[Futurework] FW: Travel Costs Rise: Meetings Go Virtual

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

 




NY Times
 
July 22, 2008

As Travel Costs Rise, More Meetings Go Virtual 

By STEVE LOHR 

 

Jill Smart, an Accenture 

  executive, was skeptical the first time she stepped into her firm's new 
videoconferencing room in Chicago for a meeting with a group of colleagues in 
London. But the videoconferencing technology, known as telepresence, delivered 
an experience so lifelike, Ms. Smart recalled, that "10 minutes into it, you 
forget you are not in the room with them."

Accenture, a technology consulting firm, has installed 13 of the 
videoconferencing rooms at its offices around the world and plans to have an 
additional 22 operating before the end of the year. 

Accenture figures its consultants used virtual meetings to avoid 240 
international trips and 120 domestic flights in May alone, for an annual saving 
of millions of dollars and countless hours of wearying travel for its workers.

As travel costs rise and airlines cut service, companies large and small are 
rethinking the face-to-face meeting - and business travel 

  as well. At the same time, the technology has matured to the point where it 
is often practical, affordable and more productive to move digital bits instead 
of bodies.

The emerging trend, analysts say, goes well beyond a reaction to rising travel 
costs and a weakening economy. "These technology tools are going to change the 
way corporations think about travel and work in the long run," an analyst at 
Forrester Research 

 , Claire Schooley, said. 

Past predictions that technology could replace travel have been frequent and 
premature. The main difference today, analysts say, is that the technology is 
finally catching up to its promise. No single breakthrough explains the 
progress, but rather a series of step-by-step advances - and steady investment 
- in telecommunications networks, software and computer processing.

The results can be seen not only in the expensive new telepresence systems like 
those from Cisco Systems 

  or Hewlett-Packard 

 , but also in more mainstream collaboration technologies - Web conferencing, 
online document sharing, wikis and Internet telephony. The audio and desktop 
presentations in Web-based meetings, for example, are now more likely to be in 
sync and interactive.

Companies of all sizes are beginning to shift to Web-based meetings for 
training and sales presentations. "Only in the last two years has the 
technology gotten to point where it really makes sense to use it," said Alan 
Minton, vice president for marketing at Cornerstone Information Systems, a 
60-person business software company in Bloomington, Ind. 

With his sales force doing many product demonstrations online, Mr. Minton 
estimates the group's travel costs of have been cut by 60 percent and the 
average time to close a new sale has been reduced by 30 percent.

No one suggests that the face-to-face meeting is becoming obsolete, or that it 
is time for a requiem for the road warrior. Companies talk about using digital 
tools mainly as a way of making business travel more selective and more 
productive.

Still, the potential for digital displacement of business travel is 
substantial. A report last month by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, a 
group of technology companies, and the Climate Group, an environmental 
organization, estimated that up to 20 percent of business travel worldwide 
could be replaced by Web-based and conventional videoconferencing technology. 

The most dedicated business travelers tend to be management consultants, 
investment bankers, accountants, lawyers and technology services consultants. 
Much of their work has to be done in person with clients. But these 
professionals are increasingly using online collaboration tools for work within 
their firms.

At I.B.M. 

 , Michael Littlejohn, a work force and technology expert in the company's 
global services unit, said two years ago, he was on the road 13 to 15 days a 
month. These days, he says, he travels 8 or 10 days a month. "But my time spent 
with clients is not less," he said. "To really understand a client's problems 
or to close a deal, you need face to face."

Corporate training and education is a field many companies are moving online, 
in part to trim trave

[Futurework] The Do-It-Yourself Economy

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

The Do-It-Yourself Economy
By Ellen Goodman, Washington Post Writers Group
Posted on July 18, 2008, Printed on July 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/91872/
I finally drew the line at a dinner invitation. My husband wanted to try
a much-touted restaurant that presents you with a platter of raw foods
and a hot pot. The prospect of this adventure in dining didn't exactly
thrill me. If I want to cook my own food, I answered rather testily,
I'll eat at home.
Until then, I had drifted along with the do-it-yourself economy. I bused
my own lunch trays. I booked my own movie tickets. I checked myself in
at hotel kiosks. I even succumbed when an upscale seafood restaurant
expected me to swipe my credit card through a handheld computer as if I
were in a supermarket.
But maybe it was the election-year rants about the offshoring of
American jobs -- ranging from those of steelworkers to those of computer
programmers -- that finally got me. The outsourcing of work to other
countries has produced endless ire. But what about the outsourcing of
work to thee and me?
For every task shipped abroad by a corporation, isn't there another one
sloughed off onto that domestic loser, the consumer? For every job
that's going to a low-wage economy, isn't there another going into our
very own no-wage economy?
I'm not just talking about do-it-yourself gas pumping, which is by now
so routine that the memory of an actual person washing your windshield
has receded into the mists of AARP nostalgia. Back when gas cost $2 a
gallon, self-service was offered at a discount. Today, gas is more than
$4, and, in most parts of the country, full service -- a retronym if
there ever was one -- is available only at a premium.
What's happening on land is happening in the air. We are now expected to
book our own itinerary, print our boarding passes and do everything at
the airport except pat ourselves down for liquids.
In this self-service economy, we also serve (ourselves) by having
intimate and endless conversations with voice-recognition machines
simply to refill a prescription drug or check our bank balance. We are
expected to interact with "labor-saving technology" without realizing
that it's labor-transferring technology. The job has not been "saved";
it's been taken out of the paid sector, where employees have a nasty
habit of expecting salaries, and put into the unpaid sector, where
suckers 'r' us.
I am tempted to say that customer service has gone the way of the house
call, but that reminds me that even medicine has been outsourced to
patients who buy do-it-yourself kits to test and track everything from
HIV to blood pressure. The Internet ad for a do-it-yourself eye surgery
kit may be, I pray, a hoax. But in an era when every operation short of
brain surgery is done on an outpatient basis, nursing care has already
been outsourced to family members whose entire medical training consists
of TiVo-ing "Grey's Anatomy."
The axis of this evil isn't really globalization, it's privatization.
Consider all the major jobs that have now become part of our personal
portfolio. We've become our own computer geeks as help lines become
self-help lines. We've become our own pension planners and financial
analysts managing our 401(k)s. We are even expected to be health care
analysts, determining which star in the galaxy of drug prescription
plans covers the ever-changing cast of pills in our medicine cabinet.
All of this is framed in the language of free choice. As opposed to,
say, free time.
An MIT economist assures me cheerily that many Americans are willing to
accept less service for lower cost. In a society built on the value of
self-reliance, I am told, we may even feel virtuous when we put together
our own bookcase or install our own hard drive.
But I have yet to find an economist who has figured out the human cost
of "lower cost" or tallied up the transfer of labor from companies to
customers. I've yet to find a consumer who has added, subtracted or
multiplied the amount of time we are now spending on the second shift of
life management.
Remember back when women were asking "Can We Have It All?" The answer
turned out to be that we could have it all only if we could do it all
... and all by ourselves. Now men and women have won equal opportunity
in the do-it-all-by-yourself world. We have officially become our own
nonprofit centers.
Welcome to the self-service economy where we are never without work to
be done. Let's celebrate by dining out together. Bring your carrot
peeler.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman(at)globe.com.
(c) 2008, Washington Post Writers Group 
Ellen Goodman is a member of the Washington Post Writers Group. 

___
Futurework mailing list
Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
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Re: [Futurework] Things the GDP doesn't count

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that 

can be counted counts." - Albert Einstein




From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Darryl or
Natalia
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 10:14 PM
To: futurework
Subject: [Futurework] Things the GDP doesn't count


Most will remember our discussions on a need for an improved economy,
particularly one that would appositely assign realistic value to ever
diminishing natural resources. The essay below expands more intriguingly
upon this, and recommends that we should not only include far more in
the old GDP formula, but that we need to revamp it almost entirely. The
piece does not take in the illegal economies, nor to any remarkable
extent that of falsely valued currency trades, etc., which we had talked
about, but explores cause and effect of many so-called positive market
conditions.

I've excerpted one of the paragraphs you'll find below.

Natalia Kuzmyn

" Most of the crucial life-supporting functions take place outside the
realm of monetized exchange. They are not part of the market or the
government - both of which function through money - but rather occur
through natural or social process. The help and care of parents and
neighbors; the cooling and cleansing functions of trees; woods in which
to hike and hunt; clean water in which to fish and swim; these all are
off the books. They do not register in the GDP until something destroys
them and people have to buy substitutes in the market. This is insane. A
tally of economic wellbeing needs to reflect reality, not just the
portion of it that is convenient for economists to measure."



THE THINGS THE GDP DOESN'T COUNT 

JONATHAN ROWE 
>From congressional testimony

That term "the economy". . . what it means, in practice, is the gross
domestic product or GDP. It's just a big statistical pot that includes
all the money spent in a given period of time. If the pot is bigger than
it was the previous quarter, or year, then you cheer. If it isn't
bigger, or bigger enough, then you get Bernanke up here and ask him what
the heck is going on.

The what of the economy makes no difference in these councils. It never
seems to come up. The money in the big pot could be going to cancer
treatments or casinos, violent video games or usurious credit card
rates. It could go towards the $9 billion or so that Americans spend on
gas they burn while they sit in traffic and go nowhere; or the billion
plus that goes to drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac that schools are
stuffing into kids to keep them quiet in class.

The money could be the $20 billion or so that Americans spend on divorce
lawyers each year; or the $5 billion on identity theft; or the billions
more spent to repair property damage caused by environmental pollution.
The money in the pot could betoken social and environmental breakdown -
misery and distress of all kinds. It makes no difference. You don't ask.
All you want to know is the total amount, which is the GDP. So long as
it is growing then everything is fine. . . 

It isn't just you. The President does it, the media, the reporters
sitting at that table over there. They do it too. How many of them or of
you asked during the recent debate over the "stimulus" package, exactly
what it was that would be stimulated. How many of them say, when
Bernanke comes up here to report on the nation's growth, "Hey wait a
minute. What exactly are we talking about here?" Doesn't it matter
whether it is textbooks or porn magazines, childbirths or treatments for
childhood asthma born of bad air? Doesn't it matter whether the
expenditure comes from living within our means or from going into
financial and ecological debt? Don't we need to know such things before
we can say whether the increase in transactions in the pot - what we
call "growth" -- has been good or not? This is not an argument against
growth by the way. To be reflexively against growth is as numb-minded as
to be reflexively for it. Those are theological positions. I am arguing
for an empirical one. Let's find out what is growing, and the effects.
Tell us what this growth is, in concrete terms. Then we can begin to say
whether it has been good or not.

The failure to do this is insane, literally. It is an insanity that is
embedded in the political debate, and in media reportage. . . We hear
for example that efforts to address climate change will hurt "the
economy." Do they mean that if we clean up the air we will spend less
money treating asthma in young kids? That Americans will spend fewer
billions of dollars on gasoline to sit in traffic jams? That they will
spend less on coastal insurance if the sea level stops rising? There is
a basic fallacy here. The atmosphere is part of the economy too - the
real economy that is, though not the artificial construct portrayed in
the GDP. It does real work, as we would discover quickly if it were to
collapse. Yet the GDP does not include this work. If we burn mo

[Futurework] China becomes costly

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Business/Financial Desk; SECTA 
Investors Seek Asian Options To Costly China 
18 June 2008 
The New York Times   
HANOI -- Canon is no longer building or expanding factories in China,
but the company is doubling its work force at a printer factory outside
Hanoi to 8,000.
Nearby, Nissan is expanding a vehicle engineering center. Hanesbrands,
the underwear company based in Winston-Salem, N.C., is setting up two
new factories here, as is the Texhong Textile Group
  from Shanghai.
China remains the most popular destination for foreign industrial
investment in the world, attracting almost $83 billion last year. But a
growing number of multinational corporations are pursuing a strategy
that companies and analysts call ''China plus one,'' establishing or
expanding Asian bases outside China, particularly in Vietnam.
A long list of concerns about China is feeding the trend: inflation,
shortages of workers and energy, a strengthening currency, changing
government policies, even the possibility of widespread civil unrest
someday. But most important, wages in China are rising close to 25
percent a year in many industries, in dollar terms, and China is no
longer such a bargain.
Even as companies seek other places to make their goods, they are
stalked by overheated economies: in Vietnam, for example, inflation was
25.2 percent last month.
More than corporate profit margins are at stake. When the cost of making
goods in Asia rises, American consumers inevitably feel pain. The Labor
Department said Thursday that import prices were 4.6 percent higher in
May than a year earlier for goods from China and 6.4 percent higher for
goods from southeast Asia.
Companies are using the China-plus-one strategy to mitigate the risks of
overdependence on factories in one country.
Multinational corporations are ''thinking about all the world and
keeping a balance'' between China and other countries, said Edward Kang,
the chief executive of Ever-Glory International, a sportswear
manufacturer in Nanjing, China. Ever-Glory, which sells to Wal-Mart
  and Kohl's  , is building a
factory in Vietnam.
Companies remaining in China are desperately seeking to control costs.
''We will maintain our capacity in China, but we will make it more
automatic and reduce the number of employees,'' said Laurence Shu, the
chief financial officer of Shanghai-based Texhong, one of the world's
largest makers of cotton and spandex fabric.
To limit labor costs, Hanesbrands is building a largely automated
factory in Nanjing. But the company is also building a factory in
Vietnam, in addition to a factory it bought here, and two more in
Thailand.
Gerald Evans, the president for global supply chain at Hanesbrands, said
that compared with China, ''we found more ready availability of both
land and labor in both Vietnam and Thailand.'' Hanesbrands will be
shifting some manufacturing from Mexico and Central America to Asia.
In China, where rural villages are running low on able-bodied young
workers to send to factories, wages are rising more than 10 percent a
year for many assembly-line workers. And pay is rising even faster for
skilled workers, like machinery repair technicians.
In coastal provinces with ready access to ports, even unskilled workers
now earn $120 a month for a 40-hour workweek, and often considerably
more; wages in inland provinces, where transport is costlier, are
somewhat lower but also rising fast. While Chinese wages are still less
than $1 an hour, factory workers in Vietnam earn as little as $50 a
month for a 48-hour workweek, including Saturdays.
Texhong estimates that average labor costs for each textile worker in
China will rise 16 percent this year, including increases in benefits
costs -- on top of a 12 percent increase last year. New regulations are
making it harder for companies to avoid paying for benefits, like
pensions, further increasing labor costs.
When those increases are combined with a currency rising against the
dollar at an annual pace of up to 10 percent, labor costs in China are
now climbing at 25 percent a year or more.
Inflation in China -- more than 8 percent in February, March and April
and 7.7 percent in May -- raises the prospect that labor costs will soar
even faster soon. That could push up prices for a wide range of goods
exported to the United States.
China is also phasing out its practice of charging lower corporate tax
rates for foreign-owned companies. By contrast, Vietnam still offers
foreign investors a corporate tax rate of zero for the first four years,
and half the usual rate of 10 percent for the next four years.
Foreign direct investment in China has grown by a third over the last
three years. By contrast, foreign direct investment has more than
doubled in this period in the Philippines, quintupled in India and
soared more than eightfold in Vietnam.
Faster rates of increase in other Asian countries had partly reflected
lower starting points. But investment is still growing quickly, and now
it's growing from high 

[Futurework] Desaparecidos (disappeared people)

