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Good News, February, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

2/28/2001  glimmers of intelligence -

1. [1 UNtakeover]
   Etc., Globe staff & wire services, BG, F9.
   ...Renaissance Worldwide confirmed it sold most of its Align360 business unit to an employee-led buyout team for $5m cash and a 25% equity stake in the acquiring company.
   [Guess we just discovered a new kind of UNtakeover. That makes three: a clinched deal that gets unclinched, a spinoff, and this one = an employee buyout.]

2. [We predict that mass layoffs, as distinct from individual firings for just cause, will be totally illegal in the major economies by 2100 AD and be completely replaced by workweek adjustment, except in cases of corporate extremis (such as immediately pre-Chapter 7). Think we're crazy? Here's the "small beginning" -]
   Calif. Commission to discuss layoffs, by Kelly Yamanouchi, AP-NY-02-27-01 2000EST via AOLNews.
   SAN FRANCISCO - The state Public Utilities Commission [PUC] will consider prohibiting the state's two largest utilities from laying off nearly 3,000 workers.
   [How appropriate that this significant first step is being taken by an organization whose acronym sounds like "puke" - which is what mass layoffs make us do.]
   The Commission is scheduled to consider March 7 whether to bar Pacific Gas & Electric Co. [PG&E] and Southern California Edison Co. from making further jobcuts - and potentially force them to rehire 725 workers already fired.
   A PUC judge has already ruled that the initial layoffs "have reduced the level of service below what customers expect as an adequate, efficient, just and reasonable level of service."...
   [So far us brilliant humanoids have managed to connect layoffs with drops in quality of customer service. It may take us a hundred years, but eventually, duh, we'll get them connected to the drops in consumer spending that constitute recessions - or if they last and last - like Japan's - "depressions."]
   PG&E fired 325 contractors and employees in January, and said it plans to lay off 675 more if its financial situation does not improve. Southern California Edison fired 400 workers in December and said last month it will lay off 1,450 more.
   The utilities also have announced they will read meters every other month and use an estimate between readings. Both have said their layoffs would mean longer waits for service and longer waits to get power restored during outages.
   PG&E spokesman Ron Low said the cutbacks were made "to ensure that we have enough money to provide emergency response" when power lines go down. "We understand that by doing these measures, it will inconvenience our customers."...
   [But what do monopolies care about their customers?!]
   California's power crisis has prompted floods of calls to customer service at the two utilities. PG&E said it answered 2.3 million calls in January 2001, compared to 1.3m a year ago..\..
   Reducing staff during the winter storm season could make reliability a greater problem, Administrative Law Judge John Wong wrote in an opinion issued Friday [2/23/2001].... "The utilities acknowledge that the cost savings from the layoffs will not materially improve their financial condition," Wong wrote. The utilities have until March 1 to respond to Wong's decision.
   [So a judge named Wong is easing us out of a totally wonky and suicidal "strategy," mass layoffs aka downsizing.]

