Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (032206)

Free Links:

• The Gallup Polling Organization Drops CNN after 14 years — It’s because Gallup doesn’t want to be tied to one network and wants to get into “e-broadcasting,” but despite CNN denials, it’s also, based on a memo Drudge obtained, because CNN doesn’t pull in the viewers: “CNN has far fewer viewers than it did in the past and we feel that our brand was getting lost and diluted combined with the CNN brand. We have only about 200 thousand viewers during our CNN segments.” Even as recently as 1999, who would have thought this could happen? I won’t be happy until the CNN programming at the airports gets replaced with Fox. Update: Media Bistro’s TV Newser has CNN’s strong response (”unprofessional and untrue”), claiming that Gallup was going to go its own way regardless, and citing international ratings to refute Gallup’s low ratings claim. I’m not buying — I would think that with minor exceptions all Gallup cares about is domestic viewers.
• Schlussel Is Exactly Right — On the occasion of NFL Commissioner Paul Taglaibue’s retirement announcement (effective in July), she points out that professional football has profited on the backs of taxpayers. A previous BizzyBlog post on the topic is here (”Pro Sports Owners and Athletes: Supersized Welfare Queens”). The reason players can command such ridiculously high salaries is that taxpayers have built the stadiums and removed a cost from the equation that should be borne by the owners. With the market distorted in that way, a lot of money is freed up to bid on, and bid up, the talent. Add to that the idea of the “salary cap” (which to diehard fans is really a salary goal — if the owner isn’t spending the money, he MUST be a greedy pig who isn’t interested in winning), and you have a recipe for ever-escalating costs and every owner having the ability to hold his city hostage if facilities aren’t kept state-of-the-art. Example: Indianapolis is in the process of building a brand-new stadium, only 22 years after the Hoosier Dome was built to entice the then-Baltimore Colts to Indy.
• Schlussel Is Right Again (that’s the usual situation with her) About Something Else — HBO’s “Big Love” manages to deal with polygamy, and totally ignores its practice in the US by Muslims. I think the word she was looking to describe HBO’s failure to deal with this starts with “chicken” and ends with “t.”
• Geez, it’s hard to keep up on everything, but I did notice that our friends the mainland Chinese have, according to Reporters Without Borders, imprisoned a dissident for 10 years (HT RConversation, whose daily links on online freedom, especially in China, should at least be skimming material). The story was also picked up by PC World (HT Drudge)
• If it weren’t for the fact that ignorance has consequences, the Free Market Project’s report on a conversation between dimwitted talking head Ann Curry and reality-based Jim Cramer would be funny. Trouble is, it’s the Currys of the world, who think the sky is falling because they still think consumer prices are jumping (they aren’t), and who don’t realize that the demise of General Motors, if it even occurs, won’t weigh that heavily on the overall economy, who appear on the nightly news shows.
• Romantic notions die hard — Like the myth of wondrous free health care in France. Here are 12 datelined events that should disabuse people of the notion that going in that direction here in the US would be a good thing (HT Don Luskin).
• A Corrupt Congressman You Probably Haven’t Heard of — It’s hiding behind a subscription wall at Roll Call, but No Agenda has a lot of the story at his place. This guy’s making REPUBLICAN Randall “Duke” Cunningham, who the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as The Mainstream Media) have covered breathlessly, look like a smalltime operator. (Do you really have to ask what party William Jefferson of Louisiana is with?)