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Good News, March, 2002
[Commentary] ©2002 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

3/31/2002  weekend glimmers of vaguer-than-timesizing hope -

• [1 UPsizing]
  TJX's $41m Ind. distribution center seen creating 800 jobs, AP via BG, C9.
  [Here's a prime example of the kind of handstands and backbends that the public sector goes through in this "richest country in the world" to create jobs while the private sector responds to what should be the blessings of technology by destroying jobs instead of trimming workhours -]
  SOUTH BEND, Ind. - TJX Cos., a retail-chain holding company [based in Framingham, Mass.] with properties including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, plans to open a $41m distribution center expected to create 800 jobs within 5 years.... The project, announced Thursday, will create entry-level positions expected to pay in teh $6-8 per hour range. Benefits packages could push the total compensation level to more than $10 an hour.
  [Whoah, not gonna get rich on that, but can you even live on it?]
  About 600 jobs will be created in the first phase of the project, with 200 more in the following 2-3 years. Officials said TJX has a history of offering English-as-a-second-language [ESL] classes and offering Spanish classes to its supervisors. Much of the city's Latino population is concentrated in the neighborhoods surrounding the project.
  [So far so good. But then the story takes a dark turn -]
  Indiana Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan, who attended Thursday's announcement, said $1 million from the state Dept. of Commerce will help cover infrastructure improvements at the site. The city will match that amount.
  [More corporate welfare. "Cry 'Makework' and let slip the dogs of raised taxes!" At least some extra is going for training -]
  About $300,000 more will be used to train future employees....
  [But this is still slamming taxpayers for more...welfare for the rich - meaning we've effectively reversed the graduated income tax and that means "the more concentration, the less circulation." In other words, we're already ensuring that our present embryonic "recovery" is weak and short-lived.]

• The Netherlands: Euthanasia law to take effect, Agence France-Presse via NYT, A4.
  The Netherlands [aka Holland] will officially legalize mercy killings in specific circumstances when a euthanasia law takes effect on Monday.  Doctors may perform mercy killings without the risk of prosecution -
  • if the patient's condition is incurable,
  • if the patient agrees to the procedure and
  • indicates that the suffering is unbearable.
  • A panel of...legal experts, a doctor and an ethics scholar will review each case.
  [Followup - "Dutch legalize euthanasia - The first such national law," Reuters via 4/01/2002 NYT, A9, which includes the statements, "'For many terminally ill people, the fact that they can choose to die is an immense consolation,' said Coot Kuipers, a general practitioner in Uden, in the south.  Belgium, Britain and Australia are actively debating similar laws or legal cases." But as usual, big dumb America lags behind on yet another quality-of-life issue while hooting and yelling about its own great world leadership. The Bush administration, despite their frequent lip service to states rights, is even persecuting the people of Oregon who have voted repeatedly for a similar death-with-dignity law - see 11/07/2001 #2.]

1. California: 'Morning-after' pill coverage, by Catherine Billey, NYT, A20.
   Gov. Gray Davis has ordered the state's health maintenance organizations to cover "morning-after" contraception and to ensure speedy access to the pills, which must be taken within 72 hours....
   [Compare the good morning-after news from England, below on 3/18 #1.]

2. Italy says it can destroy illegal-immigra[tion] ships, by John Tagliabue, NYT, A8.
   ...The government issued a decree [yester]day empowering the government...
   [Phew, bad writing. This reporter is sooo focused on spinning this as not Politically Correct that he can't even avoid tautology.]
   ...to destroy any ships used for the illegal transport of refugees....
   [Funny how the New York Times seems to respect all laws except immigration laws.]
   "Nobody is thinking about firing cannon at a ship full of people," [Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi told a TV interviewer on Wednesday, "but something has to be done." The conservative government declared a state of emergency over the immigration issue this month, after a rusty merchant vessel carrying more than 1,000 Kurdish "refugees" [our quotes - ed.] arrived at a Sicilian port.... Claudio Scajola, the interior minister, warned in a recent address to the Senate...that Italy faced "exponential growth" in the number of illegal immigrants. Citing official statistics, Mr. Scajola said 6,500 immigrants had entered the country illegally in the first three months of this year, nearly double the 3,400 that arrived in the same period last year.
   Italy's European neighbors...have often complained that Italy does too little to seal the porous borders of its long coastline to illegal immigrants, most of whom seek ultimately to cross into Germany or France. While foreigners make up 9% of the population in Germany and 6% in France, they account for only 2.2% of the Italian population....
   [In 1999, Germany had the 32nd highest population density in the world, with avg. 235 people per sq. km, the 4th highest in Europe after Netherlands (466), Belgium (312), and UK (246), while Italy had the 33rd highest in the world (5th highest in Europe) with 196. France was not in the world top 40. Figures per The Economist's Pocket World in Figures 2002 Edition. Tagliabue goes on to make the usual employer-bleeding-heart argument that immigrants are "needed" to do jobs Italians aren't willing to do, with the usual failure to mention "at those low wages." And of course, these sweatshop employers would have to improve wages and working conditions if the employee shortage was stuck to them, as it should be. What about "needing" the jobs? No nation "needs" 40-hour jobs with automation and robotization. Every nation actually needs to cut the workweek and move into the Third Millennium. As it is, with no effective population controls and no automatic adjustment of the workweek against unemployment, we're going backwards to working hours and conditions not seen since the 19th century, as indicated in the story above about the average American fulltime workweek rising to nearly 48 hours a week - again, just like 1920. Pathetic. Cellphones, spam and segways do not real progress make.]