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
For Wall St. Workers, Ax Falls Quietly 
16 May 2008 
The New York Times   
People on Wall Street seem to be vanishing overnight.
Thousands are losing their jobs as hard-pressed banks cut deep. But
while layoffs are nothing new in the financial industry (they come with
almost every downturn), this round seems different: it is eerily quiet.
So quiet, in fact, that people refer to these cuts as stealth layoffs.
Some bosses hardly say a word after people are fired. At Citigroup
 , Goldman Sachs   and Morgan
Stanley  , for example, the first clue that someone
is gone can be e-mail messages that are returned to senders from a
former colleague's inactivated corporate address.
While the financial markets have found a bit of a footing lately, banks
are pushing ahead with plans for some of the deepest job reductions in
years. Since last summer, banks worldwide have announced plans to cut
65,000 employees.
But exactly how many jobs have been or will be eliminated is unclear. In
the past, banks typically made sharp reductions all at once. After the
1987 stock market crash, for example, employees were herded into
conference rooms and dismissed en masse.
This time, companies are making many small cuts over the course of weeks
or even months. Some people who have lost jobs, and many more struggling
to hold them, say banks are keeping employees in the dark about the size
and timing of layoffs.
Citigroup  , for example, said last year that it
would eliminate 17,000 jobs, or about 5 percent of its work force. Then
in January, Citi said it would dismiss 4,200 more people. In April, it
said an additional 8,700 would go.
By contrast, after the financial upheaval of 1998, when many Wall Street
banks pared payrolls, Citigroup   eliminated 10,600
jobs, or about 6 percent of its work force at the time.
The idea that banks will slowly wield the knife again and again unnerves
many employees. People know the cuts are coming -- they just don't know
when or where.
''Nobody knows who is coming in; nobody knows who is going out,'' said
JoAnne Kennedy, who was laid off by JPMorgan Chase 
this year. ''They want to keep it all as quiet as possible.''
To some bank workers, one round of layoffs seems to blur into the next.
At Goldman Sachs  , low performers were dismissed
from January through March. A few weeks later, the bank quietly began
letting more people go. All told, Goldman is axing about 8 percent of
its work force, although incoming employees this summer will make up for
some of that loss.
At Merrill Lynch  , 1,100 people were laid off
early this year, mostly in mortgage-related businesses. But in April,
the firm announced 2,900 more cuts.
JPMorgan Chase   said last fall that it would lay
off 100 people in its fixed-income division and then followed up with
several smaller rounds of cuts in other parts of the bank. The
casualties will keep mounting as JPMorgan   melds
with Bear Stearns  , the troubled investment bank
it is buying.
Starting at the top, JPMorgan   executives are
eliminating jobs at their own bank, redeploying some people to other
divisions and replacing others with Bear Stearns 
workers. As many as 5,500 Bear Stearns   employees
and 4,000 JPMorgan   workers could lose their jobs
before it is over.
The steady drumbeat of bad news on Wall Street is sapping morale. Wendi
S. Lazar, a partner at the employment law firm of Outten & Golden, said
companies are usually better off being open about cutting jobs.
''You're seeing a very, very inconsistent message to employees,'' Ms.
Lazar said. ''It's, 'I don't know when it's going to happen, it may be
tomorrow, it may be next month; we may be able to keep you, we may not.'
''
Layoffs are always difficult, but some of the recent cutbacks have been
messier than usual. Some JPMorgan   employees
learned that people from Bear Stearns   would get
their jobs before the bosses said anything. JPMorgan
  clients told them first.
Some Lehman Brothers   investment bankers found out
their jobs were in peril when they saw cardboard boxes and dumpster bins
in the hallways in March.
And when Bank of America   dismissed some bankers
recently, it told them that their annual bonuses had been almost wiped
out and that their personal belongings would arrive in the mail. The
bank announced many of the layoffs on Feb. 13, two days before many
employees would be able to start cashing out stock options.
In January, when Ms. Kennedy was temporarily out of the office at
JPMorgan   because of surgery, her boss called to
say her job had been eliminated. She did not return to her office and
ended up asking the bank to send her the photos of her son that she kept
on her desk.
''You don't get to say goodbye to people,'' Ms. Kennedy said. ''It's
demoralizing.''
At some banks like Bank of America  , many laid-off
employees are not allowed to return to their desks, because the banks
fear departing employees will try to take valuable colleagues or clients
with them.
Officials at all 

Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Economic De-growth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

the example I often use is that of the mother who says to her child, "don't 
touch the stove it's hot."  And says it many times.  The child touches the 
stove and says Wow the stove is hot.  Seems that sometimes we have to learn by 
doing.  Even if its doing the wrong thing.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 10:40 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Ottawadissenters] Economic De-growth for Ecological 
Sustainability and Social Equity



This morning I listened to an interview with Lester Brown, President of the 
Earth Policy Institute and author of the Plan B books, the latest being Plan B 
3.O.  In the interview, Brown saw global population stabilizing at 8 billion 
and went through the usual list of problems that we are now encountering: 
global warming; shift in land use from food to ethanol production; aquifer and 
soil depletion; etc. A review of Plan B 3.0 can be found at 
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/book_review_pla.php 
<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/book_review_pla.php>  and you can 
download the book as a PDF file there.  
 
An article by Brown and Jonathan Lewis recently appeared in the Washington Post 
and can be accessed at 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/21/AR2008042102555.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/21/AR2008042102555.html?hpid=opinionsbox1>
  .
 
What I found interesting is that the page on which the article appears also 
contains an add for a Toyota Tundra, a monster gas-guzzling panel truck!  Oh 
well
 
Brown is now into his seventies.  While one has to admire what he and other 
aging eco-warriors have done and are still in many cases doing, I personally 
think it ain't going to work the way they want it to.  I'm tending back to the 
view that people don't learn rationally, they learn catastrophically, a view 
that I've tried very hard to abandon.  We accelerate until we hit a wall.  
Those that are left will then pick themselves up, scratch their heads, and ask 
each other 'now what the hell that was all about!?'
 
Ed
 
 

    - Original Message - 
From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:13 AM
Subject: RE: [Ottawadissenters] Economic De-growth for Ecological 
Sustainability and Social Equity



I wish the project well.  I don't think it will go very far.  de-growth 
is usually called economic recession or economic depression.  I don't see much 
support for this in any part of our society.
 
I realize they are looking for managed or sustainable or optiumum or 
balanced de-growth, but the net result is that we have built a society that 
hands out economic goodies.  People will have to be convinced that taking away 
such goodies is a positive or plus in their lives.
 
Arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Jon Legg
Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 9:04 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Economic De-growth for Ecological 
Sustainability and Social Equity





Hi Dissenters,

 

This looks interesting.

 

I haven't taken much time to research this, but it appears that there 
is the beginning of discussions in Europe on "de-growth" (the word in French 
that is used is "décroissance".

 

It's the first of a number of conferences sponsored by some 
organization called, "European Society for Ecological Economics".  

 

The name of the conference is, "Economic De-growth for Ecological 
Sustainability and Social Equity".

 

The web link is as follows:

 

http://events.it-sudparis.eu/degrowthconference/en/ 
<http://events.it-sudparis.eu/degrowthconference/en/> 

 

Without much study of all the material, I nonetheless draw some hope 
from the theme that there are some people who have realized that growth is the 
greatest problem.

 

Very late in the game, but perhaps better late than never.

 

Cheers,

 

Jon

 

 







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[Futurework] FW: The Cognitive Age

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> OP-ED COLUMNIST 
> Editorial Desk; SECTA 
> The Cognitive Age 
> By DAVID BROOKS 
> 2 May 2008 
> The New York Times   
> If you go into a good library, you will find thousands of books on
> globalization. Some will laud it. Some will warn about its dangers.
> But they'll agree that globalization is the chief process driving our
> age. Our lives are being transformed by the increasing movement of
> goods, people and capital across borders.
> The globalization paradigm has led, in the political arena, to a
> certain historical narrative: There were once nation-states like the
> U.S. and the European powers, whose economies could be secured within
> borders. But now capital flows freely. Technology has leveled the
> playing field. Competition is global and fierce.
> New dynamos like India and China threaten American dominance thanks to
> their cheap labor and manipulated currencies. Now, everything is made
> abroad. American manufacturing is in decline. The rest of the economy
> is threatened.
> Hillary Clinton summarized the narrative this week: ''They came for
> the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto
> companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office
> companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said
> anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be
> outsourced, and nobody said anything.''
> The globalization paradigm has turned out to be very convenient for
> politicians. It allows them to blame foreigners for economic woes. It
> allows them to pretend that by rewriting trade deals, they can assuage
> economic anxiety. It allows them to treat economic and social change
> as a great mercantilist competition, with various teams competing for
> global supremacy, and with politicians starring as the commanding
> generals.
> But there's a problem with the way the globalization paradigm has
> evolved. It doesn't really explain most of what is happening in the
> world.
> Globalization is real and important. It's just not the central force
> driving economic change. Some Americans have seen their jobs shipped
> overseas, but global competition has accounted for a small share of
> job creation and destruction over the past few decades. Capital does
> indeed flow around the world. But as Pankaj Ghemawat of the Harvard
> Business School has observed, 90 percent of fixed investment around
> the world is domestic. Companies open plants overseas, but that's
> mainly so their production facilities can be close to local markets.
> Nor is the globalization paradigm even accurate when applied to
> manufacturing. Instead of fleeing to Asia, U.S. manufacturing output
> is up over recent decades. As Thomas Duesterberg of Manufacturers
> Alliance/MAPI, a research firm, has pointed out, the U.S.'s share of
> global manufacturing output has actually increased slightly since
> 1980.
> The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change
> (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or
> down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has
> doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly
> skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does
> the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation
>   has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese
> shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the U.S.
> The central process driving this is not globalization. It's the skills
> revolution. We're moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order
> to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing,
> processing and combining information. This is happening in localized
> and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up
> every free trade deal ever inked.
> The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can
> now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of
> information's journey is the last few inches -- the space between a
> person's eyes or ears and the various regions of the brain. Does the
> individual have the capacity to understand the information? Does he or
> she have the training to exploit it? Are there cultural assumptions
> that distort the way it is perceived?
> The globalization paradigm leads people to see economic development as
> a form of foreign policy, as a grand competition between nations and
> civilizations. These abstractions, called ''the Chinese'' or ''the
> Indians,'' are doing this or that. But the cognitive age paradigm
> emphasizes psychology, culture and pedagogy -- the specific processes
> that foster learning. It emphasizes that different societies are being
> stressed in similar ways by increased demands on human capital. If you
> understand that you are living at the beginning of a cognitive age,
> you're focusing on the real source of prosperity and understand that
> your anxiety is not being caused by a foreigner.
> It's not that globalization and t

[Futurework] As Euro Nears 10, Cracks Emerge in Fiscal Union

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

MEMO FROM FRANKFURT 
As Euro Nears 10, Cracks Emerge in Fiscal Union 
1 May 2008 
The New York Times   
FRANKFURT -- The euro turns 10 next January, a milestone that will be
marked with celebratory speeches, inch-thick scholarly papers and a
commemorative 2-euro coin, designed by a Greek sculptor. It was chosen
from five candidates in an online poll of European residents.
For Greece, winning the coin contest may be the high point of the
festivities. Seven years after forsaking its drachma for the euro, the
Greek economy is faltering, inflation is spiking and exports have been
hobbled by the surge of the euro against the dollar.
Greece, said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank
 , is an ''accident waiting to happen.''
By most yardsticks, Europe's common currency has been a success,
emerging as an alternative to the fading dollar for bond dealers,
central bankers, Chinese exporters, even Jay-Z, the American rapper, who
put a pop-cultural imprimatur on the currency by flashing a wad of
500-euro notes in a music video.
Yet fissures are forming in the European monetary union that threaten to
widen in coming months.
Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain -- the sun-drenched fraternity
sometimes called Club Med -- are struggling with eroding
competitiveness, rising prices and bloated debts. Meanwhile, Germany,
the sick man of Europe for most of the euro era, is suddenly vigorous
again. Economically fit after years of reforms and fortified by brisk
global demand for its machinery and other goods, it has fended off China
to retain its status as the world's export champion.
Germany's northern neighbors are generally doing well, too, which has
rekindled talk of a north-south divide: a north that is growing decently
but is concerned about inflation, and so prefers higher interest rates
and is willing to live with a strong currency; a south that is worried
about stagnating, and prefers lower rates and a weaker currency.
When leaders and laggards use the same money but have opposite problems,
tensions are bound to surface.
Take Italy, perhaps Europe's shakiest economy. Facing high labor costs,
slumping exports and a gaping public debt, its old remedy for hard times
would have been to devalue the lira. Now, chained to the mighty euro, it
cannot do that. Instead, it will probably have to endure a recession and
rising unemployment, something no politician -- but especially not one
just elected, like Silvio Berlusconi -- wants to face.
Mr. Berlusconi has already said he wants the European Central Bank to
weigh more than inflation when setting monetary policy. In other words,
the bank should lower interest rates, which would probably deflate the
euro somewhat and make it easier for Italy to sell its wine and shoes
overseas.
Mr. Berlusconi has found an ally in Nicolas Sarkozy, the French
president, who has tangled repeatedly with the central bank on the same
issue. Mr. Sarkozy will assume the rotating presidency of the European
Union in July, giving him a ready-made platform for his views.
The founders of the euro anticipated such tensions; some feared they
would strangle the currency in its crib. But in the late 1990s, when the
monetary union was being created, Europe's leaders set aside national
concerns for the goal of a common currency.
''There was a major political will to get to the union,'' said Alexandre
Lamfalussy, who was president of the European Monetary Institute, the
forerunner of the central bank. ''There was also political will in the
countries to put their own houses in order. I remember being very
surprised at the time.''
Today, though, ''the old temptation of the governments to find a culprit
for their problems has returned,'' he said. ''It is a wider problem than
one or two political leaders.''
In some sense, the political honeymoon for the euro ended in May 2005,
when voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the proposed
constitution for the European Union. While that document had little
direct bearing on the currency, it symbolized Europe's steady march from
economic to political integration, a process that, for now at least, has
stalled.
Like so much in European history, the debate over the euro is at heart a
debate over the role of Germany. When the monetary union was being
fashioned, weaker states like Italy justifiably feared having their
fortunes lashed to a Teutonic locomotive.
Unexpectedly, though, Germany fell into a deep slump soon after the euro
began circulating in 2002, three years after its adoption as Europe's
currency. Because it accounts for a third of the monetary union's
economic output, Germany, with its troubles, bequeathed Europe an
easy-money policy -- the reverse of what Italy and its neighbors feared.
''Rather than struggling to keep up with Germany, they got tremendously
low interest rates,'' Mr. Mayer of Deutsche Bank 
said. ''Instead of wearing a hair shirt, they were partying like
crazy.''
In Germany during that time, companies underwent a painful proces

[Futurework] Consumer sentiment at a 26-year low

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumer confidence fell for a third straight month
in April, hitting its weakest in 26 years, on heightened worries over
inflation and the sagging housing market, a survey showed on Friday. 

