The Obama economy is not working out too well for elite journalists. No wonder so many of them work actively to undermine the workings of the market economy, and put their faith in the radical left. When consumers are sovereign, they have no regard for the prestige and perks that matter so much to the ink-stained wretches, and their bosses. Those who staff the upper echelons of the New York Times' newsroom, and those who aspire to such heights are wee-weed up (to use President Obama's phrase) over the axe hanging over the heads of even the senior levels of the Times. Dylan Byers of Politico reports:

The media business was shaken on Friday when it was reported, first in New York Magazine and confirmed by POLITICO, that managing editor John Geddes, assistant managing editor Jim Roberts, dining editor Susan Edgerley, former Washington editor Rick Berke, and former Times Magazine editor Jerry Mazorati could all be casualties of the Times' effort to cut costs.

"It is hard to imagine there are too many sacred cows left in any newsroom, given the general state of our industry," Raju Narisetti, the head of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and a former Washington Post managing editor, told POLITICO, without specifically responding to the New York Times cuts but talking about ongoing cost cutting efforts across American newsrooms.

Of course, the New York Times has gone through previous rounds of buyouts and layoffs, but there is no security left for the survivors. Now, it is the middle and upper echelons of the Times' news bureaucracy -- the people whose butts in chairs are the most expensive - which feel the most heat, there is much lower-priced talent available, able to provide "more bang for the buck" if such a gun-related metaphor can be used in the current anti-gun climate at the Times.

Unemployed and economically insecure intellectuals are considered by historians to be a crucial element in stoking revolutionary unrest (or what President Obama likes to call "fundamental change"). Expect more agit-prop from the Times, which acts as a pilot fish for the rest of the American media, and consequently an even more left wing tilt to the MSM.

Update: The richest part of the Times' moves is the elimination of the Environment Desk, and the assignment of its two editors and seven reporters to other departments, as noted by Inside Climate News.

Any way you want to spin it, America's "paper of record" no longer considers alarmist, sky-is-falling coverage of the climate and energy beats worthy of the full-court press of a dedicated staff. Go figure.

Ed Driscoll of PJ Media discusses what this means for the green movement, just as Al Gore has, in effect, declared victory and cashed out.