In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Mitt’s Gray Areas" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opinion/krugman-mitts-gray-areas.html), Paul Krugman, who has become as predictable and original as fellow Republican-bashing Times columnist Gail Collins, begins by observing:
"Right now there’s a lot of buzz about an investigative report in the magazine Vanity Fair highlighting the 'gray areas' in the younger Romney’s finances. More about that in a minute."
Krugman then goes on to smeer Romney for his work at Bain Capital:
"Mr. Romney didn’t get rich by producing things people wanted to buy; he made his fortune through financial engineering that seems in many cases to have left workers worse off, and in some cases driven companies into bankruptcy."
Needless to say, Krugman doesn't mention Bill Clinton's recent commentary (see: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/former-president-clinton-says-romney-had-sterling-business-career-but-argues-obama-proposals-superior/) on Romney's work at Bain:
"And I think he had a good business career. There is a lot of controversy about that. But if you go in and you try to save a failing company, and you and I have friends here who invest in companies, you can invest in a company, run up the debt, loot it, sell all the assets, and force all the people to lose their retirement and fire them.
Or you can go into a company, have cutbacks, try to make it more productive with the purpose of saving it. And when you try, like anything else you try, you don't always succeed.
. . . .
So I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say this is bad work. This is good work."
"Good work"? That's not the way that Krugman would have us see it.
Paul proceeds to complain that Romney has only released one year’s tax return and that some of his investments "seem very mysterious." Paul concludes:
"Elections are, after all, in part about the perceived character of the candidates — and what a man does with his money is surely a major clue to his character."
Well as long as we're on the topic of presidential wealth, are we to conclude that all of Obama's wealth came from writing fictional accounts of himself? The problem is that there is also that stinky Chicago real estate deal with Tony Rezko that has been forgotten by the likes of Krugman.
On the same day in 2005 Obama purchased his Chicago mansion, the wife of convicted felon Tony Rezko bought the adjacent empty lot from the same seller, who wanted to sell both properties together. However, as reported by ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4111483&page=1):
"While Rezko's wife paid the full asking price for the land, Obama paid $300,000 under the asking price for the house. The house sold for $1,650,000 and the price Rezko's wife paid for the land was $625,000.
Obama denies there was anything unusual about the price disparity. He says the price on the house was dropped because it had been on the market for some time but that the price for the adjacent land remained high because there was another offer."
Do you buy Obama's explanation concerning this sweetheart real estate deal? Sorry, I don't. Meanwhile, however, a hypocritical Paul Krugman would only have us examine Republican avarice. The reality is that the stench of greed permeates both sides of the aisle.
What to expect from the NYT now when one of its opinion writers is ... Mark Bittman.
ReplyDeleteThis how this chef started his column yesterday:
"Drinking milk is as American as Mom and apple pie. Until not long ago, Americans were encouraged not only by the lobbying group called the American Dairy Association but by parents, doctors and teachers to drink four 8-ounce glasses of milk, “nature’s perfect food,” every day."
Illiterate, cheap, demagogic, irritating, but ... approved by most of the NYT overfed readers.
Clearly neither Bittman nor his readers know that the US isn't the only country in the world, that there are people in those other countries and that they've been drinking milk for thousands of years and some even praised their lands as that of "milk and honey."
Bittman clearly isn't familiar with this "text" and any other. He does have to - he's a NYT columnist.