3. Click here for today's roundup of timesizing stories - 2/28/2001.

1. [For those of you whose subconscious has a broken record repeating "But Clinton is a Democrat and Democrats are Good!" - here's the definitive cuss-out by a progressive. You aren't going to see straight talk like this in the New York Times very often -]
   Cut him loose - Democrats must save their party from Clinton, op ed by Bob Herbert, NYT, A19.
   Some years ago, when Gennifer Flowers informed bill Clinton that she had lied under oath before a grievance committee in Arkansas, the man already known as Slick Willie replied, "Good for you."
   Mr. Clinton always had an easy, breezy relationship with wrongdoing. But the Democractic Party overlooked the ethical red flags and made a pact with Mr. Clinton that was the equivalent of a pact with the devil. And he delivered. With Mr. Clinton at the controls, the party won the White House twice. But in the process it lost its bearings and maybe even its soul.
   Now, with the stench of yet another scandal polluting the political atmosphere, some of Mr. Clinton's closest associates and supporters are acknowledging what his enemies have argued for years - the man is so thoroughly corrupt it's frightening.
   The president who hung a "For Rent" sign on the door to the Lincoln Bedroom also conducted a clearance sale on pardons in his last weird sleepless days in the White House.
   The fallout from those pardons is threatening to destroy Mr. Clinton, and perhaps also his wife, the junior senator from New York. He may finally be getting his due.
   The Clintons can spin this however they want. But the simple truth is that the way in which some of the pardons were granted seems to fit neatly with the standard definition of a bribe, which is the promise of money or gifts - something of value - to influence the action or behavior of an official.
   Marc Rich was one of the U.S. government's 10 most wanted fugitives. He was accused, among other things, of wire fraud, racketeering, evading $48 million in taxes in what prosecutors described as the largest tax avoidance scheme in U.S. history, and violating the trade embargo against Iran during the hostage crisis.
   Do we think something of value was exchanged for Mr. Clinton's pardon of Mr. Rich? Or do we think Mr. Clinton went to bat for this billionaire fugitive because, darn it, it was the right thing to do?
   Federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation of the Rich pardon as well as Mr. Clinton's decision to grant clemency to four Hasidic men who stole tens of millions of dollars from government agencies. The four men were from New Square, NY, a village in Rockland County that voted almost unanimously - 1,400 to 12 - for Hillary Clinton in last year's Senate race.
   Mrs. Clinton met with New Square's religious leader, Rabbi David Twersky, during the Senate campaign. And in December, after winning the election, she and Mr. Clinton met at the White House with the rabbi.
   Was there an understanding? Did the quids hook up with the quos in an illegal votes-for-clemency scheme." Mary Jo White, the US attorney in Manhattan, is trying to find out.
   The Clintons may or may not be led away in handcuffs someday. But whatever happens with the criminal investigations, it's time for the Democratic Party to wise up. Ostracism would be a good first step. Bill Clinton should be cut completely loose. Cold turkey. No more talk about his political genius, his fund-raising prowess, his ability to captivate audiences. He was president for eight years and the bottom line politically is this: For the first time in nearly half a century, the Republican Party controls the presidency and both houses of Congress.
   Bill Clinton has been a disaster for the Democratic Party. Send him packing.
   There's not much the Democrats can do about Mrs. Clinton. She's got a Senate seat for six years. But there is no need for the party to look to her for leadership. The Democrats need to regroup, re-establish their strong links to middle-class and working-class Americans, and move on.
   You can't lead a nation if you are ashamed of the leadership of your party. The Clintons are a terminally unethical and vulgar couple, and they've betrayed everyone who has ever believed in them. [Our bolding - ed.]
   As neither Clinton has the grace to retire from the scene, the Democrats have no choice but to turn their backs on them....
   [Whew! Herbert's hot today! Sockittoooeeeeyyyyyy. Maybe Bob should run for Prez - but naa, he wouldn't have a chance until the Clean Election Act spreads from Maine (see story below) to the federal level. Meanwhile, dumb Anthony Lewis was still trying to blame Ralph Nader in a recent op ed, but today's Times has the goods. Bob Herbert unleashes on Clinton (above) and three letters to the editor unleash on the Supreme Court - gems like "If the recent recount violated the guarantee of equal protection [as 5 of the 9 top justices held], why did the various methods of the initial voting and counting using different methods not also violate that tenet? The different ballots and machines should have invalidated the entire election nationwide.... Congress should use Bush v. Gore to see to it that \we get\ a universal standard nationwide" (Roger Binion of Chicago) and "The decision [to] stay...the recount and the failure to remand to the Florida court for a remedy left many of us in the legal profession feeling betrayed. Once the highest court in the nation jettisons principle and precedent, there is no way to pretend every is all right" (Pamela Finley of Juneau).]

2. Clean Elections Act alters terrain in Maine - Maine's public campaign aid has lesson for Massachusetts, by Rick Klein, BG, front page.
   ...After enactment..., the number of candidates seeking House and Senate seats...jumped from 305 in 1998 to 352 in 2000. Of those 352, almost one-third - 116 - ran under the public-financing system. That number included 37 incumbents who were originally elected with private money..\..While the law has not revolutionized the state's election process, it has clearly drawn new candidates into politics and, many say, resulted in a Legislature freer of special interest influence....
   Many of the challengers were newcomers like..\..
   • Deborah Simpson...a single mother with a 6-year-old son, juggling nightschool and waitressing [who] with $4400 from the state...beat more experienced contenders, making her one of the 62 legislative candidates to run under the new public financing law and win..\.. Simpson...loved politics but figured she would never be able to raise the money she'd need to run for a seat in the Legislature. Last year, she reconsidered [because] the state's newly enacted Clean Elections Act [would let her] campaign by talking about issues, instead of asking people to write her checks....
   • Edward Youngblood, a...bank executive who said he never considered running for office until a few Republican state senators approached him about taking on...a powerful 16-year incumbent Democrat. [He] initially demurred, but the Clean Elections Act made him reconsider [because he would not have to spend] valuable campaign hours hitting up donors rather than talking with voters [and he would be able to assure] everyone that he was free of special-interest money and influence.... Youngblood was one of just four publicly financed challengers to topple an incumbent..\..
   Maine's Clean Elections ended up winning about as often as traditionally financed candidates. Some are crediting the system with helping Republicans pick up three Senate seats, giving the party joint control of that chamber.
   [That's where it could help Massachusetts, because despite Massachusetts' self-proclaimed progressiveness, it's the state with the second-lowest number of contested seats in the nation and overwhelming Democratic control that's been entrenched for decades. Thus Massachusetts' government has most of the evils that progressives associate with federal-level Republicans, including a House speaker (Finneran) who dismisses term limits and battles clean elections. Democracy only works well when there's feedback and participation and change and competition. When one group gets entrenched, it doesn't matter which party it is, it soon becomes corrupt and self-serving.]
   Many...legislators were forced out by term limits last year [as in essence Lincoln was, after just one term as a Whig representative to Congress in the late 1840s] and 22 Clean Elections candidates won open seats. "It doesn't guarantee you a win, but it puts you on the playing field," said Nick Nyhart, executive director of Public Campaign, a Washington-based group that is coordinating Clean Elections-style campaign-finance reform in some 35 states....
   Seventeen [virtually half] of Maine's 35 senators ran with public money. In the House, 45 of 151 members ran under Clean Elections. "We have people who were elected who don't feel beholden to the lobbyists," said Maine House majority whip William Norbert, a Portland Democrat who won re-election under Clean Elections last year after serving one term.
   But the law is not perfect, and money still plays a role. Interest groups...may have spent even more money on so-called "issue ads," many of which were direct attacks on candidates, Norbert said....
   [One of the decisive advantages of direct referendum democracy over representative democracy is that is does force special interests to work a lot harder and spend a lot more money. After all, at the federal level, for example, you're dealing potentially with thousands of issues and not just 100 senators and 435 representatives.]
   ...Maine's entire campaign financing system cost the state less than $875,000 last year.... David Donnelly, director of Massachusetts Voters for Clean Elections, says the message from Maine is clear: Clean Elections drew more candidates to run for office, with none of the fringe candidates or extremist party takeovers envisioned by opponents. "The sky didn't fall down in Maine," Donnelly said....

