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Miscellaneous Good News, June, 2003
[Commentary] ©2003 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

6/27/2003   headlines from heaven - alias glimmers of random hope/intelligence -

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Advertising - Ah, the U.S., where big budgets roam, but where a cheeky British agency may need a translator - A creative start-up makes plans to open a New York outpost, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C4.
   A hot, creative British agency named Mother is moving ahead with its ambitious efforts for a first offspring, an outpost in the U.S...which the four leaders of Mother have been considering for several months..\.. Mother is hiring a top executive [Andrew Deitchman] from another British agency [Red Cell] to supervise plans for the opening of the American office, which would be based in New York....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. [and on the subject of technology -]
   Whir, click, thump - an ad's alluring rhythm, by Royal Ford, Boston Globe, front page.
   A small gear [alias cog wheel] begins a sequence involving scores of moving car parts and ending with a Honda Accord rolling off a ramp. When Honda officials reportedly first saw the ad, they marveled at what they thought were computer graphics. [photo caption]
   In an age when Americans are barraged by commercials and...skip over most of them, a TV commercial for Honda...called "Cog"..\..is defying all odds. Made to be shown in Britain and featuring a car model not even sold in this country, the mesmerizing 2-min. film, using 85 parts stripped from Accord station wagons, is spreading via e-mail across the nation, sucking in viewers who would normally not sit that long for a marketing pitch.
   [Damn, we get tons of spam but didn't get this good one!]
   The ad metaphorically simulates a car assembly line through an intricate, sequential parade of individual car parts, each one triggering the next, across a large roomo resembling an art gallery.
   [And all without human intervention. Maybe this will succeed in getting through people's heads what's happening to jobs, and that maybe, just maybe, we should retire the butt-head rebuttal, "But technology creates more jobs than it destroys."]
   It took 606 takes to get right because the [luddite!] director, Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, would not resort to computer generated effects to get the meticulously crafted sequence of whirs, clicks, snaps of spark, hissing sprays of water, thumps, bumps, and the crab walk of a pair of detached, motorized windshield wipers to move across a hardwood floor. The film [was] made by the London-based ad agency Wieden & Kennedy with a $1m budget....

3. Maine: Emissions law is enacted, by Jennifer Lee, NYT, A21.
   ...making Maine the first state to pass a comprehensive law addressing global warming..\.. Gov. John Baldacci signed legislation that requires the state to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, and an additional 10% by 2020.... The legislation is one of a number of state-level climate change initiatives that have emerged since the U.S. [ie: internationally uncooperative Bush] pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol [in spring 2001].
   Maine officials said they were motivated partly by evidence that climate change might already be affecting the state's environment. According to the federal EPA, the average temperature in Lewiston, Maine's 2d largest city [after Portland], has risen by 3.4° F. in the past century, and rainfall has [decreased] by up to 20% in many parts of the state.
   [The northern states & neighbor Canada move ahead while the southern states lag behind. Maybe we shoulda dumped the dumb Confederacy after all.]

4. two CEO-curbing victories today -
   • The SEC is expected to require, pointer blurb (to C7), WSJ, front page.
     ...that firms listed on US markets win shareholder approval of all stock-compensation plans.
     [E.g., all CEO stock-compensation plans.]

   • FASB [Financial Accounting Standards Board] will require, pointer blurb (to C7), WSJ, front page.
     ...companies to begin making quarterly financial disclosures about their pension plans' impact on earnings.

5. two privacy victories today -
   • 'Do not call' roster debuts today - Curbs on telemarketers set to cut calls up to 80%; Violators face big fines, by Yochi Dreazen with John Wilke, WSJ, B2.
     ... *www.donotcall.gov ....
     [Now maybe we can get on with strangling email spammers and spam advertisers and dumbdumb spam customers.]

   • [Supreme] Court reverses gay sex ban - Ruling cites right to privacy, by Lyle Denniston, Boston Globe, front page.
     [Damn! Now the Texas neo-con-stab-you-lary aka Gestapo-lary has to quit with the voyeurism and home invasions!]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Nissan Motor Co., NYT, C4.
   ...Tokyo, [will] invest $250m to expand it plant in Smyrna, Tenn., so it can begin producing Pathfinder sport utility vehicles in late 2004.
   [This will not necessarily mean more indefinitely ongoing jobs, because they'll doubtless heighten robotization, but at least we can assume of few (unspecified) extra jobs while they're building the expansion.]

2. ['UPsizing' #2]
   New Zealand: Prostitution legal, by one [vote], Reuters via NYT, A12.
   By a vote of 60 to 59 to the cheers of prostitutes and their supporters in its packed public galleries, the Parliament voted to overturn a 100-year-old sex law that banned soliciting and living off the earnings of prostitution. "We passed tonight the world's best sex-industry legislation," said a Labor Party politician, Tim Barnett.
   [Unspecified newly decriminalized, market-demanded jobs. Compare 2 days later -]
   Nevada turns to brothels as a budget fix, by Charlie LeDuff, 6/28/2003 NYT, A7.

