10 thoughts on “A Belabored Point Too Far With Adam Schrager”

1. He was dumb then, but he doesn’t look so dumb now.”

   He may have run his various companies into the ground, but as long as you an I are willing to ensure that he makes money, what’s the downside to him?

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2. But this seems like a huge screw up.  We all do that some time, and I hope Adam will fess up to screwing up on this one.

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3. Schrager will correct this, I have to believe that because he is a straight-shooting guy. I’d say he just lost track of a very, very important fact while gleefully writing in “the zone.”

   But yeah, gotta agree with Pols…damn. Couldn’t have gotten this more ironically wrong.

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4. who watches the watchmen?  apparently ColoradoPols.

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5. I appreciate your interest in the story and without question, I was not nearly as clear as I could have been in my writing. JeffCo Blue is kind to attribute it to “the zone,” I’d argue I needed to do a better job linking Cerberus to both Chrysler and Albertson’s. That point was not clear at all.

   That said, to the greater point, I did speak with the people behind the commercial and I don’t think the point I was making is off at all. They told me they were clearly referring to public frustration with bailouts of the auto industry and the banking industry and not that it matters, but they knew what I was writing and didn’t take issue with it.

   The bailout money for Chrysler was spent on Chrysler and not on Albertson’s operations. You’ve made an apples to oranges comparison. Unless you know the money was spent outside of helping Chrysler, is the point I made wrong? Again, I certainly didn’t clearly lay out Cerberus’s ownership of both businesses as well as I should have, but the point made about grocery stores not asking for government help was not ironic nor in error.

   Thanks again for the feedback.

   Adam Schrager

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   1. We weren’t so much concerned with whether or not bailout money had been paid expressly to fund grocery store operations. The point, even if unintentional on the part of the people behind the ad, is that a company very much involved in the auto industry “bailout” also owns one of the parties to the grocery store labor dispute.

      In that context, it doesn’t really matter if the money Cerberus got from the government directly helped their Albertson’s business, in fact given the profitability of grocery stores we doubt it did. The fact is, Cerberus is a privately-held company and there’s no transparency to really know. Either way, attacking the ad as “disingenuous” for making that basic link, when as it turns out the link is a hell of a lot more direct than most people probably knew before you explained that detail to your readers, without actually making the connection yourself is–you have to admit–pretty ironic.

      With that said, we think you do great work overall. This should be considered constructive criticism, only offered in the first place because we’re suckers for, well, irony.

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      1. Had Cerberus been bankrupted by Chrysler, they would have had to liquidate Albertson’s.

         To not connect the two would be like denying that social security and the Iraq war both contribute to the deficit because they have two totally different purposes, funding streams, and departmental authority. They are both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the federal government.

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6. Thanks again.

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   1. Wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone was so gracious about criticism. Thanks, Adam.

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      1. I second your sentiments.  

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