 <> 
The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its final
index of confidence for April fell deeper into recessionary territory,
to 62.6 from 69.5 in March and below economists' median expectation of
63.2 in a Reuters poll.
The April result is the lowest since March 1982's 62.0, when the
"stagflationary" period of low growth and high inflation was still an
issue for many Americans.
Short-dated Treasury debt prices briefly edged higher after the release
of the data, while stocks briefly turned negative or extended prior
losses.
"More consumers reported that their personal financial situation had
worsened than any time since 1982 due to high fuel and food prices as
well as shrinking income gains and widespread reports of declines in
home values," the survey said.
"Never before in the long history of the surveys have so many consumers
reported hearing news of unfavorable economic development as in the
April survey."
Nearly nine in 10 consumers thought the economy was now in recession,
Reuters/University of Michigan said.
While a tax rebate will bolster consumer spending, consumers favor "by a
wide margin" using the rebate to repay debt and to add to their savings,
according to the surveys.
The report showed its reading on one-year inflation expectations climbed
to 4.8 percent -- the highest since a similar reading in October 1990 --
from 4.3 percent in March.
Five-year inflation expectations rose to 3.2 percent from 2.9 percent in
March.
The index of expectations for personal finances fell to 100, the lowest
since August 1993, from 112 in March, while the index of current
personal finances dropped to 86 in April, which was the lowest since
November 1981, from 93 last month.
(Reporting by Chris Reese; Editing by James Dalgleish)

<>___
Futurework mailing list
Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
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[Futurework] trends in work

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

NT Times
 
April 18, 2008

Workers Get Fewer Hours, Deepening the Downturn 

By PETER S. GOODMAN 

 

Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory 
in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles 
piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working 
hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers.

"We don't just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat," said 
Kim Baker, whose take-home pay at the plant has recently dropped to $450 a 
week, from more than $600. "You've got to watch everything. If we go to town 
now, it's for a reason."

Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are 
cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a 
drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management 
consulting. Growing numbers of people are settling for part-time work out of a 
failure to secure a full-time position. 

The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the 
American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of 
jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and 
pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger 
contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance 
to other important areas of the economy. 

While official unemployment has risen only modestly, to 5.1 percent, the 
reduction of wages and working hours for those still employed has become a 
primary cause of distress, pushing many more Americans into a downward spiral, 
economists say.

Moreover, this slippage is a critical indicator that the nation may well be on 
the verge of a recession, if not already in one.

Last month, the hours worked by those on American payrolls dropped, compared 
with six months earlier, according to an index maintained by the Labor 
Department. The last time the index moved into negative territory was February 
2001, when the economy was on the doorstep of recession. A similar slide 
emerged in August 1990, one month into what proved an even more severe 
downturn. 

>From March 2007 to March of this year, the average workweek reported in the 
>private sector slipped slightly to 33.8 hours, from 33.9 hours, while overtime 
>for manufacturing workers fell by a larger margin. 

At the end of last month, more than 4.9 million people were working part time 
either because they could not find full-time jobs or because their companies 
had cut hours in the face of slack business, according to a Labor Department 
survey. That represented an increase of 400,000 since November. 

And on Wednesday, the government reported that average earnings slipped in 
March after accounting for the rising costs of food and fuel - the sixth 
consecutive month that pay failed to keep pace with inflation. 

As people bring home paychecks that do not go as far, they are forced to 
economize, eliminating demand for goods and services that once captured their 
dollars, spreading pain to providers like auto dealers and lawn care providers. 
They, too, must trim their outlays on pay, shrinking working hours more and 
furthering the slowdown 

"It means spending slows going forward," said Robert Barbera, chief economist 
at the trading and research firm ITG. 

Paychecks are diminishing just as millions of Americans are finding their 
access to credit constricted as well. Borrowing against the value of real 
estate - a crucial artery of household finance in recent years - has been pared 
back as home prices have plummeted and as banks have tightened lending 
standards in the aftermath of the collapse of the housing bubble. 

"At this point, those avenues are blocked," said Jared Bernstein 

 , senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in 
Washington. "Consumption going forward is going to be in large part a good 
old-fashioned function of paychecks and incomes."

Even before the rollback in working hours, pay was barely keeping up with the 
rising costs of gas and food. From February to September of last year, the 
average hourly earnings for workers in the private sector was still growing at 
a slightly faster clip than the pace of inflation, according to the Labor 
Department. But from November through March, as employers began to scale back 
in a variety of ways, wage growth fell below the pace of inflation, meaning 
that paychecks were effectively shrinking.

Now, work opportunities are themselves declining, as the downturn snuffs out 
business.

In the suburbs of Denver, Max Garcia was netting as much as $2,000 a month last 
year as a self-employed computer repairman, he said. As recently as November, 
he was still rece

[Futurework] Billion-Dollar Paydays

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Business/Financial Desk; SECTA 
Wall Street Winners Hit a New Jackpot: Billion-Dollar Paydays 
16 April 2008
The New York Times 
Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile
financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed
unimaginable, even in Wall Street's rarefied realms.
One manager, John Paulson, made $3.7 billion last year. He reaped that
bounty, probably the richest in Wall Street history, by betting against
certain mortgages and complex financial products that held them.
Mr. Paulson, the founder of Paulson & Company, was not the only big
winner. The hedge fund managers James H. Simons and George Soros each
earned almost $3 billion last year, according to an annual ranking of
top hedge fund earners by Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine, which
comes out Wednesday.
Hedge fund managers have redefined notions of wealth in recent years.
And the richest among them are redefining those notions once again.
Their unprecedented and growing affluence underscores the gaping
inequality between the millions of Americans facing stagnating wages and
rising home foreclosures and an agile financial elite that seems to
thrive in good times and bad. Such profits may also prompt more calls
for regulation of the industry.
Even on Wall Street, where money is the ultimate measure of success, the
size of the winnings makes some uneasy. ''There is nothing wrong with it
-- it's not illegal,'' said William H. Gross, the chief investment
officer of the bond fund Pimco. ''But it's ugly.''
The richest hedge fund managers keep getting richer -- fast. To make it
into the top 25 of Alpha's list, the industry standard for hedge fund
pay, a manager needed to earn at least $360 million last year, more than
18 times the amount in 2002. The median American family, by contrast,
earned $60,500 last year.
Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion.
That figure represents the managers' own pay and excludes the
compensation of their employees. Five of the top 10, including Mr.
Simons and Mr. Soros, were also at the top of the list for 2006. To
compile its ranking, Alpha examined the funds' returns and the fees that
they charge investors, and then calculated the managers' pay.
Top hedge fund managers made money in many ways last year, from
investing in overseas stock markets to betting that prices of
commodities like oil, wheat and copper would rise. Some, like Mr.
Paulson, profited handsomely from the turmoil in the mortgage market
ripping through the economy.
As early as 2005, Mr. Paulson began betting that complex mortgage
investments known as collateralized debt obligations would decline in
value, much as Wall Street traders bet that shares will drop in price.
In that case, known as shorting, they borrow shares and sell them, wait
for the price to fall, buy the shares back at a lower price and return
them, pocketing the profit.
Then, over the next two years, Mr. Paulson established two funds to
focus on the credit markets. One of those funds returned 590 percent
last year, and the other handed back 353 percent, according to Alpha. By
the end of 2007, Mr. Paulson sat atop $28 billion in assets, up from $6
billion 12 months earlier.
Mr. Soros, one of the world's most successful speculators and richest
men, leapt out of retirement last summer as the market turmoil spread --
and he won big. He made $2.9 billion for the year, when his flagship
Quantum fund returned almost 32 percent, according to Alpha. Mr. Simon,
a mathematician and former Defense Department code breaker who uses
complex computer models to trade, earned $2.8 billion. His flagship
Medallion fund returned 73 percent.
Like Mr. Paulson, Philip Falcone, who founded Harbinger Partners with
$25 million in June 2001, cast a winning bet against the mortgage
market. He pulled in returns of 117 percent after fees in 2007 and made
$1.7 billion. The trade thrust him from relative obscurity to hedge fund
heavyweight: he now manages $18 billion. Harbinger recently won
agreement from The New York Times Company   to add
two members to its board.
Hedge fund managers share their success with their investors, which
include wealthy individuals, pension funds and university endowments.
They typically charge annual fees equal to 2 percent of their assets
under management, and take a 20 percent cut of any profits.
With a combined $2 trillion under management, the hedge fund industry is
coming off its richest year ever -- a feat all the more remarkable given
the billions of dollars of losses suffered by major Wall Street banks.
In recent months, however, scores of hedge funds have quietly died or
spectacularly imploded, wracked by bad investments, excess borrowing or
leverage, and client redemptions -- or a combination of those events.
''To some degree it's a very gigantic version of Las Vegas,'' said Gary
Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution.
As Alpha's list shows, managers who reap big gains one year can lose the

[Futurework] FW: Gloom? What gloom?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> In Spending by the Very Rich, No Such Thing as a Slowdown 
> 14 April 2008 
> The New York Times   
> Who said anything about a recession? Sometime between the government
> bailout of Bear Stearns   and the Bureau of Labor
> Statistics report that America lost 80,000 jobs in March, Lee Tachman
> spent roughly $50,000 last month on a four-day jaunt to Miami for
> himself and three close friends.
> The trip was an exercise in luxuriant male bonding. Mr. Tachman, who
> is 38, and his friends got around by private jet, helicopter, Hummer
> limousine, Ferraris and Lamborghinis; stayed in V.I.P. rooms at Casa
> Casuarina, the South Beach hotel that was formerly Gianni Versace's
> mansion; and played ''extreme adventure paintball'' with former agents
> of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
> Mr. Tachman, a manager for a company that executes trades for hedge
> funds and the owner of ''a handful'' of buildings in New York, said he
> has not felt the need to cut back.
> ''I always feel like there's a sword of Damocles over my head, like it
> could all come crashing down at any time,'' he said. ''But there's
> always going to be people who are trading, and there's always going to
> be a demand for real estate in New York.''
> He is hardly alone in his eagerness to keep spending. Some businesses
> that cater to the superrich report that clients -- many of them
> traders and private equity investors whose work is tied to Wall Street
> -- are still splurging on multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartments,
> custom-built yachts, contemporary art and lavish parties.
> Buyers this year have already closed on 71 Manhattan apartments that
> each cost more than $10 million, compared with 17 apartments in that
> price range during all of 2007. Last week, a New York art dealer paid
> a record $1.6 million for an Edward Weston photograph at Sotheby's.
> And the GoldBar, a downtown lounge, reports that bankers continue to
> order $3,000 bottles of Remy Martin Louis XIII Cognac.
> ''When times get tough, the smart spend money,'' said David Monn, an
> event planner who is organizing a black-tie party on May 10 for
> dignitaries and recent purchasers of apartments at the Plaza Hotel;
> the average price there was $7 million. ''Short of our country going
> on food stamps, I don't think we're doing anything differently.''
> Some extreme spenders say they have not cut back on their impulse
> Bentley or apartment purchases because they have made so much money in
> the good times from the Internet, stock market and real estate. Some
> have been able to move their money into investments like private
> equity that are available only to those with extensive capital. Some
> rationalize cars and home renovations as ''investments.'' And some
> simply don't want to skimp on the weddings and anniversary parties
> that they see as milestone events.
> ''We're trying to spend on what we feel is important,'' said Victor
> Self, an executive with a fitness company who, with his partner, is
> planning to spend $100,000 on a commitment ceremony on St. Barts and a
> dessert party for 200 to 300 guests at Jeffrey, a clothing store in
> the meatpacking district.
> Many economists warn that the nation's financial troubles may spread
> far more widely, and could ultimately touch even the wealthiest. The
> financial sector could lose as many as 20,000 jobs in New York City by
> the end of 2009, according to the city's Independent Budget Office.
> And at a March 18 policy meeting, Federal Reserve Board members raised
> the possibility of a ''prolonged and severe economic downturn,''
> recently released minutes show. That threat has undoubtedly caused
> some affluent people to consider some degree of frugality.
> But that still leaves plenty who are consuming away, and one of the
> things New Yorkers love to consume is real estate. In October, Marc
> Sperling, the 36-year-old president of an equity-trading company,
> bought a new condo on the Upper West Side in a building where
> four-bedroom apartments like his cost more than $4 million. When he
> moves into the completed building next year, he plans to hold on to
> his other two apartments in Murray Hill and Miami Beach -- each of
> which he values at about $2.5 million.
> Mr. Sperling views the nation's economic slump as a temporary problem,
> and is grateful that it has yet to affect him. ''I think if you have
> the means to ride it out, that's what you do,'' he said.
> His view of the subprime mortgage crisis seemed to reflect a sort of
> inverse class resentment.
> ''I don't want to sound harsh, but the people who were buying
> million-dollar houses with a combined household income of $70,000 or
> $80,000 were the ones who were chasing easy money,'' he said.
> Days before the collapse of Bear Stearns  , the
> bank's chairman, James E. Cayne, paid $25 million for a 14th-floor
> condo at the Plaza Hotel.
> He, too, is invited to the May 10 party at the Plaza. It will feature
> a dozen female str

[Futurework] FW: Call My Lawyer ... in India

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> Subject:  Call My Lawyer ... in India
> 
> Knowledge Process Outsourcing
> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727726,00.html
>   
> Time Magazine
> Thursday, Apr. 03, 2008 
> Call My Lawyer ... in India
> By Suzanne Barlyn 
> Mark Alexander, a Dallas attorney, says he's ethically obligated to do
> what's best for his clients, "and that includes saving them money." So
> when one of them asks him to research a securities-fraud topic, for
> example, or breach of contract, he doesn't even think about applying
> his $395 hourly rate. Instead, he calls Atlas Legal Research, an
> outsourcing company based in Irving, Texas, that uses lawyers in India
> to provide the service for $60 per hr. "When a client pays me a
> $25,000 retainer and I can save them money, I will do so," says
> Alexander. Handing off the work to a $225-per-hr. junior associate is
> not an option. "They don't even know where to stand in the courtroom,"
> he says.
> While the Americans learn, well-trained lawyers in secure offices in
> Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Bangalore and Gurgaon (outside Delhi), who
> typically earn $6,000 to $30,000 annually, do legal grunt work.
> Alexander's sentiments may explain why outsourcing is blossoming in
> the legal profession, which is known--and often despised--for its high
> prices. Law-firm partners bill at a national average of $318 per hr.
> and at $550 per hr. at large New York City firms, according to a 2007
> survey by Altman Weil, a legal-consulting company. Starting salaries
> for attorneys at some large firms now stand at $160,000. So a U.S.
> company's simple problem can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars
> in fees.
> The considerable savings is perhaps one reason Forrester Research,
> based in Cambridge, Mass., has projected the offshoring of 29,000
> legal jobs by the end of the year and as many as 79,000 by 2015. It's
> part of India's inevitable move up the corporate food chain, from
> lower-value business process outsourcing--like call centers--to
> knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). The latter category encompasses
> higher-skilled jobs, such as engineering and medicine, and relies on
> the KPOs to behave more like branch offices of U.S. companies.
> ValueNotes, a business-research firm based in Pune, India, says a
> subset of KPO called legal process outsourcing (LPO) has grown
> revenues 49% from 2006, to $218 million last year. The figure will
> nearly triple, to $640 million, by 2010, it says. ValueNotes counts
> more than 100 legal-services providers in India, ranging from a
> handful of overseas corporate legal offices, such as Oracle's and
> General Electric's, to companies that contract to provide low-cost
> legal services to U.S. and British businesses. Leaders include
> Integreon and LawScribe, both in Los Angeles, and New York--based
> Pangea3.
> Persuading lawyers to export work wasn't an easy sell, says Ganesh
> Natarjan, CEO of seven-year-old Mindcrest, which has its headquarters
> in Chicago and employs 440 lawyers in Mumbai and Pune. "Lawyers are a
> risk-averse group, so it was a slow process for them to adopt the
> idea," says George Heffernan, vice president and general counsel.
> Mindcrest's services include document review, research and support for
> compliance functions. The last cost large companies an average of $2.9
> million each in 2006, according to Financial Executives International
> in Florham Park, N.J.
> Educating American lawyers about India's English-speaking attorneys,
> who are trained in a common-law system modeled on Britain's, helped
> change attitudes, at least among top lawyers for U.S. companies,
> Heffernan says. About 75% of Mindcrest's clients are FORTUNE 500
> companies. Mindcrest hired 390 lawyers last year alone, a staff
> increase mandated by clients with some large-scale projects, it says.
> But outsourcing worries some experts because the ethical rules that
> bind U.S. attorneys have no force in India. "Lawyers are being seduced
> by the business end of outsourcing and are not being concerned enough
> with the ethical issues it's raising. I'm deeply troubled that
> outsourcing companies do not understand the scope of a lawyer's duty
> to confidentiality, nor are they familiar with conflict-of-interest
> rules," says Mary C. Daly, dean of St. John's University School of Law
> in New York City.
> LPO firms say they are up to the task of security and confidentiality.
> At Integreon's facilities in Mumbai and Gurgaon, for example, guards
> search attorneys' belongings to ensure they're not carrying flash
> drives or laptops, according to CEO Liam Brown. Computers don't have
> disc drives, usable usb ports or CD burners, and most can't print.
> Attorneys work for a specific client in areas called dedicated
> delivery centers, which are accessible via a fingerprint scan and
> monitored by cameras. Each room can hold up to 36 terminals--many of
> them with dual screens. The company never stores data locally. Rather,
> th

