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hopes/dooms du jour,
June, 2004
[Commentary] ©2004 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Sq, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080 - HOMEPAGE

    6/30/2004 wed. - see 7/03-05 for fiscal-year roll-ups
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 711 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/29/tue: 775 (7/01/2003/tue: 834)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:
    1. tomorrow, July 1, Calif.'s new Paid Family Leave Law goes into effect, providing up to 6 weeks of partially paid leave to care for ill parent or domestic partner, or for new or sick child
    2. Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan revels in free time
    3. UK moving to crack down on long hours
    4. case in point - UK managers overloaded
    5. meanwhile 2 Siemens sites in Germany are going backwards, from 35 to 40 hours
    6. some say many Germans already - or rather, still - working 40 or more (never saw 35?)
          •      click here for details
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizings, totaling unspecified new jobs - mutual funds farm out compliance jobs required by new industry regulation aimed at preventing scandals - Bisys Group is one of several firms supplying outsourced chief-compliance-officer jobs (j.D9)
    2. 'conservatives' boil over attention paid to Fahrenheit 9/11 (j.B2<1) = 'Moore haters'?
    3. dollar rises on consumer-confidence data (j.C6) - but dollar bears are still growling - currency avoids meltdown but current-account deficit is worry (j.C6) - and despite 'economic upturn', few employers are reversing recent benefit cuts (j.D1>2) and medical bills in particular were a problem for 20m families last year, forcing tradeoffs between buying healthcare, food or housing (j.D1>2) - so consumer-confidence survey must be pretty selective
    4. Major League Baseball's online arm is taking a stand against spyware by not taking ads from firms that rely on spyware in their Internet ads (j.B3)
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector) inefficiency = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating 5600 new ‘jobs’:
    1. Army sets plan to call up 5600 retirees, others for Iraq or Afghan duty (t.A1, j.A5) = the unvoted draft gouges deeper - watch recruitment plummet lower
    2. reality intrudes on promises in rebuilding of Iraq, but US [=Bushies] tries to intensify efforts - of 2300 planned projects, fewer than 140 are under way (t.A11) - compare below: the lights are not quite on all over Baghdad... (t.A11)
    3. Halliburton will record $815m in charges, reflecting problems with offshore project in Brazil & asbestos-litigation costs (j.A1>3)
    4. 5 educators without duties accused of playing hooky - 5 asst. principals whose jobs were eliminated were reassigned to personnel office for Region 9 at 22 E.28th St., Manhattan, & given no (zero) job responsibilities except 7hr:40min day of face time after they rejected some tasks, saying they were not in their job description - they spent dozens of working hours shopping at nearby world-class stores, trailed by investigators with cameras (t.C14) - compare retirement story below = educators are really getting slimey

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  1. CEOs simulate UPsizing thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale - (archives):
    1. National Senior Care PLC to acquire Mariner Health Care Inc. for $1B (j.B3)
          •      after takeovers, usual next step (cumulatively lethal) = downsizing - downsizing slows, takeovers rev :: takeovers slow, downsizings rev
  2. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, 173 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      17% workforce cut (173 jobs lost) as El Paso Corp. lowers production the self-mutilating way, instead of just trimming 17% of its workweek (to 6hrs:38mins a day for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and purchasing at least 83% as much natural gas as usual (j.B3)
  3. CEOs constantly UPsize their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-starving levels:
      Computer Assocs. investment group, Sam Wyly's Ranger Governance Ltd., sues over past executive pay - says more than $1B was paid based on faulty financial data (j.B9)
  4. CEOs & sometimes ordinary Texans DOWNsize everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      1000s of Texas teachers are rushing to retire before lucrative loophole in Social Security law closes today - most pay into a state pension & not into SocSec, but loophole yields SS benefits as well if last day of work is in SS-covered job, such as janitorial work - over 3500 Texans have used it since 2002 (t.A18) = all kinds of Texans are getting accomplished at shaking down the rest of the nation
  5. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. chill wind - economy's growth rate already seems to be slowing down (j.C1)
    2. US boom may be Calif. bust - almost all the factors that the Calif. electric-grid operator worried about have moved toward making blackouts more likely (j.B5)
    3. Abu Ghraib, stonewalled - while piously declaring its determination to unearth the truth about torture, the Bush administration has spent nearly 2 months obstructing investigations by the Army & members of Congress: editorial (t.A22) - add that to Bush's obstruction of the 9/11 commission & of attempts to find out who in the White House leaked CIA agent Plame's identity & who was in Cheney's energy taskforce &c &c...

    6/29/2004 tuesday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 711 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/28/mon: 849 (6/30/2003/mon: 877)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. South Korea moves from 44- to 40-hour workweek for companies of over 1000 employees this Thursday, July 1
    2. near-sighted top executives in Belgium start the hew & cry for going back to longer working hours
          •      click here for details
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. chinks appear in Bush's business armor (j.A4)
    2. Bush's rating falls to its lowest point, new survey finds - NYT/CBS News poll says job approval down to 42%, lowest of his pResidency (t.A1) - maybe we can get rid of this walking disaster in Nov. after all if he hasn't fiddled the voting machines too much
    3. Bush has their Irish up - Alan Murray finds that Bush is widely disliked in Ireland - it matters because the Irish can't figure out how a people they like so much could have elected a leader they dislike so much (j.A1>4) - answer: we didn't elect this slime mold; a packed Supreme Court crowned him after mega voter exclusion & fraud by his bro Jeb in Floriduh
    4. justices affirm legal rights & access to courts of 'enemy combatants,' even at Guantanamo (t.A1) - in classic check & balance [for a change], Supreme Court shows Bush it also has wartime powers - - no president is above the law, ever (t.A17) - compare: Court bars tactic of delayed Miranda warning - officers were asking the same questions before & after suspects were advised of their rights (t.A17)
    5. Colorado's highest court ruled the state's school-voucher program is unconstitutional because it deprives local boards of control over education (j.A1)
    6. independent truckers commenced a strike to US ports to demand more pay & right to organize (j.A1) - compare French truckers, who are always striking
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday for "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. Pentagon brass and military contractors' gold - Edward Aldridge's storied career exemplifies the dizzying spins of the revolving door between the Pentagon and is military contractors - he worked under Defense Secy Donald Rumsfeld until last year & now sits on the board at Lockheed Martin, which gets more than $20B a year in military contracts (t.C1) - more than enuf to hire armies of lobbyists to keep it all comin' regardless of the national interest
    2. more American residents than ever have highschool & college diplomas & degrees, altho blacks & Hispanics trailed in most categories (t.A21) - the degree mills of potentially interminable post-secondary "education" are our 19th realm of 'Mercan makework

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  6. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, ?? jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      unspecified cuts as Arcelor plans to invest up to $1.2B in Brazil's steelmaking industry, part of a strategy to move production to low-cost areas (j.A1>2)
  7. CEOs DOWNsize everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      Mass. Gov. Romney acts to foster disclosure about pension funds (j.C6) - why should any action in this direction be necessary, you should rightly ask
  8. CEOs simulate UPsizing thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale - (mega & banking archives):
    1. National Grid Transco PLC, one of Britain's biggest utilities, to buy the UK operations of Crown Castle International Corp. for $2.04B (j.C15)
    • after takeovers, usual next step (cumulatively lethal) = downsizing - downsizing slows, takeovers rev :: takeovers slow, downsizings rev
  9. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Orion Telecommunications Corp. in Chapter 11 (t.C5)
  10. DOWNsizing results = more homelessness in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):
      surge in homeless families across U.S. sets off debate on cause (t.A22) - gee, that's such a TOUGH one - how can we possibly figure out why there's sooo much homelessness in the 'richest nation in the world,' the 'Land of the Free,' today? could it be the Chesterton pan-utopian trap? alias the marginal utility of concentrated income & wealth, alias the dread 'Black Hole economy,' alias eutrophy & dystribution?
  11. DOWNsizing results = more prison inmates (archives):
      for prisoners in Guantanamo, only certainty is right to a court hearing (t.A14) - compare editorial: reaffirming the rule of law - part of the new 'normal' that Bush ushered in after 9/11 was a radically broader view of govt's power to detain people - yesterday the Supreme Court delivered a stinging rebuke to these policies, making it clear that even during the 'war' on terror, the gov't must adhere to the rule of law (t.A26) - so is the pot ¾ empty or ¼ full?
  12. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. message to Bush: today, you still own Iraq - yesterday's ceremony wasn't a handoff, it was a fumble: MoveOn.org (t.A5)
    2. who lost Iraq? Bush with his toxic mix of ideological obsession & cronyism - let's say the obvious: by making Iraq a playground for rightwing economic theorists, a job agency for friends & family, & a source of lucrative contracts for corporate donors, Bush did terrorist recruiters a very big favor: Krugman (t.A27)
    3. the sullen minimum - businesses don't pay employees what they think their skills are worth, as per 6/24 editorial; they pay the minimum necessary to hire employees = big difference - in moment of honesty, manager at major corporation explained, 'your pay is designed to keep you sullen but not mutinous - if you're satisfied, it's too high; if you quit, it's too low' - no mention of skills: Sherman Siegel of King of Prussia PA (j.A15)

    6/26-28/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
    - keep hope-vs-doom comin' with $5/mon. check to Timesizing.com, Box 622, Cambridge Ma 02140 -
    - #visitors to any of our 710 files, F Sa Su: 355,449,490 - wk's daily avg: 587 (but system failure on Wed.)     -
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

    1. 2 San Francisco activists put together National Leisure Day on June 25
    2. shorter hours don't harm EU competitiveness says MIT prof
    3. worksharing ends need for mandatory retirement = a good thing since work is key to longer life
    4. more on useless union in Germany - IG Metall caves in to longer workweek
    5. focus from NZ on selling shorter hours for parents - but risky cuz just creates class system, disses overpopulation concerns & ignores need to share all endangered employment, not just parents'
          •      click here for details
    + random glimmers of hope indexing (j) Wall St.Journal, (t) NYTimes or (g) Bos.Globe (archives):
    1. 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Michael Moore's anti-Bush film, posted $21.8m in ticket sales to set new first-weekend record for documentaries (6/28 j.A1>B3, t.C1>B1)
    2. Kerry's running mate - Max Morath (the musician?) of NYC: how about inviting the delegates at the otherwise pointless Dem Convention to select? (6/28 t.A18)
    3. the long trail to apology - resolution of formal apology to American Indians for "a long history of official depradations and ill-conceived policies" has quietly been cleared for Senate vote (6/28 t.A18)
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now on 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday
    + clouded hope = makework = PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):
    1. the price of war: op-chart - Lawrence Lindsey was right in Sept/2002 when he said Iraq war could cost $100-200B (6/28 t.A19)
    2. when computers take over the subways - Ansel Barnum of NYC: how did NYC Transit come to conclusion that $287m would be better spent on increasing train speed than reducing train noise? - addressing a convenience trumps correcting a health hazard? (6/28 t.A18)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & g (Boston Globe):
  13. DOWNsizing appetizers = takeovers (archives):
      US is regaining an edge over Europe in M&A activity, per prelim 1st-half data (6/28 j.A1) - "USA: first in swallowing its own tail"? - contrast smarter continent: Europe's banks resist urge to merge (6/28 j.C16)
  14. DOWNsizings, totaling 2600 +?? lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):
    1. 2000 more jobcuts on top of 13,200 others announced earlier this year as MCI compensates for declines in long-distance calling rates & intensified competition (6/26 t.B1>4, j.B4)
    2. 15% of core-business workforce cut (600 jobs lost = current 450 + previous 150) as Bradford & Bingley PLC London mtg bank overreacts to rising interest rates' erosion of profits, instead of maintaining its part of the consumer base by trimming its workweek by 15% (to five 6¾-hour days for whole firm including top execs), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 85% as many mortgages as before (6/28 j.B4)
    3. unspecified cuts as Mayor Richard Daley closes 100 of Chicago's "worst-performing" schools within next 6 years replacing most with charter schools using private money (6/26 t.A9) - America continues its trip back to the 18th century prior to universal public education, under the ideology of "privatize everything!"
    4. unspecified German dept-store cuts by KarstadtQuelle AG (6/28 j.B4)
  15. DOWNsizing overviews noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. Bush is out of touch on economic ills, Kerry tells laid-odd Ohioans in Massillon OH - adding fast-food jobs is not going to raise people's quality of life (6/26 t.A10)
    2. the pace of outsourcing work from USA to India is picking up, in part because controversy over the trend has publicized India's low costs & expertise (6/28 j.A1>3)
    3. Saturn workers ratified a new contract that avoids paycuts at the unprofitable GM division but weakens layoff restrictions (6/28 j.A1>2) - more labor stupidity = placing short-term concessions over long-term survival
  16. DOWNsizing results = dysfunctional executive pay:
      ousted chairman of Shell, Sir Philip Watts, got $1.93m package - severance equal to remaining pay for the 3 months till his retirement, in addiction to pension of $1.06m PER YEAR - last year, he got $1.5m salary plus $1.057 in stock options - some investor groups called it a sign that shareholder rights still too weak (6/26 t.B3) - no kidding
  17. DOWNsizing results = 1 new bankruptcy (archives) in WSJ (j) and/or NYT (t):
      The Art Store Inc. et al. in Chapter 11 (6/28 j.B6)
  18. DOWNsizing results = eroding-retirement noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. Medicare lottery to provide 50,000 with drug coverage - 450,000 others must wait until '06 for insurance - HHS Secy Tommy Thompson estimates 500k-600,000 without coverage are eligible (6/26 g.A3) - the Bush 'administration' climbs ever higher heights of flabbergasting stupidity - even intelligent prioritization & rationing would be better than this, if the self-duped "richest country in the world" can't afford universal coverage like every other developed nation
    2. how sick is Social Security - perhaps not as sick as you think (6/28 j.A1>R1) - ah, don't they mean "not as sick as we've previously told you" in an attempt to scare us into lowering our expectations & accepting further SocSec looting
    3. two pension funds sued current & former Shell executives and directors to seek a shareholder vote on corporate restructuring (6/28 j.A1>3)
  19. DOWNsizing results = 1 homelessness story (archives): 
      when faith and duty collide - NYC police officer Eduardo Delacruz faces loss of job after refusing to arrest a homeless man in Nov/2002 - 'I didn't see them as homeless; I saw them as people' - police commissioner's zero tolerance for homelessness results in arrests for the most minor of infractions (6/26 t.A13) - America's 180-degree turn back 400 years to black&white puritan theocracy ricochets on
  20. DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
      the price of prisons - 13,000,000 Americans have been convicted of felonies & 'done time' - more than the population of Greece (or Austria, Belgium or Portugal, or Sweden, or Norway & Finland combined) - of 650,000 inmates to be released this year, 2/3 will be back behind bars in a few years - state prisons alone cost $30B/yr, never mind federal, county & city (6/26 t.A26)
  21. headlines from hell (tm) from (j) Wall Street Journal or (t) NY Times or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. global stocks in waiting mode (6/28 j.C16<1) - & in waiting mode they'll stay as long as M&As alternate with downsizing & outsourcing and we put off timesizing
    2. fixing up the national parks - so far a sad tale of an idealistic vision undermined by govt neglect (6/26 t.A26) - & barred from self-financing via cost-determined fees + market-pricing of mining & logging on federal lands
    weekend roll-up -
    5 issues/wk - wk's avg homepage hits/issue: 51
    hope of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 13 TIMEsizing items   • 3 UPsizings (1030+ new jobs) 
    + bogus hope: • 10 makework items (?? new 'jobs')
    vs. doom of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 7 DOWNsizings, over 3450 jobcuts   • 5 bankruptcies  
    • 4 eroding-retirement stories   • 3 homelessness stories   • 8 prison stories  
    {{ytd: 448 timsizngs (1636+ new or sav'd jobs) + 80 upsizngs (91181+ new jobs) + 213 makwrk (36803+ 'jobs') =
    tot: 129620 = 42% of cuts, VS. 246 dnsz (305693+ cuts) + 104 bnkrp ($416m+) +25 homlss +92 jail +16 deth }}