3. [and more evidence that, except for war-crazed Tony Blair & Australia, the British Commonwealth is marching ahead into a freer & calmer future -]
   Canada sets sanctioned site to inject drugs, by Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, front page, flagged by colleague Kate.
   MONTREAL - Canada's health ministry yesterday approved North America's first sanctioned "safe injection site" for illegal drug users, a controversial project in Vancouver that the Bush administration has called "state-sponsored...suicide."
   [The Canadian-recognized morons of the Bush administration have yet to realize that freedom requires giving people the right to go to hell in their own way, as long as they don't take others with them. If they want to ban some "state-sponsored suicide," they should -
   • diss the NRA and get into some serious gun control
   • diss Big Agriculture and get into at least labeling Frankenfoods
   • diss the nuclear power industry and decommission our nukes
   • get state governments out of the lottery business
   • quit going around invading pathetic little countries that pose zero danger to us, while ignoring hotbeds of terrorism or WMDs like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and North Korea

4. The U.S. birth rate, pointer blurb (to D3), WSJ, front page.
   ...hit a record low of 13.9 per 1,000 women in 2002. The percentages of low-weight and premature births climbed.
   [And the indicated article -]
   U.S. birth rate slipped in 2002 to a record low, AP via WSJ, D3.
   ...as both teenagers and women in their prime childbearing years had fewer babies...the Health & Human Services Dept. announced. That compares with 14.1 in 2001. The most recent high was 16.7 in 1990. The latest figure [13.9] is the lowest in government records that go back to the turn of the 20th century, according to Brady Hamilton, a demographer at the National Center for Health Statistics....
   Overall, there were 4,019,280 births in the U.S. in 2002, down from 4,025,933 the year before....
   The birth rate for unmarried women declined last year to 43.6 per 1,000 unmarried women, but this group still accounted for more than one-third of all births....
   Teenagers 15 to 19 years old had a birth rate of 42.9 per 1,000, down from 45.3 in 2001 and 47.7 in 2000.... For women 35 to 39 and 40 to 44 the birth rates edged up. The rate went from 40.6 to 41.4 for the former, and 8.1 to 8.3 for the latter....

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Germany's reform-by-force - Under pressure, a midsize firm shows it's possible to restructure, by Matthew Karnitschnig, WSJ, A10.
   [So, would Karnitschnig come from Garnichtnik and be someone who goes around saying "Gar nicht!" ("Not at all!") all the time?]
   Three decades ago, entrepreneur Peter Boettger used his wife's baking oven and a borrowed hay thresher to found a company that flourished by decorating and coating bottles for the beverage, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industries. Now, Mr. Boettger may have pulled off an equally tough feat: reforming his Deco-Glas GmbH amid a stubborn economic downturn. After heavy losses over the past 3 years, the company has climbed into the black and is adding workers.
   Other small and medium-sized companies - Germany's famed Mittelstand - may be making similar turnarounds.... "German industry...is dominated by the Mittelstand...," says Holger Schmieding, an economist with Bank of America.... Toward the end of 2001, Mr. Boettger realized he needed outside help and hired EMC AG, a consulting firm that specializes in helping Mittelstand companies. "They were faced with the choice of either getting smaller or changing," says Horst Merscheid, the EMC partner who led the project.
   The EMC team recommended Deco-Glas focus on its biggest customers, end production in areas where it was losing money and draw up a new marketing plan to give [it] a more modern look.
   [We so often need help to see the obvious!]
   Most importantly, the consultants helped Mr. Boettger realign the firm to serve a beverage industry in flux.... In first 6 months of this year, EMC's restructuring plan started to take hold. Demand rose 35% in the period. Deco-Glas responded by introducing 24-hour production, 7 days a week, and hiring 10 new workers.
   [There's a switch - a restructuring that resulted in an upsizing instead of a downsizing!]
   After 3 years of losses, the firm returned to profit in the first quarter....

2. Industrial nations seek to cut emissions, WSJ, B2.
   WASHINGTON - ...The U.S. and leaders of 12 other nations and the EU will take the first step toward a multinational research effort today when they sign a charter forming the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum.
   [ooo, Bad Name alert!]
   ..\..Claude Mandil, director of the International Energy Agency, said that the current economic trend - in which less [and less] carbon-based fuel is used to create a given unit of economic growth - will soon reverse itself. The reason, he said, is that sources of carbon-free energy, such as nuclear [which has infinitely worse pollution problems anyway!] and hydroelectric power, are leveling off as overall energy demands continue to mount. \Therefore\ over the next 30 years the U.S. and other industrial nations will become more dependent on oil, natural gas and coal....
   [Not if we're really an "intelligent species" they won't! This little article could have but doesn't mention the new economic boom in wind power (see below, 6/19/2003 #4), or the potential of equally sustainable and non-polluting geothermal and oceanotidal energy sources.]

• [at least Germany is making the right moves in one area -]
  Germany: Immigration plan rejected, by Hugh Eakin, NYT, A6.
  The upper house of Parliament blocked a controversial immigration bill that would have opened Germany's borders to a controlled flow of skilled foreign workers.
  [Like Germany, of all places, lacks for skilled workers, especially with over 10% joblessness?!]
  The conservative opposition, which controls the house, attacked the legislation for seeking to bring in new foreigners at a time of rising unemployment. The bill, which was approved by the lower house, is supported by many business leaders.
  [who, in their infinite short-term wisdom, want lower wages, with noticing their connection with lower consumer demand. The Timesizing program, so far the only program in the world that integrates population factors into its core design, handles immigration (along with the other population factors of proxy immigrants alias imports and delayed immigrants alias births) in Phase Five for a sensitive American audience by submitting all such questions to binding public referendum.]
  

