Bank of America-subsidiary Detroit News says bank tax will hurt ecnomy

The news of an ownership change of a major newspaper drives another nail in the 30-plus year successful Republican political strategy of the liberal media.

Ownership of newspapers by a few mega-chains is not only hurting quality as the bottom line mentality rules the newspapers, but corporate ownership is also having effect on editorial policy.

The Associated Press is reporting that Affiliated Media Inc., the holding company for newspaper publisher MediaNews, filed for bankruptcy on Friday. Among MediaNews' properties is The Detroit News, which it acquired from Gannett in 2005. Bank of America will hold 80 percent of Affiliated Media Inc., meaning that the bailed out bank owns a controlling interest in one of Michigan’s largest newspapers.

There is no doubt that the mainstream media is conservative.

I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that just a few days after Bank of America acquired a controlling interest in the newspaper, it published an editorial today saying that President Obama’s proposed bank tax will hurt the economy?

Banks received millions of dollars under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to stop them from going under because in their quest to reap more in profits they made bad loans contributing to the mortgage crisis that led to the economy’s meltdown. But now those banks are refusing to loan money to drive the recovery and giving huge bonuses to employees instead.

The president’s proposal would enact a 0.15 percent levy on bank, thrift and insurance companies with more than $50 billion in assets and would start after June 30. It would not apply to certain holdings, like customers’ insured savings, but to assets in risk-taking operations. It will be levied for 10 years, but it would remain in force longer if all losses to the bailout fund, the TARP, were not recovered after a decade. The Treasury now projects that the losses from the $700 billion loan program, which was created in October 2008, could reach $117 billion, about a third of the loss that it projected last summer According to the New York Times.

It seems pretty logical; pay back what you owe us before you give bonus to your employees and CEOs. Banks will have no problem harassing you if you owed them money.

But the Bank of America-subsidiary Detroit News thinks otherwise. What’s really funny is who they use as a source: Rightwing think tank Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Give me a break.