    6/25/2004 friday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 710 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/24/thu: 751 (6/26/2003/thu: 795)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. Wall St.Journal discovers world has enough food, but the poor can't afford it, so poverty, not hunger, is the problem - but next epiphany is that there's no poverty where there's full employment - and next: there's lots of employment but too few jobs, ie: overly high workweeks
    2. powerful German union too weak to prevent relengthening of workweek
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. switching candidates, Lee Iacocca backs Kerry - was outspoken supporter of Bush in 2000 - says tho all his best friends are Republicans, 'we need a new CEO and a new president' - says decision made not as a partisan but as an unabashed patriot (t.A18)
    2. Gore says White House is eroding democracy (t.A12) - from USA to USSR in one administration
    3. Iraqis, seeking foes of Saudis, contacted bin Laden, says Iraqi intelligence file - but this was way back in mid-1990s long before 9/11 plan (t.A1)
    4. federal appeals court orders rethinking of rules allowing large media to expand (t.A1) & suffocate free speech
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday for "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  22. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, 400 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      1.6% workforce cut (400 jobs lost, ¾ in US) as Campbell Soup Co. abreacts to weak soup demand by suspending 400 of its own best customers & their families, instead of just trimming 1.6% of its workweek (8 minutes a day for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and purchasing at least 98.4% as much soup as usual (t.C3)
  23. CEOs simulate UPsizing thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale - (mega & banking archives):
    1. Enron, which owes creditors more than $74B, sells gas pipelines for $2.35B (t.C3) - but in next item, 'Lockheed refuses to extend merger deadline' for Titan Corp. to resolve federal investigation - no settlement, no juicy $1.68B offer
    • after takeovers, usual next step (cumulatively lethal) = downsizing - downsizing slows, takeovers rev :: takeovers slow, downsizings rev
  24. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Parmalat Finanziaria SpA et al. under Sec.304 in Southern NY jointly (j.B6)
  25. DOWNsizing results = more homelessness in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):
      give geese a chance? not near La Guardia Airport - proximity of 495 Canada geese endangers planes - they will be caught, slaughtered & donated as food to 2 homeless shelters (t.A22)
  26. DOWNsizing results = more prison inmates (archives):
    1. Kerry message begins leaning toward center, ie: rightwing (t.A1) - 'there they go again!'
    2. testimony places top military intelligence officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, at scene of Iraqi prisoner's murder = more revelations re Abu Ghraib (t.A14)
    3. legal scholars criticize Bushie Justice Dept. memos on torture - sharp attack on memos' professionalism & quality of legal work - abominable, embarrassing, just short of reckless - memos' scholarship is extreme, one-sided & poorly supported by legal authority cited (t.A14)
  27. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. redneck Citizens United says ads for Michael Moore's 9/11 film violate campaign finance law's advertising prohibitions (t.A20) - 'anything we do is fair; anything other side does is unfair!'
    2. High Crime oops Court justices' ruling postpones resolution of Cheney secrecy case till after election (t.A19) - a loss for open gov't: editorial - blocks thrust of Congress's Federal Advisory Committee Act which wants public to be able to monitor influences on gov't policy makers (t.A24) - & trashes George Soros' vision of 'open society'
    3. while part of hypocrite White House tries to legislate-out bad words in broadcasting, Cheney violates Senate protocol & tells Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to f*ck off (t.A18)
    4. Bush interviewed in leak of CIA name - no indication pResident is target of inquiry (t.A16) - oh c'mon, what goes on in his White House is his responsibility, just as it was for Clinton
    5. US (ie: Bushies) seeks a deal, but not a formal accord, to shield Americans from Iraq's courts - aiming to protect soldiers and workers without undermining a new gov't (t.A14) - get real, this is just more of 'you suckers obey the laws; we Bushies do whatever we damn well please'
    6. Wolfowitz says journalists in Baghdad afraid to travel & therefore publish rumors, then apologizes with 'deep regret' (t.A13) - another Bushie flip-flop
    7. 'errors' on terror - squishy math and national security - Bush's yearly report, 'Patterns in Global Terror' issued in April and reporting on 2003, ends list of significant terror attacks on Nov.11 despite several major incidents Nov.12-Dec.31 - claims sharp fall in terrorism when significant attacks in 2003 actually reached 20-year high (t.A25)

    6/24/2004 thursday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 710 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/23/wed: 389? = system down? (6/25/2003/wed: 824)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. Kerry should be pushing for shorter maximum hours, not higher minimum wages
    2. backward French finance minister Sarkozy is in full flight, attacking the French exception (35-hour workweek) despite avowed nationalism
    3. backward German interior minister Schily attacks teenage shorter-hours rules as old-fashioned despite his own advanced years (71)
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizings, totaling unspecified new jobs - Roche Group sets plans to spend $639m on building 2 biotech drug factories in Europe (j.A12)
    2. the current (GOP-controlled) 108th Congress: a failure on every count: op ed by Albert R. Hunt (j.A17)
    3. US (ie: Bushies) drops plan to exempt GIs from UN court - outcome is tied to Iraq prison scandal (t.A1) = another Bush flip-flop
    4. agency tightens rules on outside work - Nat'l Institutes of Health is planning to tighten restrictions on its scientists' work with drug companies (t.A18)
    5. AOL employee charged by US prosecutors in spam probe - conspiring to sell AOL's entire list of subscribers to potential spammers (j.B1>9)
    6. SEC toughens corporate governance rules - approves rule requiring mutual-fund companies to have 'independent' chairmen (j.C1>D9)
    7. venture capitalists are pushing on the accelerator again - downsizings down temporarily but takeovers up and now VC up (j.C1) - but misleading indicator - VC is sorta like covert charity since so much of it has no returns & it leaves the downward spiral intact
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday for "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. Senate votes 97-0 for $447B for Pentagon, vs. House's $117B pkg passed yesterday (t.A16)
    2. Brazil's armored cars find a space in Iraq (t.W1)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  28. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, 100 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      14% workforce cut (100 jobs lost) as American Italian Pasta Co. over-reacts to weak pasta demand by deactivating 100 of its own best customers & their families, instead of just trimming 14% of its workweek (to five 6hr,53min days for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and buying at least 86% as much pasta as before (j.A12)
  29. CEOs constantly UPsize their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-starving levels:
      Tyco former lawyer Belnick tells that payments to ex-CEO Kozlowski's wife & girlfriend weren't disclosed to regulators because they "weren't relevant to a probe of the company's accounting" (j.C5) - oh no?
  30. DOWNsizing results = more homelessness in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):
      NYC Mayor Bloomberg urges major overhaul of city shelters - cutting homelessness by 2/3 is aim - proposing to build 1000s of units of new housing & put new restrictions on city shelters - advocates for the homeless applaud (t.A22) - so we're de-escalating the problem from homelessness to joblessness - good, that's where we should have been focused in the first place
  31. DOWNsizing results = more prison inmates (archives):
      High Court justice, Anthony Kennedy, supports American Bar Assn. plan to ease mandatory minimum sentencing (t.A14)
  32. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. one party (Republican), zero budget: editorial - GOP leaders are failing one of the annual tests of effective gov't: enacting a new budget (t.A26)
    2. sorry, you're only getting a 3.5% raise again - if you thought an improving economy was going to get you a bigger raise this year, guess again (j.D2) - so the truth about the 'improving' economy would be??
    3. marketplace - loosening up some Depression-era limits on selling stocks short (t.C3) - more near-sighted undoing of hard-learned lessons of Depression - compare Glass-Steagall repeal, toughening of personal bankruptcy...
    4. 2 books in defense of globalization, eg: Why Globalization Works (j.D10) - if true, why does it need any defense? - globalization assumes it's all about different geographic zones; our book, Football of Time, assumes it's all about different timeframes, and explains why globalization does not work

    6/23/2004 wed. - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 710 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/22/tue: 822 (6/24/2003/tue: 772)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. employers' association in New Zealand bellyaches self-destructively against spreading & activating the islands' wealth and in favor of loading people with overtime work
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizings totaling 1030 new jobs -
      1. 1000 new jobs as Guidant Corp. doubles size of its operations in Ireland (t.C4)
      2. net 30 new jobs as Jostens Inc. class rings & yearbooks closes plant in Red Wing MN & cuts 147 jobs while moving diploma production to 3 other plants & hiring 177 (t.C4)
    2. new values debate over prisoner abuse could hurt Bush - as nation mourned Reagan, Bush held news conference in wake of Wall St.Journal report that administration lawyers had drafted legal justification for torture - 3 times, journalists gave Bush chances to condemn use of torture & distance himself & USA from such practices; he didn't - now even Gingrich has blanched, saying lawyers should never define public policy on values, & key element of American identity is belief that everyone has inalienable rights - this values-debate will turn on issues much more important than Monica Lewinsky (j.A4)
    3. US Senate votes to restore limits on media ownership (t.C1) - a setback for neo-con attempt to turn American media into Pravda & Izvestia
    4. US charities face increased reviews by IRS as Senate considers strengthening oversight - working to clean up what Sen. Chas. Grassley calls a cesspool (t.A13)
    5. as Repubs spin bogus recovery, Kerry shifts to hammering 'middle-class squeeze' (j.A1) - he could also point out the "recovery's" 2m welfare families, 6m 'disabled', 930k youth homeless, 2.2m prison inmates, 30k/yr suicides & countless force-retired, force-unretired, force-self-employed regardless of clients, force-part-timed single & multiple, & those forced into 'Kramer' limbo
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday for "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. House votes 403-17 to approve $417B for Pentagon (j.A1, t.A15)
    2. House votes 220-196 to ease raising of federal debt ceiling to avoid a vote nearer election (j.A1>2)
    3. Senate votes 56-44 against Dems' attempt to shift $515m in 'missile-shield' funds to Homeland Defense (j.A1)
    4. almost half (10m) of the 22m US women who have had hysterectomies needlessly continue to get Pap tests, according to AMA Journal study - testing makes little sense, leads to false positives & wastes money (j.A1, t.A1>17)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  33. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, ?? jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
    1. unspecified jobcuts as Brooklyn's L line in NYC subway system moves to fully automated future - by next June, it will be entirely operated by computers (t.A23) - suuure "technology creates more jobs than it destroys" = only if it triggers timesizing, not downsizing
    2. unspecified cuts as Electrolux AB outsources portion of call center to India (j.B5)
    3. unspecified Singapore jobcuts as GM relocates Asia-Pacific HQ to Shanghai (j.B11)
  34. CEOs constantly UPsize their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-starving levels:
    1. IRS chief told Senate panel he plans to look aggressively at salaries, sometimes exceeding $1m, paid to executives of charities (j.A1)
    2. Adelphia trial nears finish line - as jury readies to deliberate, John Rigas appears vulnerable; the $40,000/year masseuse (j.C1)
    3. Tyco ex-counel says CEO alone was to set pay - Belnick says Kozlowski told him Board committee didn't have to be consulted about $32m in bonuses & loans he got while working there (j.C6)
  35. CEOs DOWNsize everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      retirement worries are on the rise globally despite 'recovering' economy - people worldwide are pessimistic about financial security in old age (t.D2)
  36. CEOs simulate UPsizing thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale - (mega & banking archives):
    1. Hollinger agreed to sell Britain's Telegraph Group of newspapers to twin Barclay brothers, Sir Frederick & Sir David, for $1.34B (j.A1>B4)
    • after takeovers, usual next step (cumulatively lethal) = downsizing - downsizing slows, takeovers rev :: takeovers slow, downsizings rev
  37. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
    1. Parmalat, Italy's biggest food company, files in New York (t.C4)
    2. Encapsulation Systems Inc. in Chapter 11 in Pa. (j.B11)
  38. DOWNsizing results = more prison inmates (archives):
      federal law on sentencing is unjust, federal judge rules - Wm.G.Young in Boston ruled laws gave prosecutors too much power under system where prosecutors could reward those who pleaded guilty and impose exceptionally harsh sentences on those who chose to stand trial and then lost (t.A20)
  39. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. book by anonymous 22-year veteran CIA officer "Imperial Hubris" says US (ie: Bush) is losing fight against terror - invasion of Iraq said to play into enemy's hands (t.A12)
    2. EPA said toxic releases increased 5% in 2002 = first rise in years (j.A1, t.A15)
    3. Bush team says data were wrong on terror deaths - acknowledged they under-reported terrorist-caused casualties & incidents in State Dept. report hailed earlier this year as showing US was prevailing in fighting terrorism (j.B2) - quite simply, Bush is a liar whom his own party should disown & impeach
    4. Justice Dept. officials tried to disavow their contribution to papers detailing deliberations on war-on-terror suspension of international conventions (j.A1)
    5. US (ie: Bushies) will give Iraqi regime legal, not physical, custody of Saddam Hussein (j.A1) = more meaningless word games
    6. US (ie: Bushies) asked UN to again exempt US troops from war-crime prosecutions, saying it wants just one more year (j.A1) - what gives UN such self-defeating power to exempt?
    7. FTC (ie: Bushies) approved merger of cancer-stick makers Reynolds and Brown & Williamson, rejecting antitrust objections by its own staff (j.A1) - do we detect a pattern of outlawry?
    8. US (ie: Busies) has barred sending clothing to Cubans (j.A1)

