62 posts tagged “economy”

Hi There! You may not remember me – my name is Estupido and I used to write a blog.

I’ve been uninspired of late. I will sit down all revved up over one thing or another and before I get more than a couple of lines down I’m suddenly wondering what time Antiques Roadshow is on BBC (2pm BTW) or where I left that book I was reading last week the one about the kid in the dystopian/utopian future world where everyone is quite literally colorblind.

Today I am determined to produce at least a few paragraphs because the current reality vs. reporting gap is so wide on this issue I fear someone might fall in and be lost forever like Tony Thomas’ measuring stick.

“Let's hope Savannah City Council's toughened oversight of revitalization efforts doesn't become a choke hold.”

This was a WTF moment for me today. Tom Bartoon and his merry miscreants have been all abuzz since someone began the completely unfounded rumor that the city was going to defund SDRA – that’s the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority for those of you who remain stubbornly unwashed and uninformed.

First they put aside all manner of journalistic ethics and standards to produce a rather large piece of excrement chock full of nothing but unsubstantiated rumor and carrying the noxious and not so subtle fist shaking threat that if Savannah’s City Council didn’t do as SMN and SDRA’s minions decreed then a pox would fall on all their houses, the heifers and goats would stop giving milk and the grapes would sour on the vines etc… etc… ad infinitum.

That was followed quickly by this noxious little gas bubble that basically rehashed the rumorfest and threw more insults toward city leaders while deifying a businessman who, as far as I can tell, only has one complaint – that the city won’t build him a parking deck, at taxpayer expense, for his planned private development.

All this rumor based reporting actually created a very real threat to SDRA funding where none had existed before – they made a golem of paper and ink and it came to life and set out to devour them.

Council demanded and, this past week, got a meeting with those that control the SDRA.

Council had one simple question – Considering all the money we give y’all each year, what is the plan to encourage development along the MLK and Montgomery corridors?

The SDRA answer: There is no plan.

The Council response to the SDRA answer: Let’s make a plan. Tony Thomas and a member of staff will hang around to make sure it happens.

How does that even hint at “choke hold”?

I don’t mean to imply that City Council was happy with the meeting. They were understandably the opposite of happy to find out that we’ve been funneling hundreds of thousands in tax dollars toward what we thought was a plan to encourage redevelopment only to find out there is no actual plan.

All in all our leaders handled it as a corporate board might handle an underperforming subsidiary – sternly but professionally - exactly as they should.

Still not feeling bloggy but I feel I simply must call BS on this capper from the story on Georgia Power’s move to a new building downtown:

“Commercial Realtor John Neely, of Colliers Neely Dales in Savannah, called Georgia Power's Abercorn purchase "a vote of confidence in downtown and the future,”…”

Not even close – If this were a commercial entity spending money and moving into swank new digs I might agree. Unfortunately there is no sooth to say here when it is a government sanctioned monopoly immune to market forces so far as its revenue stream is concerned.

Georgia power regularly counts its money in billions – quite literally it makes enough in a month to buy and refurbish that building downtown twice.  This does not reflect at all on the market or the downtown economy at all.

Is it only in the TV business that you can lose money and market share and get a promotion?

This blurb about Savannah’s alwaysabridesmaid WSAV-TV caught my eye because the guy who has overseen the decline of the station’s fortunes over the past three years, Brad Moses, is being rewarded with a trip to a much larger market.

"During the past three years, Brad has provided exceptional leadership in all areas of broadcast management as general manager for WSAV," said Media General North Carolina President/Market Leader James R. Conschafter.”

Really Connie?

Cause the way I hear it, in addition to the layoffs imposed on the station from those corporate geniuses up in Richmond, Moses couldn’t keep a sales staff, fired a veteran anchor who was then hired at WJCL on the same day and somehow managed to run off the entire marketing department, the crime reporter, neighborhood news reporter, weekend anchor and sports director as well as the executive producer.

I can’t give you a link to the ratings, they cost money and aren’t shared freely, but my understanding is they have been flat or down significantly during his entire tenure.

I guess the good news in all this is that WSAV may improve under Moses successor; it certainly can’t get any worse. We need to say a prayer for the folks in Raleigh.

From the Vox - Dumb, Dumber and downright Stupid:

"The reason we have so much foreign trade today is greed. American merchants just want to make more money."

Yes. And?

For this little piece of ignorance I blame the schools. They apparently are no longer teaching the basics of economics.

Supply and demand… capitalism… is this ringing any bells?