[Futurework] Signs of the times (3)

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Commodity prices rise and raw materials are found everywhere.
===
Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
In U.S., Metal Theft Plagues Troubled Neighborhoods 
8 April 2008 
The New York Times   
CLEVELAND -- Metal scrappers have attacked churches and ransacked homes
in this Midwestern city, leaving entire neighborhoods uninhabitable. 
Saint Theodosius Orthodox Cathedral here lost its insurance after a
thief stole copper panels from the roof years ago. Three churches in
Cleveland Heights have been stripped of copper gutters. And in the last
few months, three churches in the North Collinwood neighborhood were
stripped of copper downspouts. 
''Our neighborhoods are being pillaged, not by Vikings or Goths, but by
modern-day barbarians,'' said Mike Polensek, North Collinwood's City
Council member. Even manhole covers and sewer drains are being stolen
out of streets to be sold as scrap metal, Mr. Polensek said. 
Houses, however, are the greatest targets of commodity scavengers in the
United States. Neighborhoods depopulated by the rising tide of
foreclosures make easy targets. 
So many houses have been stripped of siding and copper pipes that
neighborhoods must be abandoned and turned into green spaces, said Jim
Rokakis, treasurer for Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland. ''We
have to pull out,'' he said. ''There's nothing left.'' 
It is common for home builders and remodelers here to erect signs on
plywood that read ''All PVC pipes, no copper,'' indicating a house has
less expensive plastic piping. 
In the last six months, the police in the city of Cleveland Heights have
arrested two groups of scrappers who used government foreclosure lists
to plot which houses to sack. 
Scrap metal thefts began to soar 12 to 18 months ago. ''There's a direct
correlation between the price of commodities and the number of metal
thefts,'' said Bruce Savage, spokesman for the Institute of Scrap
Recycling Industries. 
The institute received 174 reports from the police around the country
regarding metal thefts from Jan. 1 to March 28 of this year, a sharp
increase over the period in 2007, and the actual number of thefts is
much higher, Mr. Savage said. 
Copper pipes, among the most commonly stolen items, are selling for just
over $3 a pound. The local police report bronze urns taken from
gravestones and long sections of aluminum bleachers stolen from high
school stadiums. 
Catalytic converters in vehicles are also popular targets because they
contain platinum, which this month sold for an average of $1,900 an
ounce. 
===

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[Futurework] Signs of the times (2)

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
There's Gas in Those Hills 
8 April 2008 
The New York Times   
HUGHESVILLE, Pa. -- At first, Raymond Gregoire did not want to listen to
the raspy voice on his answering machine offering him money for rights
to drill on his land. They want to ruin my land, he thought. But he
called back anyway a week later to hear more. 
By the end of February, he had a contract in hand for $62,000, and he
pulled together a group of 75 neighbors who signed $3 million in deals. 
''It's a modern-day gold rush in our own backyard,'' Mr. Gregoire said. 
Not just his backyard either -- a frenzy unlike any seen in decades is
unfolding here in rural Pennsylvania, and it eventually could encompass
a huge chunk of the East, stretching from upstate New York to eastern
Ohio and as far south as West Virginia. Companies are risking big money
on a bet that this area could produce billions of dollars worth of
natural gas. 
A layer of rock here called the Marcellus Shale has been known for more
than a century to contain gas, but it was generally not seen as
economical to extract. Now, improved recovery technology, sharply higher
natural gas prices and strong drilling results in a similar shale
formation in north Texas are changing the calculus. A result is that a
part of the country where energy supplies were long thought to be
largely tapped out is suddenly ripe for gas prospecting. 
Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus Shale appears to be thickest, is the
heart of the action so far. Leasing agents from Texas and Oklahoma are
knocking on doors, leaving voice mail messages and playing host at
catered buffets to woo dairy farmers and retirees. They are rifling
through stacks of dusty deeds in courthouse basements to see who has
underground mineral rights to the deepest gas formations. 
Thomas B. Murphy, a Pennsylvania State University educator who runs a
program to instruct landowners on their rights, estimated that more than
20 oil and gas companies will invest $700 million this year developing
the Marcellus Shale. Up to one half of that will be invested in
Pennsylvania, he estimated. 
The cost to companies for leasing mineral rights jumped from $300 an
acre in mid-February to $2,100 now. ''It shows you the pace this is
going,'' Mr. Murphy said. ''I would call it breakneck.'' 
Dale A. Tice, a lawyer representing landowners in lease negotiations,
said companies were on a ''feeding frenzy.'' 
Industry experts say in the last three years companies like Anadarko
Petroleum  , Chesapeake Energy 
and Cabot Oil and Gas   have leased up to two million
acres for drilling in the region, half of that in the last nine months. 
Whether their bets will pay off is by no means a sure thing. 
Researchers at Penn State and the State University of New York at
Fredonia estimate that the Marcellus has 50 trillion cubic feet of
recoverable natural gas, roughly twice the amount of natural gas
consumed in the United States last year. But government estimates of the
amount of gas recoverable from the Marcellus are relatively modest. 
Early test results have encouraged companies to keep drilling, but most
are holding details of their test wells close to the vest. 
The company that has done the most work is Range Resources of Fort
Worth, which says it plans to invest at least $426 million in the
Appalachia region this year. 
The company has reported promising results from the first 12 wells that
it has drilled horizontally, the technique considered by most experts to
be the most effective in the Marcellus. The most recent six have each
produced more than three million cubic feet of production a day in
recent months, and company executives say that is better than the
average for wells recovering natural gas in the Barnett Shale in north
Texas. 
''The Marcellus is important to Range and it could be important to the
country but it really is still early,'' said Rodney L. Waller, a senior
vice president at Range. ''I can build you a scenario where it can be
significantly better than the Barnett but it's a function of
economics.'' 
Energy experts say the Marcellus, along with other smaller shale
formations being developed around the country, is coming under scrutiny
at an opportune moment, just when conventional domestic natural gas
production and imports from Canada are diminishing. With easy-to-find
gas fields in decline, the country will need to explore in deeper waters
in the Gulf of Mexico and penetrate deeper under the surface on land. 
If all goes well, the Marcellus could help moderate the steep climb in
natural gas prices and reduce possible future dependence on natural gas
from the Middle East, which is beginning to arrive at coastal terminals
in liquefied form. 
Natural gas in the Marcellus and other shale formations is sometimes
found as deep as 9,000 feet below the ground, a geological and
engineering challenge not to be underestimated. The shales are
sedimentary rock deposits formed from the mud of shallow seas several
hundred mi

[Futurework] Signs of the times

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Commodity prices rise and raw materials are found everywhere.
==

Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
As Price of Lead Soars, British Churches Find Holes in Roof 
8 April 2008 
The New York Times   
EDMONDTHORPE, England -- Thieves peeled long strips of lead from the
roof of St. Michael and All Angels, until a barking dog sent them
fleeing from this tiny Leicestershire village. But by then, they had
left a hole of about 100 square feet in the top of the 800-year-old
church. 
For centuries, people have stolen religious artifacts in Europe,
including chunks of religious buildings, but Britain is in the midst of
an accelerating crime wave that some experts call the most concerted
assault on churches since the Reformation. 
Instead of doctrinal differences, the motivation is the near record
price that lead -- the stuff many old church roofs are made of -- is
fetching on commodity markets. 
''The local parish church has become a victim of international demand
for metals,'' said Chris Pitt, a spokesman for Ecclesiastical, a company
that specializes in insuring religious buildings and other heritage
sites in Britain. 
Lead's price on global markets has rocketed sevenfold in the last six
years, largely because of rising demand from industrializing countries
like China and India. Centuries ago, its malleability made it a popular
building material; now it is sought mainly for use in batteries for
vehicles and backup power systems for computer and mobile phone
networks. It is also used to make bullets and shot, cables and paints. 
Because of booming demand, new mines are opening in South America and
Asia, where deposits are plentiful. There is also a growing business in
recycling lead, mainly from used batteries (where 75 percent of lead
ends up) but also scrap metal. 
Lead prices reached a record of $3,900 a ton late last summer mainly
because of supply problems from mines in Australia, consumer demand in
China for cars and motorbikes, and speculation by hedge fund managers on
volatile commodities markets, said William Adams, a metals analyst at
BaseMetals.com in London. 
The price has pulled back since, trading at about $2,750 a ton, he said,
but it could climb again on continuing supply problems and steady
Chinese demand. 
One of the oddest consequences of the historically high price is that
idyllic corners of Britain -- a nation that gave birth to the Industrial
Revolution -- are suddenly feeling the strain of Asia's
industrialization. 
''Churches have become pretty savvy at protecting property inside their
buildings, such as the altar ware and money in boxes,'' said Mr. Pitt of
Ecclesiastical, ''but now the most valuable thing these churches have is
being taken away piece by piece, and that is tearing away the very
fabric of these buildings.'' 
Ecclesiastical is raising its premiums for churches after paying out
claims last year totaling $:9 million ($18 million), mostly for thefts
of lead from roofs, he said. Before 2005, such claims were almost
unheard-of. 
A crucial problem for Britain's churches is that many go unused for long
periods of time, largely because of a decline in churchgoing. Services
here in Edmondthorpe, for example, are often held just six times a year.

In some cases, clergy members and parishioners discover roof thefts only
once rain pours into the building, damaging cherished items like carved
wooden screens and ancient organs. The thefts can lead to thousands of
pounds of structural damage, too. 
In Edmondthorpe, the damage will cost $:10,000 ($20,000) to repair. 
''It's ruthless how they do it,'' said Nigel Peters, an inspector with
the Leicestershire constabulary, describing lead thefts at Edmondthorpe
and seven other local churches. ''It's such a skill to lay down the
lead, and then it is literally just ripped away.'' 
Mr. Peters said his force had carried out raids on two local scrap metal
dealers but had found no evidence of wrongdoing. He said no arrests had
been made in connection with thefts in his part of the county. 
Historical preservation rules require many churches to replace roofs
with original building materials, including lead, despite its
attractiveness to thieves and its cost. Many fear thieves will return
after the repairs. 
''Whenever I get an early morning phone call these days, I think, 'Oh
no, they've taken the roof again,' '' said John Deave, 80, a retired
barrister and a churchwarden at St. Guthlac's Church in Stathern,
another Leicestershire village, where the church was vandalized in
January. 
Mr. Deave suspected that thieves had climbed up the drainpipe, peeled a
three-foot-wide strip from the roof, and threw their haul down into the
churchyard, where they left a piece of metal and an indentation in the
grass, before driving away. 
Insurance paid most of the $:2,300 bill to fix the roof. But the church
had to pay the $:500 deductible with parishioners' money and reserves
from tiny ''peppercorn rents'' still collected on nearby lands. 
Mr. Deave h

[Futurework] job market 2009 style

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 
Sent: Tue 4/1/2008 12:55 PM
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] job market 2009 style






job market 2009 style:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2uErWWwQTo 
 

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Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores, Hagglers Find Prices Are Flexible

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Except that it changes the market dynamics.  Once haggling becomes part of the 
purchase equation, consumers will always wonder if they should have spent more 
time haggling to get a "better price."
 
arthur



From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sun 3/30/2008 3:36 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; 'Michael Gurstein'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores, Hagglers Find 
Prices Are Flexible



Demeaning for someone to save $120 an hour when he might earn just $15 an hour?

 

Come now Arthur. You might not want to do it but if others do it's their 
decision because it is profitable to them.

 

Harry 

 

**

Harry Pollard

Henry George School of Los Angeles

Box 655

Tujunga  CA  91042

(818) 352-4141

**

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cordell, Arthur: 
ECOM
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 5:20 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Michael Gurstein; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores, Hagglers Find 
Prices Are Flexible

 

It also depends on how we value our time.  When shopping, I prefer to spend as 
little time as possible in the act.  I would rather be doing something else 
with my time than haggling. Almost anything else. 

 

 So someone spends 10 minutes to save a few dollars or even 20 dollars.  May be 
OK for some, not for me.  

 

For some its a game, for me its a waste of time and demeaning to all concerned.

 

arthur

 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Harry Pollard
Sent: Mon 3/24/2008 7:30 PM
To: 'Michael Gurstein'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores,Hagglers Find 
Prices Are Flexible

Come now, gentlemen, there is nothing wrong with bargaining.

 

I recall that about 25 years ago I had taken an English professorial friend 
into Tijuana in Mexico.

 

He liked a sport coat and was told the price was $25.

 

He was about to buy it when I intervened, said the price was too high and began 
to walk out of the shop. After some haggling my friend got the coat for $5.

 

It was a voluntary agreement between buyer and seller.

 

Commercial concerns haggle all the time in the real world.

 

Of course the rich don't care to haggle. Maybe the middle class think it's 
beneath them to haggle thereby taking on to themselves a veneer of "richness".

 

Of course in Europe practically every retail price is fixed. The peons have 
gotten used to it and pay up without a murmur.  