• The population slowdown, editorial, NYT, A26.
  ...It has long been known that the birth rate generally falls as a country gets richer and more urban. The surprising new development is that, from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, women in countries that remained poor also had fewer and fewer children, even in rural areas. In the 1960s, virtually everywhere in the developing world, women had 6 children. Today the rate is closer to 3 in Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines and Peru..\..
  Just a few years ago, the expectation was that the planet would have 10 billion people by the end of the 21st century.
  [MIT's Limits to Growth in 1972 predicted a population boom-bust in 2050 ± 10 years - balloon to 16B but then collapse back to half that due to decreased food and medical services (p.129).]
  Now it looks as if the true figure will be 9 billion, up from 6 billion today....
  There are three principal reasons for this sharp decline.
  1. Improved levels of schooling - educated families have fewer children.
  2. Children are not more likely to survive than they were in the past, which allows families to have only the number they want.
  3. The countries in which fertility dropped most were those that provided easy access to contraceptives.
  [This qualified good news relates to Phase 5 of the Timesizing Program, which deals with "plugging the leaks" in quality of life posed by the three "population variables" of imports, immigrants and births. Believe it or not, Timesizing is the only economic design that integrates the population variables into the program (and we've had friends BEG us to omit them because of their controversiality - but we handle that via referendums). We should also mention a great letter on the same page -]
  Poverty and terrorism, letter to editor by George Sai-Halasz of East Greenwich RI, NYT, A26.
  Re: "Bush, in Monterrey, speaks of conditional global aid" (news article, Mar. 23):
  The only string we should attach to any aid to any country is an effective and working birth control program.  As long as...Bush upholds the "global gag order" [on birth control], he can't be taken seriously in trying to alleviate world poverty as the root cause of terrorism.
  [That's a BIG 10-4!]

• [1 UPsizing]
  Ford Motor Co., NYT, C4.
  ...Dearborn, Mich., said its Hertz rental car unit had opened 8 locations in China.
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  United Airlines recalls 1,300 employees, AP via NYT, B4.
  ...who were laid off last fall and hiring 900 more in leading markets....
  [So, 1300+900= 2200 jobs restored or created.]

1. Senate votes to require increase in use of wind and solar power, by David Rosenbaum, NYT, A16.
   ...[Yester]day by a vote of 58 to 40, the Senate rejected a Republican alternative to let the states decide whether to require their utilities to use..\..renewable forms of energy like wind, solar and geothermal power as a partial replacement for oil, gas and coal.... Then the Senate approved the Democratic plan, supported by environmentalists, that would gradually increase the percentage of electricity from those sources until it reached 10% in 2020....

2. Canada: Traditional values help condom campaign, Agence France-Presse via NYT, A6.
   Condom wrappers showing [animal motifs traditional] to Eskimo communities \such as\ musk ox, caribou, whale...and seal...are making safe sex more appealing...in Nunavut (the northeast half of the old Northwest Territories in Canada], where they are being distributed....

3. [and more diverse pressure to drop the PC taboo on questioning immigration -]
   Proudly gay, and marching the Dutch to the right, by Marlise Simons, NYT, A4.
   [And again, a lame attempt to squeeze a new ecological concern into the old right-left straitjacket -]
   ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands...- Pim Fortuyn...not[es] that the 16 million inhabitants [of the Netherlands] already live in Europe's most densely populated nation.
   [Denser than Luxemburg, Andorra, Monaco or the Vatican? The only European entries in the Economist's Pocket World in Figures 2002 Edition with 1999 figures are:
   • Malta 1,230 people per sq.km,
   • Netherlands 466,
   • Belgium 312,
   • UK 246,
   • Germany 235,
   • Italy 196,
   • Switzerland 180.
   [For comparison, China is 134, Japan 336, Hong kong 6628 and the front runner on this list is Macau with 26,301.]
   "We have to slow down and take stock," he said. "Too much pressure has built up."
   [Immigration is now an ecological sub-issue of the overall issue of global over-population. But there are also economic and social costs to immigration that need discussion. For example in Holland -]
   He asserted that Asian immigrants learn the language, get to work and integrate, while "in Rotterdam we have third-generation Moroccans who still don't speak Dutch, [still] oppress women and won't live by our values."...
   [Bottom line - the issue of immigration needs to break out of the strait jackets of 'political correctness' and 'representative' democracy and be decided and fine-tuned by binding annual referendums of the populations affected; in short, let's get direct democracy going - we've got the technology.]

4. Support the Israeli army reservists who say 'No' to the occupation, full-page ad, NYT, A21.
   No, Mr. Sharon! Many Americans do not support your policies in the West Bank and Gaza, which are immoral and have decreased Israeli security....
   [Full-page ad by the *Tikkun Community of San Francisco co-chaired by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Professor Cornel West, phone 415-575-1200. More power to them!]

5. Ireland: Keep hands on wheel, not phone, by Brian Lavery, NYT, A6.
   ...Nearly 80% of Irish people over 15 own mobile phones..\.. In response to road deaths..\..people who use a hand-held mobile phone while driving face a $384 fine and the possibility of a 3-mon. jail term for repeat offenses.... The legislation also bans hand-held CB radios and walkie-talkies but not hands-free devices....

