Terrific: Pennsylvania bails out Boscov’s!; Update: NJ, too
Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell is going to prop up bankrupt Boscov’s department stores — with your money. $35 million smackeroos, to be exact. How long before California Pizza Kitchen and the Cheesecake Factory and Spencer’s Gifts and Chuck E. Cheese get theirs? (Oh, and don’t worry. I’m still keeping tabs on the Newspaper Bailout Countdown Clock.)
Gov. Ed Rendell announced today that the state will direct $35 million of federal Housing and Urban Development money to Al Boscov and his family to help them purchase the bankrupt department store chain.
Rendell said the money will help Boscov secure the funds to complete the purchase in bankruptcy court.
Without the money, the department store chain may not be able to survive, he said. It has 39 stores and 9,000 employees in the mid-Atlantic region. Rendell said there are 25 stores and 5,000 employees in the state. Boscov’s is based in Reading.
“It would be devastating in the state of Pennsylvania to lose Boscov’s,” he said.
The family also is receiving $6 million in federal funding from the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Rendell said Boscov and other family members are putting in $53 million of their own equity.
Still, the family needs more funds to complete the deal. Rendell said the $35 million, in the form of a Section 108 HUD loan, is contingent on Boscov arranging the bridge financing to consummate the purchase.
A hearing has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday on the sale of the Boscov’s assets. Boscov’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Aug. 4 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
***
Update: Two county governments in New Jersey are planning Boscov’s bailouts out, too…
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- PA Bails Out Boscov | The American Pundit
- Now we're bailing out companies that are too medium sized to fail | Neolibertarian at large
- GOP House Conservative’s Should Dump Boehner | BigMouthFrog
- The Next Bailout: Healthcare | BobMaistros.com
- Moderate Blogger » Terrific: Pennsylvania bails out Boscov’s!; Update: NJ, too
- Michelle Malkin » Pennsylvania: You bail out department stores, we’ll take a pay raise!
- State legislatures really know how to lead | Conservative247
- Michelle Malkin » Bailout watch: Who’s grubbing now?
- State legislatures really know how to lead : Radio Vice Online
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Subprime crisis
Mudville Gazette
» The five-year plan
Stop The ACLU
» SEALs Charged With Assault for Arresting Top TerroristLegal Insurrection
» Is "Finish the Job" the New "Peace With Honor"?JustOneMinute
» Getting Ready For The TurkeySister Toldjah
» WaPo and NYT to Obama: We love ya, you stylish deep thinkerPundit & Pundette
» Hiding the decline: Deniers made them do itWeekly Standard
» McAuliffe, and Rudy, and Ford, Oh My!
Is it 2012 yet? Can we get the bums out of there sooner?
Wow. HUD money, redirected to an individual. Just wow.
I suppose Rendell’s thinking “In your face, conservtives! Support the party or you’ll be out in the cold.”
Part of me has limited sympathy for Pennsylvannians, since a majority of them voted to give their electoral votes to Obama, and since a majority in Murtha’s district stupidly re-elected him even after he basically told them they were a bunch of dumb, racist rednecks.
My sympathy for those that fall into neither of those categories. For the rest of you – you truly deserve the government you get. Suck it up.
thirteen28,
Well said.
AlohaGuy,
How long until our lei business gets its bail out?
I lost my business in the early ’90s. Is there any chance that this might be retroactive? I sure could use the money, on top of whatever other bailout funds I get.
Dear obambi,
Please give fatty fast eddie a job any damn job just get him out of PA!!!!
Just yesterday he said he wanted to hear no whining the state is already running in the red ( granted he left out the fact that all his spending has any part in that ) and things will get tuff.
Boscov’s is a crappy store who cares if it goes under. I wish someone would do one of those searches that show how much
someone has donated and to who, I’ll betya the Boscov family donated to GOP!! MWAHAHAHAHA
This is just getting ridiculous. I guess the new American Way is not to let ANY business fail??
What about Circuit City? CompUSA? Here’s a list of chains that are struggling:
Store Closings
Thirteen,
Count me in that pile of neither, my town/county went GOP and my congresscritter voted agin the bailout/supports troops etc.