 

Harry

 

 

**

Harry Pollard

Henry George School of Los Angeles

Box 655

Tujunga  CA  91042

(818) 352-4141

**

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[Futurework] Stafford Beer

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> For those who remember Stafford Beer.
> 
> SANTIAGO JOURNAL 
> Foreign Desk; SECTA 
> Before '73 Coup, Chile Tried to Find the Right Software for Socialism 
> By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO 
> 28 March 2008 
> The New York Times   
> SANTIAGO, Chile -- When military forces loyal to Gen. Augusto Pinochet
> staged a coup here in September 1973, they made a surprising
> discovery. Salvador Allende's Socialist government had quietly
> embarked on a novel experiment to manage Chile's economy using a
> clunky mainframe computer and a network of telex machines. 
> The project, called Cybersyn, was the brainchild of A. Stafford Beer,
> a visionary Briton who employed his ''cybernetic'' concepts to help
> Mr. Allende find an alternative to the planned economies of Cuba and
> the Soviet Union. After the coup it became the subject of intense
> military scrutiny. 
> In developing Cybersyn, Mr. Beer changed the lives of the bright young
> Chileans he worked with here. Some 35 years later, this little-known
> feature of Mr. Allende's abortive Socialist transformation was
> remembered in an exhibit in a museum beneath La Moneda, the
> presidential palace. 
> A Star Trek-like chair with controls in the armrests was a replica of
> those in a prototype operations room. Mr. Beer planned for the room to
> receive computer reports based on data flowing from telex machines
> connected to factories up and down this 2,700-mile-long country.
> Managers were to sit in seven of the contoured chairs and make
> critical decisions about the reports displayed on projection screens. 
> While the operations room never became fully operational, Cybersyn
> gained stature within the Allende government for helping to
> outmaneuver striking workers in October 1972. That helped planners
> realize -- as the pioneers of the modern-day Internet did -- that the
> communications network was more important than computing power, which
> Chile did not have much of, anyway. A single I.B.M. 360/50 mainframe,
> which had less storage capacity than most flash drives today,
> processed the factories' data, with a Burroughs 3500 later filling in.
> 
> Cybersyn was born in July 1971 when Fernando Flores, then a
> 28-year-old government technocrat, sent a letter to Mr. Beer seeking
> his help in organizing Mr. Allende's economy by applying cybernetic
> concepts. Mr. Beer was excited by the prospect of being able to test
> his ideas. 
> He wanted to use the telex communications system -- a network of
> teletypewriters -- to gather data from factories on variables like
> daily output, energy use and labor ''in real time,'' and then use a
> computer to filter out the important pieces of economic information
> the government needed to make decisions. 
> Mr. Beer set up teams of computer programmers in England and Chile,
> and began making regular trips to Santiago to direct the project. He
> was paid $500 a day while working in Chile, a sizable sum here at the
> time, said Raul Espejo, who was Cybersyn's operations director. 
> The Englishman became a mentor to the Chilean team, many of them in
> their 20s. On one visit he tried to inspire them by sharing Richard
> Bach's ''Jonathan Livingston Seagull,'' the story of a seagull who
> follows his dream to master the art of flying against the wishes of
> the flock. 
> An imposing man with a long gray-flecked beard, Mr. Beer was a college
> dropout who challenged the young Chileans with tough questions. He
> shared his love for writing poetry and painting, and brought books and
> classical music from Europe. He smoked cigars and drank whiskey and
> wine constantly, ''but was never losing his head,'' Mr. Espejo said. 
> Most of the Cybersyn team scrupulously avoided talking about politics,
> and some even had far-right-wing views, said Isaquino Benadof, who led
> the team of Chilean engineers designing the Cybersyn software. 
> One early challenge was how to build the communications network. Short
> of money, the team found 500 unused telex machines in a warehouse of
> the national telecommunications company. 
> Cybersyn's turning point came in October 1972, when a strike by
> truckers and retailers nearly paralyzed the economy. The
> interconnected telex machines, exchanging 2,000 messages a day, were a
> potent instrument, enabling the government to identify and organize
> alternative transportation resources that kept the economy moving. 
> The strike ended within a week. While it weakened Mr. Allende's
> Popular Unity party, the government survived, and Cybersyn was praised
> for playing a major role. ''From that point on the communications
> center became part of whatever was happening,'' Mr. Espejo said. 
> ''Chile run by computer,'' blared The British Observer on Jan. 7,
> 1973, as word of the experiment began leaking out. 
> But as the country's political and security situation worsened, Mr.
> Beer and his Chilean team realized that time was running out. 
> Mr. Allende 

[Futurework] Role of Federal Reserve altered....forever??

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Fed Leaders Ponder an Expanded Mission
Wall Street Bailout Could Forever Alter Role of Central Bank
By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 28, 2008; A01
In the past two weeks, the Federal Reserve
 , long the guardian of the nation's banks, has redefined
its role to also become protector and overseer of Wall Street
 .
With its March 14 decision to make a special loan to Bear Stearns and a
decision two days later to become an emergency lender to all of the
major investment firms, the central bank abandoned 75 years of precedent
under which it offered direct backing only to traditional banks.
Inside the Fed and out, there is a realization that those moves amounted
to crossing the Rubicon, setting the stage for deeper involvement in the
little-regulated markets for capital that have come to dominate the
financial world.
Leaders of the central bank had no master plan when they took those
actions, no long-term strategy for taking on a more assertive role
regulating Wall Street. They were focused on the immediate crisis in
world financial markets. But they now recognize that a broader role may
be the result of the unprecedented intervention and are being forced to
consider whether it makes sense to expand the scope of their formal
powers over the investment industry.
"This will redefine the Fed's role," said Charles Geisst, a Manhattan
College finance professor who wrote a history of Wall Street. "We have
to realize that central banking now takes into its orbit everything in
the financial system in one way or another. Whether we like it or not,
they've recreated the financial universe."
The Fed has made a special lending facility -- essentially a bottomless
pit of cash -- available to large investment banks for at least the next
six months. Even if that program is allowed to expire this fall, the
Fed's actions will have lasting impact, economists and Wall Street
veterans said.
As they made a series of decisions over St. Patrick's Day weekend, Fed
leaders knew that they were setting a precedent that would indelibly
affect perceptions of how the central bank would act in a crisis. Now
that the central bank has intervened in the workings of Wall Street
banks, all sorts of players in the financial markets will assume that it
could do so again.
Major investment banks might be willing to take on more risk, assuming
that the Fed will be there to bail them out if the bets go wrong. But
Fed leaders, during those crucial meetings two weeks ago, concluded that
because the rescue caused huge losses for Bear Stearns shareholders,
other banks would not want to risk that outcome.
More worrisome, in the view of top Fed officials: The parties that do
business with investment banks might be less careful about monitoring
whether the bank will be able to honor obscure financial contracts if
they assume the Fed will back up those contracts. That would eliminate a
key form of self-regulation for investment banks.
Fed leaders concluded that it was worth taking that chance if their
action prevented an all-out, run-for-the-doors financial panic.
Those decisions were made in a series of conference calls, some in the
middle of the night, against hard deadlines of financial markets'
opening bells. Fed insiders are just beginning to collect their thoughts
on what might make sense for the longer term.
"It has wrought changes far more significant than they were probably
thinking about at the time," said Vincent Reinhart, a resident fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute
  who was until last
year a senior Fed staffer.
Whether there is a formal, legal change in the Fed's power over Wall
Street or not, the recent measures, which were taken under a 1930s law
that can only be exploited in "unusual and exigent circumstances,"
represent a massive departure from past practice.
The central bank was created in 1913 to prevent the banking crises that
were commonplace in the 19th century. The idea was that the Fed would be
a backstop, offering a limitless source of cash if people got the bright
idea to pull all their money at once out of an otherwise sound bank.
In exchange for putting up with regulation from the Fed and requirements
over how much capital they can hold, banks have access to the "discount
window," at which they can borrow emergency cash in exchange for sound
collateral. A bank might take deposits from individuals and make loans
to people buying a house. Hedge funds do something similar: borrow money
in the asset-backed commercial paper market and use it to buy
mortgage-backed securities. But the bank has lots of regulation and
access to the discount window; the hedge fund does not.
In recent decades, more of the borrowing and lending tha

[Futurework] On the need for trust

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

. . commerce dies the moment, and is sick in the degree in which men
cannot trust each other. 

Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887) US clergyman, abolitionist 
In "Webster's Electronic Quotebase," ed. Keith Mohler, 1994. 

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[Futurework] Globalization (continued)

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
Under a Chevy's Hood, Some Innards From China and Japan 
26 March 2008The New York Times 
OSHAWA, Ontario -- General Motors   car engines were
once the stuff of American legend. The Beach Boys sang, ''nothing can
touch my 409,'' about a powerful Chevy V-8. Oldsmobile owners in 1981
were so angered that their cars had been fitted with Chevrolet engines
instead of Oldsmobile ''Rockets,'' the subject of another hit song, that
they successfully sued G.M. over the swap. 
The company has since eliminated brand distinctions between engines,
saddling them with names unlikely to inspire songwriters, like Ecotec,
Vortec and Northstar. But some owners of the Chevrolet Equinox, a
''compact'' sport utility vehicle built in North America, might be
surprised to learn the origin of the engine under their hoods -- it's
made in China. 
Last year, China exported more than $12 billion in auto parts, up from
less than $2 billion in 2002 -- the majority to North America. The
increase in exports has added to the problems plaguing North American
suppliers. Most famously, Delphi, which is seeking to emerge from
bankruptcy, has closed dozens of plants and moved some production
overseas to become more competitive, including to China. 
Soon China will be exporting whole vehicles to North America. Last year,
Chrysler signed a deal with China's largest car company, Chery
Automobile, to supply a Dodge subcompact. 
One of the most important steps on China's long march to becoming an
auto exporter was the little-noticed arrival of the humble engine inside
the 2005 Chevy Equinox. 
''This is the first Chinese-made engine going into this market,'' said
Eric A. Fedewa, vice president for powertrain forecasts at CSM
Worldwide, an automotive analysis firm. ''It was an experiment to see if
G.M. could use its facility in China to take costs out of a vehicle.'' 
G.M. neither promoted nor hid the fact that the Equinox engine (and that
of its twin, the Pontiac Torrent) is made in China. The car's sticker
notes 55 percent of its content is make in the United States and Canada,
20 percent in Japan, 15 percent in China and the rest from elsewhere.
But no sticker tells consumers the engine is built at Shanghai General
Motors  , a joint venture of G.M. and the Shanghai
Automotive Industry Corporation  , a Chinese company.

Originally intended to power Buick sedans built for the Chinese market,
the engine is the only one available in the Equinox base model. 
Starting with the 2008 model, a larger American-made motor became an
option in a higher-end version of the S.U.V. The same model of engine as
the one made in China is produced at a G.M. engine plant in Tonawanda,
N.Y., about a two-hour drive from the Canadian factory that builds the
Equinox. 
G.M. does not break out internal costs, so it is not known how the
Chinese engines compare in price with those from Tonawanda. Mr. Fedewa
said an engine of this sort typically costs $800 to $900 to make. 
Even in an era of global manufacturing, the Equinox is exceptionally
international. Its engineering was largely done here in Oshawa,
headquarters of General Motors of Canada.   It uses a
five-speed automatic transmission made in Japan by Aisin Seiki
 , though G.M. is a leading manufacturer of automatic
transmissions. And the parts are assembled at a factory in Ingersoll,
Ontario, a joint venture between G.M. and Suzuki, another Japanese firm.

Suzuki was a major driver in the decision to use the Chinese-made
engine. Dick Kauling, a senior engineering manager at G.M. Canada who
helped develop the Equinox, said his group had worked closely with
engineers at Suzuki, as well as G.M. engineers in Germany, China and
Warren, Mich. 
''The Suzuki guys said, 'We have the global logistics that can make this
happen,' '' Mr. Fedewa said. 
Suzuki proposed loading a container ship in Shanghai with engines, then
having it stop in Japan to pick up transmissions on its way to Canada. 
A 25-year G.M. veteran, Mr. Kauling, remembers when car buyers hotly
debated the differences between the engines in G.M. brands, not to
mention those from other automakers. But he said the old way of
organizing production was less than efficient. 
Early in his career, the company was running short of engines for
Chevrolets but had a surplus of Oldsmobile motors. He was assigned to
find a way to modify the incompatible Oldsmobile engine -- the two
brands had not even been able to agree on common bolt sizes -- to fit
into a Chevy body. 
Now, Mr. Kauling said, ''I don't think we're concerned where the parts
come from,'' adding, the Chinese-made engine ''has got General Motors
  all over it.'' 
The idea of using the Chinese engine did not sit well with the Canadian
Auto Workers, the union that represents workers at the Equinox factory.
Because of its complexity, engine assembly uses a higher proportion of
skilled, well-paid workers. 
And Basil E. Hargrove, the union's president, blames what he calls
unfair trading practic

[Futurework] Getting Ready For Bank Failures

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

FDIC Set to Add Staff as It Girds For Bank Failures 
26 March 2008The Wall Street Journal 
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.   plans to hire
as many as 138 new employees to help deal with the potential for rising
bank failures amid the current financial morass. 
An agency spokesman said the FDIC hopes to boost the number of employees
in its Division of Resolutions and Receiverships to as many as 380 from
the current 223. The division is already authorized to have 242
employees, so the new hiring effort will seek to add an additional 138
new positions, half of whom will be temporary hires. "We're offering
reassurance that we'll be prepared," spokesman Andrew Gray said. 
The reason for the staffing increase is twofold: an expected increase in
bank failures, and the retirement of current employees. FDIC officials
have acknowledged they expect an uptick in the number of banks that fail
and need to be taken over by the agency. 
The resolutions division is tasked with handling the fallout from a
failed bank, and has already had to deal with two failed banks this
year. A total of three banks failed in 2007, the first bank failures
since 2004. And while the FDIC has stressed that failures remain
historically low, the agency does have 76 firms on its list of problem
banks. 
==

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Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores, Hagglers Find Prices Are Flexible

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

It also depends on how we value our time.  When shopping, I prefer to spend as 
little time as possible in the act.  I would rather be doing something else 
with my time than haggling. Almost anything else. 
 
 So someone spends 10 minutes to save a few dollars or even 20 dollars.  May be 
OK for some, not for me.  
 
For some its a game, for me its a waste of time and demeaning to all concerned.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Harry Pollard
Sent: Mon 3/24/2008 7:30 PM
To: 'Michael Gurstein'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores,Hagglers Find 
Prices Are Flexible



Come now, gentlemen, there is nothing wrong with bargaining.

 

I recall that about 25 years ago I had taken an English professorial friend 
into Tijuana in Mexico.

 

He liked a sport coat and was told the price was $25.

 

He was about to buy it when I intervened, said the price was too high and began 
to walk out of the shop. After some haggling my friend got the coat for $5.

 

It was a voluntary agreement between buyer and seller.

 

Commercial concerns haggle all the time in the real world.

 

Of course the rich don't care to haggle. Maybe the middle class think it's 
beneath them to haggle thereby taking on to themselves a veneer of "richness".

 

Of course in Europe practically every retail price is fixed. The peons have 
gotten used to it and pay up without a murmur.  

 

Harry

 

 

**

Harry Pollard

Henry George School of Los Angeles

Box 655

Tujunga  CA  91042

(818) 352-4141

**

/listinfo/futurework  

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Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores, Hagglers Find Prices Are Flexible

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Oh great.  Now we are becoming a true third world economy with haggling as a 
way of doing business.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Michael Gurstein
Sent: Sun 3/23/2008 12:44 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores,Hagglers Find Prices 
Are Flexible



Worth knowing...

MG

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steven Brant
Sent: March 23, 2008 8:26 AM
To: Triumph-Of Content
Subject: [TriumphOfContent] At Megastores, Hagglers Find Prices Are Flexible


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/business/23haggle.html

The New York Times

March 23, 2008

At Megastores, Hagglers Find Prices Are Flexible

By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO - Shoppers are discovering an upside to the down 
economy. They are getting price breaks by reviving an age-old retail 
strategy: haggling.

A bargaining culture once confined largely to car showrooms and 
jewelry stores is taking root in major stores like Best Buy, Circuit 
City and Home Depot, as well as mom-and-pop operations.

Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a 
slowing economy, are finding that they can dicker on prices, not just 
on clearance items or big-ticket products like televisions but also 
on lower-cost goods like cameras, audio speakers, couches, rugs and 
even clothing.

The change is not particularly overt, and most store policies on 
bargaining are informal. Some major retailers, however, are quietly 
telling their salespeople that negotiating is acceptable.

"We want to work with the customer, and if that happens to mean 
negotiating a price, then we're willing to look at that," said 
Kathryn Gallagher, a spokeswoman for Home Depot.

In the last year, she said, the store has adopted an "entrepreneurial 
spirit" campaign to give salespeople and managers more latitude on 
prices in order to retain customers.

The sluggish economy is punctuating a cultural shift enabled by wired 
consumers accustomed to comparing prices and bargaining online, said 
Nancy F. Koehn, a retail historian at the Harvard Business School.

Haggling was once common before department stores began setting fixed 
prices in the 1850s. But the shift to bargaining in malls and on Main 
Street is a considerable change from even 10 years ago, Ms. Koehn 
said, when studies showed that consumers did not like to bargain and 
did not consider themselves good at it. "Call it the eBay 
phenomenon," Ms. Koehn said.