    6/22/2004 tuesday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 710 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/21/mon: 855 (6/23/2003/mon: 850)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. Japan detours onto extending employer liability for overtime-premium pay lower down the hours of the workweek for part-timers
    2. Wall Street Journal suggests employers try neglected strategies like anticipating stock collapses - but we suggest an even more neglected one
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. Bush ran radio ads saying Kerry is fixated on an economic 'malaise' (j.A1) - so's the rest of the country except the cheering section (Wall St)
    2. Kerry charged that Bush lets ideology trump facts in setting policy in areas such as stem cells (j.A1) - and war, and environment, and leaking CIA identities, and on and on and on
    3. SEC is expected tomorrow to require mutual-fund firms to have independent chairmen, dealing a blow to the industry (j.A1) - only in the minds of those who want to push the honesty envelope
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday for "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. National Institutes of Health is under fire - Congress is being less generous to the NIH, and questioning if lucrative outside consulting may risks conflicts of interest - longtime fave of Congress grapples with slim funding increases & inquiry (j.A1>4) - & let's not forget National Endowments for Arts & Humanities
    2. place your bets - Calif's Gov. Schwarzenegger signs gambling compacts with 5 Indian tribes - state to receive $1B (j.A1>2)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  40. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, 350 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      39% workforce cut (350 net jobs lost) as Vivendi Universal Games of L.A. gets hysterical about an operating loss of $244m, instead of just trimming 39% of its workweek (to four 6hr6min days for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and buying at least 61% as many games as before (j.B2)
  41. CEOs end up DOWNsizing own consumer markets via own employees - overviews (archives):
    1. NYSE is weighing plan to let investors do more stock orders automatically, part of a push to speed trading that would likely reduce the role [and the jobs] of floor traders (j.A1>C1)
    2. China's grads find jobs scarce - on first glance, China's expanding economy and its increasing numbers of college graduates should be a perfect match - on closer look, it isn't - mismatch exists between seekers' ambitions and market needs (j.A1>17)
    3. meanwhile, older workers from US take jobs in China (j.B1) - China, Iraq: wherever - things are gettin' desperate
    4. for some self-employed Army reservists, serving in Iraq is bad for business - one Army reservist estimates that it will take two years to rebuild his chiropractic practice (j.B1>4)
  42. CEOs simulate UPsizing thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale - (mega & banking archives):
    1. Wachovia shares slipped after the bank announced its $13.7B acquisition of SouthTrust, a deal that will cut into profits (j.A1)
    2. Simon Property Group to buy rival mall owner Chelsea Property Group for $3.5B (j.A1>2, t.C4)
    3. US investor Carlyle Group, & Kyocera, acquire 60% of wireless provider DDI Pocket in Japan for $2.02B (t.C4)
    4. Bain Capital leads takeover of Loews Cineplex Entertainment for $1.46B (j.B9, t.C4)
    5. Banknorth Group to buy BostonFed Bancorp Inc. for $195m (t.C4)
    after takeovers, usual next step (cumulatively lethal) = downsizing :: downsizing slows, takeovers rev
  43. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Beijing to update bankruptcy law - China's legislature will begin reviewing a bill that for the first time would set market-based rules for firms to declare bankruptcy (j.A1>17)
  44. DOWNsizing results = more prison inmates (archives):
    1. top generals were ordered to be ready to testify on prisoner abuse - military judge's ruling makes officials in Iraq available to the defense - lawyers for GIs contend that ranking officials approved methods (j.A1>17, t.A1)
    2. treat the epidemic behind bars before it hits the streets - infectious disease gets out on parole too - a staph infection raged thru the cellblocks at the LA County Jail (t.A22)
  45. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. productivity is up and so are profits - this is where workers usually ask for their share - driving profits down (and markets up) - some say this time it doesn't have to be that way (j.A1>C1) - no, if hidden unemployment and job insecurity are high enough, CEOs can continue to take far more than their share, stiff employees, and continue starving their own markets
    2. the result for CEOs? - 'the boss goes to the couch' - despite the stigma, a growing number of CEOs are seeking professional help for their psychological troubles' (j.A1>B1) - it ain't easy being super-rich, insulated & isolated - every new 'friend' is suspect
    3. Republicans may use Pentagon bill as way to cloak something lawmakers find hard to talk about in an election year = raise debt ceiling and worsen national debt - current $7.4 trillion limit to be reached this summer (j.A10)
    4. the Senate, 54-39, upheld a Pentagon ban on media coverage of caskets arriving at the Dover mortuary (j.A1) = begging for a Supreme Court test

    6/19-21/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
    - keep hope-vs-doom comin' with $5/mon. check to Timesizing.com, Box 622, Cambridge Ma 02140 -
    - #visitors to any of our 710 files, F Sa Su: 662,435,534 - wk's daily avg: 629     -
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

    1. Boston reporter digs up 3 examples of 'summer hours' = Fridays off in summer
    2. Joe Robinson fights for longer vacations for Americans - by law
    3. American nurses under so much pressure, one worked at a hospital in Va. coughing with undiagnosed TB for 6 months before dying of it!
    4. now US newspapers are inflating their circulation figures, desperate to simulate the readership that's been downsized instead of timesized
    5. over-concentration of income can't be addressed before over-concentration of employment without creating dependency & fighting instead of harnessing market forces
    6. like Gen. Washington, timesizing doesn't have to win battles, just not lose the war
    7. Australia's average workweek rose nearly an hour every seven years for the last 21 years (to 42.3 hours), engendering a chapter of Workaholics Anonymous
          •      click here for details
    + random glimmers of hope indexing (j) Wall St.Journal, (t) NYTimes or (g) Bos.Globe (archives):
    1. UPsizings - 210 new jobs as General Dynamics hires for Marine Corps project (6/19 t.B4)
      - 90 new fixed-income, derivatives & foreign-exchange sales reps, traders & analysts to be hired by HSBC Holdings, London, over next 18 months (6/19 t.B4)
    2. chief White House lawyer Alberto Gonzales gives grand-jury testimony in high-treason-level CIA identity-leak case - Bush directed him to 'cooperate fully' (6/19 t.A13) - ri-i-ight
    3. leaders Keane & Hamilton of 9/11 panel ask Cheney for reports that would support Iraq-Qaeda ties - Cheney said in 6/17 CNBC interview he 'probably' knew things the panel didn't know but couldn't prove allegation of hijacker-Iraqi meeting in April 2001 (6/19 t.A8) = sounds like Chalabi
    4. focus on Bush, Iraq & terror - 'reason I keep insisting there was relationship between Iraq, Saddam & Al Qaeda is because there was relationship between Iraq & Al Qaeda': Dubya (6/19 t.A28) - show us proof - NYT editors are surprised at depth & ferocity of Bush-Cheney capacity for denial - administration brushed aside panel's findings, questioned its expertise & are trying to rewrite history (6/19 t.A28) - these clowns gotta go
    5. who was in charge on 9/11? - country is under attack & Cheney urges Bush not to return to DC, then orders military to attack hijacked civilian planes & directs whole operation from White House bunker - can we imagine Clinton turning it all over to Gore, Bush Sr to Quayle, Carter to Mondale, Nixon to Ford/Agnew, or JFK to LBJ?: Alexandra Hoffman of NYC (6/19 t.A28)
    6. Michael Moore is ready for his close-up - advocating regime change in US, 'Fahrenheit 9/11' invites scrutiny - will the facts check out? - 'any attempts to libel me with be met by force,' says Moore, anticipating attacks on his film (6/20 t.2:1)
    7. Europe's reluctance - re: 'go negative on the allies' (6/15 op ed), can one blame them for not wanting to join a clueless Bush administration in a chaotic mission after being ignored & bullied in Bush's rush to invade Iraq?: Paul Cordy of Antwerp, Belgium (6/19 t.A28)
    8. the Kenneth Lay criminal probe has intensified recently, raising anticipation that the former Enron CEO will be indicted soon (6/21 j.A1>C4)
    9. UN's Annan urged Security Council not to renew US 'peace' keepers' immunity from war-crimes prosecution, citing prisoner abuses (6/21 j.A1)
    10. Halliburton KBR unit sees probe widen to Nigeria figures - why did KBR joint venture make $150m in payments to 'Tristar'? (6/21 j.A3)
    11. gun-shy NATO is wary of Iraq (6/21 j.A14) - don't they mean 'quagmire-shy'?!
    12. Pete Domenici, chair of Senate Energy Committee, seeks fees from nuclear-power customers - surcharge would finance Yucca Mtn storage but might hamper Bush (6/21 j.B2) - here's hopin'!
    • Boston-area readers who want real news - try "Radio Free America for Americans" dba *Democracy Now on 90.3 FM 12-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday - today's revelations:
      • last week 400 legal scholars urged Congress to impeach Bush - Ted Kennedy chickens out with 'vote for Kerry'
      • this week *National Lawyers Guild is calling for Bush's indictment for war crimes
    + clouded hope = makework = PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):
    1. Congress's embarrassment of pork - a bill that began as a $5B fix for a tariff problem ended as a $143B juggernaut of special-interest favors, a masterpiece of bad legislation, a study in grease, pork & blubber: editorial (6/19 t.A28) - the Republican Party has destroyed its reputation for fiscal responsibility and become far worse than the Democrats
    2. arms profiteering - re 'how much is that Uzi in the window', when will this reach point of diminishing returns and stop? probably much sooner if weapons mfrs' own children were on the front lines: Robert White of Scottsmoor FL (6/19 t.A28)
    3. Halliburton severs link with 2 over Nigeria inquiry - Albert Stanley, recent chairman of KBR unit who secretly enriched himself by diverting up to $5m from Nigerian natural-gas project, and another executive, William Chaudan - some payments made while VP Dick Cheney was CEO (6/19 t.A1>B1, 6/21 j.A1>3)
    4. Bush is quietly spending $2.5B from Iraqi oil revenue to pay for Iraqi projects (6/21 t.A10) - and corporate croneys' salaries

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & g (Boston Globe):
  46. DOWNsizing appetizers = takeovers (archives):
      Bacardi to buy Grey Goose vodka biz from Sidney Frank Importing Co. for $2B (6/21 j.A8, t.C4)
  47. DOWNsizings, totaling 349 + unspecified lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):
    1. 0.5% of workforce cut (349 jobs lost) as BellSouth Corp. overreacts to faltering wholesale operation, instead of maintaining its customers' customers by trimming its workweek by 0.5% (2½ minutes a day for whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 99.5% as much phone service as before (6/19 t.B4)
    2. ?? jobcuts as GM Europe revamps operations - Carl-Peter Forster, chief of GM's Adam Opel unit, cut factory capacity & jobs (6/19 t.B3) - tho this may overlap with cuts on 12/24/2002 #1
  48. DOWNsizing overviews noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. new course for liberal arts: intro to job market (6/19 t.A1) - what job market?
    2. is CNN anchor Lou Dobbs of two minds on 'offshoring'? (6/21 j.B1) - no, he just lacks a research asst to check that his investment recommends aren't outsourcing
  49. DOWNsizing results = dysfunctional executive pay:
    1. Tyco's former general counsel Belnick asks judge to dismiss case (6/19 t.B2, 6/21 j.C4) - sure, and while they're at it, why don't all judges just dismiss all their cases
    2. Janus is planning to overhaul its pay formula for porfolio managers to put more emphasis on mutual-fund performance (6/21 j.A1>C1)
    3. the pay police - compensation committees have been criticized for rewarding executives - whether they performed well or not - now, that cozy relationship may be ending (6/21 j.R7)
  50. DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
    1. starting over, 24 years after wrongful conviction for 1979 murder he did not commit - Thomas Goldstein, 54, released from black hole of Calif. prison system in April, is now a paralegal at small law firm (6/21 t.A14)
    2. US [ie: Bush] to unveil review system for Guantanamo detainees - plan would allow prisoners to plead for freedom once each year in a secret hearing (6/21 j.B1) - oh, that sure sounds fair and open - compare, US said to overstate value of Guantanamo detainees - accounts challenged on value of danger they posed and info they've provided (6/21 t.A1)
  51. headlines from hell (tm) from (j) Wall Street Journal or (t) NY Times or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. slump has 'ended' but not the gloom (6/20 t.4:1) - just because some of the affluent believe their own damage control doesn't mean everyone does, or should
    2. Kerry says he supports minimum wage increase to $7 an hour by 2007 (6/19 t.A11) - a testimony to American labor's continuing ineffectual focus - of their 2 traditional goals, higher wages and shorter hours: if they can just get one and it's higher wages, they wind up with neither because they're bucking market forces in the face of continuing labor surplus, but if they can just get one and it's shorter hours, they wind up with both because they're harnessing market forces to respond to the labor shortage they've created by cutting hours
    3. 9/11 panel members debate Qaeda-Iraq 'tie' (t.A11) = more Bush-regime word games to cover big lies - "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" revisited
    4. war-hardened but homesick, US troops discover they are too vital [or mismanaged?!] to rotate out (6/20 t.A10)
    5. Seoul to send troops to Iraq despite kidnapping (6/21 t.A11) - and despite quagmire - "there's a sucker born every minute" = Seoul suckers?
    6. US (ie: Bush) is accused of trying to isolate UN population unit = a bid to stop world groups that aid abortion abroad (6/21 t.A3) = "let's accelerate overpopulation!"
    7. longest-serving Nat'l Transportation Safety Board member, John Goglia, leaves post with warning that board is losing its expertise - former plane mechanic also says lack of aircraft maintenance is threat to safety (6/20 t.A23) - oh-oh
    8. hybrid cars in heartland are few and far between [guess US heartlanders don't look too far ahead] - some car dealers say gas is still too cheap for customers to worry about mileage (6/19 t.B2) - that can be easily corrected...
    9. 'Christian' Coalition working for a revival - gay-marriage issue seen as lightning rod for fresh energy, new conservative troops (6/21 j.A4) - hopefully they'll burn out on it
    weekend roll-up -
    5 issues/wk - wk's avg homepage hits/issue: 51
    hope of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 23 TIMEsizing items (?? new or saved jobs)  • 7 UPsizings (5500+ new jobs) 
    + bogus hope: • 15 makework items (?? new 'jobs')
    vs. doom of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 10 DOWNsizings, over 5363 jobcuts   • 5 bankruptcies   • 4 eroding-retirement stories   • 2 homelessness stories   • 3 prison stories   • 1 workplace-death story
    {{ytd: 435 timsizngs (1636+ new or sav'd jobs) + 77 upsizngs (90151+ new jobs) + 203 makwrk (36803+ 'jobs') =
    total: 128590 = 43% of cuts, VS. 239 dnsz (302243+ cuts) + 99 bnkrp ($416m+) +22 homlss +84 jail +16 deth }}


