The Tall Grass Bends

The Barney Frank of Vermont Calls It Quits
(Burlington Mayor Bob) Kiss will surely be remembered as the Burlington Telecom mayor, but in his own mind that story is incomplete. He has not yet accepted blame for the financial debacle the municipally owned fiber-to-the-home company represents to many residents, and when the issue comes up, he invariably refers to Burlington Telecom as an “asset” to the city, as if the debate has been about whether to go with the dazzling new information highway of the Internet or with the telegraph...When he first took the oath of office, BT was not a problem. The issue bedeviling the City Council was the underfunded pension fund (still a problem). (Burlington Free Press, 12/1/2012)


Like Barney, Kiss will be remembered for creating financial ruin and refusing to own up to it.


Preferences
The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model—so successful in the 20th century—is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century. In an era when countries need to become economic teams, Team USA's results—a jobless decade, 30 years of flat median wages, a trade deficit, a shrinking middle class and phenomenal gains in wealth but only for the top 1%—are pathetic...While we debate, Team China rolls on. Our delegation witnessed China's people-oriented development in Chongqing, a city of 32 million in Western China, which is led by an aggressive and popular Communist Party leader—Bo Xilai. A skyline of cranes are building roughly 1.5 million square feet of usable floor space daily—including, our delegation was told, 700,000 units of public housing annually. (Andy Stern, WSJ, 12/1/2011)


After greasing the Democrat Party with union dues, being paid off in jobs, wages and benefits and ultimately causing financial ruin, former SEIU President Stern has found a better economic model. Communist China! You can't make this stuff up.