"The recession is helping to push these seedlings to the surface," 
she added. "It's a real turnabout on the part of the buyer and the 
seller."

John D. Morris, an apparel industry analyst for Wachovia, said that 
the ailing economy was not necessarily forcing all retailers to 
negotiate. But he says he believes that when there is an opportunity 
for negotiation, the shopper has the upper hand.

"This is one of the periods where the customer is empowered," Mr. 
Morris said. "The retailer knows that the customer is enduring tough 
times - and is more willing to be the one who blinks first in that 
stare-down match."

While tough times give people more incentive to change their 
behavior, it is the wealth of information about products made 
available on the Internet that gives consumers the know-how to try 
it. People now can quickly amass information on product availability 
and pricing, helping them develop strategies to get the best deal.

Michael Roskell, 33, a technology project manager from Jersey City, 
N.J., said he and a friend from high school periodically visit 
electronics stores. While Mr. Roskell expresses interest in buying an 
item, his friend acts as though he is dissatisfied with the price and 
threatens to leave.

"We play good cop, bad cop," Mr. Roskell said.

In February, he said, the friends got $20 off a pair of $250 speakers 
at 6th Avenue Electronics in the New York area. Earlier, he and the 
same friend negotiated to buy two 46-inch high-definition Sony 
televisions at P. C. Richard & Son, a New York-area electronics chain.

List price: $4,300. Price after negotiation: $3,305.50.

"My parents never did this," Mr. Roskell said. "But once you get it, 
you realize there's a whole economy built on this."

The strategy can even work when buying pants. At least it did for 
David Achee of Maplewood, N.J., who said he went to a Polo Ralph 
Lauren store in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan last month and 
became interested in a pair of pants on the clearance rack for $75. 
He told the salesperson that he had seen a similar pair on the 
Internet for $65, adding that he thought the pair on the rack looked 
worn (even though he did not really think so). He got the pants for 
around $50, he said.

Among his other tactics, he said, he sometimes threatens to walk out 
of a store and go to a competitor, as he did recently to get a price 
break on a drum set at a music store. But, mainly, he relies on

Re: [Futurework] FW: Global capitalism teeters on the brink

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

To the extent that the Fed has offered guarantees, the gamblers can afford to 
play roulette with our money knowing that if they win they keep the earnings, 
if they lose they go to the Fed to be bailed out.
 
The title might have been better said: some global capitalists teeter on the 
brinkbut while some sustained losses, most were handed life preservers.
 
Rather than let the losses run through the system to bring prices in line with 
value, the Fed froze the gameso we really don't know the value of bank 
assets, the value of housing stock, the gains or losses incurred by players.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Thu 3/20/2008 9:01 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Global capitalism teeters on the brink



> Global capitalism teeters on the brink

Propaganda.  On the contrary, the global gamblers are better off than ever,
making a killing with the volatile stocks, currencies, oil and gold price
etc. speculations and the ongoing globalization gobbling up Asia and the
rest.  Not to mention the "war on terror" mega-ripoffs.  Hey, it's not a
bug, it's a feature!  The gains from the manufactured 1929 crash continue
to this day.  Why not repeat such a good deal?

Chris




SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword
"igve".


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Re: [Futurework] FW: Great Art

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

An artist friend sent me the link.

arthur 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
M.Blackmore
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 10:17 AM
To: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Great Art

Where on earth did you find this link? It's one of the few things that
have "mind-boggled" me for years... wish I'd see them fullsize on an
international tour...

On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 16:11 -0400, Cordell, Arthur: ECOM wrote:
> Artistic comment on society and the way we use, mis-use and waste
> resources.
> 
> 
> 
> __
> From: Paul-Andre 
> Sent: Tue 3/18/2008 2:17 PM
> 
> I am sure you would be delighted with this work.
> 
> http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7
> 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
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[Futurework] FW: Can't Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> Subject:  Can't Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club 
> 
> 
> 
> March 19, 2008 
> NY Times
> Economic Scene 
> Can't Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club 
> By DAVID LEONHARDT
>  onhardt/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  
> Raise your hand if you don't quite understand this whole financial
> crisis. 
> It has been going on for seven months now, and many people probably
> feel as if they should understand it. But they don't, not really. The
> part about the housing crash seems simple enough. With banks
> whispering sweet encouragement, people bought homes they couldn't
> afford, and now they are falling behind on their mortgages. 
> But the overwhelming majority of homeowners are doing just fine. So
> how is it that a mess concentrated in one part of the mortgage
> business - subprime loans - has frozen the credit markets, sent stock
> markets gyrating, caused the collapse of Bear Stearns
>  mpanies/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , left the economy on the brink of
> the worst recession in a generation and forced the Federal Reserve to
> take its boldest action since the Depression? 
> I'm here to urge you not to feel sheepish. This may not be entirely
> comforting, but your confusion is shared by many people who are in the
> middle of the crisis.
> "We're exposing parts of the capital markets that most of us had never
> heard of," Ethan Harris, a top Lehman Brothers
>  _holdings_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  economist, said last week.
> Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary and current Citigroup
>  ndex.html?inline=nyt-org>  executive, has said
>  tune/index.htm>  that he hadn't heard of "liquidity puts," an obscure
> kind of financial contract, until they started causing big problems
> for Citigroup. 
> I spent a good part of the last few days calling people on Wall Street
> and in the government to ask one question, "Can you try to explain
> this to me?" When they finished, I often had a highly sophisticated
> follow-up question: "Can you try again?"
> I emerged thinking that all the uncertainty has created a panic that
> is partly unfounded. That said, the crisis isn't close to ending,
> either. Ben Bernanke
>  rnanke/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , the Federal Reserve chairman,
> won't be able to wave a magic wand and make everything better, no
> matter how many more times he cuts rates. As Mr. Bernanke himself has
> suggested, the only thing that will end the crisis is the end of the
> housing bust. 
> So let's go back to the beginning of the boom.
> It really started in 1998, when large numbers of people decided that
> real estate, which still hadn't recovered from the early 1990s slump,
> had become a bargain. At the same time, Wall Street was making it
> easier for buyers to get loans. It was transforming the mortgage
> business from a local one, centered around banks, to a global one, in
> which investors from almost anywhere could pool money to lend. 
> The new competition brought down mortgage fees and spurred some useful
> innovation. Why, after all, should someone who knows that she's going
> to move after just a few years have no choice but to take out a
> 30-year fixed-rate mortgage?
> As is often the case with innovations, though, there was soon too much
> of a good thing. Those same global investors, flush with cash from
> Asia's boom or rising oil prices, demanded good returns. Wall Street
> had an answer: subprime mortgages. 
> Because these loans go to people stretching to afford a house, they
> come with higher interest rates - even if they're disguised by low
> initial rates - and thus higher returns. The mortgages were then
> sliced into pieces and bundled into investments, often known as
> collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.'s (a term that appeared in
> this newspaper only three times before 2005, but almost every week
> since last summer). Once bundled, different types of mortgages could
> be sold to different groups of investors. 
> Investors then goosed their returns through leverage, the oldest
> strategy around. They made $100 million bets with only $1 million of
> their own money and $99 million in debt. If the value of the
> investment rose to just $101 million, the investors would double their
> money. Home buyers did the same thing, by putting little money down on
> new houses, notes Mark Zandi of Moody's
>  ion/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  Economy.com. The Fed under Alan
> Greenspan
>  enspan/index.html

[Futurework] FW: Great Art

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Artistic comment on society and the way we use, mis-use and waste resources.



From: Paul-Andre 
Sent: Tue 3/18/2008 2:17 PM


I am sure you would be delighted with this work.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7


 

 

 

 

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Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters]

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Surprised he didn't get into subsidizing and/or  giving tax breaks for
abortions.



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 2:27 PM
To: Future; Ottawa
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] 



Something I ran into about Walters. Utter madness, driven by arrogance?

 

Looked further and found this.

 

Harry

..

 

Gerard Jackson - BrookesNews.Com 

 

Monday 17 December 2007 

 

Barry Walters, an associate professor of obstetrics at the

University of Western Australia, revealed the greens'

totalitarian mentality by demanding that the state force

parents to pay $5,000 per child at birth to offset the

babies so-called carbon footprint. He also proposed that for

each year after that parents should be made to pay $400 to

$800 per child. In support of his views Walters made a

favourable reference to proposals by the infamous SPA

(Sustainable Population Australia) for a maximum of two

children per family.

 

Full column at:

 

http://www.brookesnews.com/071712greens.html

 

Harry

 

**

Harry Pollard

Henry George School of Los Angeles

Box 655

Tujunga  CA  91042

(818) 352-4141

**

 

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Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Maybe we can drink biofuels and become self-propelled?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

And I guess when starvation hits, its time to put some of your portfolio in the 
stocks of funeral parlours oops I mean funeral homes.
 
http://www.funeralhomesguide.com/NewJersey/Passaic/TheMadonnaMultinationalHomeforFunerals.html
 
I mean, business is business, eh??
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ed Weick
Sent: Tue 3/11/2008 3:38 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: futurework
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Maybe we can drink biofuels and become 
self-propelled?


>From the Daily Reckoning.  The looming problem may only partly be energy, but 
>mostly it may be food if agricultural lands are moved into large-scale biofuel 
>production.  But hey!  According to the author, there's an opportunity to make 
>some money if things go that way.
 
Ed
 


While shortages of key industrial and energy commodities are frightening, no 
other sector will threaten global stability more than agriculture.

It seems ironic that as global population is reaching an all-time high, we are 
turning at least half of our crops into ethanol or biofuel. This is a 
questionable, if not idiotic, alternative that clearly does as much damage as 
good. While the short-term impact is obvious, the longer-term ramifications for 
agriculture on a global scale could be devastating.

The idea of food inflation is new to many Americans, who are used to prices for 
food being only about 13-16% of income. Back when my grandmother got off the 
boat in 1912, they were more like 45%.

The facts of life are not always pleasant, but the truth must be told without 
all the politically correct, wish-upon-a-star answers. The U.S. is blessed to 
be one of the nations with some of the best agricultural land on the planet. 
From sea to shining sea, we have cropland as far as the eye can see. For years, 
the bounty of the land has been a supermarket for the world; now it's a fuel 
station, too. China, which has hundreds of millions more hungry mouths than we 
have, has far less arable farmland. And worse, China has far fewer controls in 
place to regulate farming methods.

In recent years in the United States, the number of immigrants has swollen. The 
porous borders continue to attract newcomers as if it were still 1912. Here in 
the U.S., a lot of people still think that America can still absorb a massive 
influx of immigrants from all over the planet who are poor, tired and hungry. 
And while that is nice, romantic thinking, the fact of the matter is we cannot.

As investors, we must look at this situation as an opportunity for our 
portfolio. First of all, I suggest if you have some extra land (condo 
developers and house flippers, listen closely), grow a vegetable garden, and if 
you are ambitious, raise some sheep and cows, because they will come in handy. 
A little more practical and with less bunker mentality is to add stocks of some 
of the key agricultural companies that help support the industry, like those 
dealing with equipment making, fertilizer, irrigation and transport. These are 
the names you always hear, like John Deere, Monsanto, Caterpillar, etc.

These companies will do well for the same reasons drillers and equipment maker 
stocks do so well when the energy markets are surging. The same thing applies 
to these agricultural-related companies. Agriculture is in a serious bull 
market right now, one that is not likely to end anytime soon. Now, none of 
these is an official Outstanding Investments recommendation, but take a long 
look at this sector. I think you will see the picture is clear why this is a 
smart sector in which to have at least some exposure.

Regards,

Kevin Kerr
for The Daily Reckoning 

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[Futurework] FW: Feds print money

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> __ 
> From:     Cordell, Arthur: ECOM  
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 1:47 PM
> To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED];
> '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject:  Feds print money
> 
> Fed and central banks team up to unstick markets 
> By Glenn Somerville and Emily Kaiser 23 minutes ago 
> The U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks on Tuesday teamed up
> to get hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh funds to cash-starved
> credit markets, allowing financial firms to use securities backed by
> home mortgages as collateral for central bank loans.
> Stocks surged, bonds fell and the long-suffering U.S. dollar rose in
> reaction to the moves, a sign financial markets saw the plan as a
> viable remedy to ease a crisis that has threatened world economic
> growth. The Dow Jones industrials were up 1.5 percent in trading just
> after midday (1600 GMT).
> In the latest effort to ease a credit contraction that has disrupted
> global finance, the Fed, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, European
> Central Bank and Swiss National Bank announced a series of aggressive
> measures to boost liquidity. It was the second time in three months
> that central banks from around the globe had launched coordinated
> efforts.
> "In the near term, the Fed and global central banks have provided the
> thing everyone needed, and that's cash," said Martin Blum, head of
> emerging markets research at UniCredit in Vienna. "The actions ...
> deal with this issue by making it easier for banks to get cash, and
> that's important."
> The Fed expanded its securities lending program, offering up to $200
> billion of highly-liquid U.S. Treasuries to primary dealers, secured
> for 28 days. It also significantly expanded the types of securities
> that can be used as collateral for loans. In effect, the plan allows
> banks to exchange unwanted mortgage notes for easy-to-sell government
> securities.
> However, the U.S. central bank also said it would not accept private
> mortgage-backed securities that credit ratings agencies had put under
> review for possible downgrades.
> That takes a bite out of the eligible debt, although the Fed said
> there may be as much as $1 trillion that would qualify for the
> auctions.
> The Fed's moves came after some huge holders of mortgage-linked debt
> received demands for more cash as the value of the securities they
> held plunged. Investors, paralyzed by fears of a market shutdown, have
> shunned large sectors of the debt market, causing prices to tumble and
> leaving many offers for sales unfilled.
> The action came on the back of an announcement from the Fed on Friday
> that it would expand auctions of short-term cash to $100 billion in
> March and launch a series of repurchase agreements expected to be
> worth $100 billion, bringing the total of recently announced actions
> to a hefty $400 billion. 
> SMALLER RATE CUT?
> The Fed has shaved 2.25 percentage points from benchmark interest
> rates since mid-September in an effort to offset the impact of the
> credit tightening. Economists widely expect at least another
> half-point reduction when the Fed's policy-setting committee meets
> next week.
> But Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius said the latest steps from the
> Fed make a more aggressive cut less likely.
> "This announcement makes clear that Fed officials are pulling out all
> the stops they can think of to deal with financial stress through the
> increased provision of liquidity into the system," he wrote in a note
> to clients. "To the extent they see this as substituting for rate
> cuts, this should reduce the probability of a 75 basis point rate cut
> next Tuesday."
> As part of the latest effort, the European Central Bank said it would
> auction up to $15 billion for a term of 28 days, the Swiss National
> Bank said it would auction $6 billion and the Bank of Canada said it
> would it provide about $4 billion.
> Despite the positive market reaction, some analysts questioned whether
> the latest round of central bank efforts would have much staying
> power. Earlier efforts by the Fed and its counterparts were successful
> in reviving markets for a short time, only to see them unravel again
> when the next bout of credit turmoil emerged.
> "This Fed action is good for a day or two," said Michael Cheah, senior
> portfolio manager at AIG SunAmerica Asset Management in Jersey City,
> New Jersey.
> "There are three problems in the market. One is the price of money,
> then liquidity and counterparty risk. The Fed can do all it can in the
> first two areas by trying to reduce (interest rates) and the price of
> money. However, these moves a

[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

@1:55 pm
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[Futurework] Feds print money

