive—it gives more money out to its publisher network than it keeps for itself in profits.”
2. POLITICS
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) promises a filibuster of the misleadingly-named Employee Free Choice Act.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Editorial Director Ivan Osorio on how organized labor is going ballistic over the bill:
“[Yesterday’s] Wall Street Journal…notes organized labor’s latest hardball tactic in its effort to help enact the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 1409), which would effectively replace secret ballot organizing elections with the card check process — whereby union organizers ask employees to sign union cards out in the open. Essentially, some unions want the Treasury Department to muzzle companies that have received any funds under the Troubled Assets Relief Program to keep from lobbying against EFCA.”
3. BUSINESS
President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner receive failing grades in national survey of economists.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the wastefulness of the recent economic stimulus bill:
“The $800 billion stimulus package signed by Obama not only will make the economy shrink over the long-run, it will pay $88.6 million for unnecessary new construction in the Milwaukee School District, whose enrollment is shrinking so fast that it already has 15 vacant schools. And it will funnel over $355 million into the corrupt, racist Detroit schools, no strings attached.”
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