re: #298 jamesfirecat

Personally I’m none to fond of FDR’s plan to increase the size of the supreme court either to tell the truth. That said the key question is, if the NYT are a weather vane, what “wind” do they listen to?

They have a 200 million dollar line of credit. They didn’t get it from a local Credit Union.

“Business Interests
The dominant owners of The New York Times Company-a holding company-control a large and complex business organization, which had 1997 revenues of $2.9 billion and earnings of $262 million. Among its 50 or more subsidiaries, the Times Company owns 21 newspapers in addition to the New York Times and Boston Globe, 8 TV and 2 radio stations, various electronic and other news and distribution services, a magazine group with a specialty in golf, forest products companies, and 50 percent ownership of the International Herald Tribune, with the Washington Post owning the balance.
The holding company’s Class A stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and traded at about $65 per share in February 1998. The Sulzberger family owns 17.5 million shares of the 97.6 million Class A shares outstanding, or 18 percent; but it owns at least 87 percent of the 425,000 Class B shares, which are entitled to elect a majority (nine) of the 14 directors. The value of the Sulzberger family holdings in February 1998 aniounted to $1.2 billion. In 1997, family members Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. also drew compensation from the company in salaries, bonuses, and options, totaling $1.5 million and $1 million, respectively.
These owners regularly associate with other rich and powerful people, who are anxious to cultivate the acquaintance of those who control the country’s most influential newspaper. Such contacts occur on the board of the holding company, which includes business leaders drawn from IBM, First Boston (a major investment bank), the Mercantile Bank of Kansas City, Bristol-Myers Squibb (drugs), Phelps Dodge (copper), Metropolitan Life, and other corporations. The company also has a $200 million line of credit with a group of commercial banks, and periodically uses investment banks to underwrite its bonds and notes and help it buy and sell properties. These financiers and business executives press for a focus on the bottom line, and they would not be pleased if the Times took positions hostile to the interests of the corporate community (which, contrary to right-wing mythology, the paper does not do).”

Haven’t had time to validate this source, but it’s not obviously whack:

thirdworldtraveler.com