A Slight Delay

If you believe NewsBusters (and I, for one, have difficulty putting stock in anything calling itself a news organization when its name conjures images of the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man), not only is “liberal bias” killing newspapers, but this is, somehow, a good thing. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that one should choose one’s news based on accuracy and thoroughness in reporting rather than on ideological grounds, the mass die-offs in our print media are cause for concern, not rejoicing.

I’ve written about this previously (you can read the original piece here, if you’d like), and rather than reiterate what I’ve said–to say nothing of what others have stated better, and at more length–I’d like to quote a bit from a study published by the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. It’s titled Do Newspapers Matter? Evidence from the Closure of The Cincinnati Post. While anecdotal evidence (and recent surveys like this one from Pew) suggest that newspapers have become an increasingly marginal means of getting the news, study authors Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido argue that even with diminished circulation, newspapers have an impact far beyond their sales figures:
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Emails have circulated over the past couple of years warning that certain retailers were going out of business, resulting in gift cards purchased at these stores having roughly the same worth as a pile of stale pizza crusts. Retailers, of course, have then tripped over one another and themselves denying everything. In many cases, the retailers were perfectly healthy, or at least weren’t in trouble that bad. In today’s economy, however, all bets are off. There’s any number of ways you can spin this, but it isn’t good news any which way you look at it.

First, and most obviously, there’s unemployment. Let’s say that a 2,000-square-foot store employs ten people, some of them full time, and a handful part-time. If you close 384 of those, as Bombay Company did, that’s 3,840 people out of work… and Bombay Company is but one example; nearly every day, the market hemorrhages stores, most of them mom-and-pop outfits that won’t make the news; that fact would be cold comfort to those who’ve lost their jobs.

Then there’s the problem of filling those empty spaces. As an analysis by the Gerson-Lehman Group notes, it didn’t used to be much of a challenge filling a small- or medium-sized (up to ten thousand square foot) space, but even that’s become difficult in the current economic climate. When you factor in a bone-dry credit market, and consumers who aren’t buying, even fools aren’t lately rushing in where angels, or Starbucks, fear to tread. At the higher end–big box stores, which either anchor a mall/plaza, or that stand alone–the problem grows exponentially bigger. It means more job losses, lost tax dollars, lost revenue, and a piece of real estate that’s likely to stay empty for much longer than usual. If a Barnes and Noble closes, it’s not as though they have much competition waiting for that space; other businesses will likely have competitors in close proximity. Contraction among most big-box stores (with a few notable exceptions) means that vacancies are likely to stay that way. (more…)

A few days ago, I overheard a conversation among a few coworkers who were wondering why the economy wasn’t in better shape, given that we’re at war. To quote Phil, I’m not terribly knowledgeable of this issue, but that won’t stop me from commenting. When people think of war “improving” the economy, they generally point to World War II helping to end the Great Depression. They’d be right about the WWII part, but not so much about any of the more recent wars.

See, the United States’ economy went on a wartime footing a short time before we entered the Second World War, and it’s never really left it since. There have been differences in the degree of intensity, certainly, but the military-industrial complex against which Eisenhower warned has been with us, in one form or another, and to one degree or another, for nearly three-quarters of a century now.

Economic fixes are a bit like drugs; that initial hit may give you a pretty intense high, but over time, if you keep using, you build up a tolerance. The initial “high,” if you will, from putting the American economy on a wartime footing lost its effect over time with repeated use. The economy has become so dependent on this that it would take a much higher dose, at a much higher intensity, to acheive the same effect, and it’s at best questionable (to put it kindly) whether the end result would be even remotely worth the cost.