"Grocery stores don't seem to be competing for our business. I'm clipping coupons and trying to save like a desperate fool. They have us figured out, charging $3.55 or more for a bag of chips."

Let me get this straight… you are clipping coupons and beeatching about it because you can’t afford a bag of chips? A bag of chips that, when consumed, will provide to your body absolutely no nutritional value. A bag of chips that, when consumed, will probably make you less healthy due to trans-fats and sodium levels and general greasiness?

How can you look at that level of intelligence and still believe in “survival of the fittest”?

"The caller who said he wouldn't buy a Chevrolet because of the stimulus funds doesn't understand that, without stimulus funds, there wouldn't be a Chevrolet to buy."

Yeah…I think that’s what they meant. There shouldn’t be a Chevy unless Chevy can survive without being propped up with tax money.

For the first time in a long time I was at a complete loss for words but oddly proud of myself at the same time.

So what did you do on Halloween?

I decided to stay in and get caught up on what happened at the quarterly town hall meeting they had over to the civic center the other night. Scary dull I know.

You might be asking yourself “what town hall meeting?” I certainly was since I saw nothing on it from my usual news sources. I managed to find a blurb that it was coming up but no coverage of the actual meeting.

Turns out I didn’t miss much, however the Savannah Morning News could have used this as an excuse to report the current and future economic state of the city -- since they missed that story at the last City Council and still have yet to report it. Head Penny Pincher Chris Morrill provided a brief budget explanation for the apparently very small crowd of neighbors who showed up.

Despite the fact that Morrill called it “The Great Recession” , which is hyperbolic, his talk was to the point and chock full of as yet unreported, important information about how all that money we give to the local government is being spent and who might get laid off and what services might get cut and such.

Besides that we got the regular “Here’s What We’ve Done For You Lately” somewhat self-serving priorities bit from the bureaucracy and a talk about the as yet completely ineffective Youth Futures Authority and something about Black Male Achievement which I skipped over because I have already achieved what I plan to achieve. You too can skip right over that and the other stuff that doesn’t grab you with handy dandy index points provided at the link posted above.

The other thing that I did NOT skip over was the bit from the Housing Authority of Savannah. They are the Public Housing Folk basically the local arm of the Housing and Urban Development department of the Federal Government.

It looked like it would be a right interesting historic perspective on what the HAS has done since its founding back in the 1930s. And it was, interesting I mean, right up until they got to the bit about Stubbs Tower.

Ms. Earline Davis the executive Director of the HAS described a slide she indicated was an Ad for Stubbs Tower at the time of its construction.

“This is Stubbs Towers the first high rise senior building built by the housing authority. For those of you who remember Stubbs Towers, I want to read

for you what is on the literature ‘Move up to Stubbs -Stubbs Towers offers cutting edge high rise living with breath taking views an exciting floor plan with the slickest contemporary design and the clever use of modern materials and space made for today’s living.’…”

I almost swallowed my tongue.

I created that ad for this blog in 2007. It is not a 1960's era ad for a High Rise Senior Living Facility-it is a fake, a fraud, a poor attempt at funny photoshopping.

I don’t know how to react to this, I mean, do I need to put disclaimers on what are obviously photo fakery? Should I be proud the work was so convincing?

I feel I have to point it out but, given the anonymous nature of my work, I can’t very well call up Ms. Davis and tell her.

So I will leave it to you my dear readers to inform her, as gently as you can, that she should remove that slide from future presentations and should check her sources more carefully in the future.

I am a little ashamed that I was at the root of one of those internet artifacts that becomes historical fact simply because no one knows any better.

I also am a little proud that my work could be mistaken for the real thing…is that wrong?

It takes a serious act of will to be this stupid or does it just come naturally?

“He sounds like a nice, unsuspecting guy who doesn't always read the fine print, believes what people tell him and suffers from lousy timing. Then bad things happen, like the condo market going off a cliff.”

An editorial in the Savannah Morning News goes on and on about this moronic guy that bought one of the condos that are inside the old newspaper building on Bay.

Okay – maybe Bartoon could say the guy was a victim of bad timing if he…say… bought at the end of 2007. The real estate bubble was slowly deflating here in Savannah and it looked like we might be recession proof or at least go shallow and recover quickly but that is not the case for this particular “victim”.

“Williams, an interior designer from New York, paid $670,000 for a fifth-floor condominium last December at News Place West at 165 West Bay Street.”

Last December? LAST December? Really?