    6/18/2004 friday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/17/thu: 703 (6/19/2003/thu: 818)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. Canada's shorter worktime per person gives it stronger consumer demand per capita than US
    2. 2 Swedes throw the US a bone on Superior GDP Growth despite its irrelevance to free time & quality of life
    3. op ed writer gets suckered into GDP-focused race to the bottom unmindful of Europe's healthier work-life balance
    4. Chinese reporter confuses America's irrelevant productivity per capita with irrelevant productivity per worker and relevant productivity per workhour
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizings with 5200 new jobs as -
      1. Union Pacific plans to hire 5000 workers to help end delays that led it to turn away shipments (4/03-05/2004) after cutting jobs, eg: 1000 as recently as 1/14/2004 (t.C3)
      2. like HSBC, Barclays PLC cuts 800 support & mgmt jobs while hiring 1000 branch staff for a net of 200 new jobs (j.B4)
    2. Enron Corp. - California files civil lawsuit citing illicit trading schemes, citing tape recordings of Enron traders saying Calif. should 'burn, baby, burn' during energy crisis of 2000-01 (j.B4)
    3. Sept. 11 panel deals Bush a blow on Iraq - in dismissing al Qaeda link, commission undercuts pResident's credibility on going to war (j.A4) - panel says chaos in administration was wide on 9/11 (t.A1) - why should they spread order when they were holding their breath for just such a 'Pearl Harbor incident' to justify invading Iraq?
    4. Washington wire - minor memos - former Fed member Alan Blinder asks at a Boston Fed fiscal-policy conference, "are we allowed to say anything bad about Reaganomics, or are we still in the mourning period?" (j.A4)
    5. what's up? documentaries! - Michael Moore’s 'Fahrenheit 9/11' could be more profitable than some of the big studio movies (j.W12)
    • readers in Boston area who want real news - try "Radio Free America for
      Americans" dba Democracy Now on 90.3 FM noon-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. Senate defies Bush in voting 93-4 to add 20,000 troops within next year to stretched US Army, bringing strength to 502,400, plus more over next 3 years (j.A1, t.A21) - effort to halt deployment of untried missile system fails (t.A21)
    2. House passes corporate-tax bill 251-178 - bag of goodies to sweeten repeal of export tax break may prove tough for Senate to accept - more business taxcuts and offer of $10B buyout to tobacco farmers - 'you can put lipstick on a pig but you can't call it a lady': Rep. Chas. Rangel (j.A1>2, bos globe.A5)
    3. Washington wire - tit for tax - Sen. Grassley ordered GAO probe critical of federal farm subsidies, notably those for rice & cotton in Sen. Lincoln's Arkansas, so Lincoln asked GAO to scrutinize 128 taxbreaks, including ethanol credit sacred to Grassley's Iowa (j.A4)
    4. Washington wire - 'famous Dave' Anderson, new boss of Bureau of Indian Affairs, insists on recusing himself from 200 pending tribe recognition cases, most from groups wanting to build Indian casinos (j.A4)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  52. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, 2680 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
    1. 6% workforce cut (2500 net jobs lost) as HSBC Holdings PLC banking cuts 3500 back-office and support jobs and hires 1000 new branch staff over next 2 years, instead of just trimming 6% of its workweek (29 minutes a day for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and banking at least 94% as much as before (j.B4, t.W1) - compare 10/20/2003 #1
    2. 180 jobcuts as Albertson's plans to sell or close 21 grocery & drug stores & exit Omaha market amid competition from Wal-Mart (t.C3)
  53. CEOs end up DOWNsizing own consumer markets via own employees - overviews (archives):
    1. shares dip despite 'growing recovery' in the job market (t.C5) - are investors catching on to the rosied-up news?
    2. Washington wire - textiles trade faces massive economic catastrophe due to huge shift of production to China, its takeover of US market and millions left jobless from Carolinas to Mideast and Africa, warn textile groups from 25 countries (j.A4)
    3. Washington wire - frayed connection - AT&T Gen. Counsel James Cicconi, veteran of Bush Sr's White House with ties to Bush Jr's, says latter's buckling to lobbyists in siding against AT&T puts long-distance industry on path to higher prices, less competition, fewer jobs & depressed investment (j.A4)
  54. CEOs constantly UPsize their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-starving levels:
    1. Grasso's lawyer seeks to move case over ex-Big Board's CEO's pay from state (NY-Spitzer) to federal (Bush buds) court (j.A1>C1)
    2. Tyco ex-director Peter Slusser says compensation committee didn't approve $17m bonus for Belnick (j.C2)
    3. executive parachutes - Gregoire Landel of NYC: most employees who get fired for being unqualified or inadequate are not given golden parachutes so why should execs? (t.A26)
  55. CEOs DOWNsize everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      pension gap eases slightly - underfunding of pensions at companies with severe shortfalls eased by 9% last year but gap remained much worse than 5 years ago, said nation's pension insurance agency, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (t.C1>3)
  56. CEOs simulate UPsizing thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale (archives):
      Atmos Energy to buy TXU Corp's natural gas unit, TXU Gas, for $1.93B (j.A1>C4, t.C1>5)
  57. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Flintkote Co. in Chapter 11 (j.B7)
  58. DOWNsizing results = more homelessness in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):
      homeless man is killed - 2 teenagers are arrested for beating to death William 'Billy' Pearson, 51, who slept in abandoned vehicles in Brooklyn NY - another man tried vainly to stop the unprovoked violence, which extended over 4 blocks and ended in courtyard of St. Gabriel's RC Church in East NYC where bloodied victim collapsed and died as priest called 911 (t.A25)
  59. DOWNsizing results = more prison inmates (archives):
      a contractor employed by CIA was indicted in connection with the beating death of a prisoner in Afghanistan, the first civilian charges since the prison-abuse scandal arose (t.A1)
  60. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. Rumsfeld defends hiding prisoner from the Red Cross at CIA urging (j.A6)
    2. the gov't granted liability from lawsuits in case of product failure to 4 firms developing antiterrorism technologies (j.A1)
    3. Bush and Cheney talk strongly of Qaeda links with Hussein (t.A1) = oilgreed-frozen denial
    4. Bush administration = 'so stubbornly sure in its black&white worldview, so nuanced in its strategies to deceive': Ira Elliott of NYC (t.A26)
    5. on both sides of Atlantic, companies ask politicians for accounting favors (t.C1)
    6. Province of Ontario considers building a nuclear plant, would be first in North America in 2 decades (t.W1) - 'oh nooo, Mr. Bill!'
    7. in House, Republicans use floor time to chide Kerry (boston globe.A3) - and they have the gall to complain about 'politicizing'?!

    6/17/2004 thursday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/16/wed: 690 (6/18/2003/wed: 872)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) from GoogleNews:

    1. Australia will soon announce granting nation's employees annual 10 days personal leave entitlement to care for family members
    2. Canadian Carl Honoré preaches benefits of slowing down, including shorter hours, in best-seller, "In Praise of Slowness"
    3. European employees and employers clash on Working Time Directive
    4. U.S. is far behind other developed countries on worktime
    5. Kerry wants to facilitate longer working hours with longer school hours
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizings with unspecified new jobs as -
      1. Aeon Co. plans to open one of Japan's biggest shopping malls outside Tokyo (j.B8)
      2. PT Hero Supermarket plans 4 new large retail stores in Indonesia (j.B11)
    2. drop in pResident's popularity linked to prisoner scandal (t.A24) - now let's see what the 9/11 panel report can do...
    3. the administration is on the defensive over an issue it once expected to be a political plus = insisted-upon ties between Iraq & Al Qaeda - but now, commission reports find no Iraq-al Qaeda link, tho frequently posited by Bush to justify war in Iraq (t.A1>15, j.A1) - yet still parroted by Bush & Cheney, war profiteers-in-chief
    4. bestriding the world, sort of - in post 9/11 scramble to devise Next Big Idea in US foreign policy, notion of Empire appealed to many, including Bush - now a year after Operation Iraqi Freedom, Empire looks less appetizing & Bush's USA is tripping over itself trying to transfer away its responsibilities as an occupying power in Iraq - is Empire outdated or is Bush's US just really bad at it? (j.D7) - we'd go for "outdated" by, say, 2000 years
    • readers in Boston area who want real news - try "Radio Free America for
      Americans" dba Democracy Now on 90.3 FM noon-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. Republican leaders succeeded in a 224-205 House vote in reversing a bar to an Accenture-led group's getting a big Homeland Security job (j.A1>6)
    2. and then there's the endless pointless fussing in the financial markets (realm 15) -
      • as volatility index loses ground, investors are divided on views (j.C5)
      • torn by good news and bad, investors let stocks stagnate (j.C1)
      • for investors, is glass half full or half empty? - as Maytag's feud with Calpers shows, there's little consistency in corporate-governance ratings (j.C1) - as 'black hole' economy moves toward 3d-world levels of concentrating wealth into extreme top brackets, practically the only money-centrifuge left is sanitized happyhappy news from the 2-guy media that some wealthy actually believe enuf to keep throwing million$ into hopeless 'investments' from which their own robotic acquisitiveness has vacuumed the markets

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  61. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today, 1100 +?? jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
    1. 1100 jobcuts as Sprint Corp. meets long-distance woes (j.B8, t.C5)
    2. unspecified jobcuts as Federal Reserve Bank closes 13 of its 45 papercheck-processing facilities, with more to go (j.C5)
  62. CEOs end up DOWNsizing own consumer markets via own employees - overviews (archives):
    1. Wall Street Journal staff stages byline strike - reluctant to walk off job because easily replaced [labor-surplus alert!] - 40 US-based reporters in union representing 1600 Dow Jones employees withheld bylines from news stories yesterday in highly public statement of discontent - problems began in Jan. after B>2-year string of layoffs when union members rejected proposed contract that imposed higher health premiums & for fiscal 2003, a wage freeze followed by only 2.5% & 3% raises in 2004 & 2005 - 'poor' WSJ, rich man's paper, at 1.8m has 2nd highest circulation in US after USA Today (boston globe.D1) - labor trouble in core of death star
    2. US companies send fewer workers overseas (j.D2) - the damage control strains on
  63. CEOs constantly UPsize their own pay, perks & pensions: three on one page (t.C6) -
    1. greed destroyed Adelphia, prosecutor says in summary
    2. ex-director Peter Slusser says Tyco pay panel knew of big no-interest 'loans' ($15m) to executive, former general counsel Mark Belnick, when it approved his 2002 employment agreement
    3. 4 charged with fraud = officers of the hedgefund firm Beacon Hill Asset Mgmt
    • and one exception to prove the rule: Mitsubishi Motors of Japan to accelerate recovery plan - over next 2 yrs will cut executive pay by 25-50%, middle mgmt by 10% & rank&file by 5% (t.W1)
  64. CEOs DOWNsize everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      European retirement - pension systems strain - early-retirement culture has become public-policy headache - the woes of a 'sacred right' [guess WSJ only tolerates 'sacred rightwing'] - tradition of retiring by 60 has become economic liability, bankrupting pension & health systems [unless top brackets quit grabbing so astronomically much more than their share] & curbing Euro competitiveness [something needs to curb Race to the Bottom!] - but citizens not eager to give it up (j.A1>16) - & near-sighted WSJ would destroy consumer markets to force them to?!
  65. and finally, general headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. Rumsfeld approved a CIA request to hide detainee in Iraq, officials said, & conceal his detention from the Red Cross, which suspects more such cases - officials concede a lapse - inmate is still held 7 months later (j.A1, t.A1)
    2. U.S. is expected to propose new tariffs on $1.2B of furniture imports from China as part of a dumping probe (j.A1) = "free trade" a la USA? - timesizing delivers such efficient self-adjusting full employment, continuous retraining & high labor standards through thick & thin that real free trade can be achieved regardless of foreign dumping