Also, something my sister sent me… given the list above and the uncertain economic times, do NOT purchase store gift cards for Christmas gifts. You won’t know how well the store is doing, especially since a lot of people hang onto their cards for a long time.
Cash is always better anyway – wider choice, no hidden fees, and you won’t forget you have it.
I’ve heard that the porn industry is suffering because of free porn websites. Are they gonna get a bailout, too?
What about the typewriter industry? They deserve a bailout, as well.
Don’t forget the videocassette industry, the audiocassette industry, the 8-track tape industry, the…
Common,
They arent based in PA which in no way endorses what fatty fast eddie is doing.
Winchester, Smith & Wesson, and Remington certainly won’t need any bailouts at this rate.
Common,
I have heard that as well and have been passing that info along. good job
Tre,
your head will explode if you bother to
dig into the details of this crappy little store chain. It is a glorified
Dollar store kitted out as a Macy’s.
There is one hmm 3ish miles from me and I honestly do not know anyone who shops there. This is political payback pure and simple nothing more.
darn it!
note to self: clean up your linkie list.
lil help anyone:
do you have that link to who donated to who website?
This is insane. These bureaucrats need to face class-action public citizen lawsuits.
S.T.O.P.T.H.E.M.A.D.N.E.S.S.N.O.W.
While we’re bailing out Ford, GM, and Chrystler, we should really consider helping the De Lorean Motor Company.
okay found it:
here is the Boscov family donation
list ( dems and rinos ):
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/donor_lookup.php?name=Boscov
Paging Mr. Edsel, please pick up the white courtesy bailout phone, paging Mr Edsel….
AJ,
LOLOLO happy thursday you
Uh no, it wouldn’t be devastating. When I lived in the Philadelphia area, we lost many department stores…
John Wanamakers (got absorbed) and Strawbridge and Clothiers (absorbed) and Gimbals (can’t remember what happened to them).
The state survived.
The “Tucker” is the one they should have helped long ago, instead they screwed him royally.
okay more info to show you how podunk this store is, they have 39 stores so says link.
here is main website:
http://www.boscovs.com/html/homepage.html
Hi B….. happy T-day to you as well.
Let me get this straight. Person/family runs business into ground. Because times are tough, we’re going to hand them a bunch more money and tell them to give it another shot?
Between the election, the MSM, and the bailouts, I honestly think I’m living in Bizarro world.
I liked that Tucker movie, never drove one tho have you?
email rendell
http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm
Haven’t driven one but they have a beauty sitting over at the Palm Springs Air Museum.
Good thing Obama is getting us out of the war. We’ll have more federal money to spend on bailouts instead of the military.
/do I have to do the sarc thing?
John,
ahuh this company has been in the crapper for sometime has ZERO to do with any economic times ( not that is rational if it was ).
They are a glorified dollar store with
macy type prices.
I guess the good news is this means the real estate/mortgage mess has been solved that itty bitty crappy department
stores can get taxpayer money
Aj,
I have some black clothes and a screwdriver lets go for a ride
Hang,
oh yes they got big plans for that $ and much much more hmm there is a term for feeling rich with new $ and frittering it away hmm it escapes me at the moment am sure it will come to me.
#17 Send Me
I’d also like to see Indian Motocycle Company (Yes, it’s Moto, not Motor), and the Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle Company get bailed out.
I’d like to see tretorn resurected loved their white on white leather Stan Smith tennis shoes.
ahh yes the good ole days.
is this the dead/drinking thread?
I don’t care. No one launched a “bailout” when Mervyn’s went belly up.
ECS
“Too big to fail” continues to be defined downward.
The company I work for has 32 employees. Business has slacked off so everyone except the sales force is working reduced hours until it picks up again. How ’bout it Sec. Treas. Paulson? Can you declare us “too big to fail” and shoot us some of that bailout loot?
Ok.. so two counties New Jersey… the state with NO money… is going to make a loan to a retail business in the midst of huge retail down turn?
Have they lost their minds?
Let’s just give the Zippo to the Pyro folks? Don’t worry…
Just think – if they did the bailout thing 40 years ago I could have kept the old Rambler.