What “fine print” did he not see? Could it have been this headline in the Savannah Morning News in September: Bailout unlikely to counter slump or perhaps this tiny little headline in December: Forecasters: Georgia's economic outlook 'dreadful' .

Truthfully though, in condo boy’s defense, it is hard to get an accurate picture of the local economy from reading Mr. Bartoon’s newspaper.

Here are a group of SMN headlines arranged by date. Can you tell how the economy is doing?

 Ga. economist: State could be facing recession 

Housing may rebound by year's end; economy to grow slowly

New reports give bleak outlook on housing, economy

Growth weaker than hoped; economy shrinks in Q4

Consumer spending gain provides hope for rebound

City Talk: Data suggest ongoing economic weakness

Report: Worst of recession likely over for Coastal Empire

Manufacturing data boosts hopes of recession end

Georgia hits record unemployment

Schizophrenic much?

I like to think of myself as patient. I mean… I waited three whole days and a half before I pointed out this latest example of how piss poor the coverage of our local city government has become.

While I applauded the Savannah Morning News for their “just the facts” approach to last week’s City Council meeting I was unaware at the time that they actually missed the biggest and most important story of the day. Every media outlet in town apparently missed it. I would have missed it too if I hadn’t bothered to watch the budget briefing on the City Channel.

85 City of Savannah Jobs may be Going BUH BYE!

I should have known it couldn’t last. The city did so well balancing the budget for 2009. Like the little engine that could they climbed that mounting deficit till they reached the peak at $5 million and coasted down the other side without any layoffs, furloughs, firings or other shortcuts to Balanced Budget Land.

Unfortunately the picture for 2010 is even less rose tinted than I previously reported.

Here is what the big brains in the Chief Penny Pincher’s office are predicting:

They see $3 million less in revenue coming in next year.

That is a fresh $3 million revenue deficit added to the $5 million revenue deficit we saw this year…. That still too mathy?… um… How bout this?

Revenue is back down to 2004 levels but spending is still up at 2007-2008 levels.  

Think about what you were spending in 2008 – your expenses were probably just above what you could afford on your salary – now imagine your paycheck came in but the Accounting Department made a mistake and paid you your 2004 salary. You still have all the same bills but much less to pay them - that is what is happening to the city.

There was a smidge of good news – City Budgeteers see a small recovery on the horizon with more spending (a 1% increase in Sales Tax and Hotel/Motel Tax revenues), more building (a 5% increase in revenue from inspections fees). Of course those increases are above our already rock bottom levels so not really a cash banquet but still good to see even a slight reversal of fortunes.

Back to the not so happy news – The city has been trying to find a way to squeeze and stretch what they have in order to continue providing the same level of services and keep all their employees and keep from going into ridiculous amounts of debt.

The fact is they can’t do it.

No one could.

Something’s gotta give.

In this case they plan to eliminate some services, we don’t know which ones yet, and some 85 jobs could be erased along with those eliminated services.

Officially: 85 positions will be held vacant, reallocated or eliminated the city's goal is still to avoid layoffs.

Chris Morrill says they think they can do it without firing anyone “What we will try to do is to reassign those employees to areas where, through this economic crisis, we could use some more work there on a temporary basis.”

So those workers who find themselves surplus to requirements will be given the opportunity to do a different job.

City Manager Michael Brown puts it this way “We will give every employee the chance to make a reasonable transition.”  But he stated clearly that there may still be layoffs because some jobs are definitely going away and if the employee isn’t willing to make the transition and do the new job to the best of their ability they will not be kept on.

No matter what you think of the city’s plan I want you to ask yourself if perhaps this story should have been reported by the people actually paid to report on Savannah instead of your faithful unpaid blogger pal ESTÚPIDO.

We all pay for city services, most of us expect them to be there when we need them even if we never need them. How can an important story about an organization that WE ALL OWN not make the paper or television news?

Where is Savannah’s fourth estate?

Ya’ll know I don’t like rumors. I like facts, preferably cold and preferably hard.

But I also promised to report anything new about Savannah Morning News parent Morris Publishing’s long slow spiral down into the financial abyss.

Those two opposing desires have me at loose ends as to what to do with this piece of information.

“The rumor is Morris Publishing will either announce a restructuring of its debt or declare bankruptcy by the end of this month because the clock is ticking.”

Now whenever we hear a rumor we should always consider the source and whatever axes said source may have to grind with the subject of the rumor.

In this case the source is Metro Spirit Augusta.