    6/16/2004 wed. - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/15/tue: 686 (6/17/2003/tue: 824)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. timesizing Nucor Steel doin' fine, raises forecast
    2. Chirac & Raffarin are starting to back off reversing France's shorter-hours leadership in view of their severe setback in last weekend's EU elections
    3. K-Mart is following UPS - trying to save money on benefits by 'part-timing' its employees
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizing with unspecified new jobs as Apple Computer Inc. launches its iTunes online music store in Europe with dedicated webstores for the British, German and French markets (j.D9)
    2. House Republican leader Tom DeLay faces multiple ethics complaints by a redistricted Texas Democrat Chris Bell, ending an unspoken 7-year House truce (j.A1, t.A13) - never mind the one-party Amerika the neo-cons are constructing with the redistricting
    3. Kerry says Bush over-estimates economy's health & under-estimates damage to US of Iraqi prisoner abuse (t.A16)
    4. GOP budget revolt - govt's outa-control deficit spending is historical aberration due to Congressional Budget Control & Impoundment Act of 1974 - Reps. Chris Cox, Jeb Hensarling, Paul Ryan & Chris ['Count'?] Chocola have catalogued distortions it introduced & designed a bill to eliminate them (j.A14)
    5. 'under God' insert in Pledge of Allegiance (t.A18) -
      • phrase alienates atheists, religious [humanists &] polytheists, and people who grew up with original pledge which had no such phrase and embraced diversity of faiths & maintained Constitutional separation of church & state: Carol Delaney of Stanford CA
      • justices ruled Michael Newdow has insufficient standing as parent to argue as daughter's legal representative, suggesting they've an easier time separating parent & child than separating church & state: Davi Napoleon of Ann Arbor MI
    • readers in Boston area who want real news - try 'Radio Free America for Americans' dba Democracy Now on 90.3 FM noon-1pm Mon-Sat and 6-10am Sunday
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. Halliburton unit's billing for meals gets new scrutiny - Pentagon auditors told House committee that contractor Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR unit of Cheney's old company) billed the government for as many as 36% more meals than it provided to troops in Iraq & Kuwait (j.A3) - auditors testify about waste in Iraq contracts - 'inadequate planning and oversight' in Pentagon spending (t.A9)
    2. US House of Reps passes (244-178) massive taxbreak-laden energy bill for third time - also passes lowering of environmental standards for energy projects located on Federal land (j.B2, t.A14) = leading by example? - hopefully up for a third shootdown by Senate
    3. disgraced ex-Pentagon worker, Darleen Druyun, tells all in Boeing inquiry re possible misconduct at nation's 2d-largest military contractor after Lockheed (t.C1)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of TIMEsizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  66. CEOs are DOWNsizing the workforce - today's total, 1,234 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
    1. 4% workforce cut (another 1100 jobs lost) as Schering AG pharmaceuticals closes some R&D projects to raise profit, instead of just trimming 4% of its workweek (19 minutes a day for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and buying at least 96% as many drugs as usual (j.D9, t.W1)
    2. 60 cuts (15% of mgmt jobs in Brazil) as DaimlerChrysler 'streamlines command' (t.W1)
    3. 50 cut as Superconductor Technologies Inc. terminates 20% of its workforce (t.C3)
    4. 24 as '321 Studios Inc.' dissolves under pressure from lawsuits vs. © infringement (j.B2)
  67. CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):
      high-skill work is not immune to outsourcing, Microsoft contracts show, disproving idea that 'Americans should move to high-end work' for immunity to offshoring of their jobs (t.C1)
  68. CEOs constantly UPsize their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-stifling levels:
      ex-director of NYSE defends ex-chief's pay, again - Ken Langone also pledges to defend Dick Grasso's name (t.C2) - Langone says NYSE wasn't misled on Grasso's pay (j.C1)
  69. CEOs DOWNsize everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      Bush Treasury Dept. withdraws proposed pension regulations that were criticized for discriminating against older workers (j.A2) = another Bush flip-flop?
  70. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
    1. videogame makers' copyright suit spells liquidation for '321 Studios Inc.' (j.B2)
    2. AMEC Holding Corp. fka AEC Holding Corp. et al. in Chapter 11 (j.C13)
    3. '866 3rd Next Generation Hotel LLC' in Chapter 11 (t.C6) - what is this, weird name day?
  71. DOWNsizing results = more homelessness in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):
      New York City seeks to make homeless shelters less inviting [don't strain yourself!] - homeless people may be asked to pay part of the cost (t.A17) - with what?
  72. headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. nearly 82 million Americans went without health insurance sometime in past 2 years, most for over 9 months (j.A1)
    2. KPMG tax shelter that IRS declared abusive last year shaved $1.7 billion off taxes of 29 large companies (j.A1) - nothing like cannibalizing your market infrastructure!
    3. CIA classifies much of a report on its failings - 'too sensitive to be released to the public' (t.A9) - hey, if the White House can do it... - so USA goes from no feedback to no accountability = lookin' more & more like USSR
    4. Bush defends stem-cell limit, despite pressure since Reagan death (t.A16) - hey, if Stalin could ban computers...
    5. Senate backs new research on A-bombs (t.A16) - Star Wars, A-bombs: we're making it easier and easier to recognize the biggest security breach on the planet, US
    6. environment short-changed (t.A18) = 2 more Bush flip-flops:
      • Land & Water Conservation Fund on track to be cut from $900m a year to $100m, breaking Bush 2000 campaign promise
      • National Park Service given barely enough to pay expenses, never mind reduce $5B maintenance backlog that Bush pledged to eliminate
    7. 'under God' - editorial page: 'America is not only a religious nation but also an overwhelmingly Christian one' (j.A14) - dream on - America is actually an overwhelmingly diverse nation


    6/15/2004 tuesday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/14/mon: 690 (6/16/2003/mon: 845)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. Lufthansa throws out plans to increase workweek from 37.5 to 40 hours for 40,000 German ground staff
    2. Australian men want time off for family emergencies
    3. Federal Mogul employees rightly reject reverse-timesizing tho their jobs are sacrificed
    4. US executives strain for family time by taking spouses on business trips = pathetic
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. Bush a Reaganite by association? Reagan's family won't allow it - Nancy & daughter Patti Davis oppose Bush policy on stem-cell research, and on Friday at funeral, son Ron Jr. castigated pols who use religion 'to gain political advantage' (t.A17)
    2. Kerry opens 2-week drive on the economy - 'if you get D-minuses for 3½ years...one semester of B-minus does not get you on the honor roll' (t.A17)
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, creating ?? new ‘jobs’:
    1. nation builders and low bidders in Iraq - after Abu Ghraib and Falluja, why are we still outsourcing? - so many of worst moments of Iraq occupation have involved private military contractors 'outsourced' by the Pentagon, which has paid out billion$ to companies that now have up to 20,000 employees performing military functions with no public or Congressional oversight (t.A23) - but apparently not without Congressional profit...
    2. of 4 choices, 4 millionaires for 2nd spot in Kerry run - John Edwards, Bob Graham, Evan Bayh, Bill Nelson - Edwards made a pile by buying stock of military contractors just before US invaded Iraq (t.A15)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  73. CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-stifling levels:
      ex-director of NYSE defends ex-chief's pay, again - Ken Langone also pledges to defend Dick Grasso's name (t.C2) - Langone says NYSE wasn't misled on Grasso's pay (j.C1)
  74. CEOs simulate growth thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale (banking archives):
      Sterling Financial to buy Pennsylvania State Banking for $44m (t.C4) - but note small groundswell against takeovers today (archives) -
      • Calpers opposes Anthem takeover of WellPoint Health Networks (t.C4)
      • NeighborCare rejects 3rd acquisition bid from Omnicare (t.C4)
      • Royal Ahold reports loss from efforts to pull back from disastrous & costly decade-long acquisition binge (t.W1)
  75. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Parmalat USA Corp. et al. in Chapter 11 (j.B5) - note parent's bankruptcy on 12/22/2003
  76. DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      CBO report finds Social Security is better off than forecast (t.A19) - how good this news is depends on how bad the forecast - besides, how many times is this going to go back & forth?
  77. DOWNsizing results = suicides - lack of work-life balance kills (archives):
      Japan suicides at record high of 32,082 last year as economy struggled to emerge from long slump - US has roughly same suicides (30,000/yr) but twice population = 286m vs 127m (t.A6) - compare, 25% drop in suicides among US children & teens over last decade (t.A17, j.A1)
  78. headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. US trade deficit grew to record $48.3B in April as car imports set record (j.A1, t.C2)
    2. Supreme Court justices voted 8-0, with Scalia recusing, to block effort to excise 'under God' in Pledge of Allegiance (j.A1, t.A1) - just injected in 1950s vs. 'godless Communism' - with Court's term winding down, rulings in big cases such as Cheney taskforce secrecy, Guantanamo rights violations & detentions without trial are due (j.A1)
    3. number of US millionaires surged 14% in 2003 as wealthy shifted funds to stocks (j.A1) - no cheers till we see how much the number of US poverty cases surged
    4. Arizona: brief nuclear shutdown - disturbance in the force, oops, power grid caused Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station to shut down and cut off power to about 65,000 AZ residents for up to 2 hours (t.A18) - who needs terrorists?
    5. CIA and Iraq - no longer a secret in DC that Senate Intelligence Committee produced 400-page indictment of CIA's bungling on Iraq and of hype and wishful thinking that underpinned Bush's invasion (t.A22)
    6. travesty of justice - Ashcroft the worst attorney general ever - Krugman counts the ways (t.A23)


    6/12-14/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
    - keep hope-vs-doom comin' with $5/mon. check to Timesizing.com, Box 622, Cambridge Ma 02140 -
    - #visitors to any of our 707 files, F Sa Su: 563,412,483 - wk's daily avg: 623     -
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

    1. ARUP Blood Services of Utah averages 35-hour workweeks with seven 10-hour days on alternate weeks to retain staff with 'every other week a vacation'
    2. 93% of US executives & managers are working nine or more hours a day, and 70% ten or more
    3. IG Metall union crumbles as it lets Siemens raise hours but not pay
    4. over half the 51 karoshis from 1999 to 2002 were working over 100 hours a week
          •      click here for details
    + random glimmers of hope indexing (j) Wall St.Journal, (t) NYTimes or (g) Bos.Globe (archives):
    1. UPsizings - 130 new jobs as Toronto-based Cott Corp. soft-drinks builds mfg facility in SW USA (6/14 j.B4)
    2. in defense of Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the most far-reaching corporate reform legislation in 60 years - former Fed chair Paul Volker & former SEC chair Arthur Leavitt believe the benefits of the Act outweigh the costs (6/14 j.A16)
    3. 50 of biggest US employers join forces to negotiate lower drug prices (6/12 t.B1)
    4. Blair's party blames Iraq war for lackluster voting results = first time in living memory a governing party has fared so badly in off-year elections - huge losses across UK on Thu. due to voters' anger about Iraq war & disillusionment with Blair - with 75% results in, Labor behind Conservatives & Liberal Democrats (6/12 t.A5)
    5. Europeans lodge protest at polls - opposition to the Iraq War, EU skepticism color parlmt'y elections - voters speak: some key outcomes from Euro Parl't from early results & exit polls (6/14 j.A3):
      • Germany (99 seats) - Schroeder's party got less than the 31% it got in 1999
      • Britain (78 seats) - EU-skeptic UK Independence Part made strong gains
      • Netherlands (27 seats) - ruling Christian Dems lost while antiwar Social Dems gained
      • Czech Republic (24 seats) - governing coalition placed third while anti-EU party led
    6. in US House campaign, Democratic candidate has microphone - Democrat Dave Ross has popular radio talkshow (6/12 t.A7) - when shoe's on other foot, Republicans squeal
    7. product antiplacement - cigarette makers, amid pressure to pare pitches to youth, want brand references taken out of films (6/14 j.A1)
    8. US mad-cow testing increases (6/14 j.C4)
    9. IBM is launching a program in Brazil to sell Linux-based systems, as an alternative to products using Microsoft software (6/14 j.A1)
    10. Irish voters back tightening EU's most liberal citizenship law in referendum Friday (6/14 j.A1)
    11. Cassini spacecraft nears outermost of Saturn's 31 moons, Phoebe, 137 mi. in diameter - craft slated to dash thru gap in rings & enter orbit on 6/30 for 4-yr exploration (6/12 t.A11, 6/14 j.A1)
    + clouded hope = makework = PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):
    1. SEC formally investigates a Halliburton KBR unit involved in $180m bribes to get natural-gas building-complex contract in Nigeria while Cheney was CEO (6/12 t.B1>2, 6/14 j.A1>3)
    2. Democrat probes Cheney-aide role in Iraq contract - watchdog Rep. Henry Waxman of Calif. has raised new concerns of possible involvement by the office of VP Dick Cheney (top aide Lewis Libby) in the choice of his former[?] employer, Halliburton Co., to repair Iraq's oilfields after the war (6/14 j.A4)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & g (Boston Globe):
  79. DOWNsizings, totaling 428 lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):
      16% of workforce cut (428 Japanese jobs lost) as Ashikaga Bank cuts 30 branches (18%) within next 3 years (& its own markets), instead of trimming its workweek by 16% (down to five 6¾-hour days for whole firm, including top execs), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & banking at least 84% as much as before (6/14 j.B6)
  80. DOWNsizing results = 1 new bankruptcy (archives) in WSJ (j) and/or NYT (t):
    1. Mooney Aerospace Group of Kerrville TX filed in Del. owing $65.5m (6/12 t.B2)
    2. RBX Corp. fka RBX Group Inc. et al. in Chapter 11 jointly (6/14 j.B6)
  81. DOWNsizing results = eroding-retirement noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. over 70% of employers surveyed are concerned about cost of 401k plans & 60% are switching to lower-cost options (6/14 j.A1>C9)
    2. Maytag workers strike at Iowa laundry-products plant after fruitless contract talks - previous contract covers 1525 employees, 700 layoffees and 2000 retirees (6/12 t.B2, 6/14 j.B6)
    3. healthier and wiser? sure, but not wealthier - as pensions slip away [or get looted by CEOs], retirees may take a fall (6/13 3:1) - "may"??
  82. DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
    1. Georgia: Dr. Robert Greifinger, physician acting as monitor, finds crisis at Fulton County jail in Atlanta - tension, ill health - overcrowding: 500 lack cells & sleep on floor - understaffing: chronically ill lack escorts & miss doctor appts (6/12 t.A11)
    2. prison chief defended US tactics - Gen. Geoffrey Miller told Red Cross that Guantanamo methods weren't for interrogations (6/12 j.A4)
  83. headlines from hell (tm) from (j) Wall Street Journal or (t) NY Times or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. US Army Y2000 directive bars interrogations by private contractors - requires such jobs to be filled by gov't employees due to 'risk to national security' - any job that involves 'the gathering & analysis' of tactical intelligence is 'an inherently governmental function barred from private sector performance' (6/12 t.A5) - another demonstration of Rumsfeld's & Bush's sacrifice of national security to ideology & greed
    2. alcohol abuse reported increasing in US - sharply for most groups - 4.65% 2001-02, up 1.62% from 10 years earlier (6/12 t.A11)
    3. untruth in lending - US banks can charge overdrawn customers steep fees for what amount to short-term loans but are not required to disclose effective interest rates, which can reach into triple digits (annualized) - 1500 banks prey on mostly low-income customers & Fed condones by painting this 'bounce protection' as a service rather than a credit extension (6/12 t.A26)
    4. made in India vs. made in China - India's population expected to surpass China's by 2040 (6/12 t.B1>4) - lack of population policy sabotaged India's decent 5% growth in 1920s - 'when will they ever learn?'
    5. Florida officials say touchscreen voting machines in place for Nov. may make manual recounts impossible [but?] they say that can be fixed (6/14 j.A1) - "can" but won't? - unless by "fixed" they mean rigged
    6. the Sept.11 panel winds up public hearings this week, its report due July 26 - some source materials may be classified for 25 years (6/12 j.A1) - on and on the coverup!
    7. Israeli media report the top prosecutor decided not to indict Sharon in a bribe case (6/14 j.A1) - more coddling of criminals in high places
    8. the Red Cross was told Guantanamo practices such as forced shaving & solitary confinement weren't interrogation techniques, even tho they were listed as such on a document Rumsfeld approved (6/12 j.A1) - another Bush administration flip-flop
    9. natural-gas prices in the U.S. are expected to stay high even as oil prices settle, due to rising demand amid the 'economic recovery' (6/12 j.A1) - our quotes
    10. to judge recent attack on Linux's origins, consider the source = Microsoft-funded DC thinktank, de Toqueville Institution - track record for attacking Linux - tried to smear Linux's openness as boon to terrorists when most security experts say the opposite: open review makes software stronger & thus safer (6/14 j.B1)
    weekend roll-up -
    5 issues/wk - wk's avg homepage hits/issue: 48
    hope of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 13 TIMEsizing items (?? new or saved jobs)  • 5 UPsizings (130+ new jobs) 
    + bogus hope: • 6 makework items (?? new 'jobs')
    vs. doom of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 5 DOWNsizings, over 5153 jobcuts   • 2 bankruptcies owing over $65.5m  
    • 9 eroding-retirement stories   • 7 prison stories   • 1 workplace-death story
    {{ytd: 412 timsizngs (1636+ new or sav'd jobs) + 70 upsizngs (84651+ new jobs) + 188 makwrk (36803+ 'jobs') =
    total: 123090 = 41% of cuts, VS. 229 dnsz (296880+ cuts) + 94 bnkrp ($416m+) +20 homlss +81 jail +15 deth }}


