Jackson Jambalaya

Once again The Clarion-Ledger publishes its ignorance on items of an economic nature. A brickbat goes to Kevin Richardson, the so-called business editor, who accused Treasury Secretary Paulson in his column Sunday for supposedly not using the tools given to him in the Bacardi Bailout to fix the crisis in our economy:
"But a week after the bill was enacted, none of the funds has been released and most of us have stopped checking the value of our investment accounts tied to the stock market for fear of a heart attack or nervous breakdown.
Why the delay?
For the record, I supported the bailout legislation because of the potential for calamity if nothing were done. (You did? You mean you actually read some of the bill? If you did, where was this analysis because you never published it in this newspaper. How come you don't have a blog by the way? Even the copy editor has one.)
But I am concerned by the inaction of the administration's economic advisers to disburse the money. And as the world waits, stocks continue to plummet.
The Dow has dropped eight consecutive days, losing 22 percent of its value, the worst performance since the Depression. There is no way to know where markets would be today if the legislation was not approved...." http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20081012/COL0102/810120350/1303/biz









Is this guy serious? After reading his drivel, one must question if Mr. Richardson even read any part of the bill or knows what the terms are. Mr. Richardson thinks the Secretary should be buying mortgages and other assets one week after the bill became law. Is the "Business Editor" really this ignorant? The Secretary could not do anything until the bill was passed. Mr. Richardson needs to watch "I'm Just a Bill" on Schoolhouse Rock as it takes more than seven days to set up the tools needed to buy mortgages, auction them off, hire the necessary employees such as fund and property managers, write guidelines, establish procedures, etc. However, Mr. Paulson did take action to inject $250 billion in American banks earlier in the week. Too bad that was not fast enough for Mr. Richardson, who like most so-called journalists, writes about what other people do while not actually doing anything himself.

However, Mr. Richardson continues on his ignorant way, focusing solely on the Dow. Its the freezing of the credit markets, not the Dow that is killing the economy. Mr. Richardson does not mention the credit markets anywhere in his column even though its the most important problem in this crisis. We can get by with a falling stock or bond market, however, our economy will CRASH with a frozen credit market. He also fails to mention the fact that these credit default swaps are crippling balance sheets. The causes of this problem: the overleveraging of credit default swaps, off-balance sheet accounting, implosion of the housing market, interest rates kept too low for too long, etc didn't took years to develop and won't be mitigated in seven days. Unfortunately for the readers, Mr. Richardson mentions none of these factors.

The economic dopery carries over to another story in the newspaper concerning the local housing market. Reporter Laroye Brown used the Martins' effort to sell their home on Mossline Drive in Jackson to demonstrate how much the Jackson real estate market has softened. Unfortunately for Mr. Brown, the story showed his ignorance as well for he missed several basic facts in his story. He wrote: "Wayne Martin and his wife, Patricia, have had their home on Mossline Drive in Jackson up for sale for two months but have had no luck in attracting a buyer." http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20081012/BIZ/810120348/1005/biz


TWO months. Our esteemed business reporter considers a home sitting on the market for two months to be evidence it is tougher to sell a home in Jackson. Most homes take 3 or more months to sell, a fact Mr. Brown should know. The picture of the Martin residence showed some very obvious problems with the saleability of the home that were completely missed by the reporter. Did anyone notice the "For Sale by Owner" sign? The Martins are not even using a realtor, depriving themselves of the benefit of the MLS. The Martins thus limited the exposure of their home to potential buyers. The home also DOES NOT HAVE A GARAGE!!! Think that might have SOMETHING to do with the reason why the house has not sold for a grand total of TWO MONTHS? No listing, no garage, 60 days on the market, yeah, its a real tough market right now. Mr. Brown, do yourself a favor. The next time you publish a story, why don't you actually read what you write as well as actually looking at your photographs. 'Nuff said.









Maybe The Jackson Free Press is on the right track in just running news feeds on its so-called business blog as the quality of business reporters available in Mississippi might just be that bad. As the job market in the financial/investment services industries is shaky right now, surely the newspaper can fire these so-called business journalists and hire a stockbroker who can write as just about anything would be an improvement.