I count myself as a fiscal conservative but I gotta say: those are two bailouts I could support.
It would NOT be devastating to PA if Boscov family was not able to repurchase what is left of the company they ran into the ground.
a bad biz model is just that….
nobody ran to bailout Rite-aid with taxpayer $ when second generation
came close to destroying company.
He threw very festive parties with Daddy’s money but I digress
Seems to me there is a law regarding the direct transfer of wealth by the government to an individual.
Somehow we need to follow up and sue the clearly corrupt public officials, and stop this government transfer of money.
#39 James Felix.
HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA!
NJ,
another example of a PA company that did NOT get bailed out Zippo!
If you recall TSA rules damn near ruined them and they tuffed it out
sans taxpayer $.
Freddy,
laws don’t exist if nobody is willing to pay to defend them and that will be the mantra of the obambi admin as it was during clinton regime.
makes one barf doesn’t it?
Can we get Studebaker back in South Bend, Indiana?
Boscov’s is NOT a glorified dollar store. Think of it as a Walmart that is fancier, has less selection, and is 2 to 3 times more expensive. They do have random discount savings card that can save you from 5% to 50% on your purchase, but the fine print is a paragraph of all the items that can’t be discounted. (75%+ of the store, and anything that ends with 97 cents!) So yeah, big surprise it went under.
I bet most of the pressure to save the chain is from older people who have shopped their entire life. Someone needs to tell them they can get a much better refrigerator for half the price at Lowes!
studs that bake? I’ll buy one
There is only one remedy to this madness… quit paying taxes
Really,
it sure is a glorified dollar store, they buy/sell end of line closeouts.
There is pressure to save Boscov’s by elders? who claimed that fatty fast eddie? tossing bullcrap flag TOTAL BUNK
Surge,
agree reduce your tax footprint.
Chuck E CHeese could be a bank. They certainly get enough of my money.
No, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet buys and sells closeouts etc and they are doing fine. If Boscov’s had decent prices they probably would be doing fine. Also maybe they were selling closeouts now because they were going out of business.
I didn’t see Ed “It’s only 14 cents” Rendell specifically say it was because of the older population, but the current demographics show that Pennsylvania is an aging state. Plus I have been there enough to see who goes there.
Maybe we should get the Federal government to TAKE OVER the auto industry and run the whole shebang, like they did with AMTRAK……
Oh, forget it.
Yes. Military coup.
Uhm…I predicted this in the auto bail-out thread. Although, I’ve never heard of Boscov’s!
Any minute – but I have to prove utterly incompetent – then the money roles in.
This plan had been set up YEEEEEEArs before this election:
Read books like:Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky-
C-CS
I wish they would just burn the money. It’s still wasted, but it’s not the collective deciding which individual needs enriching. So maddening – the inmates are running the asylum.
I’d do that. I’d also like to see the IRS audit 60,000,000 people who do the same.
That would get the message across.
How about a bailout for Bitter Dave’s Bible and Gun Emporium? Business is great right now, but hey, everyone else is getting a bailout.
If we realllly want to we can get a lot of the bums in congress out in 2010. If we last that long, of course.
They’d make public examples of 60,000 to intimidate the rest.
It usually works.
It’d be better to work on ridding the nation of the IRS altogether.
Christmas comes early to democrap cronies.
Well, I think they should FORCE bailout money on Bitter Dave’s so the others getting money won’t feel shamed…
Let Boscov sell guns and ammunition without NJ’s draconian laws and they will be solvent by Obama Day in January.
For we Arizonaians: JD Hayworth is pushing building a fifty one foot ladder for J-No so she can scale her 50 foot border fence.
this blog is dead
…along with fiscal responsibility in the public sector. Ooops, my bad – it’s all public sector now.
where *MY* money??? I need a new loan!! bail me out!! I need a FERRARI, and a new MCMANSION!! come one!! I’ll keep people employed…a whole house full of ladies in french maid outfits…(if I can get that by the wife
)
a bunch of mechanics like Jay Leno, working on my classic car collection…oh yeah I’d like to compete in the Concours de Elegance in Pebble Beach..I NEED ME SOME MONEY!!!!
I’ll keep the economy going!! trust me…..suckers!!