    6/11/2004 friday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/10/thu: 628 (6/12/2003/thu: 818)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. first Take Back Your Time Day conference opens in Chicago
    2. no worklife limits for 10 million child workers in world today
    3. WinstonSalem Journal weighs in on overtime changes foist on America starting Aug.23
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizing with unspecified new jobs as Volkswagen builds $240m factory - but in Shanghai, not US (j.B7)
    2. G-8 gathering ends without Iraq agreement - US allies decline to send personnel or forgive debt (j.A7, t.A1) - Bush conceded there is little chance of more NATO help on Iraq (j.A1) - 'you made your bed; now lie in it!'
    3. an Iraq backlash stings Britain's Blair in local and EU elections (j.A1)
    4. several states (NJ, RI, CT) & Canada likely to follow California on tighter car emissions instead of Bush's flaccid ones - four already follow Calif. (NY, MA, VT, MN) - all 8 states make up 26% of nation's auto market = headaches for Detroit if some large markets insist on big cuts in global-warming gases (t.C4) - better headaches for a few super-rich CEOs today than human annihilation tomorrow
    5. Krugman tells 'the Rest of the story' on Reaganomics despite frenetic media promotion of the legend (t.A27)
    6. an Israeli timetable shows Sharon wants to pull the 7,500 settlers from Gaza before Sept/2005 - financial incentives to volunteer start soon (j.A1)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  84. CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-stifling levels:
    1. Putnam Investments' ex-chief, Lawrence Lasser, to receive $78 million from Marsh & McLennan to resolve arbitration over his compensation of over $100m across last 5 years (t.C1, j.C1)
    2. exit with lots of fizz - Coca-Cola Pres. Steven Heyer is leaving with $24 million severance, continuing company tradition (j.A1>B1)
  85. CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):
    1. stocks edge higher on jobless report - initial claims rose 12,000 to total of 352,000 last week (j.C1) - 'investors' display suicidal tendencies = not connecting dots between jobs & markets
    2. Bush Labor Dept. survey finds few jobs moving offshore, but officials acknowledged undercount - caught only 4,633 in 1Q04 = 2% of 239,361 total layoffs for quarter = data covers only firms over 50 employees where at least 50 filed for unemployment & layoffs lasted over 30 days - data also skips US firms' overseas job creation that lacks directly corresponding US layoffs (j.A2, t.C1)
  86. DOWNsizing everyone else’s job - today's total, 4175 +?? jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
    1. 8% workforce cut (4175 jobs lost worldwide) as Sara Lee closes 5 clothing plants offshore & part of a US plant, instead of just trimming 8% of its workweek (38 minutes a day for the whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 92% as many clothes as usual (j.B2, t.C3)
    2. unspecified additional jobs cut at Winstar Holdings unit as IDT Corp., long-distance phone company, reorgs in face of $17½m FY2003 loss (t.C3)
  87. DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Parmalat USA Corp. et al. in Chapter 11 (j.B5) - note parent's bankruptcy on 12/22/2003
  88. DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):
    1. United Airlines & unions agree on health-benefit cuts for 50,000 retirees & families (t.C1>4, j.B7)
    2. Washington wire - deja vu - over 20 years after Reagan spurred overhaul of Soc Sec finances against just such a situation, Congressional Budget Office will next week call Soc Sec unsustainable without further changes (j.A4) - how about Congress just repays all the money it raided from the Soc Sec 'lockbox'?!
    3. "Europe knows it needs a lot of immigrants, but it also fears them" (t.C1) = more fear-mongering about not enough workers to support retirees, never mind automation & robotics, or ecology
  89. DOWNsizing results = suicides - lack of work-life balance kills (archives):
      Japan suicides at record high of 32,082 last year as economy struggled to emerge from long slump - US has roughly same suicides (30,000/yr) but twice population = 286m vs 127m (t.A6) - compare, 25% drop in suicides among US children & teens over last decade (t.A17, j.A1)
  90. headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. May one-month US federal deficit was $62.47 BILLION (j.A2) = Bush the most irresponsible American in history
    2. world oil demand is growing at the fastest pace in 24 years (j.A1>B2) - & the administration of usurping oilmen is doing nothing but rubbing their hands in glee
    3. Bush's State Dept. conceded its April world-terrorism report understated the number of incidents in 2003, blaming data-collection errors (j.A1) - sure, sure

    6/10/2004 thursday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/09/wed: 761 (6/11/2003/wed: 767)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. US medical establishment now expects med-school students, exhausted by 80-hour workweeks, to have great bedside manner
    2. German shorter workweeks somewhat protected by recent court decision to maintain mandatory store closings at 8 pm & all day Sunday
    3. 41% of Australian employees were able to work extra hours in order to take time off but overtime increased 4% between 2000 and 2003
    + random glimmers of intelligence prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. Chirac reaffirms no wider role for NATO in Iraq - Bush, Blair rebuffed despite previous day's victory ramming Iraq resolution thru UN - G8 allies signal they won't back sending NATO forces to Iraq (j.A2,4)
    2. Bush came up empty in his appeal for allied help in pacifying Iraq - Spain's premier said his troops won't return even tho the UN has blessed a US-British transition plan (j.A1>A2)
    3. corporate gadflies like shareholder activists are the buzz - for decades, companies ignored them - then came Enron & now they're getting attention & satisfaction (j.A1>C1)
    4. an American in the dock at the Hague? - why high US officials could be tried for war crimes (t.A29) - don't they mean 'should be'?!
    5. Israel will start compensating Gaza settlers this summer with an eye toward full evacuation by October 2005 - meanwhile, Sharon learns next week if he'll face a graft indictment (j.A1)
    6. some auto makers tack markups of $5000 on Toyota Prius as demand for hybrids surges (j.A1>D1)
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, maintaining ?? ‘jobs’:
    1. world military spending rose 11% to $956B in 2003, with Iraq helping to push the US share to nearly half, said a Swedish peace institute (j.A1)
    2. House panel approved $32B Homeland Security budget but barred a big Accenture-led contract in anger at offshore firms (j.A1>4)
    3. who should pay for presidential legacy? - Clinton library will cost $175m - as prez libraries get costlier & endowments fall short, bills are getting shoved onto taxpayers (t.A1>D1)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  91. CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-stifling levels:
      Walt Disney Co. - Del. Chancery judge Stephen Lamb will consider whether to let Roy Disney show other Disney shareholders documents reflecting secret board deliberations over executive compensation - to unseat CEO Michael Eisner, Roy's attorney said documents show directors misled shareholders about executive bonuses - Roy claims board served as Eisner's rubber stamp (j.C13)
  92. CEOs simulate growth thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale (archives):
    1. May Department Stores purchases Marshall Field's from Target Corp. for $3.24B (j.C5, t.C1)
    2. Inmobiliaria Colonial of Spain to buy Societe Fonciere Lyonnaise for 1.6B euros = $2B (t.W1)
  93. CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):
      chain reaction - Big Three's outsourcing plan: make parts-suppliers do it - using Chinese prices as base, car makers set targets that force firms offshore (j.A1) = CEOs find yet another way to frogstep America down to Third-World living standards
  94. DOWNsizing everyone else’s job - today's total, 350 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      10% workforce cut (up to 350 jobs lost) by Old National Bancorp of Evansville IN, instead of just trimming 10% of its workweek (48 minutes a day for the whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & banking at least 90% as much as usual (t.C4)
  95. DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      will Bush be able to 'pull a Reagan' on addessing Social Security? - Reagan lifted Soc Sec tax, lifted retirement age & trimmed benefits = slammed retirees & got away with it (j.A2)
  96. DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
      offering religious ministry of 'Purpose-Driven church', and early release, to 200 prisoners at medium-security prison in Jamestown CA - pastor Rick Warren has unique status with Calif. Dept. of Corrections, nation's largest - inmates who finish his 12-step Christian substance-abuse program can qualify for early furlough to halfway house = first religious program accredited in this way (t.A1) = more unseparation of church & state?
  97. headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. release of producer-price index is delayed for 4th time in '04 (j.C3) = doctoring figures takes time?
    2. Rumsfeld approved Guantanamo interrogation methods such as 'stress positions' and 'fear of dogs' amid a terror alert in Dec/2002 - a review was forced a month later by military officers' complaints (j.A1>3)
    3. Reagan legacy - favoring taxcuts and tolerating deficits - Reagan wound up repealing 1/3 of the 1981 taxcuts that he'd enacted (t.A23)
    4. still a gender wage gap - new research shows that data substantially overstate what women workers earn over time (t.C1>2)

    6/09/2004 wed. - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/08/tue: 782 (6/10/2003/tue: 796)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. Families & Work Institute finds that 80% of employees say they'd like more flexibility, such as reduced workweeks, but 40% fear it would jeopardize their jobs or career
          •     Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: this weekend! all welcome

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  98. CEOs simulate growth thru takeovers on a diversity-choking scale (archives):
    1. buyout company Thomas Lee Partners acquires majority stake in futures brokerage firm Refco Group for $2.25B (j.C5)
    • instead of bogus 'takeover growth', what do we mean by real growth? - occasionally it happens as in... - Hewlett-Packard Co. will create $7B in organic growth by the end of fiscal 2004 - CEO Carly Fiorina said HP is focused on increasing its share of spending by its customers, who currently spend $710B on products that HP could sell them (j.B7) - too bad Carly didn't think of this before she bought Compaq & laid off 15,000
  99. CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):
      German unemployment remained at 10.5% in May, but the number of unemployed people rose slightly (by 9000) to 4.37m from April (t.W1)
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      retirement havens for the intrepid - Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama vie to be the next Florida (j.D1) - oh great, is the Third World the only place we can eke out our diminished pensions? - how about at-least someplace safe like Costa Rica or Belize?
  • DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
    1. Ashcroft questioned on torture memos - Atty. Gen. claimed Bush made no order that would require violating international treaties or domestic laws prohibiting torture but refused to provide several memos from lawyers saying the administration is not bound by those prohibitions (t.A1>10)
    2. the roots of Abu Ghraib - each new revelation makes it clearer that the inhumanity grew out of a morally dubious culture of legal expediency and a disregard for normal behavior fostered at the top of this administration - it is part of the price the nation must pay[?] for Bush's decision to take the extraordinary mandate to fight terrorism that he was granted by a grieving nation after 9/11 and apply it without justification to Iraq (t.A24)


    6/08/2004 tuesday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/07/mon: 730 (6/09/2003/mon: 913)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. New Zealand's Labor gov't is making a 4-day, 32-hour workweek more attractive for 20% of Kiwi households
    2. Belgium's standard national workweek is 38 hours: five 7.6-hr days or four 9.5-hour days
          •     Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: this weekend! all welcome
    + random glimmers of intelligence prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
      UPsizings with unspecified new jobs:
      1. Virgin Group plans to build its new discount air carrier in US from scratch (t.C2)
      2. GM to speed up expansion in China - an annual goal of 1.3m cars (t.W1)
      3. new Home Depot office in China will focus on establishing stores (j.B8)
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework, maintaining ?? ‘jobs’:
      U.S. offers Iraqis public-works jobs - in strategic shift, military aims to stem insurgency by employing the unskilled (j.A4) = a Republican 'New Deal' for Iraqis, not Americans, and yet another Bush flip-flop?

