Would-Be Savior May Step In To Bail Out the NYT; Of Course, the NYT Called Him a Robber-Baron Thief 18 Months Ago

If this deal goes through, I don't think they'll be calling him a robber-baron again.

The NYT's editorial on Mexican media magnate/monopolist thief Carlos Slim Helu (called "Mr. Slim" instead of "Mr. Helu;"):

Mr. Slim is richer even than the robber barons of the gilded age…. It takes about nine of the captains of industry and finance of the 19th and early 20th Centuries — [John D.] Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John J. Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Stewart, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Jay Gould and Marshall Field — to replicate the footprint that Mr. Slim has left on Mexico.
But the momentous scale is not the most galling aspect of Mr. Slim’s riches. There’s the issue of theft.
Like many a robber baron — or Russian oligarch, or Enron executive — Mr. Slim calls to mind the words of Honoré de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” Mr. Slim’s sin, if not technically criminal, is like that of Rockefeller, the sin of the monopolist.

Slim is wealthy enough to bail out the NYT precisely because he enjoys the near-monopoly they fret about. Notice, however, they're not unwilling to accept the money of a monopolist thief. They can rail about how horrible this ill-gotten loot is, but when push comes to shove, they want some of it themselves.

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM

Comments

1 Also, they'll use nothing but centered text.

Posted by: someone at January 19, 2009 01:53 PM (1wXl7)

2 If I were Mr. Slim, I'd be having a ball thinking up conditions upon which I would do the deal.

You know something like: Okay how about I bail you out, and then how about you eat me?

Posted by: Hotspur at January 19, 2009 01:53 PM (c158/)

We'll suck your dick for $5.

Love you long time!

Posted by: New York Times at January 19, 2009 01:55 PM (mAhn3)

4 What would it say about Mr Slim?

Posted by: vinman at January 19, 2009 01:56 PM (idc+/)

5 I still want it to be Murdoch and for him to chisel out Times and replace it with Post.

A girl's gotta dream.

Posted by: alexthechick at January 19, 2009 01:56 PM (SHHaV)

Mr. Slim calls to mind the words of Honoré de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

I'm sure they must have had the Kennedy's in mind right there. Maybe not.

Posted by: Eleven at January 19, 2009 02:00 PM (7DB+a)

I hope he is just teasing them. I hope he strings them along for a while then stops negotiations at the last minute and leaves the hanging.

BTW, did anyone see the commenter who thinks the Times is dying because they became too conservative. Talk about batshit crazy.

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at January 19, 2009 02:02 PM (5GNS+)

8 Well, the NYT has a slim reader base and has a slim view of the facts. And a very slim profit margin. So it works.

Posted by: lorien1973 at January 19, 2009 02:05 PM (IhQuA)

9 Kind of an expensive way to convert your reputation from a public thief to a savior of the cherished Fourth Estate and champion of Free Speech. But it's guaranteed to work.

Posted by: George Orwell at January 19, 2009 02:06 PM (AZGON)

10 "Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

Rich coming from a newspaper who's editors should be in prison for committing treason.

Posted by: Bald Ninja at January 19, 2009 02:15 PM (4pdbX)

They can rail about how horrible this ill-gotten loot is, but when push comes to shove, they want some of it themselves.

Sad to say, but that description fits some of our politicians as well.

Posted by: EC at January 19, 2009 02:18 PM (mAhn3)

12 I think the NYT realizes their chances are Slim and none.

Posted by: sherlock at January 19, 2009 02:25 PM (G9/8V)

13 Is he a white knight, or a brown knight? At any rate, hope he treats NYT like some common hoodrat.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at January 19, 2009 02:58 PM (n2eCn)

14 The NEW YORK SLIMES deserve to go bankrupt its years of lies half truths and bias has finialy cuaght up with it

Posted by: Spurwing Plover at January 19, 2009 03:00 PM (ONTtC)

Mr. Slim calls to mind the words of Honoré de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” I'm sure they must have had the Kennedy's in mind right there. Maybe not. Posted by: Eleven

No. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. You know them. Obama's new best friends.