1. Bristol-Myers [Squibb] says it will spin off its orthopedics unit, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...Zimmer...into a publicly traded company later this year...to focus on the company's core prescription drug business..\.. It anticipated that \the\ divestiture [of] Zimmer, its hip and knee replacement unit, would become an independent publicly traded company by the end of Q3 of 2001....

2. Click here for today's roundup of timesizing stories - 2/23/2001.

1. [one company pushes hard to avoid layoffs -]
   Intel plans broad measures to cut costs - A response to uncertain economic conditions worldwide, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C6.
   ...The world's largest chip maker [yester]day announced a wide range of cost-saving measures, but not layoffs, intended to counter a slowing economy.... Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif \hopes\ to save "hundreds of millions of dollars" without having to scale back spending on research and development, an area it is counting on to stay ahead of its competitors.
   Intel...intendas to postpone many of its employees' pay increases until the fall, place strict limits on new hiring and gradually reduce its work force through attrition.... Less than 10% of Intel's workforce is typically lost to attrition each year. The cutbacks also include a 30% drop in "discretionary spending," which includes employee travel, training programs and overtime.
   [Travel and overtime, OK, but training - ohoh.]
   Finally...Intel will delay its effort to provide each of its employees with a free personal computer and Internet access until 2002....

2. Hard realities on the Rio Grande,
   2 letters to editor, NYT, A26.
   1. By Christopher Edwards of NYC.
      Re "Easing up at the border"...Op Ed, Feb. 15: While helping businesses and recent and future immigrants are all laudable goals in the debate over immigration levels, another factor that Pres. Bush and Congress must consider in the debate is the effect of immigration on population growth.
      During the 1990's, our population grew by 13% to 281 million, and the Census Bureau projects that it could rise to 500 million by 2050. Immigration causes the majority of growth, as Americans have had below-replacement fertility rates for years.
      Further growth will strain the country's infrastructure and environment, as new houses, schools and roads will have to be built, often in currently undeveloped areas, to accommodate a growing population.
   2. By Lin Sun of Queens NY.
      Pamela Falk ("Easing up at the border"...) recommends a mass amnesty for Mexicans illegally residing in the the United States, implying that it is "the right thing to do, both economically and morally." Yes, a steady supply of cheap foreign labor financially benefits some businesses. And providing the world's desperately poor with the opportunity to more to our high-consumption society feels morally right to many people.
      But no debate on an amnesty is complete without reference to a new INS study showing that amnesties encourage illegal immigration.
      [What's the use of having an immigration policy if you repeatedly nullify it?]
      And a Gallup Poll this month indicated that only 5% of respondents were "very satisfied" with current immigration policy.
      [Immigration policy should be turned over to binding public referendums without delay.]