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s job - today's total, 200 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      10% workforce cut (200 jobs lost) as the Tribune Co. of Chicago & L.A. over-reacts to weak ad revenues by cutting costs (and markets), instead of just trimming 10% of its workweek (48 minutes a day for the whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 90% as many newspapers as usual (t.C4)
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives), adding Boston Globe (g):
    1. thousands of NYC home aides strike, seeking $3 hourly raise - people who usually work alone unite, even defying union leadership to stand firm in their demands (t.C16)
    2. some good news for a change - Supreme Court rules in favor of early retirees denied pensions - employer can't cut back on pension when employee retires early from one job & then gets another (t.C7)
  • DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
    1. lawyers decided bans on torture didn't bind Bush: Pentagon memo in 2003 - team cited president's 'inherent' authority in a military campaign (t.A1) - but 'what goes around, comes around' for our captured soldiers and ... Bush is getting imperial and lowering world standards again - and a military campaign against invisible suicide-guerillas is like the British Army's European tactics (battleline formations) against American guerillas in the American Revolution = you're just sitting ducks
    2. forced nudity of Iraqi prisoners is seen as a pervasive pattern, not isolated incidents (t.A11)


    6/05-07/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
    - keep hope-vs-doom comin' with $5/mon. check to Timesizing.com, Box 622, Cambridge Ma 02140 -
    - #visitors to any of our 707 files, F Sa Su: 593,385,443 - wk's daily avg: 588     -
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

    1. Allton, Illinois offers 14 employees option of 32-hour workweek due to budget deficit
    2. whatever your judgment of Reagan, he kept sane 9-5 working hours
    3. by contrast, CEO of Dow Chemical claims exemption from time accountability (& necessarily, productivity measures)
    4. interview with CEO of Harman Int'l supports the Timesizing Imperative
          •      Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
    + random glimmers of hope indexing (j) Wall St.Journal, (t) NYTimes or (g) Bos.Globe (archives):
    1. healthy growth of 248,000 jobs reported in May - but unemployment stays up at 5.6% cuz many restart jobhunt - some of the growth was at the higher end but much of the growth was in lower-paying jobs (6/05 t.A1)
    2. China altering energy sources - faces urgent need to diversify beyond oil & coal, so declared it would generate 10% of its power through renewable sources by 2010 (6/05 t.B1>3) - good idea to step up 10% per decade over this new century
    3. jobless rate drops from 7.3 to 7.2% in Canada in May - 56,000 new jobs (6/05 t.B1>3)
    + clouded hope = makework – PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):
      House lards bill with perks to win support for idled corporate-tax revision - bill would repeal export-taxbreak that WTO ruled illegal & EU is meeting with increasingly punitive tariffs - but perks may be worse, eg: giving churches more freedom to mix in politics (6/07 j.A4)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & g (Boston Globe):
  • DOWNsizing appetizers = banking takeovers (archives):
    1. National City Corp., bank holding firm in Cleveland, to buy Wayne Bancorp Inc. in Wooster OH for $180m, its 3rd bank takeover in 7 months (6/05 t.B4)
    • Citi sees merger boom - betting on revival, Citigroup is reforming merger dept after 2-yr hiatus (6/07 j.C1>4)
  • 4 DOWNsizings, totaling 1,933 lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):
    1. 20% of workforce cut (1100 jobs lost) as Maytag over-reacts to disappointing sales by making sure they'll be just a little more disappointing in future, instead of trimming its workweek by 20% (down to four 8-hour days for whole firm, including top execs), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 80% as many appliances as before (6/05 t.B4)
    2. 453 jobcuts as Levi Strauss & Co. closes 2 jeans-sewing plants in Spain (6/05 t.B4)
    3. 305 cuts as Lear Corp. closes carseat plant in Auburn Hills MI (6/05 t.B4)
    4. 75 cuts as Sikorsky Aircraft shuts down large production plant in Bridgeport CT (6/05 t.B3)
  • DOWNsizing overviews noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
      does outsourcing cost more than it saves? - yes, says Sidney Harman, exec.chairman of Harman International Industries - for many companies, including his, labor is only a small and shrinking percentage of expenses - technology is more important - 'if you outsource your core, you yield your chance for greater product/service exceptionalism - if others can do something better than you, why are you in the business at all?' (6/6 t.3:9)
  • DOWNsizing results = dysfunctional executive pay:
    1. Wal-Mart plans changes to wages, labor practices - CEO Lee Scott will cut exec bonuses [including his own??] 7.5% this year & 15% next year if Wal-Mart fails to promote women & minorities in proportion to the number that apply for mgmt jobs (6/07 j.B3)
    2. life after whistle-blowing - Sherron Watkins doesn't think post-Enron America is any more ethical - she agrees with Warren Buffett's acid test & won't believe CEOs are serious about reform till they reduce their own pay - biggest offenders are Wall Street: Citigroup paid Sandy Weil $45m last year - biggest problem is disconnect between shareholder return and CEO pay - J.P. Morgan said CEOs shouldn't make more than 20 times avg hrly worker; we're above 500 times right now - CEO salary should be capped at $1m/year (6/6 t.mag25)
  • DOWNsizing results = 1 new bankruptcy (archives) in WSJ (j) and/or NYT (t):
      AmeriDebt files for Chapter 11 - credit counsellor that's been sued by FTC & 4 states (6/07 t.C1>2)
  • DOWNsizing results = eroding-retirement noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
      study finds obstacles to retirement - 1/3 of fulltime employees in Mass. lack any pension coverage - 1.87m babyboomers will reach retirement age in next 5 years but many will be forced to work longer (6/6 g.A1)
  • DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
      the cuddly side of prison in Mansfield OH - with inmates' care, 'death row dogs' get a new chance at life - the inmates help turn strays into pets suitable for adoption in Tender Loving Care program - makes inmates less violent (6/07 g.A3)
  • headlines from hell (tm) from (j) Wall Street Journal or (t) NY Times or (g) Boston Globe (archives):
    1. Las Vegas plans to pipe water, upsetting its unwilling donors (6/6 g.A17) - water shortages blaze
    2. newest of our citizens talk about their adoptive nation - Carlos Chiyoda from Brazil: unseparation of church & state in US is becoming more & more like Brazil - my hope is that one day this country will change back to the way I thought it was (6/6 g.city8)
    3. Cheney reportedly interviewed in leak of CIA officer's name - [but quick, NYT, cushion it!] VP is not seen as target of inquiry (6/01 t.A1)
    4. Kissinger assailed in debate on Chile - an expert quits the Council on Foreign Relations in protest - a senior fellow for Inter-American affairs at the nation's pre-eminent foreign policy club announced his resignation May 13, accusing the Council of stifling debate on American intervention in Chile during the 1970s [when the CIA helped assassinate democratically elected Prime Minister Allende] as a result of pressure from former Secy of State Henry Kissinger and others (6/05 t.A15) - glad somebody still has some principles
    5. Pentagon report set framework for use of torture - security or legal factors could trump Geneva standards, memo to Rumsfeld argued (6/07 j.A1) - Bush wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture, lawyers said - last year, Bush's attorneys contended gov't agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't face Justice Dept prosecution (6/07 j.A1) - putting USA right back in the Dark Ages, making USA the current Evil Empire in the eyes of the world, & making Americans targets the world over
    6. Rumsfeld fears US losing war against Islamic extremism (6/6 g.A5) - we fear sane Americans losing war against Rumsfeld & Bush extremism!
    7. 'steadfast' Bush's amazing flipflops (6/05 g.A11) -
      1. can't get enough of Chalabi, pays him $335k/month for 'intelligence' - US troops raid Chalabi's house (NYT 5/21/04)
      2. called Osama #1 priority on 9/13&16/01 - "I don't know where he is...and I really don't care. It's not that important." 3/13/02
      3. "That's Cheney's story and I'm sticking with it" = "we will be greeted [by the Iraqi people] as liberators" - on 6/03/04, Pentagon reports 820 US troops killed in Iraq and 4,682 injured [never mind dozens of suicides and thousands of Iraqi people]
      4. "There does not need to be a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security": White House press briefing 10/24/01 - "So tonight I ask the Congress to join with me in creating a single, permanent dept. with an...urgent mission: securing the homeland..." 6/6/02
      5. "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror" 9/25/02 - "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept.11" 9/17/03
      6. Bush was against creating 9/11 commission, then for it; against Condie testifying, then for it; against testifying himself, then for it; for testifying only 1 hour, then no time limit but had to have Cheney along - to keep their stories straight
      7. "The president of the U.S. must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price" 1/26/2000 - Bush refuses to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds" (Miami Herald 4/01/04)
      8. "Don't try to trap me in this state's issue [gay marriage]" (Larry King Live, 2/15/2000) - "Today I call upon Congress to promptly pass...an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman" 2/24/04
      9. against nation-building - then for it
      10. found WMDs - then lost them - then finds 1 old one
      11. against McCain-Feingold - then signed it into law
      12. against tariffs - then puts tariffs on steel - then removes them
      13. mocks Gore's idea for hybrid car - then calls for $1.3B to develop one
      14. for extending assault weapons ban in 2001 - now against it
    weekend roll-up -
    5 issues/wk - wk's avg homepage hits/issue: 47
    hope of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 12 TIMEsizing items (?? new or saved jobs)  • 1 UPsizing (??+ new jobs)  + bogus hope: • 8 makework items (?? new 'jobs')
    vs. doom of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
    • 5 DOWNsizings, over 4873 jobcuts   • 7 bankruptcies  
    • 8 eroding-retirement stories   • 5 prison stories  
    {{ ytd: 399 timsizngs (1636+ new or sav'd jobs) + 65 upsizngs (84521+ new jobs) + 182 makwrk (36803+ 'jobs') =
    total: 122960 = 42% of cuts, VS. 224 dnsz (291727+ cuts) + 92 bnkrp ($350m+) +20 homlss +74 jail +14 deth }}


    6/04/2004 friday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/02/wed: 697 (6/04/2003/wed: 881)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. high time for the women's movement to get behind the shorter hours agenda?
          •     Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
    + random glimmers of intelligence prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. 'we will never have a truly healthy economy under this president because he gave taxcuts to the part of the population least likely to spend them immediately & most likely to squirrel them away overseas': David Frankel of South Dennis MA (t.A28)
    2. oil prices start to pinch, stirring concern over economic impact (j.A1) - & Bush's Nov. chances?
    3. some big conservative donors in Club for Growth, unhappy with Bush, say they won't back his campaign - mixed emotions for Republicans pulling hard to the right - dislike Bush's big-gov't, big spending, Medicare change, support for Arlen Specter vs. their candidate Pat Toomey (t.21)
    4. Bush-buddy George Tenet resigns as CIA director - 3 harsh reports on agency due (t.A1,A28) - Tenet's exit will spur debate on spy agencies (j.A1) - Tenet takes a fall for those who ignored his warnings but a scapegoat is not the solution (t.A29) - second resignation: James Pavitt, head of agency's clandestine service (t.A1) = pre-emptive resignations for when White House CIA leak explodes? meanwhile, Bush unity seen crumbling (boston globe.A1)
    5. Kerry accused Bush of instituting a 'backdoor draft' by forcing troops to stay on duty longer than their enlistment (j.A1) - enough resentment to swing troops against Dubya in Nov?
    6. Marc Jacobs designer clothing store in NY's West Village displays political leanings - windowshoppers get dose of anti-Bush sentiment from 2x3' posters of deck of cards featuring White House figures with damning quotes, like Bush's "I'm the commander, see, I don't need to explain" - got 1000s of positive responses and only 3 negative (t.A26)
    7. federal district judge Paul Friedman strikes Feb. law against ads for legalization of marijuana and its medical use - 'unconstitutional', violates first amendment on free speech - law challenged by groups seeking to run subway ads saying 'marijuana laws waste billions of taxpayer dollars to lock up non-violent Americans' (t.A22)
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework maintaining ?? ‘jobs’:
    1. FBI wants new division on terrorism (t.A22) - how many will that make and how much will it cost this time?
    2. a consortium that included KBR paid a consultant in a Nigerian fuel project $130m for services, not bribes, his lawyer said (j.A1) - ri-i-ight

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  • CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-strangling levels:
      some alumni balk over Harvard's pay to its money managers - last year Jack R. Meyer was paid $6.9m for overseeing largest university endowment in U.S., at $19.3B (t.A1)
  • CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):
      New Delhi - Indian companies expect growth from outsourcing by US software companies as cost savings continue to outweigh any political backlash for them (j.A10)
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s job - today's total, 2940 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
      unspecified jobs cut as Middleton Doll Co. collectibles of Pewaukee WS moves production of most of its dolls to China to reduce costs (t.C3) - & markets...
  • DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
    1. DB Companies convenience stores of Pautucket RI amid competition from larger chains (t.C3)
    2. eTeam USA LLC and eteam of Philadelphia LLC in Chapter 11 jointly (j.B7)
    3. Biogan International Inc. in Chapter 11 (j.B7)
    • asbestos bankruptcies face setbacks on 2 fronts - integrally involved Federal District Judge Alfred Wolin in Newark will retire in middle of 5 proceedings after being ordered to recuse himself from at least 3 of them, & another proceeding is interrupted by lawsuit against plaintiff's lawyerfor overcharging in fees (t.C3)
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives), adding Boston Globe (g):
      Enron 4 pension plans face termination in filing by Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., an attempt to force Enron to contribute more money to them and make good on its promises to 17,000 employees (j.C3)
  • headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. Senate backs redefinition of atomic waste so it can be left in aging tanks, some of them already leaking (t.A20) - a time of unpredented self-destructiveness in America's 'leadership'
    2. Tyson Foods Inc. - lawsuit claims Tyson hired illegal immigrant workers to depress wages at a Tennessee poultry plant (j.B4) - here it is in a microcosm - still think immigrants, legal or not, are good for the US economy?
    3. Army report last Oct. on military prisons in Iraq was sanitized in public version - included 'only' holding of innocent Iraqis and severe overcrowding (j.A1>6)
    4. unsettling questions are raised on pre-9/11 readiness by a self-described al Qaeda hijack trainee's tale of dealings with the FBI - man told of hijacking plot in 2000 - British Muslim, Niaz Khan, approached US authorities with plans to use airplanes (j.A1>4) - but Bush & neo-cons were too determined to find a 'Pearl Harbor' event to cover their Iraq grab?
    5. Bush confirms talks with private lawyer Jim Sharp to see if he needed legal advice to deal with grand jury investigation into how the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame was leaked (t.A22) - Jim Sharp has contributed to Democrats' campaigns: Kerry, Gephardt, Daschle, Kennedy (j.A4)
    6. big farms produce bigger share of crops - just 3% of US farms produce 62% of US agrofoods, up from 56.6% in '97 - latest numbers refer to 70,000 farms with annual sales over $500k in 2002 & cover total 2.1m farms, down 87000 since '97 (t.A22) - making US food supply more monoculturally vulnerable
    7. Cardinal Bernard Law gets honored with big job in Rome despite tenure during hundreds of allegations of abuse over decades, while hundreds of priests guilty only of a single misconduct over 20 years ago are defrocked and ruined - I don't know whether to laugh, cry or give up my collar: Rev. Pres. Charles Bouchard of Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis (t.A28)
    8. David Brooks thinks Bush has done OK with economy so might as well re-elect him & provide him another chance to do something big - but given the mess in Iraq and national debt of $22 trillion, could U.S. survive a Bush administration with a mandate to do anything bigger? - Bettye Nowlon of Austin TX (t.A28)
    9. women make wages equal or above men's in only 5 of 100s of job categories: hazardous material removers, telecom line install & repair, convention planners, cafeteria workers, construction helpers - but in field with 98% women, men's median earnings of $22k were $5k more (t.A22)


