Article: If Borders Books Shuts Down Will They Blame Obama?

I often wonder how those who assert that "the private sector is always better" get away with a constant repetition of economic lies, delusions and distortions. Obviously tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars in money from the Koch brothers and their ilk, make turning the mainstream media in to a huge Weapon of Disinformation a lot easier. Of course so much of the new "social media" is so easily manipulated, an army of committed bodies willing to "spin" or "tweet" anything that helps the cause may be more valuable than money.

But then, I am also amazed at how this same crowd has used religion and the belief that facts are unnecessary. Their claim seems to be that all you need to do is believe in God (particularly the Jesus version of God), country (The United States is not only exceptional, but divinely inspired), and the so-called (but basically non-existent) Free Market.

The biggest distortion right now is that regardless of what goes wrong, the conservative line is "blame Obama." Job figures suck? It's Obama's fault. Gas prices too high? Obama wouldn't let us drill. Ignore that any drilling that might have been approved on the day he was inaugurated wouldn't come on line for ten or more years. Doesn't matter. Barack's to blame. When you "believe" you not only don't need facts, you can ignore anything your opponents might refer to as facts. Those inconveniences are now known as "liberal lies."

In the last couple of years the Borders Bookstore chain has laid off in excess of 11,000 employees. I was one of them. They first started with layoffs, then closing stores, and finally earlier this year they filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As someone who worked for this once very special company one thing I can say is Barack Obama. had nothing to do with this. Frankly, neither did George W. Bush.

This weekend Borders must find a buyer who's willing to pay off the creditors, and commit to keep running the company as a going concern. If they don't find a buyer the court will approve liquidation of the remaining 300 or so Borders and Waldenbooks stores.

The company finds itself in this mess because for over a dozen years it has been plagued with successive regimes of lousy management. People who didn't see the future, didn't spot trends, and frankly, didn't understand the retail book selling business. Two of the CEOs in this period were brought in from Supermarket chains, one had Saks Fifth Avenue on his resume, and the current one allegedly did a great job salvaging a leather goods company. Bottom line: None of them knew squat about books.

If the company does shutdown you can count on two things. First, there's a good chance you might get a few books at terrific prices when a store near you liquidates. Second, when 10,000 newly unemployed workers get included in the unemployment statistics for August and September, you can be absolutely certain that every conservative die-hard true believer will blame Obama. No matter what the facts are, they'll believe it's his fault. In their little world of no facts, just belief, that makes it so.