• [1 UPsizing, 100 new jobs so far]
  SEC to consider increasing work force, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
  The Securities & Exchange Commission [SEC] is beginning a 4-mon. study to determine whether it needs more staff in addition to the 100 new professionals the Bush administration agreed to fund. The study will examine the SEC's operations, efficiency, productivity and resources.... The SEC's budget and staff emerged as a political issue after the collapse of Enron Corp. and the failure of Enron auditor Arthur Andersen.... The GAO concluded this month that the SEC is understaffed and should reexamine its resources.

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Hotel chain continues move into New York City, by Edwin McDowell, NYT, C9.
   Three months after opening its first hotel in NYC, Hampton Inns, a midprice subsidiary of the Hilton Hotels Corp., is adding four properties in the city, three in Manhattan and one in Queens. Like the earlier Hampton, all four hotels are to be built from the ground up, rather than converted from other hotel brands or other buildings....
   [Unspecified new jobs.] Although Hampton has 1,180 hotels in 49 states (all except Hawaii) and in a sprinkling of foreign countries, it currently has none in Manhattan....

2. Bush proposes insurance plan to businesswomen, by Elisabeth Bumiller, NYT, A18.
   WASHINGTON...- In an unusually long speech, Mr. Bush proposed allowing small businesses to band together to buy health insurance for their employees at reduced prices. "It makes no sense...to isolate small businesses as little health care islands unto themselves," Mr. Bush said....
   [By the same token, it makes no sense to isolate larger businesses as little health care islands unto themselves. AIDS and other plague viruses do not observe such islands. Public health is public nationwide. But until we get some leadership that can effectually design and implement a nationwide single-payer scheme that does not harm small business (Hawaii's c. 1990 satisfied this criterion), letting small businesses band together is a necessary stopgap. Don't get too excited about this unit of praise for Bushkins here. We've got 4-5 units of the opposite in our Headlines from Hell today.]

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Petco reports loss in fourth quarter, Bloomberg via NYT, C7.
   SAN DIEGO...- Petco Animal Supplies Inc...which is based here...plans to open 60 stores this year, including relocations.... Petco now has 561 stores.
   [Unspecified new jobs (not in the relocations).]

2. [a real "headline from heaven" (if they need sermons there) -]
   Secondhand sermons, letter to editor by Rev. David Blanchard of Syracuse NY, NYT, A26.
   [Here's "Another Side" of the plagiarism kerfluffle -]
   Re "Clergyman is accused of plagiarism" (news article, March 13):...
   The clergy know that most of the people in the pews would agree with Ben Franklin, who came to the defense of the Rev. Samuel Hemphill, a Presbyterian minister in Philadelphia accused of plagiarism in 1735. Franklin wrote, "I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture."
   [But we'd still like to see credit given where credit's due, even (especially?) by "holy men."]

3. U.N. takes swing at crooks who steal aid for the poor, by Tim Weiner, NYT, A10.
   [That's great, but what about when it's the governments of the beneficiary nations? Apparently the UN includes them as "crooks" -]
   MONTERREY, Mexico... - Corruption among governments, politicians and businessmen endangers the world's efforts to ease poverty, according to leaders of a UN conference on aid and economic development that opened here today....
   [But why keep flailing to just "ease" poverty? Why not just solve it, by sharing the vanishing work?! Watch how slow we go without that -]
   But the first step has been taken: [oh boy! down to business!] institutions like the UN and the World Bank are acknowledging that corruption is a factor and aiming to control it, said Ruth Jacoby, Sweden's ambassador to the UN and an author of the Monterrey Consensus, the agreement on increasing aid to poor nations that is a focus of this conference, which runs through Friday....
   [Huh? We're supposed to rejoice that they're merely acknowledging the problem and "aiming" to control it? And that they've drafted another one of their endless "consensuses" with a fancy place name - remember the Kyushu Accords and the Rio de Janeiro "Rounds"? Pathetic! But it gets worse -]
   "A half decade ago, one didn't speak of corruption - it was considered offensive," she said....
   [Hooboy. Why don't we just have the "rich" countries quit the fatuous charity and just model the fundamental solution, starting with (have we ever mentioned this before?) sharing the vanishing work! And check out this other Monterrey item right below this one -]
   [Do you] know the way to Monterrey?, Reuters via NYT, A10.
   A German crew [of translators going to Monterrey, Mexico for the UN conference] showed up in Monterey, Calif....1500 miles away.... The crew..."planned their trip from Germany and their travel agency erroneously sent them to [the wrong] Monter(r)ey..." an official said.
   [And just a couple of days before that, some businesspeople got flown to St. John's, Newfoundland instead of St. John, New Brunswick. Hey, with airlines cutting out travel agent commissions (see 3/15/2002 #3), this is a bad time for them to be screwing up so publicly.]

1. British store gives women emergency pill, igniting debate, by Warren Hoge, NYT, A9.
   LONDON...- A decision by Britain's largest supermarket chain [Tesco] to hand out free morning-after pills to teenagers has sharpened a national debate over efforts to curb the country's rate of youth pregnancies, the highest in Western Europe.
   [Right in line with our recommendation that we stop fooling around with unwanted pregnancies, get a grip of human over-population and make contraceptives available free in a variety of flavors and colors from dispensers on every street corner.]
   Britain recorded 95,000 teenage pregnancies in 2000, and the government has pledged to halve that number by 2010. As part of that effort, the emergency contraception known as the morning-after pill was allowed to be sold over the counter a year ago.... The price...is $30....
   The Tesco supermarket chain revealed Saturday that it was dispensing the pills free to women under 20 under a pilot project in Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon, two towns in Somerset in western England. No proof of age is required, but pharmacy counter staff are asked to use their judgment....

