Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“In an era when some U.S. Olympic athletes have turned to crowd source funding to pay for their training, the top brass at the U.S. Olympic Committee is doing better than ever financially,” the Tribune reports.
“In 2013, nine USOC officials earned more than $200,000 in base salary, up from seven people a year earlier, and seven had total compensation of more than $300,000, according to the USOC 2013 tax filing made public Monday.
“Atop the list is chief executive Scott Blackmun, whose base salary and bonuses for the last two years total approximately $2 million.”
So a national version of the Illinois High School Association, as documented by the Sun-Times.


In his 1992 book Work of Nations, Robert Reich described the informal agreement between the three-legged stool that propelled the American economy in the post-war years – business, labor and government – that kept executive salaries, wages and regulation in relative balance.
That structure was blown apart by the Reagan-era ethos surmising that greed was good – for everybody. Ever since, we’ve been living in a deranged economic world and stories like this are the result. When the message is to simply take what you can get, those who can do just that will. Hence, the looting of America. It’s an inside job.
Sweet Sucker
“An Obama library on Chicago’s South Side would, according to an economic study done for the University of Chicago, lure enough visitors for 30 restaurants and 11 retailers nearby; create demand for a new hotel near the site; bolster state and local tax revenues, and spur other development and jobs,” Lynn Sweet “reports” for the Sun-Times.
Will they ever learn? It’s the Olympics all over again.
“The University of Chicago commissioned a consulting firm, the Anderson Economic Group, to forecast the Chicago impact of an Obama presidential library and museum near its Hyde Park campus in advance of the looming June 16 deadline for submitting bids.”
Institution bidding for taxpayer-subsidized vanity project commissions study to show how awesome said project would be and, voila, study shows just that!
“I’ve exclusively obtained an abridged version of the Anderson report.”
You might as well write “I was chosen as stooge.”
Sweet’s report merely repeats all the wonderful made-up numbers in the report without any analysis or critical evaluation – and fails to provide the methodology, which I’m sure isn’t nearly rigorous enough to even get a freshman admitted to the University of Chicago.
Paging Allen Sanderson, who always vets these things as a reality check and then is always promptly ignored, because facts are no fun.
Lobby Hobby
“Cook County’s chief watchdog wants to tighten up lobbying rules after finding that ‘rogue lobbyists’ are ignoring requirements to register or report their activities,” the Tribune reports.
“People selling products to the government escape from all lobbying requirements under a ‘loophole’ in the county lobbyist ordinance, concluded Inspector General Patrick Blanchard in a report released today.”
Rules are for little people; loopholes are for big people.
*
“Blanchard’s team compared lobbyist reports to sign-in logs at county government. They also interviewed county officials and employees. The office found 58 instances where lobbying activity went unreported during a 21-month period that ended last December. The unreported activities included lobbying by people who did not register, and by lobbyists who did not report all of their activities, the report states.”
There’s a simple way to fix this: Make violating the rules hurt. Consider democracy so sacred that breaking the public trust costs more than a ticket for an expired meter.
*
“The number of unreported activities is probably low, because nearly 700 sign-in signatures were unreadable . . . ”
Oh, come on. That’s just 700 coincidences.
*
” . . . and some lobbyists were able to ply their trade in ways that aren’t easily tracked. For example, lobbyists who enter county offices through a door behind the board room dais don’t have to sign in . . . ”
They do have to bring a gift, though.
*
” . . . and sometimes lobbyists simply lean over ‘the rail’ to bend a commissioner’s ear during meetings.”
But haven’t they already signed-in? Oh yeah, forgot.
Future Shock
The fundamental premise of Theo’s Plan is wrong: We don’t care about sustained success. We just wanna win it once. After that, we’re willing to wait another 100 years.
In The Cub Factor.
16 Tons Of Dark Downstate History
Gun battles, bombings and assassinations.
Empty Bottle Blackout
HoZac Fest highlights.
Blue Line Blues
No i-Phone, ear-buds,
Tabloid or book.
In Chicagoetry.
Chicago 2-1-2
The TV pilot America wouldn’t buy.
–
TweetWood


*


*


Including reporters
*


–
The Beachwood Tip Line: Set a record.

Permalink

Posted on May 20, 2014