Skip to main content

Brian Tierney on bankers these days

I like the Michael Smerconish Show, and frankly suspect anybody who doesn't.

This morning he interviewed Brian Tierney, the managing partner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News (who put up $10m of his own money to keep the papers local).

The interview, which you can hear as a podcast here, is interesting for a number of reasons.

The most interesting is when Tierney talks about banks. The Daily News saw profits drop from $51m to $36m last year, but still turned a profit. The corporation filed for Chapter 11 to restructure its debt. Tierney discusses the representatives from Citigroup and other banks riding down to Philly in their limos to make demands and give him advise that he has to take because they are covenanted creditors, for whose consultations he must pay $300k per month.

Tierney points out the incredible irony of bankers who are on the public dole, and whose stocks have tanked by 90-96% of last year's value coming in to give business advice to a set of newspapers that's still turning a profit.

Worth a listen.

Smerconish, by the way, is not a typical conservative talking head. I frequently disagree with him, especially on foreign policy, but unlike the shouters he's literate, respectful of guests and callers, and actually has points of view that are his own.

Plus, he's funny.

Comments

Smerconish is the sort of conservative you see too little of. Here in Stromland the leading right wing aggregator is busy purging bloggers not conservative enough- all three bright, thoughtful, but independent minds.
Anonymous said…
I like Mike. Biggest downside? he voted for Obama!
Anonymous said…
I also like Smerconish, as frequently seen as a panalist on various MSNBC evening shows. I agree with your commentary on him, Steve.

The fact that he voted for Obama is an upside, in my view.

Mike is a conservative, but an independent thinker as well. I put Steve in the same category.

Perry Hood
Perry
I'll accept that as an intended compliment, but I am not in any way, shape, or form a conservative.

Again, I draw your attention to the title of this blog.

How do you get to be considered a conservative if you are pro-gay rights, pro-abortion rights, anti-US imperialist interventionist foreign policy?
Anonymous said…
Point taken, Steve. And yes, it was meant to be a compliment, though an off-base one as it turns out.
Anonymous said…
Tierney took $300-$400 million in loans from these guys. If they insist he must at least listen to their advice, that hardly seems unfair. If he did not want to have banks looking over his shoulder, he should have found the several hundred million he needed elsewhere (and he had a fat chance of doing that.) Plus, I find it absurd that he keeps saying he makes a profit - he only can say that when he omits one very major expense he signed up for - the interest payments. All he does is spin. Surprised he has not gotten dizzy yet. I have no sympathy. None.

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...