2. Coated stents seem to keep arteries open, AP via NYT, A16.
   ATLANTA...- A study released today shows that a new approach to keeping blood flowing smoothly through heart arteries...has had astonishing success in early testing, apparently solving a major shortcoming of angioplasty [mechanically stretching open deposit-clogged blood vessels from inside with little balloons]. Doctors found...the use of drug-coated stents to to be 100% effective, almost unheard of in medicine, in 43 patients who had had them for two years..\..
   After angioplasty...the arteries often close again, and...doctors have implanted tiny wire coils, called stents, to keep them open. The reopened arteries still close again in about a fourth of the cases...usually...when scarlike tissue fills the artery.... The remedy...appears to be a new kind of stent coated with...the drug rapamycin \or other\ medicines that ooze into the artery to keep cells from growing....

3. World leaders rethinking strategy on aid to poor, by Kahn & Weiner, NYT, A3.
   To fight global poverty, the United States and its allies have founded dozens of aid agencies, built thousands of dams, roads and schools and spent roughly $1 trillion since World War II.
   But nearly half of the people in the world still live on less than $2 a day, and a fifth survive on $1 or less. Most people in Latin America, the Middle East and Central Asia are poorer than at the Cold War's close, despite the fast economic integration of the 1990's. Africans live no longer and have no higher incomes than they did 40 years ago....
   [Still on the charity waveband, which falls right into G.K. Chesterton's Pan-Utopian Trap - the failure to deal with the fundamental problem of people who want more than their share, or even the more fundamental problem of what an appropriate "share" is (or even what units it's in). Without a new technology of sharing, all these discussions and giveaways are doomed, because foreign aid just winds up in the pockets of the affluent few in each poor nation about two weeks after it arrives - at most. There are five necessary elements to any adequate modern sharing technology and they satisfy a number of criteria, such as "equalize on a range, not a point," and "plan for rising expectations, not permanent perfection." These are embodied in the 5 phases of the Timesizing program. The five elements can be applied in any units to a series of value dimensions, of which the first is necessarily employment per person, in hours per person per week (both a lower and an upper limit), which are the units of the Timesizing definition of "share." The upper limit doesn't have to be an absolute cutoff. It just has to nudge the aggressive energies of the highly competitive out of, e.g., working hours per week into other still-safe value dimensions. But funny how few of these jetsetting "world leaders" even talk about jobs, they're so interested in staying the big rich generous good guys, passing out tokens to the (inferior) poor.]

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Washington Mutual plans expansion in New York area, Bloomberg via NYT, B4.
   ...The savings and loan [S&L] company [will] add as many as 40 branches in NY and NJ during the next year. The company entered the NY area this year with its $4.86B purchase of Dime Bancorp, formerly NY's largest S&L.   Washington Mutual, based in Seattle, gained 125 Dime branches in NY and NJ...
   [We're not counting a mere takeover as an upsizing. There's something else -]
   and [plans] to build 50 more in the next two years. The company [will] open 11 branches in Manhattan that will resemble retail stores rather than traditional banks.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. Illegal immigrants - Long resistant, police now start embracing immigration enforcement, by Susan Sachs, NYT, A11.
   [Light dawns.]

3. Compaq chief's comment stuns biotech crowd, by Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, E4.
   ...Should businesses [be able to] obtain patents on genetic information about plants, animals, or humans? Michael Capellis, CEO of Compaq Computer Corp., surprised an audience of biotech specialists yesterday when he suggested that the answer shoud be "no."...
   [Too bad he isn't far-sighted enough to give the same answer to the HP-Compaq merger.]

1. [1 UPsizing, 20 new jobs]
   Karan executive opens own shop, by Courtney Kane, NYT, C7.
   Trey Laird...exec. VP and corporate creative director..\..at Donna Karan International in New York, said yesterday that he would leave the company to open his own agency, Laird & Partners, which is starting with two apparel accounts, Karan and the Gap division of Gap Inc. Laird opens with 20 employees and billings estimated at $120m from the two clients....
   Karan, part of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, will shift to Laird the creative development, media planning and print and broadcast production for its Donna Karan Collection and DKNY brands.
   [Mighty generous of it. So this is more like a spinoff than an executive defection (execdefec?), though as a spinoff, it's probably not actually creating 20 new jobs, just transferring them out of Karan. But what the hay, we'll count'em any way - cuz we're straaaining to 'grow up' and be good cheerleaders like all them professional media people.]
   Other assignments remain in-house....

2. [glimmer of intelligence -]
   'Intelligent design', letter to editor by Ira Levin of NYC, NYT, A30.
   Re "Ohio board hears debate to an alternative to Darwinism; 'Intelligent design' seeks a place in class" (news article, Mar.12):
   "Intelligent design"? Sure. Like the Mississippi being intelligently designed to link the cities and towns along its shores.

1. [1 UPsizing, 200 new jobs]
   UGN Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Chicago, a maker of products for automobiles, [will] build a new production plant in Jackson, Tenn., begin operations by December and create 200 jobs within 3 years....

2. UN chief [Kofi Annan] tells Israel it must end 'illegal occupation - 33 Arabs and 6 Israelis die in 2 attacks, by James Bennet, NYT, front page.
   [Finally, someone with The Big Mike speaks out.]