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Merrill Lynch hires 10 analysts, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
   ...to its credit research group to expand its coverage of high-yield and emerging-market debt....

2. [1 (probably false) positive (but nice to hear anyway) -]
   Economic indicators rose in May, pointer digest (to C6), NYT, C1.
   The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators increase by 1.0% in May....
   [but see Krugman today, 6/20/2003 #1.]

3. [and 3 negatives, first vs. telemktg -]
   U.S. to add limits on telemarketing - Will set up no-call database similar to state registries, by Matt Richtel, NYT, front page.
   [and compare vs. spam -]
   Senate Committee once again backs stringent penalties for spam senders, by Jennifer Lee, NYT, C1.
   [Guess spam itself, not to mention telemarketing, is yet another form of desperate private-sector makework.]

4. [then vs. tax shelters -]
   I.R.S. is seeking buyers' names in tax shelters - Order to big law firm in quest for abuse cases, by David Cay Johnston, WSJ, C1.
   [Also -]
   U.S. moves against promoter of tax-avoidance maneuver, by David Cay Johnston, WSJ, C14.
   ...the Take Back America Foundation in Ft. Collins, Colo....

5. [finally vs. food-tech overkill -]
   McDonald's asking meat industry to cut use of antibiotics, by David Barboza with Sherri Day, NYT, front page.
   ...that typically protect animals against disease \and\ promote growth in healthy animals....
   [Compare Europe's attempt to avoid 'Frankenfoods' -]
   Talks collapse on U.S. efforts to open [we'd say force open] Europe to biotech food - Washington to urge world trade group to act, by David Leonhardt, NYT, front page.
   [Democracy American-style = "you can have any choice you want as long as it's what we want you to have."]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   AP to leave quarters in Rockefeller Center, WSJ, B8.
   [And now for a maximum of conclusion from a minimum of data -]
   NEW YORK - The Associated Press [AP] will move its HQ to Manhattan's Midtown West area from Rockefeller Center, where the news agency has been located for 65 years, consolidating its New York operations into a 290,000-sq-ft office.
   With the move to 450 W. 33rd St., scheduled for Sept/2004 when its Rockefeller Center lease expires, the AP will expand its New York office space by 42%, combining its TV studios, newsrooms and executive offices and accommodating nearly 900 employees.
   [The leap of faith = assumption they're expanding their workforce by same percentage (and not just consolidating employees from other locations). So how many new jobs? We calculate 900-(900/142x100)= 900-634= estimated 266 new jobs.]

2. [UPsizing #2]
   Starbucks unit signs Peru deal, WSJ, B7.
   SEATTLE - Starbucks Coffee International...signed a licensing agreement with Lasino SA to open Starbucks retail locations in Peru. Starbucks recently opened stores in Mexico and Puerto Rico and plans to enter Chile later this year.... Lasino SA is part of a group led by Delosi SA, a restaurant developer in the Peruvian market.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. [meanwhile, in "lazy" shorter-hours, stronger-markets Europe -]
   European markets continue climb, by Craig Karmin & David Reilly, WSJ, C12.
   [not to mention the Euro....]

4. Sun and wind will be sources for more power in next decade, by Jim Carlton, WSJ, A4.
   The amount of electricity generated from solar, wind and other non-traditional sources is likely to double in the U.S. and Canada over the next decade [from 116,000 to 300,000 megawatts by 2013] amid the plunge in renewable-energy costs, a report backed by power companies shows....
   ["Backed by power companies"! How's that for a beam of hope?!]
   ...The report [is] expected to be released today by Navigant Consulting Inc., a Chicago-based firm whose study was largely funded by energy and utility companies in the U.S. and Canada.
   [Unnamed, but...]
   Big companies such as GE and BP have made significant investments in renewable technologies. "There is literally no limit to its growth potential," said Blaine Townsend, VP of San Francisco-based Trillium Asset Mgmt, which invests in "socially responsible" companies.
   ..\..Although renewables account for only about 3% of the world's electricity supply, they are poised for explosive growth - to a projected $35B/yr global industry in 2013 from about $17B currently, not including large hydroelectric plants. "It is a small fraction of the market today, but it is the fastest-growing segment by far," said Lisa Frantzis, a Navigant Consulting principal who helped oversee the report, based partly on surveys of energy and related firms. The growth in renewables comes as some officials in Washington are expressing concern over the recent run-up in natural-gas prices....
   Market forces...are helping drive the growth of renewable energy. As a result of technological advances, along with government incentives,...the cost for many of the forms of energy has plummeted.... Indeed, wind power has become so affordable that the Navigant study says it will dominate the rise in renewable power in the U.S. and Canada, [jumping] to 60,000 megawatts over the next decade from about 27,000 now....

