Simon Tweets Bauble

You might recall that Scott Simon's handsome salary made waves at the NPR Ombudsman's blog back in September. This past Saturday, Simon - returning from India - was not hosting Weekend Edition, but he was Tweeting:

If you click on the picture above you will be able to see the following tweet he posted from India:

I guess when you're clearing $300,648 your spending on "baubles" can be off by a $100 or so...zounds!

Inskeep Works Hard for the Money

On Thursday morning, Inskeep interviews Mike Murphy (the classy Republican strategist) about the huge, massive, overwhelming Democratic gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday evening - oops, that was in 2001 - I meant the similar 2009 Republican triumphs in those states that are a "slap in the face" to Obama and the Democrats.

For those of us living in the reality-based sphere, we recall that Obama and Democrats made all kinds of concessions for the stimulus bill - only to get NO Republican votes in the House. We remember that team Obama squelched single payer and backed corporate insurance "reform" only to have the Republican nihlists savage these timid reforms. And any of us who give a crap about the Constitution, are seriously disturbed by the extremist Bush-Obama efforts to enshrine the absolutism of the security state.

Keeping these troublesome facts in mind, consider the statements that were made by Mike Murphy as Steve Inskeep interviewed him this morning:

"...hopefully to have some Democrats now start thinking about a bipartisan approach, where they can sit down with Republicans and actually compromise, rather than asking Republicans to vote 99 percent Democrat and call that compromise."

Inskeep's challenge to this nonsense: "We'll talk about that a little bit, but I want to ask a little more about these elections...." When that "later" roles around, here's his big confrontation,"Why do you think, as you suggest, that these election results would cause Democrats in Washington and Congress to work a little more collaboratively with Republicans?" Yes, Inskeep just rolls over, and accepts the lie that Democrats have been obstructing bipartisanship and running roughshod over Republicans.

Seeing that Inskeep knows how to "work collaboratively" with him, Murphy states,

"Because I think the great mistake of the Obama presidency...is they were elected as a bipartisan problem solver, almost a post-partisan politician. But from the day they've been in, they got a little drunk on the power and they've governed as a one-party liberal party....the Democrats, in my view, are governing too far to the left. They're losing the middle of the country...."

Drunk on power? One-party liberal party? Too far to the left? Seriously, did I miss the Democrats pushing for a Roosevelt-style jobs program? Was I sleeping when the Democrats insisted on pursuing single-payer health insurance, or a full public option open to all with no "triggers" or provisos attached? Are the Democrats seeking to have the Bush torture architects and practitioners investigated and tried? Did the banks get nationalized? Did the Pentagon budget get slashed?

And Inskeep's rejoinder? - "Now, when you say the Democrats should learn a lesson of not being too focused on health care, I mean, they're in it. I mean, they're going to try to pass a bill. How should this affect the health care debate for them?" In other words, NOTHING - no challenge, no fact check, no mention of the recent past. I guess that's how Inskeep earns that whopping $353,390 a year salary (+ $38,698 to "employee benefit plans") *[from page 57 of the NPR FY 2008 IRS 990 filing.]

*Or simply click on graphic at the top of this post to see the 5 highest paid NPR employees in 2008 - how Alex Chadwick fits in there is anybody's guess.

Clowning

Clowns not getting paid? That's funny. Evidence below indicates that they be laughing all the way to the bank...hee...hee...

(click for better resolution)



(image is from NPR's 2007 990 - pdf)

Six Figure Fools Meet Five Figure Problems

Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne wonder why people don't save anymore, but instead get into debt. To answer this vexing problem they turn to Tim Hartford of the Financial Times. Just so you'll think $337,499-a-year Renee and $331,701-a-year Steve [see the IRS 990s here] are one of us, Renee introduces this segment with: "We owe it to ourselves to consider all the debt we piled on ourselves." Then Steve and Renee do a little back and forth yucking it up:
Inskeep: "...back in the early 1980s Americans saved more than 11% of their income; last year on average Americans saved one half of one percent."
Montange (chuckling): "Steve, uh, that's no savings..."
Inskeep: "Well, basically; although perhaps some people are wondering how'd they manage to save half percent..."

Hartford comes on to make the case that what is fueling high debt among Americans is the availability of loans - which hints at, though never names the deregulation and rise of predatory lending from credit card companies. But Inskeep is more interested in putting the problem on the people in debt. He asks, "Is there something about the availability of credit itself that causes people to go off the rails and make bad decisions?"

Of course it never even occurs to buckrakers like Inskeep and Montagne that a lot of folks turn to credit because their real incomes are shrinking. Let's see what leftist propaganda I can find to support this wild idea? I've got it, how about the Marine Corp Times!

Here's a little information for you two clowns from the five figure crowd like myself. In 1993 I was making about $23,000 a year as a social worker and my second son had just been born. Employer based family health insurance was costing our little fambly about $3000 a year in premiums and rent was running about $500 a month. Let's just say things were kind of tight. Now that the kids are growing up our family income is closer to $60,000, but health insurance is over $7000 a year, gas costs have tripled, public school fees and clothing are more expensive, and the price of food is shooting up (and we just can't wait to spend, spend, spend on college).

Do you 1/3 of a million dollar dimwits at NPR get it? Yes, some people make bad decisions in this crass consumer culture that you worship on NPR, but many of us go into serious debt to fix the broken car, get braces for the kids, repair the leaking roof, buy decent food, pay for heat, etc. Yeah, we just go off the rails for all these luxuries; crazy ain't it?

Show Me the Money

One of today's kind readers noted this great post from blogger Olvlzl. The money(!) quote:

• "This puts all three of these news readers at the falsely named National Public Radio firmly in the top 1%, personal income group. I don't remember who said it but it is a mighty rare person who isn't changed by an income over a quarter of a million dollars a year. A sort of aristocratic amnesia sets in, forgetting what it was like to get by on the less than a tenth of that amount, what most Americans have to live on."

Amen. Read it and weep...