| Galileo Galilei: A great sport and a real kidder -- As the pope found out |
| ENTERTAINMENT DO-RIGHT (TM) |
| Looking back from the perspective of 2009, it would seem that CBS / Viacom had won the business competition with Taft Broadcasting / Great American Communications. Viacom was in possession of some of the former assets of Taft / Great American, and Great American itself had gone bankrupt. Among other lessons that may be learned from that is the power of a well-focused, well-executed satire. WKRP in Cincinnati had done a job. In the business dealings that went on in that time period--of the '80s and '90s-- pride had been on the table, along with money and physical assets. The CBS station in Cincinnati had exchanged call letters with the ABC station. The CBS station became "WKRC," while the ABC station became "WCPO." The ABC station had become the property of Scripps, which hearkened back to the days of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. Thus, the CBS station was stuck with call letters that had been made fun of in the WKRP series. It seemed clear that the population of Cincinnati had had mixed feelings about the series. To some, it had been funny and had helped keep Cincinnati on the map. Others had perhaps felt differently. In 2008, I spoke to Mr. Bob Gerding of Cincinnati, who'd filmed the opening sequences for the series. It was then the thirty-year anniversary of the show's debut. Bob didn't seem overly enthusiastic about being reminded. As late as early 2009, the WKCR web site didn't display the CBS logo. The web site itself was called: local12.com The curious reader may want to look at that site to see if that's still the case. Although CBS had been willing to make fun of me and use me extensively for verisimilitude, they hadn't been willing to report the plagiarism of my 1981 publication about Social Security. That publication had helped to resolve the Social Security / recession crisis of the early eighties, but others wanted the credit. After chairing the commission that won plaudits by plagiarizing my work, Dr. Alan Greenspan became Chairman of the Federal Reserve. You may read about those events by returning to the home page. But in 2008 there was a new financial crisis, also involving social security. The new crisis seemed likely to affect CBS / Viacom employees of different ages: Many Baby Boomers who worked or had worked for CBS or other components of Viacom faced possible disappointment with regard to their retirement benefits--both from the government, and perhaps from Viacom, itself. And younger Viacom employees could expect higher payroll taxes. Those employees may have been hoping that their salaries, after taxes, would at least cover a thrift-store wardrobe, along with shelter, and enough food so that they'd have strength to keep on working. Would those hopes be met? My recommendations for the current Social Security situation are outlined briefly on this site. They're presented for free, for anyone to look at. I'd question, though, whether someone else could plagiarize my work a second time and then make those purlioned ideas work. It's not that I'm so smart. There are certainly many people who are smarter than I am. And almost everyone is smarter than I am in some respects. But in implementing my new proposals for social security, intelligence isn't the only quality that would be required. It would also take a serious person with a long-term mentality and an interest in the welfare of society. And a person like that wouldn't start the proceedings by plagiarizing my new social security ideas. A person like that would foresee a problem in beginning a project designed to serve the needs of society with a cynical rip-off of what someone else was trying to do. After all, and by way of illustration, Alan Greenspan's plagiarism of my work in 1982 produced long-term problems. And since 1982 was a long time ago, some of those long-term problems have now "matured" and become the serious problems of today. And one other long-term problem was Alan himself. He vastly overstayed his period of usefulness at the Fed. In his last years there, he laid the foundation for the collapse of 2008 /2009. Indeed, more than any other single person, Alan was to blame for the tragic events that took place after his retirement. And, while the government seemed to implicity value my own contribution and wish to know about my later ideas, it also found it difficult to acknowlege my existence. You may read about how former Treasury Secretary, Mr. John Snow, tried to handle that tricky dilemma in another article on this site. In early 2009, it was unclear how the joke that had begun in 1978 with WKRP would continue to develop. If my friends at CBS were to decide to finally report Alan Greenspan's unethical conduct, the joke would then be, very fittingly, directed against the Greenspan clan. They were a fascinating bunch. You may read about Laura Greenspan/Gruen, the late Kalman Greenspan, and Mr. Rick Greenspan elsewhere on this site. You may read how they tried to steal my identity after Alan's retirement. In that way, the "joke" had continued to develop aspects that didn't meet the conventional definition of comedy. The question might have been, "Who will have the last laugh?" It seemed that the Greenspan family had discovered itself to be above all law and ethical strictures-- somewhat in the fashion of the Roman emperors. There were some disadvantages, demonstrated historically, to such an arrangement. The disadvantages weren't only felt by society--but often also by the families who were granted that form of inherited immunity. After all, sometimes the emperors went crazy. The reader may find information about all this in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. And, since I've mentioned Gibbon, here's a special tip for my friends at Viacom's show, The Insider: "Sometimes, I imagine, you may run short of the interesting program material necessary to captivate a mass audience. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire contains lots of material quite similar to the items in your nightly presentation. Specifically, there's all manner of scandal and bad behavior. This is "old breaking news", so to speak, news which can still be relished today. "And all for free, with no danger of a libel suit. "Check it out." In early 2009, the "joke" actually seemed to be settling on CBS / Vicacom--along with others who'd continued to idolize Alan Greenspan as a living God, even after he was long out of office. In the last quarter of 2009, CBS lost nine billion dollars. Other media sources--TV stations, newspapers--were also in trouble. But CBS / Viacom--and other US media outlets had failed to report on corruption at the Fed. People in the media thus deserved to feel the effects of the resulting economic downturn. People may not like me for saying this, but there was also an element of comedy in the misfortunes being felt by the general public. The public had behaved badly in the way it had handled money. There was a need for greater responsiblity. As for me, I was hoping I'd shown myself to be "a real sport and a great kidder." (Or is that a great sport and a real kidder?") Perhaps I'd even rid myself of that 1973 drab goody two-shoes persona which I alluded to at the beginning of this article. continue |
| My ideas, in outline, on how to get through the crisis of the Baby Boomer retirement era. CLICK |
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