Yes, I Would Like Him When He's Angry

Steve:

Target Markets
* "Although the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times both looked at property tax increases across the city on Tuesday, neither paper mentioned that across Chicago, black and Latino neighborhoods will see the highest percentage hikes in their bills," the Chicago Reporter notes.

"Four out of the five community areas with the highest percentage increase - West Garfield Park, Fuller Park, Englewood and North Lawndale - are predominantly black, according to The Chicago Reporter's analysis."

* "The morass of mortgage foreclosures continues to climb its way up the Chicago area's socioeconomic ladder," the Tribune reports.

"Once commonly viewed as a problem affecting low-income urban neighborhoods, new data show the greatest percentage increases in foreclosures are occurring not within the city of Chicago, where they declined during the third quarter, but in the suburban collar counties, which are using their limited means to help residents."

* "Homeowners make the best of life in unfinished subdivisions," the Daily Herald reports.

-

Okay, so it's tough all over. But no one channels yuppie angst like the MSM. My God, how to cope? Cut back on that Starbucks! And if you lose your job, remember: It's not your fault. Not like the poor people who are unemployed. Not like the blue-collar workers who lost their jobs when this country's manufacturing base disintegrated. That was just economics. That was for the greater good. But my God, what's wrong when people don't want to pay for crappy news?! Can't they see they need irrelevant reports of random crime in order to know what's going on?!

-

I'm confused. Are we supposed to be sad that - as David Carr writes in the New York Times - "while the business of business may be back, the business of covering it with heroic narratives and upbeat glossy spreads most certainly is not."

I mean, isn't that great news? Isn't that kind of business coverage part of the problem?

"Business coverage has been, at its heart, aspirational, a brand promise that suggests that if you clip the right articles, internalize the right rhetoric, then you too will end up as one of the shiny, happy people striding boldly across the pages of magazines with names like Fortune, Money, Fast Company and Wired."

In other words, business "journalists" have been the handmaidens to shysters and sharks, criminals and charlatans.

"But nobody is going to read, let alone aspire to, magazines called Middled, Outsourced, Left Behind and Clobbered."

Really? Put a dot-com behind each of those titles and try not to attract a readership.

"It's as if American business has lost custody of its own story."

If only!

But isn't that the point of journalism? You wouldn't want government in custody of its own story, would you?

Stop the madness, folks. Please. I can't take much more of this.

A.

Comments

[MapleStreet]

Definitely agree with the article. Bottom line says it so good - what if Boehner were in charge of the story ?

But I'd also like more details. Why are the property taxes spiking in the Black and Latino neighborhoods ? Are they fixing the neighborhoods up / rejuvenating so that the values are going up ? Or are these distressed areas that the formula is unfair ?

[whet moser]

"But nobody is going to read, let alone aspire to, magazines called Middled, Outsourced, Left Behind and Clobbered."

Really? Put a dot-com behind each of those titles and try not to attract a readership.

Srsly. Are we that far removed from FuckedCompany?

-

@MapleStreet: Gentrification and local tax policy. Property tax increases have been capped by only taxing the value of the property above a certain level. This is being phased out, so in a sense property tax increases are "catching up" to what they would have been with a lower or nonexistent cap.

Since gentrifying neighborhoods see the largest increases in home values, the change in the property tax is higher, exacerbated by the removal of the cap - and of course the cap will be closer to the value of the property in areas where values are lower.

I do think the Chicago Reporter was being a bit unfair to the Trib and the Sun-Times coverage. If you read the Sun-Times article they refer to, you'll find this:

"Critics said the plan mainly benefitted yuppies. But Houlihan points to the accompanying chart as proof the West, Southwest and Northwest sides were the main beneficiaries and will now be hit the hardest by the phaseout."

They specifically mention West Garfield Park, and the property tax increases are broken down by neighborhood. They weren't explicit about it, but locals with a cursory knowledge of the city would, I'd think, understand the import.

[pansypoo]

butbutbuty than is WONKY. more masters of the universe fluffer articles!