Letters to the Editor
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billionaire
I guess if you're a billionaire you will be just fine. perhaps Mr. Zell needs to hang out with some poor people to see how bad the economy is.
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Writing to the tribune
I live in Chicago, and this is absolutely the last straw. As much as I'm a Cubs fan, as long as this guy owns the team, I'm not going.
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Change places?
I wonder if Zell and his ilk would be happy to change places with me for a month or two or three. In the past two years, my salary has not increased at all. The cost of heating my home has doubled. Gas prices have made it impossible for me to take the little weekend trips I used to enjoy, since I can't afford to take a "real" vacation. Food prices have gone up; insurance rates have gone up. The value of my savings/retirement account has plummeted.
How long does this man think the average American can go on with the value of his/her every dollar declining, salaries flat or for those whose jobs are gone, decreasing, as they are forced to take lower-paying jobs to survive, and every single cost of living going up, up, up so fatcats like him can stay rich.
In the words of Bill Clinton, GIVE me a break!
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Uh, WHAT?
Billionaire Zell is just a TAD incoherent -- how do you connect claims that the Democratic candidates (a) have somehow made the economic situation worse, and (b) actually WANT that worsened situation, with the following statement?
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Zell: "The reality is that if you live on Wall Street and you're in the credit markets the world couldn't be worse."
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Really, truly, utterly sad -- Bush and a compliant Congress have given business interests just about 100% of what they've demanded, and looked the other way while lenders caused the current mortgage crisis (etc.). Amazingly, Zell tries to pin this on the DEMOCRATS?
Sam Zell, meet Zell Miller. Do the veins in your forehead pop out, and does spittle fly from your mouth, when you rant against the infernal Democrats, just like the good senator?
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I wrote a letter, the text of which is copied below.
It is apparent that Sam Zell, the owner of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Cubs, is completely out of touch with economic reality. In recent comments made about the Democratic frontrunners for President, Mr. Zell seems to suggest that Democrats WANT an economic downturn, and the failing economy is actually them trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Perhaps Mr. Zell would do well to learn that this economic crisis was caused in part by financial institutions preying on the desires of middle class Americans to own a piece of the American dream. Or perhaps this crisis was caused by the fact that wages in the United States have not increased commensurate with the cost of living. It is possible that this crisis may be the byproduct of a compensation system that allows CEOs like Mr. Zell to earn more in a day than many of their employees earn in a year.
I appreciate Mr. Zell's acute economic analysis of this situation. Fortunately for him, his billions of dollars in assets will allow him to weather the storm quite well. For those of us who are being affected by this crisis, its important for our leaders to discuss why its occurring, what we can do to stop it, and how we can prevent another downturn in the future. To Mr. Zell, this may be economic sabotage, to us, it's preventing economic disaster.
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Wheat ain't going for $25
At this moment on the Chcago Board of Trade, it's at $10.72/bushel -- still near its record high, but about 40% of what Zell claims.
On the other hand, diesel IS at way over $3 per gallon -- and virtually every other ag supply, from fertilizer on, is also at record prices. So I don't think many family farmers are pricing out Bentleys just yet. (The agrobiz giants, however, are laughing all the way to the bank.)
So Zell's not just a rich, callous asshole who deserves to be lined up against a wall and shot with the rest of his ilk -- he's also a damned liar.
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Mr. Miller is Feeling the Pinch
of $4.00 a gallon gas and $5.00 a gallon milk just like everybody else. Poor Mr. Miller is having to sell the naming rights to WRigley Field just to make ends meet.
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What the Zell?
Sam Zell's a prick. Hell, he wants to sell the Cubs and the naming rights to Wrigley Field -- that decision alone disqualifies his political opinions in my book. And newsflash for Zell: the economy's already screwed.
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We need the AMT for billionaires like Zell
It should be set at 60 % of income. That would fix a lot of programs, plus shut this pustule up.
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Let's anaylze this . .
The reality is that if you live on Wall Street and you're in the credit markets the world couldn't be worse.
It's also pretty bad for everyone affected by the credit market nightmare, the housing fiasco, and more. And I bet they don't have friends on Wall Street helping them.
If you're a farmer and you're getting $25 for your wheat, you're having a great time.
As noted, wheat isn't $25 per unit.
If you're a CEO and you've got a balance sheet that's bullet-proof, you're in a great position. This whole thing is way out of control, way out of hand.
I of course am not a CEO.
In fact most of America are not on Wall Street, not farmers who get $25 for their wheat, and aren't CEO. He seems to forget about the rest of us.
Thus, he's really quite a good Republican.
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Zell's Bells
Obama's lead economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, is a bit of a superstar in the University of Chicago's economics and business programs. Richard Thaler, another U of C superstar and a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics, has done some campaign consulting with Goolsbee.
The notion that Obama is a far lefty hell-bent on destroying the economy is contradicted by the fact that he's enlisted some of the sharpest economic minds in the country as advisers. Put bluntly, Zell doesn't know what in the hell he's talking about.
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America is in the shitter, period...
I really don't understand what he's trying to say, that Zell guy, but as a macro-economist and a currency trader I can tell you America is in the shitter - big time.
Further, the fascists in charge had no problem pushing it there all by themselves. Blaming a couple of Democrats for accurately describing the predicament is utterly pathetic...