• Dollars & nonsense - In lean times, some get a cut, by Steven Levingston, BG, C4.
  Once upon a time there was a pig who awoke with a start when the economy began to slow. He lumbered onto his hooves and staggered to his trough, and he didn't like what he saw. He was the biggest, fattest, pinkest pig of all and he ruled as chief executive of the barnyard.
  "Where's my slop?" he thundered.
  "There, sir," said the toad on his back. "And might I say, don't you look lovely in the morning light of economic malaise."
  "This is not my usual slop," the top pig said. "It is smaller than usual."
  "Times are a little lean," explained the barn's chief operating pig, who was examining the books.
  "Did you say lean?" the boss said. "Lean is not a word a pig likes."
  "We're having to make some adjustments," said the chief operating pig. "Thinks aren't what they used to be ever since the goose stopped laying the golden eggs."
  "A goose laying golden eggs - why didn't any of you know it was just a big fraud?" the big pig scolded.
  "Have you ever tried to lay a golden egg, sir?" the toad inquired. "Why, I'm sure if anybody..."
  "Shut up, Toady," the top pig said. He turned to the chief operating pig. "Are we still dishing out slop to all these slobs? he asked, waving his snout in the direction of the horses and donkeys and roosters and sheep and goats. "Do the numbers,swine. If they're getting their slop and there isn't so much to go around anymore, then what's that tell you? Less slop for me. Fix the problem, swine."
  "We already have a plan, sir."
  And the pinkest pig of all warned: "It does involve pink slips, doesn't it?"
  "Of course," smiled the chief operating pig. "Always our first thought."
  The executive pigs patted themselves on their muddy, smelly backs. They were wise leaders. They saw the bodies fall at Montgomery Ward, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Lucent, Sara Lee, Whirlpool, JC Penney, Aetna, Chase Manhattan, and on and on. Five thousand here, 10,000 there, another 20,000 over there, and 30,000 somewhere else. At the first sign of trouble, these pigs knew to start whacking the workers. Send those old horses out to pasture. Pack off the sheep to the mutton vendors.
  By the time the chief executive pig had finished his firings, he had worked up a porker's appetite. "Now gather up all the slop left behind by the others and fill my slop to the top!" he ordered.
  [Here's a reference to the concentration of wealth. The metaphor fails because his slop has a top. The slop of our wealthy has no top - it is astronomical and potentially up to 99.999% of everything in the country, and therein lies the "brazilianization" of the United States. At a point that Japan has obviously passed, the concentration of income is so intense and astronomical that it actually suctions the markets away from its own investments, and then, secular depression, solvable only by major war to kill off the surplus labor, or, more intelligently, by reducing the statutory workweek to spread the vanishing work, raise wages (by absorbing the wage-flattening labor surplus), and rebalance production and consumption.]
  But before he could dig his merry snout into his trough, the farmer appeared with a couple of hoglike men. "That's the one. My biggest, my fattest, my pinkest pig of all. Hate to see him go - but times are tough. Go on, take him away."
  As the men came forward, the toad sprang off the pig's back to save his own life.
  "See you around, sir," the toad croaked. "And might I say, You'll look just lovely between two slices of bread."
  [There is not this kind of accountability and comeuppance for our rich-beyond-imagination CEOs. There is no feedback at all for many of them. They can dish it out but they never have to take it. They have so much money that they can (A) concentrate in themselves most of the decision-making power of the nation, and (B) effectively insulate themselves from any negative consequences of any of those decisions. If they "get their walking papers," the golden parachutes of the top executives enrich them more than if they had stayed. Heads they win, tails they still don't lose. So as a long-term system with a great feedback mechanism, this ain't it - there's no effective feedback. The system's cybernetics are trash.]

• An old-economy law on layoffs applies for downsizing dot-coms, by Diane Lewis, BG, front page.
  ...Walker-Digital gave no advance warning and awarded no severance or unused vacation pay on the day the employees were shown the door.... As painful as the layoff was for [them], it may hurt Walker Digital as well. Last month, the State of Connecticut sued the new-economy company for violating an old-economy rule, the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act, also known as WARN.
  The federal law, created during the massive downsizings of the late 1980s, was designed to safeguard manufacturing workers from unexpected layoffs. Now, the law is protecting Web designers and computer engineers as once high-flying tech and Internet companies slash thousands of workers from their payrolls....

1. [1 UNtakeover]
   Etc., BG, C2.
   ...Santa Clara-based Riverstone [Networks] was spun off of Rochester, NH-based Cabletron....

2. [a vote for binding public referendums]
   A binding referendum, letter to editor by Zachary Berman of the Bronx, NYT, A30.
   ...Whatever the results of any new referendum [on term limits in NYC], there will inevitably be a clarion call in the near future to have the results reversed.
   To put this matter to bed, I suggest that it be stipulated that the results of any new referendum be binding for the next 100 years. In this way, there would be at least a chance that the outcome would be determined by a clash of political principles as opposed to political expedience.

3. Click here for today's roundup of timesizing stories - 2/17/2001.

1. 2 UPsizings, yielding 10 NYC + ?? India jobs -
   1. Silicon Valley law firm to open New York City branch, by Jonathan Glater, NYT, C4.
      ...to serve Silicon Alley..\.. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the Palo Alto, Calif. lay firm whose rapid growth in recent years has paralleled that of its Silicon Valley clients...
      [and what about their more recent rapid shrinkage?]
      ...initially...will have a staff of 2 partners...and about 8 junior lawyers....

   2. MIT Media Lab to expand to India, AP via BG, F7.
      ...A well-known incubator for futuristic technologies...is in discussions with the Indian government on details of an effort to bring lab projects to several yet-to-be-determined locations.... Current projects include everything from interactive cinema to wearable computers.... The lab opened Media Lab Europe in Dublin last year.

2. Click here for Bloomberg's mention of TIMEsizing (hours cuts) today - 2/16/2001.

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Telephone jobs created, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
   A British company specializing in the construction of telephone networks [will] offer jobs to some of the 6,000 steel workers facing dismissal by Corus, Britain's biggest steel maker. EXi Telecoms said its proposal was part of a plan it had devised with a labor union and the government to create 4,000 jobs in telecommunications industry. EXi said it would establish training sites in steel plants threatened with closing.

2. Click here for NYT's general mention of timesizing, not downsizing - 2/15/2001.

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Calpine Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...San Jose, Calif., an independent power producer, [will] build a power plant near Beloit, Wis., for $350m. Construction is scheduled to begin in 3Q01 and Calpine expects the plant to be operating by 3Q03.