1. Universal coverage is called a savings, by Maggie Fox, Boston Globe, A9.
   WASHINGTON - The US economy loses $65-130B [let's say (65+130)/2= $97.5 billion] every year when people without health insurance get sick and die, according to a report released yesterday.
   It would cost less to insure the 41m Americans who now lack health insurance, the report from the Institute of Medicine found. Taking care of these people would probably cost $34-69B [let's say (34+69)/2= $51.5 billion], the Institute, which advises the federal government, contends.
   [Here's a glimmer of insight: taking care of ourselves, of all of us Americans, would save 97.5-51.5= $46.5 billion = nearly $50B!]
   Two-thirds [67%] of Americans have health insurance through an employer or a family member's workplace. The sick, disabled, and those over 65 rely on Medicare and Medicaid, but the rest - an estimated 18.5% of those ages 18 to 65 - had no coverage for all or part of the past year. The estimates vary from 30m to more than 70 million, but the Institute, one of the independent National Academies of Science, went with the most accepted figure of 41 million.
   Mary Sue Coleman, cochairwoman of the committee that wrote the report and president of the University of Michigan, said she hoped the findings would convince American voters that universal healthcare is vital. "It has been so easy for people to assume that if people need care they'd end up in a hospital," said Dr. James Mongan, a panel member and president and CEO of Partners Healthcare System Inc. in Boston. "That may be true for things like childbirth or a broken arm, but it is not true of more chronic conditions."
   [What's at stake here? Unless an economy detaches valued benefits, such as health insurance, from full-time employment, defined as any rigid arbitrary figure (such as 40 hrs/wk), the next vital step in human evolution, worksharing - which involves fluctuating adjustment of the workweek, is blocked. You can thaw the frozen figure or you can detach the benefits from it. Different economies take different approaches. But without one approach or the other, you're in an evolutionary backwater for the duration = indefinitely. You're the New Guinea mudman of the future.]

2. Canadian leaders agree to propose gay marriage law - Response to the courts - Legislative approval expected - Rights advocates see an example for the U.S., by Clifford Krauss, NYT, front page.
   [Canada moves ahead while the Bush-bedevilled U.S. blunders behind. What's at stake this time? Social sexuality has caught up with reproductive sexuality for our species. What's at stake here now is facilitating the shift in the basic social unit from (B) the reproductive pair to (A) the productive person, from (B') the procreative couple to (A') the creative individual. As long as we continue to subsidize the quantity of humans (B) rather than quality (A), we'll continue to get quantity, not quality, and we'll continue to "eat our own seed corn" and rush up to an ever higher cliff edge. Broadening the definition of the heavily subsidized concept of marriage beyond reproductive sexuality can be a valuable step toward further liberating ourselves from the drumbeat of physical reproduction to the vistas of mental or "idea reproduction" - and greater quality in our species.]
   [Followup - this is among the first of a remarkable coincidence of articles on Canada's moving ahead while the Bush-handicapped USA moves behind.

1. European companies rush to delist, by Peter Mayer, WSJ, C12.
   In the boom years of the late 1990s, hundreds of European companies, many of them small and family-owned, embarked on a big adventure: Selling shares to investors and listing on their national stock exchanges.
   Now, many European companies are deciding they have had enough. Fed up with burdensome disclosure requirements and burned by low share prices amid the stock market's long slump, they are delisting at a rapid clip and going private again.
   • In Italy, there were 135 IPOs from 1996 [to] 2000.... In the first 4 months of this year, by contrast, 11 companies delisted from the Milan market [and there were zero IPOs. Delistings numbered] 21 in the whole of 2001 and 13 in 2002.
   • In Germany, 7 companies have delisted from...the Deutsche Borse \in\ Frankfurt [in the first 4 months of this year, and again there were zero IPOs].
   ...Small companies controlled by founding families can now buy back shares for less than they sold them...just a few years before. For that reason, analysts expect [even] more management buyouts and delistings....
   [Less detached ownership, less pressure for short-term profits regardless of long-term erosion.]

2. [and in another victory for long-term sustainability -]
   World panel will now act to conserve the whale population, by Otto Pohl, NYT, A11.
   Overcoming stiff opposition from pro-whaling counties [Japan, Norway], the International Whaling Commission, historically concerned with the development of the whaling industry, voted [yester]day to make whale conservation one of its main functions....
   [Long-term conservation is where the real conservatives are, in contrast to the impostors who style themselves "neo-cons" (neo-conservatives) but are nothing more than neo con-artists.]

1. Maine: Universal health coverage gains, by Katie Zezima, NYT, A26.
   The legislature has given initial approval to a bill to provide health coverage to all residents by 2009. Gov. John Baldacci announced the plan last month and is widely expected to sign it quickly. The plan would create a semiprivate agency that would start in July 2004 to provide private coverage to the nearly 180,000 uninsured residents, as well as businesses, the self-employed and municipalities with 50 or fewer employees. Premiums would be based on income, family size and the particular features wanted. Employers would pay up to 60% of an employee's premium.
   [The sooner important benefits like health coverage get detached from rigidly define "full time" employment - or the rigid 40-hour-plus definition of "full time" gets flexed up - the sooner we can adjust the workweek down to where everyone can easily get a job and support themselves, so that taxpayers don't have to choose between supporting them or mean streets and bigger prisons.]

2. Kerry and oil independence, by Adam Nagourney, NYT, A26.
   Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is a contender for president, is pledging to make the U.S. independent of Mideast oil in 10 years.... Mr. Kerry proposed using royalties that energy companies pay for drilling rights to finance research into renewable energy and fuel-efficient vehicles.
   [At last some common sense.]

