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Oh, dear Lord, when will this agony stop?
By adamg on Sat, 05/16/2009 - 9:39am
Sarah Schweitzer once again makes the tears stream down our faces, with her plaintive cri de coeur on the wrenching downturn on Nantucket:
Sensing a potentially hard summer, businesses such as the Nantucket Gourmet are cutting back inventory. The store is stocking fewer Cuisinarts, jars of Nantucket Secret Spice and Nantucket Pepperguns - the sorts of things that private chefs tend to dash in for before a dinner party. Other businesses are competing in ways they have never had to before. John Merson, who rents renovated historic homes, said he is throwing in a catered dinner and groceries as part of the $5,000 weekly rental price this year.
"People are asking for discounts, bargaining hard," he said. "I am trying to use services to compete so I don't have to negotiate price."
When will it ever end? And you, Mr. Outraged Liberal, you are not helping with your crazy talk:
... Here's a novel idea for the lifestyle beat. Can we hear a word about the lives of the dwindling native island population who have been up against the gun for years as the off-islanders came in and jacked up the cost of everything?
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Comments
The Horror
I just finished reading this story with a roll of the eyes. Dinner parties on Nantucket are suffering from the recession! The horror! These types of stories - the pandering to the well-to-do - is one of the reasons I think the Globe has lost its connection with its readers. The story fits the profile perfectly. Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/dyapea
My first thought why don't we ever get stories like this about Fitchburg or Leominster? In fact, we don't even get them about Sandwich.
Indifference
I'm mostly indifferent to this story. Perhaps it was written to inform or service the well-to-do. Perhaps someone thinks it reassures the non-wealthy that the wealthy are feeling the crunch too, well, kinda, not so much. Perhaps the relevance is in the slowing trickle-down.
One wealth article that grabs the interest of the non-wealthy was in the NYT in January: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/nyregion/28daba....
Warning: Exercise caution when portraying wealthy in unflattering light. Fomenting class warfare is not without its risks, especially when a newspaper might soon need a deep-pocketed sugar daddy to bail it out.
Formal Statement by Sarah Schweitzer Fan Club
If you approach the article as a seeker of real-time economic information and less as an anti-Keynesian morality nag you can see its implicit (or explicit? I didn't read it) prediction for continuously declining sales-tax revenue and payrolls.
NPR has done good features...
...on the serious financial hardships faced by some year-round Cape residents. A shame this piece couldn't tap into some of that reality.
The Wealth Reporter
Schweitzer covers wealth and features for the Boston Globe.
Schweitzer
Schweitzer has to go!
Her stories are a waste of time, energy and paper.
Every time I see something with her name on it, I avoid it!
Please, Boston Globe...make her stop!!
one more time,
they're not writing for us, they're writing for themselves. We're a meal ticket until the Great American Novel is published. (Besides, have you ever seen a place where class warfare was more successful than MA?)
Gotta believe that she's a legacy
A relative of one of Pinch's squash partners. "Lovey, please
have the manservant call Marty Baron. We absolutely must do
something for that girl. The Crowninshields were so gracious to
us about using their Gulfstream last summer..."
Bad news is that if the Newspaper Guild approves the current
offer, she goes from 37.5 hours/week of trivial inanities to
40 hours/week of trivial inanities.
Maybe the local business
Maybe the local business owners in Nantucket can take a lesson from the Globe and the Commonwealth. When business is off, raise prices 25%.