2. [1 multi UNmerger]
   A Canadian rail pioneer plans split-up, by Timothy Pritchard, NYT, C7.
   ...Based in Calgary..\..Canadian Pacific Ltd., which built the railroad that linked Canada's prairies to the west coast in the 1880's and later expanded into a [rail-ship-air-hotel] conglomerate, announced plans [yester]day to split itself into five publicly traded companies, a move intended to mollify holders of the company's lagging stock.... Under the breakup plan, stockholders will be given
   1. the 86% of PanCanadian Petroleum that Canadian Pacific owns and
   2. all of Fording Coal,
   3. CPR and
   4. CP Ships.
   5. CP Hotels will be the only significant holding to remain part of the parent company....

3. Click here for our timesizing story on S. Korea - 2/14/2001.

2/13/2001  glimmers of intelligence -

1. Saving the sinner - From condoms for teens to needles for addicts, doctors try to lead a divided public, by Anne Barnard, Boston Globe, E1.
   
   • 75% of unwanted pregnancies could be avoided it all women had "morning after" birth control pills. Most doctors want them to be available without a prescription.
   • 80% of the drop in teen pregnancy since 1990 is due to greater condom use, one study found, but only 47% of Massachusetts adolescents are taught proper condom use in school.
   • 95% of doctors who work with addicts say they have no moral objection to prescribing syringes to drug users...to curb needle-sharing, which spreads HIV and hepatitis C..\.. But 53% of Americans say that sends a dangerous "pro-drug" message....

2. Clinton's pardons; Bush's giveaways, letters to editor, NYT, A30.
   • by Scott Holmes of Mill Valley CA
     Re your Feb. 11 editorial about Bill Clinton's most recent problems regarding his unseemly pardons:
     For eight years, Democratic politicians followed along with Mr. Clinton. He is an incredible fund-raiser and knows how to win elections. In return, the price they paid for following his leadership has been a loss of basic values and their own credibility (also, probably, a Gore presidency).
     It is time that the liberals who supported Mr. Clinton for the last eight years look inward and accept their responsibility for allowing him to lead the Democratic Party and run roughshod over the presidency. My advice to all Democrats is to forget Mr. Clinton, find your values and reconstitute your party.
   • by Michael Fremer of Wyckoff NJ
     Re "Between two eras" (editorial, Feb. 11):
     George W. Bush arrives with John Ashcroft, Gale A. Norton and a toxic agenda that includes a regressive, fiscally irresponsible $1.6T tax cut over 10 years and the elimination of the estate tax; thinly veiled hostility toward environmental protection and women's reproductive rights; a "faith based" charitable aid plan and school vouchers by another name, both of which dangerously co-mingle church and state; and plans for an unworkable, expensive missile defense shield, which any suitcase-toting terrorist will stroll right under. And because Dick Cheney has overseen an orderly transition for him, and because he turns out not to be the Will Ferrell character on "Saturday Night Live," you're impressed that he takes the presidency "seriously"?

• [A respected management consulting firm starts asking the right questions -]
  Survey finds layoffs seen as quick fix, by Jerry Ackerman, Boston Globe, H2.
  Nearly 40% of US business executives interviewed by Bain & Co., the Boston consulting firm, say layoffs are part of their strategy for meeting any long-term economic slowdown. Not that they expect their own companies to be hit by recession, though.
  In a true demonstration of the "go-get-'em" spirit that drives American business...
  [or is it rather a stupid refusal to admit reality that is straitjacketing American business?]
  half the senior executives in the survey said they don't expect a downturn would slow growth in their industry. And only 10% thought their company's performance would slip below the industry average.
  While maintaining what Bain called "a false sense of security," these captains of industry did admit to having some short-term plans up their sleeves in case the [downturn] started getting to them. But most of those constituted "easy fixes" which "appear to make sense but eventually [would] damage their competitive positions and financial performance," Bain director Darrell J. Rigby said.
  A rush to layoffs is one of these short-term plans. However, Rigby pointed out that, historically, between 15 and 20% of all employees leave voluntarily each year; that the average recession lasts just 11 months; and that while a downturn can take the wind out of any company's sails, revenues seldom drop more than 10% before a recovery cycle begins.
  [That's assuming it's an automatically cyclical recession and not a down-indefinitely depression.]
  Knowing these things, Rigby said, one might wonder why there is such a scramble to fire, then rehire, and retrain so many employees. One answer: Executives are more than twice as likely to implement layoffs as to replace senior executives.
  [In short, little pain reaches the insulated decision-makers. No pain, no feedback system, no learning, no end to downturn-fueling stupidity. Can't think of any belt-tightening measures besides layoffs? The first one to think of, especially if sales are slumping and less output is needed, would be Timesizing = cutting hours - for everyone, not jobs - for a few. Here are a few more ideas, listed by the percentage of managers likely to implement them -]
  Belt-tightening measures. Managers may publicly praise employees as their most valuable assets but [actions speak louder than words and] almost 40% of executives are likely to implement layoffs in a downturn, according to Bain & Co. research...survey of 100 U.S. senior executives from various industries..\.. Actions executives are likely to perform in a slowing economy include:
  • 55% would reduce capital expenditures
  • 48% would push for price cuts from suppliers
  • 44% would reduce marketing and advertising expenses [and shoot themselves in the foot]
  • 41% would reduce sales and earnings targets
  • 39% would implement layoffs [and slow the economy further]
  • 31% would exit some businesses
  • 30% would reduce R&D spending
  • 24% would close facilities

