I was surprised to open the editorial page of today's Oregonian and see a very large lead editorial about General Motors' problems. (You no doubt saw that they are laying off 30,000 workers and closing a bunch of production facilities.)
The Oregonian lamented GM's fiscal woes, and then had some stern advice: "get your cost structure in line with revenues."
I just had to laugh at the irony. The Oregonian presumes to lecture GM, a private company headquartered 2000 miles away, on their too high cost structure. Have they ever taken a similar tone with the Portland School District - a public entity in their own city that has similar cost structure issues? Not to my recollection.
They only tone I ever hear from the O on PPS is the excruciatingly monotonous "raise your taxes" chime. To be consistent, they should lecture GM to raise its prices on all its cars.
Why would the Portland Oregonian even chime in on the fiscal condition of GM? What are they now, securities analysts? And if cutting costs is the remedy for a private company whose revenues aren't matching their capacity, why isn't it also the answer for a school district?
Curious indeed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The O is so funny. I think of it as The Oreg-onion because most of the "news" stories and editorials (they are really indistinguishable) are simply not believable. Most often the opposite conclusions they opine are the reality of the situation.
However, since The O is so reliably wrong, this can be useful. You can save a lot of time that would be spent following political campaigns by simply reading The O's recommendations at election time and voting the other way.
This editorial is a very clear example - one of many - that The O practices a double standard. That means they have one standard for those with whom they agree (the usual suspects) and another for those with whom they disagree (everyone else).
In this case, they agree with PPS and disagree with GM. See, it's easy to figure this out!
Heavens to Betsy! Extra! Extra! The Oregonian is a political institution bound only by the First Amendment but no other constraints, thus - by modern standards - a perfected example of an "ism" that simply lacks principles that govern the behavior of the rest of us. Tell us something we don't already know about the MSM!
Post a Comment