3. Congress again tries to tighten derivatives rules a bit, by Riva Atlas, NYT, C7.
   [Sometimes ya gotta maka lotta 'shots on goal.']

4. House votes to protect aborted fetus 'born alive', AP via NYT, A16.
   [Yeah, that's leaving it a bit too late - but then the House hasn't exactly made it easy to be responsible on this issue. By now, we should have free taxpayer-provided contraceptives in various colors and flavors available in dispensers on every streetcorner in the nation, because that's sooo much less expensive than the sloppy contradictory posturing we're going through now, largely due to pressure from celibate clergymen infected with apparently systemic pedophilia.]

5. [And while we're on the subject of the cost of unwanted pregnancies -]
   Bush's proposal on welfare draws fire from Democrats, by Robin Toner, NYT, A16.
   ...who argued that any increase in work requirements for welfare recipients must come with more help for child care....
   [and transportation, and health care, and training, and housing, and any number of other micromanageable details... or, just cut the workweek, convert overtime to training and hiring, and let market forces provide the profusion of short-hours high-pay jobs we should and easily could have at current levels of technology and robotization.]

6. [frankenfoods keep rising from the gurneys, in usually passive America, but -]
   Greenpeace targets grocer - Star Market hit in rally against gene-altered food, by Naomi Aoki, BG, D4.
   ...on Commonwealth Avenue in Allston, Mass. [Boston 'burb] aimed at stopping a major American supermarket chain from using genetically modified ingredients in its store-brand foods.... "These experimental foods are untested and unwanted..." said Linda Setchell, an activist with Clean Water Action....
   Shaw's and Star Market [will probably] wait for US regulators to determine the best course of action..\..a spokesman...said....
   Craig Culp, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said the...group targeted the Shaw's...and Star Market chain in part because its UK-based parent company, J. Sainsbury, already has stopped using genetically engineered ingredients in its products....

1. [NY Times op ed sticks it to Israel (& U.S.) -]
   Two stubborn men and many dead, op ed by "Same Sea" author Amos Oz, NYT, A29.
   ...Every Israeli in the street knows what the solution is, just as every Palestinian knows it. Even Caliban [oops] Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat know the solution: peace between two states, established by the partition of the land roughly in accordance with demographic realities based on Israel's pre-1967 borders....
   [And praise the Lord, the United Nations is coming out for this tomorrow -]
   U.N. chief tells Israel it must end 'illegal occupation' - 33 Arabs and 6 Israelis die in 2 attacks, by James Bennet, 3/13/2002 NYT, front page.
   [Three cheers for Kofi Annan - he's got a lotta chutzpa. We Americans should pull our $3.5B foreign aid (read arms industry subsidy) to Israel unless they pull back.]

2. Letterman will remain in CBS slot - Uses 'Late Show' pulpit to speak up for Koppel, by Bill Carter, NYT, C1.
   [Good for Letterhead. Our hitherto sagging respect for him skyrockets.]

3. 3 websites closed in spam inquiry, pointer digest (to C6), NYT, C1.
   ...used e-mail messages to sell an estimated $1m worth of nonexistent Web addresses [.store, .sex and worst, .usa to exploit post 9/11 patriotism, despite UK-base!]

4. Andersen told to split audits and consulting, by Floyd Norris, NYT, C1.
   [So let us get this straight. We're telling the accounting industry to split functions to avoid conflict of interest and general people-hurting mayhem à la Andersen and Enron, and we've just told the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries that they can merge functions because we passed a banking "reform" law that repealed the "old-fashioned" "out-dated" "1930s-era" Glass-Steagall Act that, burned by the Great Depression, initiated keeping them apart. Boy are we stupid! Tuchman's "march of folly" goes quickstep. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."]

1. Stock options are faulted by Buffett - Berkshire chief says risks aren't equitable, by Floyd Norris, NYT, C1.
   Warren Buffett, using the forum that the Berkshire Hathaway [BH] annual report provides, has renewed his attack against the widespresad use of stock options and the way corporations assure that executives will profit from options even if the company's share price declines.
   [Where's the incentive to succeed on shareholder terms in that?]
   Mr. Buffett, the chairman of BH, argued that stock options often do not give executives the same stake as shareholders have, since the shareholders will suffer if the price declines.... [not to mention regular employees.]

2. A missing piece of the solution, letter to editor by Jane Donovan of Arlington MA & Elizabeth Munro of Weston MA, BG, A14.
   pRresident Bush's latest effort to address welfare reform by pushing marriage as a means to reduce out-of-wedlock births has a glaring omission... birth control....

• [1 UPsizing, ?? new jobs]
  Johnny Rockets Group Inc., NYT, B4.
  ...Los Angeles, an operator of 1950's-theme hamburger and malt restaurants, said that over the next 10 years it would open 15 franchises in New York to be run by Racanelli Restaurants Inc., New York, an operator of Italian eateries....
  [Unspecified new jobs - stretched out over 10 years.]

• [1 UPsizing, 360 restored jobs]
  Cleveland-Cliffs, NYT, C4.
  ...Cleveland, a supplier of iron ore to steel makers, [will] resume operations in the Empire mine near Palmer, Mich. in March. About 360 employees will return to the mine, which has been idle since November.
  [This of course, raises the question of whether they reported the November layoffs. All we have is a layoff of 85 people in Trinidad & Tobago on 12/11/2001 #5. Sooo, not to get too rosy an idea of the situation, we must today also register the November downsizing of at least these 360 rehirees, so this all becomes a mere in&out entry in the great ledger of livelihoods. See 3/08/2002 #1.]