1. Ahead of the tape -...Fundamentalists, by Jesse Eisinger, WSJ, C1.
   [We're always watching for any language in standard economics or finance that expresses one of our concepts - we have so many we're at pains to "credit them out" and especially if already received language is concerned, that lends them added credibility. This column contains a doozie -]
   In a liquidity-driven rally, fundamentals matter less and less.
   [There it is. The top income brackets have concentrated sooo astronomically much money, they simply do not know what to do with it, so the slightest excitement in the financial markets can set off a liquidity-driven rally, alias a stock-market bubble. This phenomenon first entered our ken in the early 90s - Gordon Pye, we believe, commented on a financial newsletter out of Hawaii that explained irrational exuberance in the stocks of that period in these terms. Our backstory - the affluent over the decades since World War II have dismantled so many of the little mechanisms that work to centrifuge the national income, that they are at a loss as to where to invest their unimaginably bloated share, since the concentration forged by the overwhelming centripetal forces is actually suctioning the markets (first, consumer markets = b2c; then, business and industrial markets = b2b) away from virtually all potential investments and rendering them unsustainable. So, first b2c shrinks, then b2b, and now finally, f2b (financial industry sales to business). Let's pick up a little more of the context -]
   Back in May, when April economic data were coming in and there was no sign of a strong postwar rebound, we were told you might as well write off the entire month and wait until June.
   June has arrived. While the data seem to be improving, they are far from robust. Fortunately[?], the bulls have an answer: Wait until the second half.
   ...Points out skeptical Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg..\..
   • "This is round No.3 of the Bush tax cuts,
   • we're heading into round 13 of Fed rate cuts,
   • and we're in wave 6 of the mortgage-refinancing boom [= bubble]."...
   "It's now a real show-me situation. I'm once bitten, twice shy."
   Mr. Rosenberg is getting lonely. There are fewer and fewer doubters out there. The most recent Investor Intelligence poll found 58.7% of financial advisors were bullish, while 16.3% were bearish. That's the lowest bearish number since April 1987 and the widest difference between the optimists and the pessimists since August of that year....
   ["Liquidity-driven rallies" dba bubbles are all that is left in our future until we penetrate the prepailing time-blindness and shift to dynamically sharing the vanishing human employment as technology progressively encroaches upon it and increasing populations and pop cohorts need a share if we're to maintain socioeconomic sustainability via the extremely useful myth (in the most respectful sense) of independence and self-support. Apart from some such timesizing, the endless vista of liquidity-driven rallies alias bubbles that stretches out before us is a function of the continuing concentration of national income beyond spendability, due to the low bargaining power of labor, due to the deepening global labor surplus, due to the prevailing para-Luddite response to technology in terms of downsizing instead of, what technology is always predicated on, timesizing or work reduction or making life easier for everyone. (How do wages stay up when you cut working hours? Wages are a market call, and the market operates on supply and demand, raising the value of commodities in short supply and lowering the value of those in over-supply. Workweek reduction cuts the over-supply, the national and global surplus of the labor 'commodity' and thereby raises its value dba wages.)]
   [Followup - case in point -]
   Stocks push higher, overcoming signs of weak economy, by E.S. Browning, 6/13/2003 WSJ, C1.
   [and never mind top-heavy P/E ratios either!]

2. [Background: the WSJ editorial pages are usually a cesspool of hateful neo-con-artist vomit that real conservatives can rarely bear to read, but occasionally Journal editors slip and publish a glimmer of intelligence from somebody with some sense. Here's one by someone reacting to one of their many editorials that blame the poor for "choosing" to be poor and that paint people so poor they have little or no taxable income as "lucky duckies" who are getting away with murder because they are undertaxed - never mind that many of the affluent are working tax shelters and loopholes so skillfully that they too have little or no taxable income.]
   'Lucky ducky' invites editors into his pond, letter to editor by Pier Petersen of Chicago, WSJ, A17.
   I am one of those lucky duckies, referred to in your June 3 editorial "Even luckier duckies," who pay little or nothing in federal income tax (at least by the standards of Wall Street Journal [WSJ] editors; $800 is more than a chunk of change to me). I am not, however, a stingy ducky, and I am willing to share my good fortune with others.
   [There's that word that the WSJ hates, "share," unless they're talking about a stock.]
   In this spirit [presumably of sharing], I propose a trade. I will spend a year as a WSJ editor, while one lucky editor will spend a year in my underpaid shoes. I will receive an editor's salary [and benefits], and suffer the outrage of paying federal income tax on that salary.
   The fortunate editor, on the other hand, will enjoy a relatively small federal income tax burden, as well as these other perks of near poverty:
   • the gustatory delights of a diet rich in black beans, pinto beans, navy beans, chickpeas and, for a little variety, lentils;
   • the thrill of scrambling to pay the rent or make the mortgage;
   • the salutary effects of having no paid sick days;
   • the slow satisfaction of saving up for months for a trip to the dentist;
   • and the civic pride of knowing that, even as a lucky ducky, you still pay a third or more of your gross income in income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes and property taxes.
   I could go on and on, but I am sure your editors are already keen to jump at this opportunity to join the ranks of the undertaxed. I look forward to hearing from you.
   [Now that someone has called their bluff, betcha none of these sheltered shamans of the rich have taken him up on his offer to trade situations with them. We'd get a LOT more quality on the WSJ editorial pages if one of them would. A cartoon three days later says it all -]
   editorial-page cartoon by Wasserman, 6/15/2003 Boston Globe, H10.
   [pictures three wealthy CEOs in easy chairs with cigars, drinks and newspapers, sitting around in their club near a fireplace overlooked by portraits of past old white male club presidents - says one CEO holding a newspaper...]
   The tax code shouldn't redistribute money to people who don't pay taxes - present company excepted.
   [and note counter-example to the Journal's favorite myth that the market rewards merit -]
   Freddie Mac gives large [golden] parachutes - Ex-CEO gets $24m, while another officer is to receive $5.3m, by Barta & McKinnon & Wilke, WSJ, A3.
   Former...CEO Leland Brendsel will receive a hefty payout...despite being asked to resign following the company's recent accounting problems. In addition...Freddie Mac's former COO, David Glenn, who was dismissed outright by the company, will be able to exercise vested stock options....