• [Even New York occasionally thaws -]
  Best birthday was on a bus, letter to Ann Landers by Wendy Who's Back In Phoenix, Boston Globe, F5.
  Dear Ann Landers: I feel sorry for the "San Francisco Commuter" who couldn't get a seat, but I must tell you that one of the best experiences of my life happened on a bus - in New York City.
  It was a cold, wet, rainy night and also my birthday. Having just moved from Phoenix to New York, I was feeling miserable, homesick and alone in the big city. I boarded a crowded bus at Columbus Circle. The only seat left was in the back, past all the other bored and cold commuters, next to an elderly man. I sat down, dejected and feeling awful, when the man turned to me and said, "You look so sad. What's wrong?" Touched by the concern of a stranger, I poured out my heart and ended up sobbing, "I'm homesick and cold. It's my birthday, and NOBODY CARES!"
  The tears flowed and the entire bus got very quiet. Then the man next to me started to sing, "Happy birthday to you...." Several people joined in . Soon everyone on the bus was singing, "Happy birthday to you...." When they finished, there was applause and laughter. I was showered with good wishes and warm smiles all the way to my stop at 72nd and Broadway. It was the best birthday present I have ever received in my entire life....
  [If ordinary people in NYC can thaw, anybody can thaw. Timesizing can be applied at any level. Maybe ordinary people can grab it and just start implempenting it, and wresting real progress away from the stalemate in Washington and the verbal valium of the media moguls.]

1. 2 UPsizing stories -
   1. [First, something specific -]
      Commerce Bancorp says it will add 1,500 jobs this year ...A regional bank based in Cherry Hill, NJ [plans] to...open 30 branches this year. The bank [will] hire tellers, branch managers and top executives. It now employs more than 5,000 people in NJ, Penn. and northern Del. It added 25 branches in 1999 and 30 branches last year. Its hiring push contrasts with plans by many other companies to lay off employees amid an economic slowdown that has hampered revenue growth.
      [This may be part of people's disgust with megamerged banking monoliths like FleetBoston in New England.]

   2. [Then, something a bit vaguer -]
      Web layoffs galore, but many find a net, by Jayson Blair [=‘Times reporter who resigned leaves long trail of deception,’ 5/11/2003 NYT, A1], NYT, A25.
      ...In fact, the economists say, many of the laid-off technology workers [in Manhattan's Silicon Alley] are quickly finding new jobs - although they come with less pay and without stock options - at Wall Street firms, corporations, government agencies and nonprofits that could not compete for their talent last year, when dot-coms were paying so much. "[They're] not something we want to diminish too much," Jason Bram, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said of the layoffs. "But in terms of the overall impact on the economy, you are talking about a city that has been generating a net of 8,000-10,000 jobs a month," with the exception of last December, when the growth figure was about 2,500....
      [No mention of specific UPsizers or data sources, though the article does go on to discount the importance of DOWNsizings in Silicon Alley and to complain about how hard it is to track them -]
      Even by the most [generous] estimates, the Internet industry in New York City makes up only 2-3% of private sector jobs. It is hard to track how many Internet-related layoffs have occurred in New York since the Nasdaq began its sharp decline last April, Mr. Bram said, but there was no noticeable impact on the number of people applying for unemployment.
      [= another reference to our supposedly low unemployment.]
      Charles Millard, the former president of the NYC Economic Development Corp., said that the recent cuts were "reflective of the fact that a lot of these companies are in a more mature world"...
      [whatever that means]
      ...and that cutting unnecessary positions is a good long-term move for Silicon Alley.
      [That's one thing about cheerleaders. No matter how stupid and unnecessary the self-amputation, they can always be counted on to say, "Oh, we didn't need that arm or leg anyway." And never mind the impact on consumer spending. They can't think ahead that many moves (like, one).]

2. 3 TIMEsizing stories - see our "beams of TIMEsizing" page

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Corning plans optical fiber plant in Oklahoma, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's largest maker of fiber optic cable [plans] to invest about $400m to build...in Oklahoma City. The plant will open in 2004 and will employ several hundred people....
   [Let's estimate this conservatively at 300.]

2. [1 UNtakeover]
   Telmex spins off parts of business, pointer digest (to W1), C1.
   Telefonos de Mexico spun off its cellular and international businesses throughout the Western Hemisphere as a new company called America Movil.

3. [Click here for today's TIMEsizing stories.]