1. [will wonders never cease - Wm. Safire whacking mergers! -]
   The urge to converge, op ed by William Safire, NYT, A27.
   ...In the real world, intimidating "mere size" has become, when not sin itself, the occasion of sin. Today's any-merger-goes regulators [or "regulators"] permit cross-ownership of content and distribution while encouraging corporate titans with swollen egos to gobble up competitors or suppliers. Where does this power grab leave the innovative entrepreneur, the small business, the individual talent and the consumer?...
   [Carly Fiorina & HP shareholders, take notice.]

2. Conservation? Just ask, letter to editor by Nadia Koutzen of Toms River NJ, NYT, A26.
   Re Interior Sec. Gale Norton's March 5 letter about Alaska and her prediction of increased oil use:
   Why are we in the public at large not being asked to help stem that tide instead of destroying this pristine environment? We are being asked to give up lives in the war effort. Can't we afforad a gas tax increase of, say, 2 cents? Or make use of advanced technology to lower gas consumption?
   [No, dummy, we only use advanced technology to cut labor costs!]
   During World War II, on the back of our gas-rationing cards was the question, "Is this trip necessary?" We're not even being asked questions [except at airports], let alone asked to contribute anything. What a waste of our American spirit.
   [God bless these octogenarians. Ya gotta love 'em. They still remember a time when America still worked for ordinary people - granted it was only after a decade when it didn't and only by sending vast quantities of them overseas to get shot. So much nicer if we'd passed the 30-hr workweek in 1933 - or Timesizing 69 years later.]

3. Automakers to step up hydrid-car production, AP via BG, C8.
   [Hey, Nadia, Nadia Koutzen from letter above - maybe there's hope after all.]
   • ...Ford plans to build "tens of thousands" of hybrid Escapes, which go on the market next year..\..
   • Toyota Motor Corp. is looking at production of a hybrid SUV [oxymoron?] for the US market [and] already sells the hybrid Prius..\..
   • American Honda Motor Corp. will produce approximately 24,000 hybrid electric Civic sedans annually....
   Hybrid vehicles...are able to attain fuel economy of more than 50 miles per gallon on the highway while reducing harmful emissions because they..\..use both an internal combustion engine and [an] electric motor...and burn less gasoline....

1. Australia is riding its own cycle - An economy grows while the rest of the world is in a slowdown, by Becky Gaylord, NYT, W1.
   [Disclosure - us Canucks have a very positive feeling toward Aussies and Kiwis (Australians and New Zealanders).]
   SYDNEY, Australia...- What global slowdown? Almost alone among modern economies, Australia sailed unscathed through 2001 and will probably grow steadily for the rest of 2002, according to the central bank, market economists and the latest statistics.
   [Could this have anything to do with Australia's culture of egalitarian "mate-ism"? What we really need to know here is how flat or pointy the income distribution is. Betcha it's on the flatter side, allowing Australia to absorb most of its output itself without relying on exports. We wouldn't be surprised if Aussie's isolation "down under" has rendered it more self-sufficient than most developed economies. According to The Economist's Pocket World in Figures, 2002 Edition, Aussie was the 14th largest world economy in 1999 with a GDP of $404.0B in between South Korea ($406.9B) and Russia ($401.4).]
   Bullishness is everywhere.
   • A new survey of the spending plans of Australian companies found that in aggregate they intended to invest 21% more in the coming fiscal year, which begins on July 1, than they planned to spend in the current year when surveyed in early 2001. That is the biggest jump in a decade.
   • More jobs were created in January than in any other month in the last decade.
   • The stock market is near its high.
   • The economy is growing at a robust pace of nearly 4% a year.
   • Inflation is low to moderate....
   [So hey, maybe there IS someplace in the world that's in a position to "lead a recovery" - at least a temporary one until the affluent concentrate even more income and strangle their own investments' markets even tighter.]
   That Australia is bucking the global trend is all the more remarkable given the country's [previous] dependence on exports of commodities and raw materials.
   [It's got to "previous" cuz they sure aren't export-dependent now. What is the export percentage of the GDP??? We aren't told this vital factoid in this article. In France, also relatively export independent, it's 10%.]
   In the past, that situation has made Australia acutely sensitive to the economic health of its trading partners.... Australia's exports have indeed been affected by the slowdown elsewhere, remaining flat last year after growth rates as high as 25% in earlier years.
   But this time around, both household and business investment remained steady, and company profits held up as exports slowed....
   Much of the credit for the country's continued vibrancy goes, economists say, to the weakness of the Australian dollar. Its value has hovered around 48 American cents for more than a year, near the cheapest it has ever been. The cheap currency "has been a competitive advantage for Australia," said Tony Meer, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank. Most of the country's commodity exports, like copper and gold, are priced and sold in American dollars, but producers pay most of their costs in Australian dollars, so the exchange-rate trend has swelled their profits....
   But business investment has not [skyrocketted out of control], a common problem in boom times. As a portion of GDP, spending on new plants and equipment remains well below peak levels of the 1990's; it has helped sustain the economy but has not sent it into overdrive, economists say. [Finally Becky gets to what we would identify, far and away, as the primary reason for Aussie's recession-resistance -]
   For consumers, the weaker currency made imports expensive, but consumers switched to buying domestic goods rather than cutting back, another boon for the economy. "Household spending has continued to grow at a solid pace," the central bank said.
   [We'd also like to have right here the percentage of the economy represented by the consumer base. In the U.S., it's around 66%. In Japan, it's 60%.]
   ...One of the biggest factors pushing the Australian economy has been a housing boom, caused in part by a program of sizable grants to first-time buyers.
   [Hmm, a non-Timesizing centrifugation of national income to bolster the consumer base - Aussie "mate-ism" at work.]
   The program will soon expire, but the extra construction activity and jobs it created should persist for another 6 months or so, economists said.
   • Average home prices in Australia, [on the dark side,] are high relative to average household inocmes, and 2/3 of Australians' personal wealth is in their homes. In the U.S., the average homeowner has net home equity equivalent to about 1.5 years of disposable income; the Australian average is more than 3.5 years, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia [phew, she finally names the central bank! doesn't the NYT have any editors?!].
   • Unlike Americans, [on the bright side, however,] Australians have not borrowed to the hilt.
     [The problem of record consumer debt is huge in the U.S. because it gives the rate of consumption alias effective demand very little flexibility - or growth potential.]
   [Whence Aussie's strong spending without borrowing, you ask? Inflation is higher than in the U.S. and inflation is a subtle centrifuge (and therefore activator) of spending power -]
   ...Inflation is...3.1%....
   [And "whence" else? Labor is apparently strong enough in Australia to get prompt raises and benefits -]
   Economists expect rapidly rising productivity to offset rises in labor costs.
   [Note the conventional-economics focus here on productivity as if it's some kind of stand-alone, when in fact, productivity doesn't mean a damn if there's no markets for it. Rising productivity is essentially a function of advances in technology efficiency, which can be quantum advances. The general problem throughout the world is that short-sighted hominids have been using those jumps in technological efficiency and productivity to downsize their workforces, alias consumer bases, instead of to timesize their workweeks and keep their workforces earning and spending. Not too smart. Ergo our focus on timesizing, not downsizing.]

