Fox News Parent Says the British Government is Vindictive, Campbell Soup Wants More, More Salt in Your Diet, The Social Security Trust Fund Has Been Stolen . . .

And Comments on the News of the Day

  

Apparently the New Corp (parent of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal)  is horrified, horrified  at the treatment they are receiving from the British.

The feeling among some executives is, "If the U.K. government is going to be this vindictive, maybe we should just sell out altogether and let them see how these [newspapers] do without [us]," one person familiar with the matter said, referring to politicians' efforts to dig into reporting tactics.

Well The Dismal Political Economist can certainly understand how offended they would be that the British government is investigating illegal acts like police bribery, interfering with a criminal investigation, accessing confidential medical records of a child and the like.  When asked shouldn't the News Corp. should be “contrite” a spokesman said “Can you explain what you mean, we don’t understand that concept.”

Campbell Soup is going to help increase the  deterioration of the health of Americans and the rising cost of medical care by

a series of investments over the next year in an attempt to spur stagnant sales and fix its key soup business—including trying to make its products tastier by adding back more salt.

This news is all the more amazing to anyone who has ever eaten Campbell’s soup products, since that experience would convince a person that no more salt could be added to the product.  Apparently the researchers at the company have found a way to make their product even less healthy than was thought possible just a few years ago.

A Columnist for the Wall Street Journal joins the battle of the Fox News parent in Britain with the opinion that the fault lies with the British public.  The logic here is that because Britain tolerated exposes of the lives of celebrities, this excused the News Corp's unethical and potentially illegal behavior. 

In 2002, the British government considered making it illegal for news organizations to offer tell-all financial deals to jurors in ongoing criminal trials—and to dangle a larger payment if the verdict were to be guilty.

In the end, it was decided to rely on press self-regulation, but—forgive a late hit here—wasn't the overarching message that all of Britain was in connivance with the boundary-stretching of its tabloid press?

Well yes, this was certainly the fault of the British people, and oh yes, conservatives, how did that “self regulation” thing work out for you?  About as well as “self regulation” of the financial industry one would say.

One possible result of the failure of the Congress to increase the debt ceiling is that Social Security payments cannot be made.  Michelle Bachman said “We don’t believe that for a moment,” and her companion at the news conference, Rep. Louie Gohmert said

“I would encourage the Speaker (Mr. Boehner) not to believe the president anymore, because the fact is that if he does his homework, he will find that there is such as thing as the Social Security Trust Fund,”

Well, unfortunately according to Sen. Tom Coburn, (R, Ok),

Congresses have “stolen” the trust fund intended to make the American people secure in retirement.



“We have stolen $2.6 trillion from it."

So gosh, sorry Rep. Gohmert, you and your colleagues have already stolen that money, none left to pay anything unless you can convince your Republican majority to give it back.

Good Luck with That!