    6/03/2004 thursday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 709 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/02/wed: 697 (6/04/2003/wed: 881)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. valuable rundown on French 35-hour workweek by New Zealander
    2. French geographer muses about supposed negative effects of shorter workweek on elderly
    3. a long disquisition on retirement in America
    4. WSJ revisits dual-income families from mid-90s & finds it just isn't working
          •     Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. Saudi attack spurs more U.S. workers to pull up stakes (j.A1) - good, it's time we left all those poor people alone to make their own mistakes, as we reserve the right to make for ourselves
    2. rehabilitated and set free in the Atlantic = 11 sea turtles (t.A16) - 'but that's all we're doing for the Arabs!' - but Arabs are people, not turtles, and our whole altruistic crusade 'for' the Iraqis and other Arabs is really just for our own oilmen, otherwise we'd turn over control to the U.N.
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework maintaining ?? ‘jobs’:
    1. the Army expanded its use of forced service extensions for troops (j.A1) - soldiers set to retire instead told they'll stay on as units deploy (bos globe.A17) - Kerry points out that this now equates to an unvoted-on draft which no one in National Guard or Reserves signed up for
    2. with some strings attached, Senate approves war money = another $25,000,000,000 (t.A20) - note neighboring article on GOP cowardice: Republicans ponder not adopting a budget this year - paying the costs of taxcuts now is politically unpalatable to most Republicans (t.A20)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s job - today's total, 2940 jobcuts, made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):
    1. 7% workforce cut (2940 jobs lost) as Seagate Technology diskdrives responds to shrinking markets by shrinking employment (and markets), instead of just trimming 7% of its workweek (34 minutes a day for the whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 93% as many diskdrives as usual (t.C3, 6/04 j.B4)
    • (also noted: citing budget woes, Museum of Fine Arts lays off 23 staffers - boston globe.D1)
  • DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
      Pegasus Satellite TV and Pegasus Satellite Communications Inc filed Chapter 11 (t.C3, j.A1>B6)
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives), adding Boston Globe (g):
      nursing homes face skyrocketing malpractice-insurance costs amid a surge of suits from spreading elder-abuse laws - situation especially severe in Tex., Ark., and Fla. with their large populations of seniors - some doctors stop seeing seniors (j.A1>D1)
  • headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. Hyundai Motor Co. - CEO Chung Mong Koo's admission that Hyundai's future 'may not be all that bright' lists a set of factors that concern us all: poor domestic consumption (which shorter hours would fix), rising household debt (ditto), soaring global oil prices (good, for the long term), and volatile foreign-exchange rates (j.B6) - as investors have nowhere to flee
    2. Bush chooses lawyer Jim Sharp if needed in CIA leak case (j.B5, t.A21) - from Bush league to Bush leak - this leak was such high treason and so compromising to our intelligence agency that it alone easily sustains an impeachment of Bush, but where are the Democrat-Party voices? - working for other side? note Jim Sharp has contributed to campaigns of Kerry, Gephardt, Daschle, and Kennedy (6/04 j.A4)
    3. Bush likened Iraq to World War II in an Air Force Academy speech but deleted 'crusade' in quoting Ike's D-Day message (j.A1, t.A1) - this America-bankrupting traitor-in-the-White-House must really be getting scared - he's stretching further & further to paint his admittedly terrorism-irrelevant War of Choice in Iraq into a glorious War of Necessity
    4. Kerry accused Bush of an inadequate job of battling the threat of bioterrorism as he continued to contest the pResident's strong suit, security (j.A1) - strong for whom? Cheney? who can disappear for days into a secret bunker? - Kerry's pathetic criticism is like knocking Hitler for wearing a moustache
    5. G.O.P. seeking to enlist 1000s of religious congregations around the country for Bush re-election effort (t.A1) - again, this usurper's unConstitutional unseparation of church and state alone easily justifies impeachment - where are the opposition voices?!
    6. fiscal shenanigans - Bush is running for re-election as a taxcutter without disclosing what federal programs will be sacrificed to compensate for lost revenue (t.A26) - yet the headline still paints this betrayal as a boyish prank
    7. shortcut on nuclear waste - Bush's Energy Dept. wants to reclassify certain nuclear wastes at S.C. weapons plant to they can dispose of them faster and cheaper than if they complied with current law - the Dept. already has a notoriously poor record in handling environmental issues (t.A26) - America, too, can have as degraded an environment as Russia


    6/02/2004 wed. - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 707 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 6/01/tue: 784 (6/03/2003/tue: 911)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. Australian families want time-off, not pay-offs
    2. longer vacations make for better health - Joe Robinson featured
    3. employers can view job-sharing as costing two sets of benefits
          •     Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. US mfrs in May saw best rate of hiring since early 70s (j.A1) - but full or part time, and high or low wage?
    2. oil prices set another record, topping $42/barrel (t.C1) - a double win: bad for Bush and good for environment - but compare: relatively speaking, gas isn't that expensive - @$2.13/gal. cheaper than anything (eg: milk, $3.29) except Poland Spring water ($1.50) or windshield-washer fluid - $2 for Krystal Kleer (6/03 g.E1)
    3. Michael Moore film has distributor - independent studio Lions Gate of Canada will distribute 'Fahrenheit 9/11', famous for its critique of Bush & its top honors at Cannes - CEO Jon Feltheimer doesn't shy away from these kinds of controversies - will release June 25 in 1000 theaters - IFC Entertainment is putting up 35% of $8-10m costs - Showtime will run on pay cable (t.C2)
    4. Federal Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco ruled the Bush-backed ban on certain late abortions is unconstitutional, striking down the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act as vague and lacking provisions to safeguard woman's life - lawyer Beth Parker representing Planned Parenthood called decision an enormous victory (j.A1, t.A14)
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework maintaining ?? ‘jobs’:
      A White House tally put Iraq costs so far at $119.4 billion, a figure sure to rise - of that, $97.2B was for the military, $21.2B for 'rebuilding' [our quotes] and $1B for administration (j.A1) - truly the Republican makework campaign is... the Pentagon

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  • CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-strangling levels:
      where Grasso played in a league of his own - the NYSE ex-chief says his $200m pay was in line with Wall Street levels, but compared to his organization's earnings, no one could touch him - Grasso's pay topped most peers', drained profit - in 2000, his pay was 52% of NYSE net income; in 2001, 172%; in 2002, 134% - closest rival, James Cayne at Goldman Sachs only got 4%, 3%, 3% by comparison (j.C3) - nice to see the Wall St Journal has for once connected the dots between low profits and outasight executive pay
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives), adding Boston Globe (g):
    1. to afford retirement, cut your taxes, fire your broker, and get a part-time job (j.D1)
    2. Medicare's drug-discount card gets modest reception in debut (j.D3)
    3. actuaries under scrutiny on pension fund pacts - US seeks info from actuarial firms, documents etc. related to firms' decision about 2 years ago to ask their pension fund clients to sign clauses limiting their ability to sue the firms (t.C1,C2) - oh oh
    4. drug discount cards begin today, but signups lag - big test for Bush's Medicare fiddles - effect of new cards could resound politically & on health policy (t.A1) - gov't to push for more enrollments - low-income seniors pass on Medicare drug cards (g.A3) - & why wouldn't they? this is just an annuity for Bush's pals in the drug companies - no wonder he's gonna to try to push seniors into it
  • DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
    1. Arkansas: early release for 680 inmates to ease prison overcrowding - the 19 prisons in the state held 11,700 inmates on Monday, almost 1,000 more than a court-imposed maximum, and 763 other felons were housed in city and county jails awaiting transfer to the state - the women's prison held 100 inmates more than its lawful capacity of 660 (t.A15)
    2. Louisiana: youth prison closes after investigation in '90s for poor living conditions and abuses by guards - 62 inmates were moved to secure facilities, 7 are in treatment programs, and 12 were released, as La. supposedly shifts from adult to community-based model (t.A15)
    3. Brazilian police found corpses of 38 inmates as they retook control of a Rio de Janeiro prison after a 3-day revolt, the second in five weeks (j.A1) - so how many of those corpses did the police create? - compare '30 inmates and guard die in jail revolt in Brazil' (t.A5)
  • headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. Colin Powell presses CIA on faulty intelligence on Iraq arms - the secretary of state is still angry about the briefings he used for his UN speech (t.A12) - and still not taking responsibility
    2. US to divulge more about genetically modified [franken-]crops, responding to criticism that a controversial farming practice is shrouded in secrecy (t.C5) - like all the rest of the Bush dictatorship
    3. San Luis, Mexico - where butterflies rest, damage runs rampant - illegal loggers endanger Mexican habitat (t.A13)


    6/01/2004 tuesday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
    - want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
    - we have 707 textfiles: # visitors yesterday 5/31/mon: 522 (6/02/2003/mon: 864)
    TIMEsizing awareness = strategic sharework (vs.makework) in yesterday's GoogleNews:

    1. since Britain signed EU pact's Social Chapter limiting hours in Worktime Directive, nearly 2 million jobs have been created in Britain & 3 million part-time employees had right to paid vacation last year
          •     Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
    + random glimmers of hope prioritizing today's (j) Wall St Journal or (t) NYTimes (archives):
    1. UPsizings with unspecified new jobs: - ProMOS Technologies Inc of Taiwan to invest up to $900m to build semiconductor plant in China (j.A12)
    2. trading in emissions credits is increasing, triggered by prospect Russia may ratify Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gases (j.A1)
    3. Venezuela's Pres. Chavez conferred with former US Pres. Jimmy Cahtah & agreed to accept recall referendum if opposition petition declared valid (j.A1) - referendum good!
    4. payroll gains help boost income growth - but higher oil prices and lower tax refunds have made consumers more cautious about spending (j.A2) - not to mention most of payroll gains to top brackets
    5. Kerry would seek tighter standards governing (Cafta) Central American Free Trade Agreement (j.A6)
    6. John McCain: in praise of humanitarian do-gooders like Red Cross personnel whom some have maligned for standing up for Geneva Convention in Iraq (j.A16)
    7. H-P, big backer of Linux, increases its support for 'open source' software = first big tech firm to certify & support programs made by MySQL & JBoss (j.B4)
    8. Monsanto's retreat on gene-altered wheat relieves US millers & exporters - offered them plenty of risk but little reward (j.C6) = another frankenfood set back
    + clouded hope: UPsizing gov't (and private-sector inefficiency) = makework (archives) vs. sharework maintaining ?? ‘jobs’:
      new friction puts Airbus, Boeing on course for fresh trade battle, each accusing other of getting gov't subsidies that distort competition in market that they divide almost equally (j.A1)

    vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

  • CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):
      the jungle - significant shifts in hiring attitudes have occurred in recent years because of abundance of talented jobseekers, such as: hiring managers have gotten picky, wanting extremely close matches with job needs - employers rarely provide feedback on why they turned you down, or even if they got your resume (j.B10)
  • DOWNsizing results = bankruptcies (archives):
    1. Women First Healthcare Inc in Chapter 11 (j.B8)
    2. Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Co Ltd in foreign proceeding under Sec. 304 (j.B8)
  • DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):
      drug discount cards begin today, but signups lag - big test for Bush's Medicare fiddles - effect of new cards could resound politically & on health policy (t.A1, j.A1) - another Bushbotch?
  • DOWNsizing results = prison news (archives):
      at Abu Ghraib, soldiers faced pressure to produce intelligence - analysts, interrogators say many were ill-prepared; quotas[!], unsafe conditions - interviews paint dispiriting picture of US practices at Abu Ghraib, an on-the-fly mix of chaos and coercion that produced little useful intelligence despite unrelenting pressure (j.A1) - & Ashcroft sent over prison supervisors with well-known bad records in Utah and NM prisons, including inmate rape, torture, murder, including vs. mentally ill inmates (Boston 90.3 FM 12-1pm 6/02)
  • DOWNsizing results = suicides - lack of work-life balance accelerates terminal illnesses (archives):
      in Oregon, choosing death over suffering - voices of the dying: terminally ill Oregonians discuss choice and assisted suicide (t.D1,D4)
  • headlines from hell, noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) (archives):
    1. many feeling pinch after newest surge in U.S. fuel prices (t.A1) = ABB (anyone but Bush in Nov.)
    2. Pilgrim's Pride Corp. of Pittsburg TX - 24,000 chickens were destroyed after avian flu was discovered on Texas farm (j.A1)

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    For more details on the work-sharing approach, see our layman's guide Timesizing, Not Downsizing which is available at bookstores in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass. or from *Amazon.com online.

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