2. Profits down, executive pay falls as well, survey shows, by David Leonhardt, NYT, C9.
   ...On average, the CEOs of the [large] companies surveyed received total compensation of $10.46m in 2001, down 4% from 2000, as declines in bonuses and the value of stock option grants outweighed increases in salary and incentive payments other than stock options. The overall drop was [only] the second in the survey's 18-year history and the first since 1993, according to Pearl Meyer & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm in New York that conducted the study....
   [It would be nice to believe that there is some connection between performance and reward for the top brackets, cuz that would bolster the notion that we have a feedback system in these United States, but this same biz section of this same NYT had a frontpage article just yesterday which challenged that fond belief - "For [many top] executives, nest egg is wrapped in a security blanket - Unlike many managers, most workers have seen their pensions decline - A concern that executives aren't facing the same risks as other workers," by David Leonhardt, NYT, C1 - and that would again mean that our economic feedback system is toast, because those with the decision-making power never feel the consequences of their bad decisions - others do - so mistakes never get corrected. Not a formula for a future.]

• [1 UPsizing, 1215 new jobs]
  Train to retain - A corporate culture focused on workers is helping retailer Kohl's flourish while rivals flounder, by Diane Lewis, BG, H1.
  While some retailers are shutting down or curtailing hiring, Kohl's - the Wisconsin chain known for its moderately priced name brands - expects to open 9 stores in Massachusetts, an expansion that will yield 1,215 jobs.
  [There are apparently also 4 new Kohl's opening in New Hampshire, according to "Filling a niche - 13 new Kohl's stores bridge the gap between glitz, no frills," by Chris Reidy, 3/21/2002 BG, C1. Before we declare the recession over, check out these odds -]
  On a Sunday in February, more than 250 job seekers filed into an unfinished 96,000-sq-ft Kohl's building in Chelmsford.... They were there to apply for 135 positions, ranging from manager to sales associate to cashier and warehouse workers. By Monday, another 70 had applied....
  [Sooo, 250+70= 320 people applying for 135 low-paying retail jobs.]
  The retail chain's hiring push comes on the heels of a 25.9% gain in sales that topped all other US retailers last November. [But] economists say Kohl's decision to open several stores [in Massachusetts] has more to do with the state's high per capita income than the economic health of the retail sector here. [And]..\..
  The news was not as bright for some of its competitors.
  • Kmart files for bankruptcy....
  • The Gap's sales declined, and
  • Bradlees went out of business.
  ...Industry turnover is high: On average, 89.7% of all retail staff, including part-timers, leave within the first year, according to the..\..National Retail Federation [NRF] in Washington DC..\..
  So why is Kohl's growing - and hiring - while others struggle? Specialists attribute its success to a variety of factors, including a corporate culture that treats employees like partners. "Retailers like Kohl's are starting to understand that in order to provide better service to customers they must treat employees better," observed Russell Jones, VP of retail consulting at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in NYC....
  • At Kohl's, managers receive 180 hours of training over 10 weeks compared to the industry average of 10-12 hours for managers. 30% of those hours are computer-based. The remaining 70% includes classroom preparation by a certified company trainer, and an on-the-job training program in which managers shadow executives at training sites to learn how to put the company's policies into practice....
    
