Hmm…What’s that smell? Just some good, ol’ fashioned hackery — this time coming from Bloomberg View.
In a piece titled “Trump’s Misguided Approach to Tax Reform,” the supposedly pro-business editorial board of Bloomberg attacks the president’s tax outline as “unwise” and fiscally irresponsible. In other words, a collection of pretty boiler plate liberal concerns that you might find at the New Republic or the New York Times.
Except the platform wasn’t some liberal enclave, it was Bloomberg. Christ, the site is named after one of the ultimate symbols of modern capitalism and business success: Michael Bloomberg. The former New York City mayor is the same guy who called raising taxes on the rich “about as dumb a policy as I can think of.”
So what gives? Well, it might be because the senior editor responsible for editorials is David Shipley, the former Deputy Editorial Editor of the New York Times and ex-husband of Naomi Wolf, the third-wave feminist and author of Vagina: A New Biography. He also served as President Clinton’s Special Assistant and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.
In case you need a refresher, The Times isn’t exactly acknowledged for its sophisticated economics coverage. Home to bearded lunatic Paul Krugman, its Editorial Board has repeatedly declared that there are virtually no economic arguments against a $15 minimum wage and that studies suggest the opposite (without ever citing said studies), despite all the contrary evidence.
Alas, The Times used to be more sensible before it started hiring people like Shipley. In 1987, an editorial declared “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.”
So what’s he doing at a place funded by a multi-billion-dollar business servicing Wall Street? Shipley has, to the best that I can tell, little economic expertise and nothing in his past suggests otherwise . (He did, however, co-write a book in 2007 — I’m being serious — titled Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home which helps readers “[dissect] all the major minefields and pitfalls of email”).
If I had to guess, I’d say the chiefs at Bloomberg were feeling some guilt one day and decided to engage in a bit of self-flagellation by hiring a liberal who gets paid to tell them to stop being so rich.
Meanwhile, one can only wonder how those Wall Street Bloomberg subscribers paying more than $20,000 a year for their terminals feel when they read anti-business rants…on their terminals. Revenue from the terminals, after all, pays the salaries of the Bloomberg editorial board.
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