3. Hope for democracy, letter to editor by Naomi Drew of Lawrenceville NJ, NYT, A32.
   Re: "Democrats, seeing dominance of 'conservatives’' messages [our quotes], form group to fight it" (news article, June 5):
   There are many of us who feel depressed each time we read the news because of the policies of this administration. Reading about the newly formed American Majority Institute was like a small ray of light in a blighted landscape.
   [Alias "glimmer of hope"?!]
   As we watch our Constitution dismantled by rightwing ideologues who
   • pass laws to benefit the rich on the backs of the poor,
   • dismantle environmental protections
   • and create false justifications for war,
   I pray that this new organization will create a resurgence of debate, criticism and accountability. Aren't these what democracy was built on in the first place? Where are they now?
   [And Naomi, where is your cry for the IMPEACHMENT of this monster if he and his neo-con-artist junta are "dismantling the Constitution"?! Or would the Times not have published it if you'd left that in?]

4. [1 UPsizing]
   Advertising...- Addenda - ...Miscellany, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C8.
   RLM Public Relations opened a 3rd office, in Los Angeles, joing the original office, in NYC, and the office in DC, also recently opened....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

• Delaware tax shelter takes heat, by Glenn Simpson, WSJ, A6.
  A popular corporate tax shelter is under attack as state governments grapple with revenue shortfalls. For more than a decade, companies have shaved their tax bills by shifting revenue to subsidiaries in Delaware, which has no corporate income tax. To justify the shift, companies characterize the funds on their tax returns as loan payments or royalties, both of which are deductible.
  In two recent rulings, state courts have found the maneuver illegal. In addition, the governors of Missouri and Pennsylvania are urging their state legislatures to outlaw the practice. In New York, protesters have targeted companies that use the shelter, such as Toys "R" Us Inc.

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Bechtel Group, NYT, C4.
   ...San Francisco [one of the big parasites sucking away our tax dollars to "reconstruct" Iraq] won a contract to build a $1B aluminum making plant in Iceland for Alcoa Inc., Pittsburgh.
   [Yuk, pristine Iceland is going to get slimed by Bechtel. Unspecified new jobs.]

2. [UPsizing #1]
   Miscellany, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C8.
   The Starcom MediaVest Group, Chicago, part of the Publicis Group, opened a division named Play, specializing in marketing through video games....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. Firm turns byproduct into key energy asset, by Paulette Thomas, WSJ, B5.
   ...From its towering plant in Quincy MA, Twin Rivers Technologies concocts fatty acids...used in...soap, cosmetics and haircare products.... In the course of producing the fatty acids, Twin Rivers also created a natural oil byproduct, [which] could be as much as 10% of its plant production, but it could be difficult to sell at even the lowest margins. It went for pennies per pound as a supplement to animal feed.
   ...Environmental regulators [oversaw] large-scale tests. "Lo and behold," says..\..former plant manager, Paul Angelico, [who] came on board as president with an equity stake..., "It had the energy value content similar to petroleum-based fuel, but it reduced polluting emissions from the refinery boilers. Emissions including sulfur dioxide, soot "particulate," and carbon monoxide, fell an average of 85%.
   The nuisance product became a key component of its energy use. Now Twin Rivers is running its refinery with a blend of petroleum oil and its own natural-oil byproduct, and has cut its annual $2m fuel costs by one-fourth. It is in the process of patenting the method of using the natural-oil byproduct in big industrial boilers, such as utilities use, and hopes to create a new market....

4. In Europe, 2 sides to weak dollar - As retailers benefit, exporters feel pain, by John Tagliabue, NYT, W1.
   [Hm, at last, the other side of the story. A weak currency hurts domestic exporters - which is all we usually hear about - but helps domestic importers.]