John Deaux says
Same here. We live in a happy place now where no one loses, not allowed, failure is not an option.
Twenty years from now when the Iraqi’s are naming schools after George Bush the Obama library will still be looking for funding.
This new economic system is much to enlightened for me to understand.
GGGEEEEESSSS!!!!!
Hows about a helping hand for Starbucks? I mean, sheeesh …. I actually had to walk TWO BLOCKS to get a frickin’ latte since they had to close the store one block closer to work. WTF is this world coming to???
How about the taxpayers bailing out Starbucks? They’re set to shut down thousands of stores. Letting them fail is discrimination against people who pay huge sums of money for a cup of coffee. (crap on this puny “venti” size – I always ask for a “Big Gulp” but they never deliver. What’s with that?)
Wow, great minds think alike! …or was it that obvious? too weird.
Two people make a majority – Starbucks will be saved. Is $350 billion enough? Please print all Soviet slogans on the cups.
Pardon me if I’m stupid but where in the HUD Mission does it say “Prop up Mis-managed and BANKRUPTED retail chains”?
“HUD’s mission is to increase homeownership, support community development and increase access to affordable housing free from discrimination. To fulfill this mission, HUD will embrace high standards of ethics, management and accountability and forge new partnerships–particularly with faith-based and community organizations–that leverage resources and improve HUD’s ability to be effective on the community level.”
Their website seems aimed at HOUSING, like the name says not Ecconomic Crap Sandwich. Gee, how about you use some of those HUD FUNDS ON HOUSING LIKE THEY WERE INTENDED?
From my understanding these funds are granted for a specific purpose and any use other that that purpose is FRAUD. But as with all the Federal funds that were illegaly diverted in New Orleans, anybody want to take a bet on a GAO or Congressional investigation?
By the way, I was pleased the find that there are no Starbucks in Italy. The closest one is in Switzerland. The Big people at Starbucks are smart enough to know that there already in a bar on every corner that serves better caffe for less than a Euro.
Maybe they should move to Boscovs or some un-named automakers. We would be buying cars that cost 5 tiimes what they are worth, with built in coffee makers!
From what I can remember, Historaically speaking, every time the Dems have total control of both houses plus a Dem President, there is a MASSIVE retaliation against them over the next 2 election cycles. However, after the Repubilcn party pulls ahead they seems to get their HEADS STUCK UP THEIR COLLECTIVE A–ES! (Perhaps they already were, they were just kept locked away).
They all are a bunch of total POLITICIANS. Unfortunately, the behavior of our elected offichials as a whole has made the word “Politician” the worst insult I can think of. This is a very, very sad time in American history.
I’m with 1328 on this one. This is what PA and NJ voted for.
The skids are greased and we are accelerating into the abyss
We get FDR’s disastrous economic policies with JFK’s suicidal foreign policies. Nice.
If we’re not bankupt or smoldering in 4 years it will be a miracle.
I have purchased linens from Boscovs over the internet for several years. Suspect those low prices didn’t help with the overhead. They must have fired the internet staff early. I haven’t received an internet ad from them in several months.
I could not agree more.
This is nothing more than theft and fast eddy should be prosecuted for stealing government funds and transferring them to a private company.
This is absolutely ridiculous. The automaker bailout is downright logical compared to this. There are tons of American department store chains that actually turn a profit. Why should we care about Boscov’s? State pride? Who cares about state pride? People hardly care about national pride when it comes to bailouts, and rightly so.
There was a great piece on NPR comparing the auto bailout to a gambling industry bailout. He made a compelling case that the now-suffering gambling industry employs more people, in more states, and supports more governments than the auto industry. He said we should prop up and bailout gambling. Which is ridiculous, which was his whole point. It was superb.
I live and work in the Reading area. Boscov’s got into deep doo-doo when Albert Boscov retired and the “New Breed” took over. The new guys bought what was left of the bankrupt Federated Dept Store chain (10 stores in total) which put them on the hook for debt that they couldn’t repay when the economy went in the toilet. Albert will likely re-take control for now, but the kiddies that got the company in trouble are STILL THERE! This doesn’t bode well for the company’s future.