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Fed and central banks team up to unstick markets 
By Glenn Somerville and Emily Kaiser 23 minutes ago 
The U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks on Tuesday teamed up to
get hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh funds to cash-starved
credit markets, allowing financial firms to use securities backed by
home mortgages as collateral for central bank loans.
Stocks surged, bonds fell and the long-suffering U.S. dollar rose in
reaction to the moves, a sign financial markets saw the plan as a viable
remedy to ease a crisis that has threatened world economic growth. The
Dow Jones industrials were up 1.5 percent in trading just after midday
(1600 GMT).
In the latest effort to ease a credit contraction that has disrupted
global finance, the Fed, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, European
Central Bank and Swiss National Bank announced a series of aggressive
measures to boost liquidity. It was the second time in three months that
central banks from around the globe had launched coordinated efforts.
"In the near term, the Fed and global central banks have provided the
thing everyone needed, and that's cash," said Martin Blum, head of
emerging markets research at UniCredit in Vienna. "The actions ... deal
with this issue by making it easier for banks to get cash, and that's
important."
The Fed expanded its securities lending program, offering up to $200
billion of highly-liquid U.S. Treasuries to primary dealers, secured for
28 days. It also significantly expanded the types of securities that can
be used as collateral for loans. In effect, the plan allows banks to
exchange unwanted mortgage notes for easy-to-sell government securities.
However, the U.S. central bank also said it would not accept private
mortgage-backed securities that credit ratings agencies had put under
review for possible downgrades.
That takes a bite out of the eligible debt, although the Fed said there
may be as much as $1 trillion that would qualify for the auctions.
The Fed's moves came after some huge holders of mortgage-linked debt
received demands for more cash as the value of the securities they held
plunged. Investors, paralyzed by fears of a market shutdown, have
shunned large sectors of the debt market, causing prices to tumble and
leaving many offers for sales unfilled.
The action came on the back of an announcement from the Fed on Friday
that it would expand auctions of short-term cash to $100 billion in
March and launch a series of repurchase agreements expected to be worth
$100 billion, bringing the total of recently announced actions to a
hefty $400 billion. 
SMALLER RATE CUT?
The Fed has shaved 2.25 percentage points from benchmark interest rates
since mid-September in an effort to offset the impact of the credit
tightening. Economists widely expect at least another half-point
reduction when the Fed's policy-setting committee meets next week.
But Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius said the latest steps from the
Fed make a more aggressive cut less likely.
"This announcement makes clear that Fed officials are pulling out all
the stops they can think of to deal with financial stress through the
increased provision of liquidity into the system," he wrote in a note to
clients. "To the extent they see this as substituting for rate cuts,
this should reduce the probability of a 75 basis point rate cut next
Tuesday."
As part of the latest effort, the European Central Bank said it would
auction up to $15 billion for a term of 28 days, the Swiss National Bank
said it would auction $6 billion and the Bank of Canada said it would it
provide about $4 billion.
Despite the positive market reaction, some analysts questioned whether
the latest round of central bank efforts would have much staying power.
Earlier efforts by the Fed and its counterparts were successful in
reviving markets for a short time, only to see them unravel again when
the next bout of credit turmoil emerged.
"This Fed action is good for a day or two," said Michael Cheah, senior
portfolio manager at AIG SunAmerica Asset Management in Jersey City, New
Jersey.
"There are three problems in the market. One is the price of money, then
liquidity and counterparty risk. The Fed can do all it can in the first
two areas by trying to reduce (interest rates) and the price of money.
However, these moves are not going to mitigate the counterparty risk,"
he said.
Banks have essentially lost faith in each other after seven months of
market unrest, making them reluctant to lend money to one another and
driving up borrowing costs for the consumers and companies that power
the world economy. 
The Fed said its new lending facility will operate through weekly
auctions that will start on March 27. It also said it was increasing
existing currency swap lines with the ECB and SNB, allowing those two
central banks to offer more U.S. dollars in their respective markets. 
(Additional reporting by Al Yoon in New York; writing by Emily Kaiser;
editing by Gary Crosse)

__

[Futurework] The End of Outsourcing to India ???

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

http://www.finextra.com/community/fullblog.aspx?id=1012
The end of outsourcing to India
29/02/2008 14:01:19

Forbes reports today that India's competitive advantage for offshore
services is disappearing fast as wage demands mean that services are
now 66% cheaper for US and European firms in India, compared with 84%
a few years ago.

As wage demands increase, it can only be a matter of time they say,
where it will cost the same.  In fact, they forecast this could be as
soon as 2015 based upon current trends.

The issue India then has is that Forbes reckons India doesn't have any
people who think, create or differentiate because all the thinking is
done by their customers.  India has 'outsourced' the thinking and just
do the implementing.

Is this the likely future ...

... or is this just a US-magazine trying to forecast the end of
India's competitive advantage because Americans don't like hearing
about India's success?



http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/29/mitra-india-outsourcing-tech-enter-cx_s
m_0229outsource.html?partner=alerts

Commentary
The Coming Death Of Indian Outsourcing
Sramana Mitra 02.29.08, 6:00 AM ET

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -

India is riding high on outsourcing.

Information technology and IT-enabled services will employ 4 million
people in 2008 and account for 7% of gross domestic product and 33% of
India's foreign-exchange inflows, according to Nasscom, an Indian IT
industry organization.

The death of this industry is far from anyone's mind.

However, the reality is that wages are rising in India. The cost
advantage for offshoring to India used to be at least 1:6. Today, it
is at best 1:3. Attrition is scary.

Jobs that are low value-added and easily automatable should and will
disappear over the next decade.

People talk a lot about India moving up the value chain. Some of that
has indeed happened. An industry that started gaining momentum when
Indian software developers were tapped to help fix the "Y2K" problems
in old software code has blossomed beautifully into one that offers a
much more comprehensive spectrum of services.

Yet, India, for all its glory, is still the world's back office.
India's tech industry is a "services" industry. The Indians don't do
the thinking. The customers do. India executes.

As a result, India has not learned to invent technology products of
its own. Barring a few exceptions, the huge amount of venture capital
chasing India finds it difficult to be deployed. There is way too much
money, way too few deals. Instead, tech-sector VCs are now diverting
capital to retail, real estate, hotels and other non-tech sectors.

India's $30 billion IT/ITES services industry, meanwhile, is slowly
and surely losing its competitive advantage.

Most of the 4 million people that the industry employs have now
"arrived." They have breezed through the milestones that their fathers
had to toil all their lives to reach. A phone. A watch. A TV. A car. A
house.

They are complacent. They will not take risks. They have "outsourced"
thinking to their customers.

As the 1:3 cost structure becomes 1:1.5, it will soon become
inefficient to use Indian labor. Why not Oklahoma or British Columbia?
For many Europeans, Eastern Europe has already become more compelling
than India. The pure labor arbitrage equation will no longer balance.

ADP, the largest U.S. payroll services provider, has 45,000 employees
worldwide, of which only 2,500 are in India. It has around 1,000
workers in El Paso, Texas, it's expanding a location in Augusta, Ga.,
and it's opening a facility in Jackson, Miss. It's also growing a
location in Halifax, Canada. ADP isn't moving its workforce to
India--it's hedging its bets geographically. On a recent earnings
call, ADP's chief executive used terms such as "smartshoring," and
"nearshoring" to describe the strategy.

The software as a service (SaaS) megatrend in technology also plays
against India.

Here's an example: There's a tiny Silicon Valley start-up called
InsideView. It helps customers to generate sales leads, qualify those
leads and use technology tools to help find big sales opportunities
for customers.

In November 2007, InsideView acquired a company called TrueAdvantage,
which did the exact same thing manually with a team of 150 people in
India. After the acquisition, InsideView moved all 2,500 of
TrueAdvantage's customers over to its SaaS solution. All 150
TruAdvantage employees in India were laid off.

That's been a familiar tale in Detroit--but no so far in India. But
that's changing.

Indian powerhouses like Infosys and Wipro must diversify their
portfolios away from pure body-shopping and process competencies to
technology-driven advantages. They, too, could build--or acquire--SaaS
businesses.

So far that's not happening. Infosys is still hiring thousands of new
employees in India every year. The mood is upbeat. Nasscom is
forecasting 25% annual growth in the Indian IT services industry for
the next few years. The golden goose is still laying large, warm eggs

[Futurework] Lessig decides against running

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

LESSIG DECIDES AGAINST A RUN FOR CONGRESS
  
Larry Lessig won't be running for the U.S. Congress after all. Lessig
said on Monday that he won't try to seek election in the congressional
district stretching from the western edge of San Francisco down the
peninsula into Silicon Valley. The seat was left vacant by the death of
Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos this month, and Lessig said last week he was
considering a campaign. [CNET]

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[Futurework] FW: Oooops. Countrywide Puts an End To Ski Junket

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Subject: Oooops. Countrywide Puts an End To Ski Junket 



Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
Countrywide Puts an End To Ski Junket 
25 February 2008 
The New York Times 
The weather forecast may call for snow and good skiing conditions in Avon, 
Colo., on Monday. But no one at the luxury resort, near Aspen, will be hitting 
the slopes -- or eating $105 Kobe steaks -- on Countrywide's dime this week. 

Countrywide Financial, the besieged mortgage lender, has canceled a gathering 
of bankers from smaller mortgage banks at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch ski 
resort (where room rates begin at $725), Countrywide said in a statement on 
Sunday. 

The company was to pay for 30 invited guests' hotel rooms, meals, skiing and 
tips. 
In the statement, the company said that ''in light of recent events'' it had 
decided to cancel all gatherings with business partners and clients for the 
rest of the year, moving quickly after being criticized for planning such an 
extravagant event. 

The three-night gathering, which was to include business meetings as well as 
skiing, drinking and sampling expensive meals like $140 caviar and Kurobuta 
pork osso bucco at the Spago restaurant, had already drawn negative press. 
''Let 'Em Eat Kobe Steak,'' a headline in The New York Post sneered on 
Saturday. 

Countrywide has held the gathering every year for its correspondent lenders, 
which make the loans and sell them to the company. And companies treating 
business partners to high-priced junkets is nothing new in the corporate world. 

But this year's event coincides with a continued crisis in the mortgage 
markets. Default rates are skyrocketing. Countrywide, the nation's largest 
mortgage company, has foreclosed on about 90,000 loans so far. Banks have 
called for intervention from the federal government to prevent a wider housing 
crisis. 

Moreover, Countrywide agreed last month to sell itself to Bank of America for 
$4.1 billion, a fraction of its former market value. It has reported a $422 
million loss for its fourth quarter, after setting aside $924 million for 
credit losses and taking an $831 million impairment charge related to home 
equity lines of credit. 

It has also laid off more than 11,000 employees since last July. 

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[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

@fesmail
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[Futurework] Countrywide Treats Bankers to Ski-Resort Trip

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

This is for Natalia...
---

Countrywide Treats Bankers to Ski-Resort Trip 
22 February 2008 
The Wall Street Journal   
The U.S. home-mortgage industry is in the dumps. That doesn't mean the
party is over for mortgage bankers. 
Countrywide Financial Corp.  , the nation's largest
mortgage lender by loan volume, will host about 30 representatives of
smaller mortgage banks for three nights next week at the Ritz-Carlton
  Bachelor Gulch ski resort in Avon, Colo. At one of
the country's most-glamorous skiing spots, a regular room on a weekday
starts at $750. 
The first items on the agenda for guests arriving Monday evening:
Cocktails and ski fittings. Next is dinner at the Spago restaurant,
whose menu includes Kobe steak with wasabi potato puree for $105. (For
the budget-minded, pan-roasted buffalo filet with Kabocha pumpkin flan
is $54.) 
The annual event is for bankers at correspondent lenders, which
originate loans and then sell them to Countrywide. The Calabasas,
Calif., lender is paying for hotel rooms, meals, skiing and tips,
according to a program distributed to attendees. 
The schedule calls for four-hour business meetings Tuesday and Wednesday
mornings, followed by skiing and dinner. Those dinners are at Zach's
Cabin, where diners arrive by sled, and at Larkspur in Vail, Colo.,
where the menu includes California farmed Alverta President caviar,
listed at $140.50. 
Many companies entertain business partners in luxurious settings, of
course. But this event stands out because of the company's
circumstances. Countrywide's board agreed last month to sell to Bank of
America Corp.   for about $4 billion, less than a
fifth of its market value 12 months earlier. 
Rising defaults and falling home prices led to losses of about $1.6
billion at Countrywide in the second half, and the company has reduced
its work force by 11,400, or 19%, since July. Countrywide's servicing
arm, which collects payments and handles other administrative tasks, has
about 90,000 loans in foreclosure, or 1% of the total. 
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been pushing
Countrywide and others to do more for people facing foreclosure, called
on Countrywide to cancel the trip and devote the money to refinancing
distressed homeowners. 
A Countrywide spokesman declined to comment. The company has argued in
recent news releases that it is making efforts to keep distressed
borrowers in their homes. Among those are agreements with nonprofit
consumer-advocacy groups to negotiate loan workouts for borrowers. A
Bank of America   spokesman declined to discuss
Countrywide's hospitality. 
-

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[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

@fes
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[Futurework] FW: Countrywide Treats Bankers to Ski-Resort Trip

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> This is for Natalia...
> ---
> 
> Countrywide Treats Bankers to Ski-Resort Trip 
> 22 February 2008 
> The Wall Street Journal   
> The U.S. home-mortgage industry is in the dumps. That doesn't mean the
> party is over for mortgage bankers. 
> Countrywide Financial Corp.  , the nation's largest
> mortgage lender by loan volume, will host about 30 representatives of
> smaller mortgage banks for three nights next week at the Ritz-Carlton
>   Bachelor Gulch ski resort in Avon, Colo. At one
> of the country's most-glamorous skiing spots, a regular room on a
> weekday starts at $750. 
> The first items on the agenda for guests arriving Monday evening:
> Cocktails and ski fittings. Next is dinner at the Spago restaurant,
> whose menu includes Kobe steak with wasabi potato puree for $105. (For
> the budget-minded, pan-roasted buffalo filet with Kabocha pumpkin flan
> is $54.) 
> The annual event is for bankers at correspondent lenders, which
> originate loans and then sell them to Countrywide. The Calabasas,
> Calif., lender is paying for hotel rooms, meals, skiing and tips,
> according to a program distributed to attendees. 
> The schedule calls for four-hour business meetings Tuesday and
> Wednesday mornings, followed by skiing and dinner. Those dinners are
> at Zach's Cabin, where diners arrive by sled, and at Larkspur in Vail,
> Colo., where the menu includes California farmed Alverta President
> caviar, listed at $140.50. 
> Many companies entertain business partners in luxurious settings, of
> course. But this event stands out because of the company's
> circumstances. Countrywide's board agreed last month to sell to Bank
> of America Corp.   for about $4 billion, less than
> a fifth of its market value 12 months earlier. 
> Rising defaults and falling home prices led to losses of about $1.6
> billion at Countrywide in the second half, and the company has reduced
> its work force by 11,400, or 19%, since July. Countrywide's servicing
> arm, which collects payments and handles other administrative tasks,
> has about 90,000 loans in foreclosure, or 1% of the total. 
> Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been pushing
> Countrywide and others to do more for people facing foreclosure,
> called on Countrywide to cancel the trip and devote the money to
> refinancing distressed homeowners. 
> A Countrywide spokesman declined to comment. The company has argued in
> recent news releases that it is making efforts to keep distressed
> borrowers in their homes. Among those are agreements with nonprofit
> consumer-advocacy groups to negotiate loan workouts for borrowers. A
> Bank of America   spokesman declined to discuss
> Countrywide's hospitality. 
> -
> 
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Re: [Futurework] FW: Have you seen who is thinking about running forcongress?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

*   Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.