• For Linux's Torvalds, software is improved with little fanfare, by Lee Gomes, WSJ, B1.
  ...Linux 2.6 [is] due out in a few months.... These days, companies like IBM are making essentially the \decision\ to develop and then give away...operating-system software, largely to rein in Microsoft. So they're joining forces with..\..Linus Torvalds, overseer of the Linux free software project...and his army of volunteers, and helping to make Linux a computing world mainstay.
  As a result, for ever-larger domains inside technology, there's no longer much debate that Linux is the operating system of choice.
  • A few years ago, the folks running Internet servers started moving to Linux en masse.
  • Nowadays, Linux is also found in most computer "clusters," where hundred[s] or thousands of PCs are joined to do a single task....
  • The city of Munich...just picked Linux to run the 14,000 PCs of city employees, despite an all-out sales campaign by Microsoft....
  One thing that isn't changing, even as Linux gains popularity, is Mr. Torvalds's remarkable lack of interest in translating his influence and importance into fame and fortune.
  [This was a trait of George Stevenson, the developer of the steam locomotive, as well. It gives both of them, and anyone else who has it, the subtle inexorable power of tao, of running water against rock, of "the meek shall inherit the earth," just because it's so much more energy efficient and less of a strain. Bill Gates is such a bulldozer, so aggressive - he creates his own resistance. Torvalds has the power of paradox, the power of weakness. "The greatest among you shall be the servant of all."]
  He doesn't have a secretary, much less a PR person. He doesn't hobnob with the executives of the many big companies using his software. He'd rather be home with his wife and three daughters than out at conferences with the digerati A-list....
  He's also not rich. His operating income is from Transmeta Corp., the chip company where he works as an engineer. Mr. Torvalds sold his stock in several of the bubble-era Linux companies, and used the money to buy a house. His one concession to a mogul's life is a Mercedes SLK 32 convertible....
  [But then, "life's too short for perfection." - which, in this case, would be a much repaired '69 turquoise Dodge Dart with a slant-6 engine.}

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Advertising -...Miscellany -...Dentsu, by Constance Hays, NYT, C3.
   ...Tokyo, is opening an office in Bangkok called Dentsu Plus, with 18 employees.

2. [UPsizing #2]
   Lucent Technologies Inc., Dow Jones via WSJ, B8.
   ...is investing about $50m to expand its R&D organization in China and focus more on next-generation mobile-phone technology. The U.S. telecom-equipment maker said earlier this week that the additional funds would largely support research on 3G, or third-generation, technologies that China's mobile operators are expected to begin testing over the next year.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]
   Bell Labs, the research arm of Lucent Technologies, has several R&D facilities across China...as well as 6 joint labs with top Chinese schools such as Tsinghua University and Peking University.
   [And from the NYT -]
   Lucent to open research center in China, Reuters via NYT, C6.
   ...It [will] spend $50m on a China research center to develop third-generation mobile technology, hoping to snare some of the billions of dollars in contracts that will probably be awarded as China expands its mobile networks. The center will open in September 2003 with some 300 engineers.... The center's location [will] be near one of Lucent's other research labs.... Lucent, with about 3,000 engineers in China, has centers in Beijing, Shanghai and the coastal city of Qingdao. Research would focus on 2 competing 3G standards: European-backed wideband code division multiple access, known as WCDMA, and CDMA 2000, developed in the U.S....
   [Another chance for Europe to go in an independent direction if the rapidly deteriorating USA continues this lunatic administration, this multidimensional national disaster, for another 4 years.]

3. New IBM supercomputer to begin its weather work - The new machine is the third fastest in the country, by John Markoff, NYT, C6.
   The nation's most powerful supercomputer for weather forecasting is scheduled to go online today, IBM said yesterday, a machine that may eventually rival the Japanese Earth Simulator as the world's fastest supercomputer. The new computer, with a theoretical peak computing power of 7.3 trillion operations a second, is expected to be enhanced over the next few years, and it may reach speeds of up to 100T operations a second by 2009, IBM said. It [currently] ranks third in the U.S. in speed, behind two HP machines at Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico.
   The federal government will use the new computer to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, particularly to help predict the path of hurricanes 3-5 days in advance, providing additional time to prepare for the storms....
   [Apparently the Journal thought it was all about hurricanes -]
   Hurricane forecasting improved, by William Bulkeley, WSJ, B5.
   [But it does have some nice touches -]
   ...The new system, which IBM will operate in its facility in Gaithersburg, Md., is the first phase of what is expected to be a $224m, 9-year project. The system comprises 44 p690 Unix computers linked together and has a peak speed of 7.3 teraflops, which would rank it sixth on a top-500 list of supercomputer sites kept by researchers at the U. of Tennessee and the U. of Mannheim, Germany. The new system is 2½ times faster than the IBM system the Weather Service has been using. "Over the course of the contract, we'll upgrade every 18 months," said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. "We expect by the end of the decade we'll be making seven-day forecasts with the skill we now have for 5½ days."...
   [Back to the Times -]
   ...The Earth Simulator, financed by the Japanese government, [ranks No. 1. It] was installed in Yokohama, west of Tokyo [we'd say south of Tokyo], at a cost of $350-400m. It is capable of 35.8T operations a second. ...Since [its] completion...some policy makers have expressed renewed concern about US technology leadership....
   [Only in technology to destroy things. In peaceful and constructive areas, Japan and Europe lead.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  For Norway's crooks, the hardest time is before they get to jail - Surge in drugs, thefts means waiting years for a cell; Mr. Sandli comes clean, by Philip Shishkin, WSJ, front page.
  OSLO -...To provide swifter justice, Norway plans to build its first new prison since 1997. Corrections officials hope to add at least 450 new prison beds by 2006....
  [Unspecified new jobs. For more on this story, see our prison page today, 6/05/2003.]