1. a flurry of 6 UPsizings, totaling 13,498 new US jobs + unspecified -
   1. Lowe's plans to build 75 stores in Northeast, AP via NYT, C4.
      ...The home improvement retailer plans to build...from Philadelphia to Maine the next 5 years.... The $1.3B expansion will begin on Feb.24 with a new store in Danvers, Mass., north of Boston....
      [Talk about overcapacity. Where do they think all we downsized employees are going to get the money for all this home improvement, especially going into a recession?]
      Each outlet will employ about 175 people, creating over 13,000 jobs in the Northeast.
      [Hey, we'll mark it up, but we'd say those are 13,125 (to be exact) pretty insecure jobs.]
   2. Toyota to build an engine plant in Alabama, AP via NYT, C4.
      Lured by $29m in state incentives...
      [Again, if our unemployment rate is really so low, and we're really generating so many new jobs, why do we need to bribe companies with taxpayers' money to get more jobs??]
      ...the Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build its first V8 engine factory outside Japan in Huntsville, Alabama. The $220m factory, which will employ 350 people, will make 120,000 engines annually for the...Tundra pickup truck....Toyota plans to begin production in the summer of 2003.... The incentives include $13.6m for training programs and $15m in tax benefits.
      [Isn't it interesting that corporations under our current short-term capitalism don't want to do any training, and find it easy to pass off training costs onto employees and taxpayers.]
   3. Agencies expand via two new units, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C5.
      ...Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York is expanding its public relations and promotions division into an autonomous unit to be named Lime [which] opens with 20 employees....
   4. Agencies expand via two new units, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C5.
      ...Trahan, Burden & Charles in Baltimore is opening an interactive division, TBCi, with three employees....
   5. TJX plans 173 new stores in '01, by Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, D7.
      Off-price apparel retailer...plans to open...many [stores] in its T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains. TJX expanded its total store base by 10% in the fiscal year just ended. Now it plans to accelerate annual expansion to a 12% pace for the next several years. The company operates about 1,500 stores....
      [Again, how many profitable clothing stores can we support, when all the money in a downsizing economy is consolidating in the top income brackets?]
   6. Fedex Corp., NYT, C4.
      ...Memphis, has added 85 U.S. cities to its FedEx Home Delivery system as part of an accelerated expansion to meet demand for shipping goods ordered by consumers on the Internet....

2. Boardroom pay cut at Mazda, AP via NYT, W1.
   The 25 directors of the Mazda Motor Corp. will take 10% pay cuts in sympathy with the 1,800 workers who are being asked to take early retirement next month, Mazda's president, Mark Fields, said.
   [But wouldn't it be better to say, rather than "in sympathy," something like "to help the company survive"? In fact, wouldn't it be better feedback if the entire company, including the directors, cut hours&pay 8% instead of cutting its 22,000 workforce 8% - Timesizing, not downsizing.]
   Mazda, 33.4% owned by Ford Motor, has been trying to trim its workforce for years.
   [Nice that somebody makes it sound so tough.]
   Last year, Mazda, based in Hiroshima, Japan, said it was cutting its work force of 22,000 employees 8% through voluntary retirements by white-collar workers.
   [If these early retirements are so "voluntary," why the need for "sympathy" paycuts on the part of directors? At any rate, it's an unusual gesture from fatcats, even if most of them are probably Japanese and as such, vividly recall the pre-1989 pre-downsizing days when Japan really valued her workforce (& consumer base) and still practiced lifetime employment.]

1. 2 UPsizings, 400 revived jobs + ?? new ones -
   1. LTV to restart blast furnace and recall 400 workers, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
      ...because orders had increased. The Cleveland furnace, taken off line in November, is being restarted because it uses oil that is now less expensive than the natural gas used at other plants.... The recalled workers began returning to the plant Sunday. About 200 employees remain laid off....
   2. Tricon [Global Restaurants] to open 100 more KFC franchises in China, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
      ...for its Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants to match the growth of its rival, McDonalds.... Tricon invested $200m to open 400 KFC outlets in China since 1987, of which 10 were franchises, said Xu Zhen, a Tricon China spokeswoman. The company wants to expand to smaller cities in China.

2. [1 UNtakeover]
   Eastman Chemical announces plan to split itself into 2 companies - Separating disparate businesses for their own good, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...by the end of Q4..\..to protect its fast-growing specialty chemicals business from the ups and downs of prices for commodity plastics and fibers.... J. Brian Ferguson, the head of Eastman's polymers group, will lead the specialty chemicals and plastics business, and Allan Rothwell, president of the chemicals group, will run the commodity plastics company.... Shares rose....
   [Followup -]
   Eastman [Chemical] to spin off specialty chemicals business, Bloomberg via 5/17/2001 NYT, C4.
   ...later this year as part of its plan to split into two companies....announced in February.... The company could have spun off either business, but found that it could reap more tax benefits by spinning off the specialty chemicals business.... The new company will be called the Eastman Co....

3. [Reader calls a spade a spade -]
   US is the lingering menace, letter to editor by Parker Coddington of Sudbury MA, Boston Globe, A12.
   A Jan. 31 editorial ("Lingering menace") urges Pres. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to "pursue a policy that assists Iraqis to overthrow their despised tyrant."
   But Iraqis are far too wise to seek assistance from the United States. Most are aware of the terrible price that Iraqi Kurds paid for acting on promised US aid, and many are also aware of what American assistance meant to the Vietnam hill people and to the populations of Iran, Somalia, Lebanon, and Congo.
   Undoubtedly, others have also learned how the School of the Americas "assisted" ordinary people from Guatemala to Chile [not to mention Salvador] - lessons that Colombians are now to have ground into their souls for decades to come....
   [With "friends" like US, who needs enemies?]