The same publication that gave us this back in May:

“JP Morgan could force Morris to break up newspaper empire”

And this way back in February:

“What will Morris bankruptcy mean?”

So, in gauging this latest rumor, we must take into account the fact that Metro Spirit’s editor becomes tumescent every time Morris and Bankruptcy appear in the same headline.

Some would claim the same of me; however a close reading of my earlier posts shows only a desire for two things:

1.       1. Better local reporting on the media industry and the ongoing financial troubles therein.

2.       2. An end to the financial uncertainty at Morris which has resulted in a reduction in experienced staff and quality of reporting.

Other than this new rumor of an endofthemonth ultimatum, this week’s Metro Spirit article offers nothing we don’t already know.

Morris owes about 4x what the company is worth.

They hired a law firm famous for bankruptcy back in January.

Morris has cut employees, publications, benefits and salaries.

It has failed to make scheduled payments on the debt and been granted extensions and waivers 8 or 9 times.

Morris has stated in SEC filings that there is “significant uncertainty about its liquidity and ability to continue as a going concern.”

For the record: The latest deadline for Morris to write 2 $9 million checks is Friday.

Seriously, people haven’t been paying attention and have no clue what is actually happening with the economy. Of course the Savannah Morning News reinforces this lack of understanding by putting it front and center.

"People need to remember we've been in a recession since 2007. That is why unemployment is up 10 percent."

To be fair SMN isn’t the only source of misinformation about the economy, it seems no one in the media has one ounce of understanding about how the economy works or what the words that are coming out of their mouths actually mean.

First let us deal with the recently revised definition of “recession”. For as long as they have been keeping records the big brains that determined such things defined a recession as a period of at least two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Then the process became politicized in the 90’s and somehow slow growth counts as negative growth which makes not one jot of sense to me.

I tend to go with the original definition of words since modern interpretations tend to lead one down the rabbit hole into an Orwellian newspeaking bureaucratic hell.

So…we kickin it oldschool up in this trailer.

Recession = 2 Consecutive Quarters of NEGATIVE GDP

By that measure the US entered recession in the third quarter of 2008 through the first quarter of 2009 and has remained in recession ever since.

Deal with it.

The only reason people are pointing to 2007 is because that marked the end of the housing bubble. The only reason they now date the last recession to 2001 is because that marked the end of the Internet bubble. In reality the economy never saw two consecutive periods of negative growth during that “recession”.

So…in 2007 the housing market tanks.

Then in the fall of 2008 the banks that were all wrapped up in investing in the housing market tank and, without even the courtesy of a wraparound, they take the rest of us down.

Then the Government assumes the role of ECONOMY GOD and decides who lives and who dies.

Goldman/Sachs you get to live.

Lehman Bros you die.

AIG lives

WaMu Dies

Of course if you have a conspiratorial bent you begin to notice that the companies that have profited most from this conspiracy are all connected to Goldman/Sachs and the Government’s financial Caesars giving the thumbs down to Goldman/Sachs’ competitors are all friends or former employees of Goldman/Sachs.

I digress.

 We were not in a recession until everyone realized that a big o’ chunk of the US economy had been built on a feverdream of overpriced and overleveraged real estate.  Trillions of dollars were invested in a hallucination. So, when someone finally took a minute and closely examined our paper moon economy, it simply disappeared.

Want to know why we'll see 10% unemployment? Because the Economy that generated most of those jobs was imaginary. The Economy is returning to where it would have been if the rich kids hadn’t started playing makebelieve with all the money.

I really shouldn’t stick a pin in Media General’s pretty pink balloon but…

Wall Street was abuzz on Wednesday after WSAV’s Commander n’ Chief reported a profit for the second quarter.

According to their press release:

“Media General, Inc. today reported net income for the second quarter of 2009 of $20.6 million, or 90 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $532.2 million in the 2008 period…”

Such good news doubled the price of MG stock between 10am and 11am. It is unfortunate that the fundamentals behind the headline still point to the same old problems.

Firstly, doubling a $2 dollar stock is fantastic if you bought the stock at $2, not so great for those who invested in MG back in the heady days of $60 and above.

Second, all the things that caused MG to tank from its highs are still in place. The “everything but what we’re good at” strategy hasn’t changed. Marshall “Morty” Morton is still touting their real estate and gaming sites as the way forward despite another million dollar quarterly loss in that division. Also, the company still hasn’t figured out how to turn its successful news brands into online money-makers.