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Siemens AG, Dow Jones via WSJ, B3.
   ...Germany's largest electronics&engineering company says its power-generation division has received [an] order [from] Indonesia.... An international consortium led by...the Munich company..\..will build a gas-turbine-power plant...valued at about 230m euros..\..in Muara Tawar, near the Indonesian capital of Jakarta....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. Banks accept environmental rules - Citigroup, Barclays, others to meet social standards when financing projects, by Michael Phillips & Mitchell Pavelle, WSJ, A2.
   Faced with mounting pressure from protest groups, 10 of the world's major banks have agreed to meet international environmental and social-impact standards when financing dams, power plants, pipelines and other infrastructure projects.
   • Citigroup Inc...1st...among international banks by amount lent...based in U.S. [data from chart]
   • ABN Amro Bank NV...8th...Netherlands...
   • WestLB AG...7th...Germany...
   • Barclays PLC...15th...UK...
   • ...Credit Suisse First Boston [CSFB]...97th...Switzerland...
   • Royal Bank of Scotland [last 5 from chart]...2nd...UK...
   • HypoVereinsbank...3rd...Germany...
   • Credit Lyonnais...11th...France...
   • Westpac...28th...Australia...
   • Rabobank...47th...Netherlands...
   plan to announce today that they will embrace strict, but voluntary, standards developed by the World Bank's International Finance Corp. to prevent big construction projects from poisoning the air and water, denuding forests and destroying livelihoods of local residents....
   [So where are the Japanese banks? Too busy ploughing troubled waters?]
   While the banks said the standards will apply globally, they are aimed mainly at projects in developing nations, where government regulators are often ill-equipped or unwilling to mitigate potential side effects of foreign-financed initiatives....
   [This whole World Bank development probably owes a lot to leading ecological economist Herman Daly and his ally, Robert Goodland. Herman was at the World Bank for a few years in the late 1980s and Robert may still be there.]
   Several more large banks are expected to sign up in coming weeks, and supporters believe the guidelines, dubbed the "Equator Principles," will become the industry standard in a couple of years....

3. Toyota project aims to be green and mainstream - Using old cars for structural steel, and beverage cans for benches, by Terry Pristin, NYT, C6.
   A Toyota building in Torrance CA uses recycled materials and solar energy, with construction costs comparable to conventional projects. [photo caption]
   Employees are gradually moving into a new 624,000-sq-ft Toyota Motor Sales campus...designed to demonstrate...energy-efficient building [although] it will take the company 7 years to recoup \heavy spending\ on rooftop photovoltaic cells for its "green" South Campus project...which opened in April...the largest project ever to receive the Green Building Council's "gold rating".\..
   David Seastrom, the VP and regional manager for the Turner Construction Co., the general contractor for the Toyota project, said that the buildings themselves were built for about $63 a sq ft - within the range of $54-$76 of most Southern California office parks. He calculated the cost of the interiors at about $26 a sq ft, compared with $22-$40 for other complexes.
   Toyota is not the first car manufacturer to develop a green building. Both the American Honda Motor Co., with a 186,000-sq-ft complex in the Portland OR suburb of Gresham, and the Ford Motor Co. with 300,000 sq ft in Irvine CA have been certified through a US Green Building Council program that seeks to encourage environmentally aware construction.... Based on a point system, the gold rating has so far been given to 13 other buildings, including Honda's....

1. 2 UPsizings -
   1. J Sainsbury PLC, Dow Jones via WSJ, D4.
      ...plans to open an additional 100 convenience stores at Shell gas stations in the UK....
      [Unspecified new jobs.]
      Sainsbury has 74 stores under 15,000 sq ft, the industry definition of a convenience store.... Safeway PLC has a similar deal with BP PLC, with which it has 57 stores.

   2. Chiyoda-led consortium wins contract to develop LNG plant, Dow Jones via WSJ, D4.
      Sakhalin Energy Investment Co...awarded a $2B contract to develop Russia's first liquefied natural gas plant to a consortium [that includes] Toyo Engineering..., OAO Nipigaspererabotka and the KhimEnergo consortium..\.. The contract includes engineering, procurement and construction of the plant....
      [Unspecified new jobs.]
      Sakhalin Energy [is part-]owned by...Royal Dutch/Shell \and\ is developing massive oil and gas fields on Russia's eastern island of Sakhalin [which, if you look at the map, Russia should just hand over to Japan].

2. Rocket to Mars, Reuters via NYT, A13.
   The European Space Agency's Mars Express blasted off with a Russian Soyuz booster from the Russian Baikonur base in Kazakhstan. After 6 months, the British-built Beagle 2 space probe...will drop from the orbiting Express and burrow into the surface of Mars.
   [There ya go. The Russkis have a poppin' space program - waddathey need the northern continuation of the islands of Japan for - they've got plenty of petroleum in Azerbaijan etc. and Japan has none - and they're both on the ropes economywise. Japan-on-the-ropes has a lot more dough, so maybe Koizumi could sweeten the deal.]

3. The Israelis - Sharon to pledge to scrap some settlements, by Greg Myre, NYT, A7.
   [Go-o-o-od. Now we'd like to see -]
   Sharon pledges to scrap some settlements
   [and then]
   Sharon scraps some settlements
   [and then]
   Sharon scraps more settlements
   [and then]
   Sharon scraps rest of settlements
   [and then]
   Sharon restores the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians