Secrets of the City

Screw Denny Hecker.

Wow. Sign of the times.

Oh well, but the man’s a local institution.

I got wary when he got into the mortgage business.

Guys like that find a way to land on their feet.

Where’s the strib going to find another really annoying advertiser to put on their background image.

How is Metro Transit going to replace the ad revenue? Denny could be part of the reason you’re $2.25 instead of $2.75.

SUCK IT, Mr. “nobody walks” ads on buses!

That explains why Mike Anselmo just left the Hecker Empire and went to CBS Radio.

I had a business meeting with Anselmo a couple of months ago when he was COO of Advantage Rent-a-Car.

ps rat, while ad revenue is moderately important as a funding source, the times are changing. With any luck we’re going to see better sources of money coming down from the federal level soon, or at least a framework to secure better sources of local funding for transit. it has to be part of any energy solution, and I think the big O realizes this. I believe he was a co-author of a bill this last year about funding equity for rail transport (I’m thinking more the long-distance variety in the bill, I can’t remember exactly).

The current featured comment on the Strib story:

hmmm…
“Due to the sensitive nature of this story, comments will be reviewed before being published.” I think what they meant to say, “Due to the large amounts of ad revenues we receive from Mr. Hecker and his very fine business concerns, we will be reviewing comments before they will be published.”

Does Denny haunt your dreams, Wayne?

hardly. but I must admit I’m feeling a bit of schadenfreude about his troubles.

@erica

Nice.

David Brauer muses on the impact on local advertising this could have.

I know of no one alive who has a bigger crush on David Brauer than Bob does.

I’m also crazy about you, my little GOP darling!

I must admit I’m feeling a bit of schadenfreude about his troubles.

You can always count on wayne to loathe anyone with more chips in the game than he does.

Fucking disgusting, bob.

Holy shit! Kevin swore!

next: Pawn America?

Why Pawn America? It’s just a chain of second-hand stores. They get a nice mark-up (50-100%?) on the stuff that does sell, just like used record stores did.

Expect a lot of “equality” talk in the next four years, Octane.

“Equality, I spoke their words, as if a wedding vow.”

I still get the feeling that our boy Wayne is thinking Denny Hecker is taunting him with the “nobody walks” campaign because he doesn’t drive. Telling him he’s a nobody.

Saw this one from a mile away, you can’t service the low end of the market and not get bit when the dog gets hungry. These folks are the subprimers that were the first to fail. What worries me is the fact that plenty of non sub primers are now upside down as well. This won’t be the last local dealer to fall, walser lot was pretty much empty the last time I drove by?

Actually, all car salesmen should be loathed on principle. Almost all of them are complete dicks.

I should know, I’m related to a few.

In Hecker’s defense (and I don’t know him nor have ever bought or rented a car from him), the problem his business is in was created by Chrysler when they froze credit at all dealerships. But, yes, the mega-dealership model may only work for so long, and I think Denny has leveraged a lot of his assets to cover loans to grow his other businesses. It’s like a legal Ponzi scheme.

The whole American business model sucks … primarily because it relies on short-term results to fuel stock growth and “shareholder value.”

Hey Denny, “Nobody relies on cheap easily-flowing credit for a viable business model!”

Ohhhhh, burn!

ps, put that on a bus!

Denny Hecker deserves all the shit hes getting for his bus ads alone.

If you’re a bus rider you should be thanking him. He’s probably kept the fares down.

If I had the money I’d bailout Denny Hecker just to see all y’all lose your shit over it. Wow, you guys are really, really angry at him for reasons I’m not exactly clear on.

I don’t get the Hecker hate either.

I don’t think Denny is going to have to hock those pinky rings anytime soon. Did anyone see the 60 Minutes interview with Ted Turner? At one point he was losing something like $10 million dollars a day on his AOL Time Warner stock. Denny is not Ted Turner but he has a trunk load of money.

Wow, you guys are really, really angry at him for reasons I’m not exactly clear on

Wayne really wants to walk. g_rote hates anything that green. He turned me down for financing, the ratfink! I’ll make him pay!!!

@Dougie_D

Doesn’t Ted Turner still owe the UN a ton of money from a pledge.
I’ll bet he’s pledged several billion to NPR and PBS as well.
Hmph!

@bob

g_rote hates things that are green? Hmm…in hindsight that explains alot…

Ted Turner is still the largest individual land owner in the United States and owns huge tracts of land in South America. I think he still can probably make good on those promises. They said he is giving all that land away to conservation groups when he goes.

Land Ho!

Green is my favorite color.

There’s a 10 Questions with Ted Turner in the Time we got today. He says that none of these companies should be bailed out. I would guess that would extend to Mr. Hecker, as well.

I do enjoy a good bison burger at Ted’s Montana Grill.

no, rat. ad revenue, esp. his, only makes up a little bit of their revenue stream, and in case you didn’t notice, (I guess you wouldn’t notice) we ARE paying higher fares anyway.

There’s seems to be some confusion here. I don’t think Denny Hecker is anywhere near broke. It seems to me that he’s been in business long enough to know how to shield his personal wealth from his corporate liabilities.

I wouldn’t be suprised to hear Denny Hecker has enough personal wealth to bail out these failing businesses, but realizes it’s not particularly a good investment.