  • Kohl's associates [ie: ordinary salesclerks] receive about 12 hours of basic, classroom training, plus an additional 8 hours with an experienced sales partner.
  Associates and managers also are taught that there should never be more than 2 people waiting in a check-out line at any given time....
  Iinformation available to [Kohl's] job fair applicants revealed that part-time associates receive 6 paid holidays per year after 30 days of employment.... Part-time associates also receive medical coverage, access to a 401(k) [pension plan, an employee stock ownership plan], ...a traditional defined benefits retirement plan after 1,000 hours of work, and 2 personal days off per year after a year of service. They are also eligible for paid vacation after one year..\.. Target Corp. offers flextime and personal days off....
  Added Jones: "These chains know that, in the end, employees are the ones who get customers to spend all the money."
  [Funny how many CEOs completely miss that fact.]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   FleetBoston spending $14m to add tellers, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, C2.
   FleetBoston Financial Corp. will...add 500 bank tellers as the 7th-largest US bank tries to earn money by getting more business from customers instead of cutting costs.
   [Can you believe your ears? Can it be that a big sleazy US bank that just wanted to merge, not manage, has seen the light? Stay tuned -]
   New England's biggest bank, attempting to make money without buying banks and shaving expenses, expects to add tellers in 8 Northeast states by the end of June. It will end up with about 8,000 full- and part-time tellers. FleetBoston shifted its focus to improving services about a year ago, adding 140 tellers in Massachusetts after 11 bank acquisitions in 10 years took a toll on customer satisfaction.
   [Guess it takes awhile to become noticeable. Now was this out of the goodness of their hearts?]
   Wachovia Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and other banks have also been adding tellers or spending money to reward the employees for steering customers to other products....
   [Guess not. It's just a new management fad and they're being "forced" to do it by the competition. No matter. Maybe we can look forward to the return of credit cards that have a modest annual fee instead of exhorbitant monthly late fees and vanishing grace periods.]
   FleetBoston wants to reduce by more than half the 4-minute waiting time for a customer who visits a branch during lunchtime or before long weekends..\..said Brad Warner, vice chairman of the consumer business group.... The bank began advertising reduced wait times in one of three TV spots that started airing during the Olympics.

2. [UPsizing #2]
   Axcelis opens semiconductor center, BG, C2.
   Axcelis Technologies Inc. opened a 140,000-sq-ft semiconductor process development center adjacent to its headquarters in Beverly MA. ...It invested $31m in the building. The advanced technology center will give customers access to Axcelis equipment and process applications expertise....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. Chief:  BP will halt political giving - Rise in scrutiny of companies' ties to government cited, AP via BG, C2.
   LONDON - BP PLC [erstwhile British Petroleum] has announced that it will no longer make political donations anywhere in the world, acknowledging that the relationship between corporations and government is under unprecedented scrutiny.
   In a speech [here] on Wednesday night, BP's CEO, Sir John Browne, said the oil giant and other companies should keep their distance from the political process....
   [Amen to that! Politics is for natural persons, not the artificial "persons" that are corporations. That's why only natural persons have the vote. Quality of life and progress therein is registered through individual consciousness, however overlapping, not through corporate consciousness.]
   "We'll engage in the policy debate, stating our views and encouraging the development of ideas - but we won't fund any political activity or any political party," he said.
   [Hear, hear, Sir John! May this be the start of a huge trend!]
   A company spokeswoman said the policy, born out of "a desire to be transparent and consistent," would take effect April 1....
   [Hopefully after noon when the foolery traditionally ends, enforced by the afternoon reproof to persistent jokesters - "April Fool's is now long past, And you're the biggest fool at last."]

4. Bermuda havens to be reviewed, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
   [About time!]
   WASHINGTON...- The Treasury Dept. said [yester]day that it was reviewing laws that allow multinational companies based in the U.S., like Tyco International, to reduce taxes by incorporating in Bermuda.
   [Watch out, Dennis Cause-Louse-ky!]
   The study comes as Rep. Richard Neal and Sen. John Kerry, both D Mass., are drafting legislation to ban the arrangements, which were detailed this month by The NY Times....
   [Sometimes the system works.... Almost lets you forgive Kerry for "California fund-raising a day at beach for Kerry," by Glen Johnson, BG, A3. Sooner or later we're going to have to ban fundraising outside one's own constituency, which for Kerry is a day at the beach in Massachusetts, not California.]

5. [rising ambivalence on immigration?]
   Cubans at the door, editorial, BG, A16.
   [Now we all know we can't breathe a word against Immigration and "Give me your poor, your huddled masses longing to be free" despite "The wretched refuse of your storm-tossed shore" etc. because Immigration is sooo Politically Correct, it's become an unquestionable infallible Sacred Cow. Hooowever, check out this wording in the everso PC Boston Globe -]
   The Cubans who crashed a bus into the Mexican Embassy in Havana Wednesday night are not alone in their desire to seek a new life abroad. If the United States does not manage its relations with Cuba better, a future Cuban government could use the threat of an emigration exodus as a weapon against the United States....
   [All nicely buffered by an incident involving Mexico, not us, and set in a context that argues for better management of our relations with Cuba, the Boston Globe has actually evinced worry about the "threat" of a Cuban emigration exodus to our everso perfect and infinite land. Hmmm. Maybe we can even venture to suggest - purely as immigrants ourselves, mind you (from everso nice and inoffensive Canada) - that it's time we instituted regular national referendums, e.g., on our income tax forms, regarding population in this country, such as "Enough people already, too many, or too few?" No land mass, however big and resource-rich, can absorb the population carelessness and political-economic mistakes of all the rest of the world indefinitely, and some people reach their limit before others, and maybe it's time we found out which side is currently in the majority and which way we're trending and how fast.]