“We're pushing into new digital and mobile platforms and creating new ways to serve consumers and advertisers. We're driving audience growth through new products, as well as our Web-First continuous news initiative. Our mobile delivery includes new advertising and marketing services such as text messaging, mobile coupons and classified vertical applications. We are aggressively executing on our partnerships with Yahoo and [Zilla] and we're accelerating the growth of the new revenue streams tapped by DealTaker.com and Blockdot.”

Plus behind the headlines today’s economic news from the company pretty much sucked.

“Operating profit from Media General’s 18 broadcast stations was $11.3 million, down from $14.9 million the year prior. Total revenues declined 21.4%, or $17.7 million, with ad sales declining $22.4 million”

They still have an a$$load of debt, they owe more than half of what they have in total assets.

(Unaudited, in thousands)

“Long-term debt                         $711,458”

“Total assets                               $1,262,921”

And according to the Seeking Alpha transcript of today’s earnings call they don’t plan to pay down much of that in the last half of the year.

“…we paid down from the end of 2008 to the end of the first half of the year basically with the proceeds, of course, from the sale of our Jacksonville station. There will be a slight reduction from the $711 million where we are right now to the end of the year.”

Basically they wouldn’t have seen much change at all if not for the sale of that station in Jacksonville and cutting all the meat off the bone at their newspapers.

“The company, which operates more than 20 daily newspapers and 18 television stations, trimmed operating costs by 23 percent.

The deepest cuts came in publishing. The division posted $12 million in profit, up from $6.8 million a year earlier despite a 26 drop in advertising revenue.”

So what are they going to do when they can’t cut anymore?

There is nothing in what I’ve read today to suggest anything got any better at any of their stations or papers. They are simply surviving and eating their own to do that.

Addendum: Monday, June 15, 2009 2:06:51 PM

From TWITTER: Savannah River Landing website back after 3 days off. Claims construction begins in 2008. I guess they have a TARDIS http://is.gd/12EPS

Addendum: Friday, June 12, 2009 8:37:25 PM

From TWITTER: WOW! Savannah River Landing Website is just GONE. http://is.gd/10huJ Wonder if it's anything to do with ?? I was asking? http://is.gd/10hxA

Soooooo um… Savannah River Landing?

Is this thing just over? I mean is it officially over? Have they officially said somewhere that they just ain’t gonna build nothing over on the nicest ant mound in the city?

I ask because, if they did, I missed it.

According to this story from back in March, the Riverwalk extension built by the city should be done but I don't remember hearing anything about a ribbon cutting. I guess they didn't want to embarrass the Savannah River Landing folk by inviting those uncomfortable questions about the fact that while the city has undertaken and finished a somewhat difficult construction project; SRL has yet to lay a single brick.

The last actual report specifically on the project locally was like 10 months ago in August of 2008. It did explain how some stupid someone didn’t clear the easements on the property and ended up screwing them but other than that it was a bunch of newspeak nonsense that basically said they were shifting their focus from homes to a retail/commercial development in the near term.

“When plans for Savannah River Landing were announced, grand estates along the river and high-rise condos were expected to be erected shortly. But a changing economy has shifted the developer's priorities. ‘At this point in the economic cycle, it may take longer to presell or prelease (residential properties)," King said.

Now, construction of rental apartments as well as office and retail space is most likely to come first. There's been a lot of interest in apartments, King said, and they're ‘less subject to the economic cycle.’ Ambling is also starting to plan for office space. Office condos as well as offices for lease will be offered.”

Our blog buddy SavannahRed was out there in October and filed this report with some awesome photos of the nothingness.

The last thing I saw was a passing glance in this story from May 09 on office space in the city:

“Currently, the only significant office project on the drawing board for downtown, Mouchet said, is Savannah River Landing - a proposed mixed-use development with retail, office, residential and hospitality on a 40-acre footprint just east of the Marriott Savannah Riverfront.

The development calls for some 350,000 square feet of potential office space. But, while construction on the retail and residential components of Savannah River Landing is expected to begin sometime next year, it's not likely work will begin on the office segment until an anchor tenant is locked down, Mouchet said.”

Since then…

The Newsletter section of the official SRL website stops in May of 2008.

The Newsroom section of the official SRL website stops in July of 2008

The Class-A Offices section still states “Slated for construction in 2008…”

The Copyright information still states “©2008 ALR Oglethorpe, LLC. All rights reserved.”

Alright now all you intrepid Savannah ink slingers get to work. What’s the dealio yo?