Posted by: Greg Toombs at January 19, 2009 03:01 PM (URFAu)

16 NYT, meet the real Slim shady.

Posted by: Jazz at January 19, 2009 03:03 PM (hnq5i)

17 So, he bails them out. You still have to get people to read the damn thing.

Posted by: richard mcenroe at January 19, 2009 03:05 PM (LYHHB)

18 I think the NYT realizes their chances are Slim and none....no shit sherlock

LOL

Posted by: t at January 19, 2009 03:05 PM (xSPT9)

19 Whateveh...doesn't bother me. I can't read Spanish.. and besides I haven't read the NYT for 4 years.
^{Don't see it happening anyway}

Posted by: sickinmass at January 19, 2009 03:11 PM (/i4dU)

Wow. That is pay back in a major way. They write a pissy editorial about him, he buys the paper, walks in on day one and fires the entire editorial staff. If I were him, I would make them dance first and call me "El Guapo."

I was I was that rich. Of course, I am lazy, so there is that hurdle to get over.

Posted by: JamesT at January 19, 2009 03:11 PM (cTHUy)

So, he bails them out. You still have to get people to read the damn thing.

Maybe he can bring The New York Times into the 21st century. Maybe he can work out an arrangement with a mobile telecommunications company to offer the paper's content on mobile devices without having to get all 3rd-gen, total internet about it. If he could pull that off, then maybe that'd be the new paradigm for media, and The New York Times would be at its leading edge.

Posted by: FireHorse at January 19, 2009 03:16 PM (5KNeJ)

22 Would you say I have a plethora of newspapers?

Posted by: Carlos Slim Helu at January 19, 2009 03:20 PM (PD1tk)

23 "El Tiempos de Yorko Nuevo" Has a nice ring to it. If just a tenth of the Spanish speaking people of New York City alone read it, that will still double its current readership.

Posted by: bergerbilder at January 19, 2009 03:38 PM (FkfJJ)

I think the NYT realizes their chances are Slim and none....no shit sherlock

I couldn't believe it when I searched the comments and that comment had not already been made... it was the fattest hanging curve I have seen in a long time. Things are really going to hell in a handbasket around here.

Posted by: sherlock at January 19, 2009 03:43 PM (xqzGc)

25 #24 Too elementary, my good man.

Posted by: Fourth Virginia at January 19, 2009 03:55 PM (OjuC4)

26 People really have no idea just how powerfull the man is. He pretty much owns Mexico.

Posted by: Saint at January 19, 2009 04:41 PM (DdGB0)

They write a pissy editorial about him, he buys the paper, walks in on day one and fires the entire editorial staff.

We can dream. More likely this is his way of buying favor with the Democrats now that they run te show.

Posted by: flenser at January 19, 2009 04:52 PM (m6yoq)

28 Apparently as more details come out, it appears that the deal might be a 250 million dollar loan at up to 10 percent interest.

It would be interesting if Slim uses the Mexican Mafia to collect..

Hopefully Pinch got himself the kind of deal that the restaurant owner in Goodfellas got with Paulie...

" Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? Fuck you, pay me."

Posted by: kbdabear at January 19, 2009 05:09 PM (miw86)

29 I posted this at Patterico's website...

“The 68-year-old telecommunications tycoon [Carlos Slim] is said to be discussing a large purchase of preferred shares. The talks are ongoing and may fall apart, as they probably would need the consent of the Sulzberger family, including publisher Arthur Sulzberger, who control the media powerhouse through its ownership of preferred shares.

The preferred shares under discussion would carry no voting rights, but pay a dividend, according to the report. His current stake puts Slim among the largest non-Sulzberger owners of the Times.

The Times is under the gun to raise cash as a $400 million credit line expires in May. The recession has squeezed the paper, which reported a 21 percent drop in ad revenue in November.”