4. A new revolution: liberté! egalité! sororité!, letter to editor by Pres. Marie Wilson of the White House Project of NY, NYT, A24.
   Re "French parties press for more women in politics" (news article, Feb. 4):
   The goal of France's new law requiring political parties to field equal numbers of female and male candidates in most elections is to build a more representative democracy. A similar measure is needed here.... We are considered the world's greatest democracy...
   [at least by ourselves]
   ...yet we rank 49th in the world in our representation of women in elected office.
   France gave us the Statue of Liberty; perhaps it is now sending us a blueprint to achieve it.
   [And France is unwittingly laying out the world's most advanced blueprint toward economic democracy as well, in the form of a shorter workweek that squeezes the technology-vanishing work out onto more people. Our greatgrandparents would be appalled that we are still working 40 hours a week and more, much more, at the dawn of the Third Millennium, but that we should have ceded the leadership on the expansion of this most basic form of liberty, free time, to the French, and that they should have been able to win the leadership by reducing the workweek only to 35 hours a week, would make our greatgrandparents totally disgusted with us. The gradual, flexible, market-oriented Timesizing program can win us back the leadership in this top-priority area.]

1. Better ventilation could cut sick time, by Jerry Ackerman, Boston Globe, J2.
   ...Recent research by the Harvard School of Public Health in cooperation with Polaroid Corp. suggests that every dollar spent upgrading ventilation could pay for itself three times over - and do so year after year - in reduced productivity losses due to absenteeism. Nationwide, those savings could be more than $15B a year, according to estimates by School of Public Health professor Donald K. Milton, who led the research project....

2. California retailers must cut outdoor lighting, AP via NYT, A18.
   ....Gov. Gray Davis last week..\..issued ..\..an executive order...to substantially reduce outdoor lighting during non-business hours. The order, which becomes mandatory by March 15, carries a potential fine of $1,000 a day for those who do not comply. The goal is to reduce retail outdoor lighting demand by 50%....
   [Hey, if only we could cut the fountains in the desert, the water waste of Las Vegas that we in the Northeast have been snookered into subsidizing.]

3. The power to pardon, letter to editor by Chairman Humphrey Taylor of Harris Poll, NYT, A26.
   A Jan. 29 news article notes that the presidential power to pardon was the "privilege of kings" (presumably British kings), which has become that of presidents.
   How odd that the power is still exercised here long after it has stopped being used by British kings (or queens).

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Mirant Corp., NYT, B3.
   ...Atlanta, an energy and electricity provider [will] build a natural gas-fueled power plant southwest of Chicago in Rockdale, Ill. The company plans to have the plant operational by 2003 or 2004.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. Fewer illegal Mexican immigrants reported - The Border Patrol is doubled [since 1993], but Fox is also rekindling hope, by Ginger Thompson, NYT, A5.
   ...After years in which just about everything had been tried to hold back the human tide - from high-profile paramilitary operations to emotional public service campaigns - the number of illegal immigrants taken into custody by the Border Patrol in Arizona, California and Texas since Jan. 1 has dropped by one-third compared with the same period last year. At the busiest corridor for illegal immigration, between Douglas and Naco, Ariz., the daily average apprehension rate has dropped almost 40%.... More than 150,000 immigrants illegally enter...the U.S. from Mexico each year....
   Mexican consular officers and researchers who regularly speak to immigrants suggested that...hope...seems to be keeping Mexican people at home. Last summer, Mexicans set their nation on [a] new course by electing Vicente Fox, an opposition candidate, as president.... He has come into office promising to create 1.3m jobs...
   [Sounds hopeful but he's probably not smart enough to do it France's way (reducing the definition of full-time job to get more people on private-sector payrolls) - he's probably just going to do more big-government makework - the kind of thing FDR got into to cure the Depression - unsuccessfully until the War.]
   ...and to grant additional loans to small business owners and college scholarships to high school graduates.
   [So far so conventional. Then comes the scary part -]
   He has expressed long-term visions of an open border between the U.S. and Mexico, one through which workers pass as freely as merchandise....
   ["Visions" for Fox or any country wanting to dump their labor surplus, "nightmares" for the recipient economy. Pardon us, Miss Liberty, but in the age of clustering ecological constraints, no single land mass can bear the population carelessness and wealth concentration of all the rest of the world, especially when it still has mounting wealth concentration of its own incessantly pressuring it down ever further toward third-world living standards. Deconcentrating the work is the first step in deconcentrating the wealth.]

3. Our story on Japan and workhour cuts is on our glimmers of timesizing page.

• [1 UNtakeover]
  Paper merger blocked, by Paul Meller, NYT, W1.
  The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, blocked a takeover of the Finnish paper producer Metsa Tissue by its Swedish competitor SCA Molniycke.... It was the 14th merger or takeover to be blocked by the commission in more than 10 years, out of more than 1,500 cases it has examined.
  [Sounds like their antitrust is almost as lame as ours. But they found a nice little Scandinavian paper CEOs here to push around and use to justify their existence.]