New York Times: INCOMPETENT Robber Barons

Soooo many beautiful little nuggets from the announcement that the pathetically crooked and progessive Boston Globe is going to be sold by the New York Times to the owner of the Red Sox, John Henry for a paltry $70 million...Where to begin, ohhh, where to begin?!

Well, before they pull it down, how's bout the Globe's OWN DESCRIPTION in today's paper of how the Times used them after their 1993 purchase? Ahem:

The Times Co. is selling the Globe for far less than the $1.1 billion it paid for the paper in 1993, when the business was highly profitable and the Globe fetched a record price. The Times Co., like other business owners, withdrew a large stream of cash from the Globe during its ownership — a sum at least equal to the purchase price, according to several former high-ranking Globe executives.

Uhhhhh...Isn't that what all good lefties, progs and Democrats decry with horror as "CORPORATE LOOTING"?! Economic VAMPIRISM?! Draining a viable company DRY of revenues--at least $1.1 billion over 20 years!--then selling the near-worthless husk off to some even crueler capitalist for the coup de grace?!  Say it ain't so, Pinch!

Next, let's dig a little deeper into the Times' investment performance here.  We're talking about the SMARTEST people in America, recall, home of Seewwwper-Economics Genius Paul Krugman.  The Time paid $1.1 billion in 1993 dollars in 1993...and collected $70 million in 2013.  Nominally, that looks like they rode that bitch into the ground to the tune of 93.3%, with a paltry 6.7% value remaining.  But no-one lives nominally, do they?  Let's see what those 1993 dollars were like compared to 2013 dollars...   

When the Times bought the Globe in 1993, with $1.1 billion you could have bought 2,957,000 ounces of gold (yup, nearly 3 million ounces), more or less.  Or 62,535,532 barrels of oil.  Today, with their $70 million, they can buy 53,411 ounces of gold (a purchasing power reduction of 98.2%, just 1.8% value remaining), or 651,344 barrels of oil (purchasing power reduced by 98.9%, or 1.1% value remaining)...a truly mind-boggling anti-investment performance!

Remember Steve Martin's ridiculous old skit? "I'm working on a new book...'How I turned a million in real estate into 25 dollars CASH.'" The econ. brainiacs at the New York Times apparently thought that was a serious instruction manual...

Another way of looking at this stupefying financial waste: If the Times had taken that $1.1 billion in 1993, and invested it into top-grade 20-year bonds, then running at more than 6%...They could have had both their cash stream of $1.1 billion-plus, PLUS the return of their entire principal TODAY.

Oh, amidst the big news today it seems almost everyone forgot that the Times REJECTED a buyout of the Globe 5 months back...that offer was for "more than $100 million."  Seems like the Times grossly overvalued its asset, and paid a $30 million-plus penalty for its greed.  Hey, I thought this suck-em-dry-for-maximum-profit capitalism stuff was supposed to be easy, if you didn't care about your employees?

Keep all this in mind the next time you hear some fantasy-world egg-head like Paul Krugman pontificating on subjects economic in the laughable pages of the New York Times.

SPECIAL BONUS LINK:  Just look at these NYTimes losers whining about their reduced pension fund payouts in this famous YouTube vid from last year...Can't imagine the projections have gotten any better, since the Times sold the Globe, but KEPT the Globe's $100 million pension liability.  Hilarious!: