Washington Post economics

Things are going so well under Biden that it cut 10% of its staff

Philip Bump, an oarsman in the bowels for the Jeff Bezos Post, unintentionally amused me with a column, “The Trumps’ cynical request that supporters donate ‘if they can afford to.’”

Those five little words threw Bump into a hissy fit. He said affordability is not a problem. He wrote, “That little patter about not being able to afford a contribution is, instead, political rhetoric aimed at bolstering the idea that Americans are suffering inordinately under the Biden administration.”

Bump cited a few emails the RNC sent out, including one that said, “Joe Biden has destroyed our country, so if you can’t afford to chip in, don’t even think about it!”

Aha!

He caught them red-handed saying the economy is bad. He trotted out the long discredited Democrat talking point that holds that Trump plays his supporters for chumps.

Bump wrote, “That’s the point. It’s not that Lara Trump and her father-in-law are greedily asking poor Americans to send in whatever they can scrape together. It’s that they want to reinforce the idea that there are millions of people who have been thrust into economic insecurity thanks to the policies of Trump’s general election opponent. And that idea, they obviously hope, might prompt some wavering donors to chip in — to make up the difference for those rendered unable to do so by Bidenomics.

“You know how you can tell that Trump isn’t really worried about the economic position of his supporters? Because this is the same person who last month pitched his supporters on buying a bible with public-domain text for $60, a portion of which goes into his pocket. This is the guy who, earlier this week, insisted that the stock for his social media company — which increased his fortune dramatically when it shot up after the company went public — was worth the investment. This is the guy who is pitching $400 sneakers and Trump-branded cologne. Who has tried to get people to buy $99 NFTs, including a promotion in which buyers got a piece of the suit he wore in his mug shot.”

Of course, Trump does not need small-donor donations. He is doing fine on his own. The Daily Mail reported, “Donald Trump has raised $50.5 million at a Florida fundraiser for his 2024 re-election campaign — the highest amount ever raised at a single event.

“Saturday's $250,000-a-ticket bash was held at the $110 million Palm Beach home of Trump supporter John Paulson.

“The enormous amount is almost double the $26 million Joe Biden's campaign recently raised at a New York City bash which boasted the added star-power of former Democrat presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

“‘It’s clearer than ever that we have the message, the operation, and the money to propel President Trump to victory on November,’ Team Trump told DailyMail.com.

“The presidential hopeful was supported at the dinner by wife Melania, who broke her recent low-profile to dazzle in a tropical, pink jumpsuit.”

So Trump sells shoes? Every celebrity does.

Biden doesn’t have a legitimate business to pay his bills because he lines his pockets from lobbyists and foreign governments. Hunter of course is selling paintings to his supporters for a half-million bucks or so.

Bump didn’t mention how Corporate America, Red China and the Ukraine Money Launderers are bribing Biden. Bump also didn’t defend the economy because, really, he couldn’t. His newspaper would be kaput if it were not for the charity of the world’s richest man, who has lost hundreds of millions of dollars after buying the white elephant in 2013.

The Bezos Post is a money pit. One in 10 of Bump’s colleagues have been let go in the last six months to try to reduce the deficits.

In October, the Bezos Post announced, “During a recent period of ambitious growth, The Washington Post spent more than it ultimately could afford because of optimistic financial projections that failed to materialize, interim CEO Patty Stonesifer told employees Wednesday, announcing the most dramatic staff reduction since billionaire Jeff Bezos bought the company in 2013.

“The cuts, which Stonesifer hopes will come in the form of 240 voluntary buyouts across the company’s staff, will be spread evenly between The Post’s editorial and business sides, she said.”

Management was doing such a spectacular job that it had to fire 240 loyal workers.

She said, “This is a really good business that we overshot on expense. And so we’re trying to right-size that to make sure we can plant the seeds and make the investments in the things that we need.”

Stonesifer is the Gabby Hayes of newspapering giving us authentic journalistic gibberish.

Executive editor Sally Buzbee is even worse. She said, “We will not be asking the staff to do more with fewer people. But we will be asking everyone to help us reimagine how to have the greatest impact with the very substantial resources that we will carry into the future.”

Reimagine. Wasn’t that a song by John Lennon when he was doing Quaaludes?

Bezos is doing a lot of DEI hiring. How is that working out? The Post can’t peddle papers in the five richest counties in the USA. That undercuts the paper’s claim, via Bump, of any expertise on business and finance.

Oh, I know we cannot blame the newspaper industry’s problems on Biden alone. Newspapers sealed their fate by turning radically left by defending the indefensible, The pandemic panic stopped the economy on a dime in an effort to oust Trump. That failed by the way and they had to stuff the ballot box with mailed-in ballots from who-knows-where in order to install Biden.

We still suffer from that lockdown, which by the way was the worst way to treat a virus. We needed people to go outside their homes and enjoy the sun. Natural immunity works better than what passes for a vaccine these days.

Biden exacerbated the damage from that shut down by pouring trillions of federal money in. That triggered inflation. It also triggered the eventual collapse of the economy, which cannot sustain a $35 trillion national debt.

Trump has a lot of bluster but he is dead-on about the financial situation of many of his supporters. Even with a house and car that are paid off, many of my readers struggle.

Bump does not strike me as an idiot so surely he knows which end of the cow his argument came from.

On Friday, CNBC reported that unemployment dropped to 3.8%.

71,000 government jobs added.

Zero manufacturing jobs.

Paragraph 11 said, “Gains tilted heavily to part-time workers in the household survey. Full-time workers fell by 6,000, while part-timers increased by 691,000. Multiple job holders rose by 217,000, to 5.2% of the total employment level.”

An economy dies when manufacturing dies. The only thing sustaining this economy is the ability of the federal government to borrow another trillion dollars every 100 days. But no one in Washington will admit that because it might re-elect President Trump.

Mister Bump struggles to row, row, row Jeff’s boat faster because the next round of layoffs nears and the unemployment line beckons. I’d tell him no newspaper job is worth hanging on to, but I didn’t listen when other people gave me that advice.