Maybe it’s me - who would want to put their money in a business that is going in the tank by buying preferred stock, but having no voting rights? Wouldn’t you want to have some say in how the money you invested is being used? The Times, like the majority of the MSSM (Main Stream Socialist Media)sold its soul to the Devil along time ago, and it’s time for them to pay.

Posted by: Buck Naked - Pron Star at January 19, 2009 05:19 PM (utes0)

All of this shit about the “robber barons” and monopolies just perpetuates a myth created by the original “progressives”, otherwise known as the Democrap Party. The only thing Standard Oil was guilty of is reducing the price of kerosene and getting favorable deals from the railroad. “Trust Busting” was the start of the government’s foray into excessive regulation.

You can bet that if Standard Oil had actually been guilty of something they would have been prosecuted. The same thing goes for others like Microsoft.

Posted by: Vic at January 19, 2009 05:30 PM (f6os6)

Let him bail them out. It's not like they are ever going to be profitable. With him as a patron, they will even be less inclined to do what it takes to stop the red ink.

Eventually he, or his heirs, will tire of the constant bleeding of money for no return, and disolve the company.

Posted by: Log Cabin at January 19, 2009 05:39 PM (BCJzc)

32 I hope you guys realize that the Sulzberger family has a racket going with the difference in the various shares that anyone is allowed to own in the NY Times. The family shares have full voting and dividend rights, all other investors get a special dividends decided by the family. Investing in that newspaper is a sucker's bet.. Slim would essentially be giivng the family a loan with no power to control anything at the company.

Posted by: jmchez at January 19, 2009 06:19 PM (wwAl7)

33 Didn't see that Buck beat me to it.

Posted by: jmchez at January 19, 2009 06:24 PM (wwAl7)

34 More inaccurate tripe from the NYT's:
It takes about nine of the captains of industry and finance of the 19th and early 20th Centuries — [John D.] Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John J. Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Stewart, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Jay Gould and Marshall Field — to replicate the footprint that Mr. Slim has left on Mexico.

Modern fortunes (Buffett, Gates, Slim) cast pale shadows against the fortunes amassed by some of the individuals cited here.

Posted by: thegreatbeast at January 19, 2009 07:30 PM (lghqx)

35 Wow, I followed that link and here is what Starbuck/Dirk Benedict writes:

"There was a time, I know I was there, when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result."

So true, so sad... and a touching reminder of the nation I grew up in not that long ago, one that somehow seems so hard to recognize these days.

Posted by: CoolCzech at January 19, 2009 07:39 PM (iafWn)

36 I might add that Dirk's take on the new BSG is devastatingly correct:

Witness the “re-imagined” “Battlestar Galactica,” bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects in microcosm the complete change in the politics and morality of today’s world, as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama), Fred Astaire (Starbuck’s Poppa) and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he’s in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it...

Re-imagining”, they call it. “Un-imagining” is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith and family is un-imagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of ambiguous morality in which we live, one would assume. A show in which the aliens (Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy human civilization, one would assume. Indeed, let us not say who the good guys are and who the bad are. That is being “judgmental,” taking sides, and that kind of (simplistic) thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Kathryn Hepburn and John Wayne and, well, the original “Battlestar Galactica.”

Posted by: CoolCzech at January 19, 2009 07:42 PM (iafWn)

37 34: Oh, absolutely!

Mentioning some joker that likes to call himself Slim in the same breath as the men that created the modern steel industry (Carnegie) or train industry (Vanderbilt) or oil industry (Rockefeller) just shows what a vllage of idiots the NY Times building is.

Posted by: CoolCzech at January 19, 2009 07:51 PM (iafWn)

the NYT is taking its open borders philosophy very seriously.

Posted by: mark c at January 19, 2009 08:30 PM (EVmYn)

39 The Times repeated a very common misquotation of Balzac: it essentially states that all wealth results from theft, which is the premise of socialism.

What Balzac actually wrote in Le Père Goriot was

Behind every unexplained great fortune lies a forgotten crime.

which is very different - and not socialist.

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