Moments in Hackery

An article in a pet trade magazine Pet Age about the worries of the pet industry in regards to an Obama administration is pretty awesome in its ability to be such a worthless piece of hack-job journalism. Congratulations to Cathy Foster. As Atrios would say. Wanker of the Day!

For starters this is piece has a lot of quotes from various pet shop owners. Most of their quotes are full of right-wing talking points and not a single quote was published from a source who felt an Obama administration may stregthen their business, despite Pet Age's own (unscientific) poll showing that 25% percent of respondents thought that an Obama administration would be better for their business compared to 33% who thought they would be worse off. I have given interviews with Pet Age magazine over the last year and we were never asked our view on this issue when it was out there for everyone to see. Ms. Foster could have hardly looked far for an opinion contrary to the article she wanted to write.

Now, granted there were more people fearful than hopeful, so what does this mean. I think this goes to the heart of our industry where so many people fear us coastal liberals trying to take away their money and what-not. Even when an Obama administration are probably more aligned with thier views.

Is this Obama fear because most pet store owners are making more than $250,000 a year and are worried their taxes will be raised. Maybe but I doubt it. I think it is a lot of misinformed people worrying about their taxes being raised such as a person quoted in the story.

Larry Greenberg, owner of Animal Magnetism (Naples, Fla.), also is worried his taxes might increase under the Obama administration, despite campaign promises that only those who make more than $250,000 would see a tax hike. “A week before the election, he changed that $250,000 to $100,000. Who knows what it’s going to be? It will definitely affect individuals and Sub S corporations. What about [other] corporate returns?”

Now I am sure some Pet retailers are worried about the Obama Administration and their bottom line, but I think the economy and health care are going to be much bigger factors in our collective economic outcomes than a potential tax increase.

A National Health Care plan of some sort would take the health insurance burden off of the small business, I thought a good thing for struggling small business. Better protection of our natural resources will allow more people to experiance herps in the wild and bring about a better appreciation of them and lead to more people wanting to care for them in thier homes as pets, again I think a good thing for the pet reatiler. If people are worried about more regulations in regards to pet quality of life, then maybe they need to examine the treatment of pets in puppy mills etc.

In addition to worrying about the new administration’s effect on the general business climate, some pet retailers who sell puppies and other pets also are concerned it could pave the way to extreme laws regarding animal sales. “That’s certainly possible,” said Greenberg. “If more rampant liberalism takes hold, then certainly the more radical as well as the more moderate pet organizations could certainly get some legislation through that would harm the business.”

Because rampant Conservatism has been so good for business. In case people have forgotten, he has been President during this economic disaster.

But back to the point of wankery, this was a very one-sided article and I am not arguing balance for the sake of balance, but even Pet Age's own poll shows that there are a far more people who think that the Obama administration will have a positive or no effect on their business that think there will be a negative affect, but you would never know it from this article.