*   The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.

*   Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
  

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html



From: Michael Gurstein [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thu 2/21/2008 5:19 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Futurework] FW: Have you seen who is thinking about running 
forcongress?


Hmm... Interesting... Mr. Deeds goes to Washington...
 
The (US) Poli Sci texts all say that the fundamental strength of the US system 
(democracy?) is its capacity to innovate/adapt...
 
Interesting test.
 
MG

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cordell, 
Arthur: ECOM
Sent: February 21, 2008 12:16 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] FW: Have you seen who is thinking about running 
forcongress?


 
Subject: Have you seen who is thinking about running for congress?



http://lessig08.org/ <http://lessig08.org/>  


Larry Lessig is an interesting teacher.  He was at Harvard and is now 
at Stanford.  He teaches law.  He is thinking of running for congress.  The 
website above contains a number of videos.  The first explains why he is 
thinking of running.  The second explains why he prefers Obams to Clinton.  
 
He presents an ethical and principled approach to politics.  Refreshing.
 
 

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Re: [Futurework] Have you seen who is thinking about running for congress?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

who is Lessig?
 
http://lessig.org/bio/short/ 
<https://webmail.ic.gc.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://lessig.org/bio/short/>
 
 
http://www.lessig.org/ 
<https://webmail.ic.gc.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.lessig.org/> 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig 
<https://webmail.ic.gc.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig>
 

________

From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Sent: Thu 2/21/2008 3:15 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: FW: Have you seen who is thinking about running for congress?


 
Subject: Have you seen who is thinking about running for congress?



http://lessig08.org/ <http://lessig08.org/>  


Larry Lessig is an interesting teacher.  He was at Harvard and is now at 
Stanford.  He teaches law.  He is thinking of running for congress.  The 
website above contains a number of videos.  The first explains why he is 
thinking of running.  The second explains why he prefers Obams to Clinton.  
 
He presents an ethical and principled approach to politics.  Refreshing.
 
 
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[Futurework] FW: Have you seen who is thinking about running for congress?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

 
Subject: Have you seen who is thinking about running for congress?



http://lessig08.org/   


Larry Lessig is an interesting teacher.  He was at Harvard and is now at 
Stanford.  He teaches law.  He is thinking of running for congress.  The 
website above contains a number of videos.  The first explains why he is 
thinking of running.  The second explains why he prefers Obams to Clinton.  
 
He presents an ethical and principled approach to politics.  Refreshing.
 
 
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Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one shouldn'tread!

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Not quite on point but it's a quote that I like

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends on his not understanding it."  - Upton Sinclair  

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christoph
Reuss
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 5:16 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one
shouldn'tread!

Arthur Cordell wrote:
> What bothered me about Reich was his after the fact interest in doing
> something.  It is like a building inspector on the take and looking
the
> other way when, say, the building is a fire hazard but becoming very
> vocal after leaving the job.  Why not do something when he had a
chance.

...like Al Gore who had been "the world's 2nd most powerful man" for 8
years
and started preaching for the environment AFTERwards...  During his 8
years
in office, the U$ CO2 emissions increased stronger than ever before...

Chris





SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the
keyword
"igve".


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[Futurework] FW: America's economy risks meltdown

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

 
 


America's economy risks the mother of all meltdowns 


By Martin WolfTue Feb 19, 1:25 PM ET 

"I would tell audiences that we were facing not a bubble but a froth - lots of 
small, local bubbles that never grew to a scale that could threaten the health 
of the overall economy." Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence.

That used to be Mr Greenspan's view of the US housing bubble. He was wrong, 
alas. So how bad might this downturn get? To answer this question we should ask 
a true bear. My favourite one is Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern 
School of Business, founder of RGE monitor.

Recently, Professor Roubini's scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh 
creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He first predicted a US 
recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It 
is so no longer. Now he states that there is "a rising probability of a 
'catastrophic' financial and economic outcome"**. The characteristics of this 
scenario are, he argues: "A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the 
financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial 
losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe."

Prof Roubini is even fonder of lists than I am. Here are his 12 - yes, 12 - 
steps to financial disaster.

Step one is the worst housing recession in US history. House prices will, he 
says, fall by 20 to 30 per cent from their peak, which would wipe out between 
$4,000bn and $6,000bn in household wealth. Ten million households will end up 
with negative equity and so with a huge incentive to put the house keys in the 
post and depart for greener fields. Many more home-builders will be bankrupted.

Step two would be further losses, beyond the $250bn-$300bn now estimated, for 
subprime mortgages. About 60 per cent of all mortgage origination between 2005 
and 2007 had "reckless or toxic features", argues Prof Roubini. Goldman Sachs 
estimates mortgage losses at $400bn. But if home prices fell by more than 20 
per cent, losses would be bigger. That would further impair the banks' ability 
to offer credit.

Step three would be big losses on unsecured consumer debt: credit cards, auto 
loans, student loans and so forth. The "credit crunch" would then spread from 
mortgages to a wide range of consumer credit.

Step four would be the downgrading of the monoline insurers, which do not 
deserve the AAA rating on which their business depends. A further $150bn 
writedown of asset-backed securities would then ensue.

Step five would be the meltdown of the commercial property market, while step 
six would be bankruptcy of a large regional or national bank.

Step seven would be big losses on reckless leveraged buy-outs. Hundreds of 
billions of dollars of such loans are now stuck on the balance sheets of 
financial institutions.

Step eight would be a wave of corporate defaults. On average, US companies are 
in decent shape, but a "fat tail" of companies has low profitability and heavy 
debt. Such defaults would spread losses in "credit default swaps", which insure 
such debt. The losses could be $250bn. Some insurers might go bankrupt.

Step nine would be a meltdown in the "shadow financial system". Dealing with 
the distress of hedge funds, special investment vehicles and so forth will be 
made more difficult by the fact that they have no direct access to lending from 
central banks.

Step 10 would be a further collapse in stock prices. Failures of hedge funds, 
margin calls and shorting could lead to cascading falls in prices.

Step 11 would be a drying-up of liquidity in a range of financial markets, 
including interbank and money markets. Behind this would be a jump in concerns 
about solvency.

Step 12 would be "a vicious circle of losses, capital reduction, credit 
contraction, forced liquidation and fire sales of assets at below fundamental 
prices".

These, then, are 12 steps to meltdown. In all, argues Prof Roubini: "Total 
losses in the financial system will add up to more than $1,000bn and the 
economic recession will become deeper more protracted and severe." This, he 
suggests, is the "nightmare scenario" keeping Ben Bernanke and colleagues at 
the US Federal Reserve awake. It explains why, having failed to appreciate the 
dangers for so long, the Fed has lowered rates by 200 basis points this year. 
This is insurance against a financial meltdown.

Is this kind of scenario at least plausible? It is. Furthermore, we can be 
confident that it would, if it came to pass, end all stories about 
"decoupling". If it lasts six quarters, as Prof Roubini warns, offsetting 
policy action in the rest of the world would be too little, too late.

Can the Fed head this danger off? In a subsequent piece, Prof Roubini gives 
eight reasons why it cannot***. (He really loves lists!) These are, in brief: 
US monetary easing is constrained by risks to the dollar 

Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one shouldn'tread!

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

What bothered me about Reich was his after the fact interest in doing 
something.  It is like a building inspector on the take and looking the other 
way when, say, the building is a fire hazard but becoming very vocal after 
leaving the job.  Why not do something when he had a chance.  If he was a team 
player during the Clinton years why not keep his silence or at least talk about 
the pressures that were on him to conform to the party line.
 
I know he did something like this in an earlier book (Locked in the Cabinet?) 
 
Was he afraid to speak out when in Cabinet?  Why not resign in protest?  As I 
said: Wimp.
 
arthur



From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sun 2/17/2008 7:48 AM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; Darryl or Natalia
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one shouldn'tread!


I don't think we disagree, Arthur, at least not strongly.  You say: "I think 
its the job of those who are appointed to positions of power, police officers, 
firefighters, elected officials to act in the public interest."  
 
I agree, but you raise many questions.  Most importantly, what is the public 
interest and who defines it? Is it, for example, Harper acting through the PMO? 
 There are various publics, which raises the question of which ones our elected 
and appointed officials should most strongly give their attention to.  In 
Harper's case how should he weigh and balance the interests of the Alberta oil 
patch versus street people in our largest cities, or for that matter Ontario 
auto parts makers versus the oil patch?
 
And one can't ignore the fact that political parties are corporate entities 
whose prime interest is remaining in power and not necessarily helping you or 
me even if, to remain in power, they have to appear to be useful to the public.
 
I read Reich's final chapter very quickly, but I rather liked his message that 
democracy belongs to everybody and if it has been captured by "elites", storm 
the ramparts and take it back.  But of course I recognize that we're not going 
to do that and he probably does too.
 
Ed
 

    ----- Original Message - 
From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
To: Ed Weick <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  ; Darryl or Natalia 
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
Cc: futurework <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 6:30 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one 
shouldn'tread!

I diagree with you folks.
 
I think its the job of those who are appointed to positions of power, 
police officers, firefighters, elected officials to act in the public interest.
 
Robert Reich was secty of Labour in Clinton cabinet.  .
 
Reich saw many things while in cabinet.  He saw the downside of 
globalization, he saw the increasing bi-modal distribution of incomes.  He saw. 
 But he did nothing.  He said nothing.  He stood for nothing.  He did  not 
discharge his duties in the public interest: He acted in his own best 
interests.  He stood by and watched while major structural changes were 
underway.
 
Now Reich displays some academic prowess and his answer to the many 
problems that only govts can address??  Civic governance.  We have to roll up 
our sleeves and take back the economy.  Hunnnh.
 
In a word, Reich is a wimp.  Self-centered wimp.  Who is trying to 
peddle some books.
 
 
 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ed Weick
Sent: Sat 2/16/2008 5:32 PM
To: Darryl or Natalia
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one 
shouldn'tread!


Hi Natalia, and thanks for the response.
 
Where I agree with Reich and disagree with you is that I really don't 
think we can keep blaming "elites" for the mess we're in.  As Reich argues, we 
really do have to start blaming ourselves.  If our so-called democratic system 
isn't working for us but is working for people who are far richer than we are 
and can manipulate us, what are we doing about it?  Very little, I'd suggest.
 
The subprime mortgage debacle is a case in point.  How on earth would 
people who had no hope of meeting the requirements of those mortgages get 
themselves into them?  And of course there were crafty buggers waiting in the 
wings for bad stuff to happen.  It happened alright, but it turned out to be 
far worse than they thought it would be.
 
And Walmart.  Last time I shopped there, about a year ago, I was told 
that an "associate" would help me.  An associate may get a few benefits to keep 
the peace, but not nearly as many as a goo

Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one shouldn'tread!

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

I diagree with you folks.
 
I think its the job of those who are appointed to positions of power, police 
officers, firefighters, elected officials to act in the public interest.
 
Robert Reich was secty of Labour in Clinton cabinet.  .
 
Reich saw many things while in cabinet.  He saw the downside of globalization, 
he saw the increasing bi-modal distribution of incomes.  He saw.  But he did 
nothing.  He said nothing.  He stood for nothing.  He did  not discharge his 
duties in the public interest: He acted in his own best interests.  He stood by 
and watched while major structural changes were underway.
 
Now Reich displays some academic prowess and his answer to the many problems 
that only govts can address??  Civic governance.  We have to roll up our 
sleeves and take back the economy.  Hunnnh.
 
In a word, Reich is a wimp.  Self-centered wimp.  Who is trying to peddle some 
books.
 
 
 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ed Weick
Sent: Sat 2/16/2008 5:32 PM
To: Darryl or Natalia
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: [Ottawadissenters] Another book one shouldn'tread!


Hi Natalia, and thanks for the response.
 
Where I agree with Reich and disagree with you is that I really don't think we 
can keep blaming "elites" for the mess we're in.  As Reich argues, we really do 
have to start blaming ourselves.  If our so-called democratic system isn't 
working for us but is working for people who are far richer than we are and can 
manipulate us, what are we doing about it?  Very little, I'd suggest.
 
The subprime mortgage debacle is a case in point.  How on earth would people 
who had no hope of meeting the requirements of those mortgages get themselves 
into them?  And of course there were crafty buggers waiting in the wings for 
bad stuff to happen.  It happened alright, but it turned out to be far worse 
than they thought it would be.
 
And Walmart.  Last time I shopped there, about a year ago, I was told that an 
"associate" would help me.  An associate may get a few benefits to keep the 
peace, but not nearly as many as a good ol'fashion union member (I know a 
little about the benefits of collective action because as a west coast boom man 
I once belonged to the International Woodworkers of America).  Why don't the 
associates just get together and walk out that door?  I suppose it's because 
there are ever so many others out there waiting to get in.  But why are they?  
Where the hell solidarity and our mutual interdependence gone?
 
Reich's final chapters, which I read quickly, deal with taking back our 
democracy.  If the elites have grabbed it off, we've let them.  Perhaps it 
really is time to see what some vigorous marching and fist shaking will do!
 
Ed
 



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Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Hey, what's good for General Motors is good for the country!

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Reserve army of labour is a concept in Karl Marx 
 's critique of political economy 
 . It refers basically to the 
unemployed   in capitalist society. 
It is synonymous with "industrial reserve army" 

from Wikipedia



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ed Weick
Sent: Wed 2/13/2008 5:13 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: futurework
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, what's good for General Motors is good for the 
country!



Trying to get rid of expensive workers and hiring cheap ones.
 
Ed
 

 

 NY  Times

February 13, 2008 

G.M. Offers Buyouts to 74,000 

By BILL VLASIC 

DETROIT - A surprisingly tough fourth quarter and a gloomy outlook for the 
United States market prompted General Motors 

  to offer buyouts Tuesday to its entire unionized work force.

G.M.'s latest "special attrition program" covers all its 74,000 hourly 
employees and underscores the challenges it faces in its turnaround effort.

G

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[Futurework] Boom or/and Bust

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Nickeled and Dimed author Barbara Ehrenreich The Boom was a Bust for Ordinary 
People "So thoroughly is the economy decoupled from ordinary experience that 
according to a CNN 

  poll, 57% of Americans thought we were already in a recession a month ago. 
Economists may complain that this is only because the public is ignorant of the 
technical definition of a recession, which specifies at least two consecutive 
quarters of negative growth. But most of the public employs the more colloquial 
definition of a recession, which is hard times. And - far removed from whatever 
happens on Wall Street, the Nikkei, Dax, or the curiously named FTSE - most 
Americans have been living in their own personal recession for years. I could 
see this when I was doing research for a book on white-collar unemployment in 
2004. Although the economy was officially on an upturn, I met laid-off people 
who'd been searching for a job for more than a year and often ended up - after 
selling their homes and borrowing from relatives - taking low-wage work as 
big-box sales clerks or even janitors."  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020102828.html
 

 

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[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

@ 1:25 pm
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[Futurework] FW: job market is even worse than you think

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> __ 
> From:     Cordell, Arthur: ECOM  
> Sent: Monday, February 4, 2008 11:51 AM
> To:   futurework
> Subject:  job market is even worse than you think
> 
> Why job market is even worse than you think
> Nation's first job loss in more than four years tells only part of the
> story of the weak labor market. The ranks of the long-term unemployed
> are growing.
> By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer 
> http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/news/economy/longterm_unemployment/ind
> ex.htm?section=money_mostpopular
> February 2 2008: 9:05 AM EST 
> NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A government report on January jobs showing
> that employers trimmed payrolls for the first time in four years set
> off alarm bells.
> But the report, which was released Friday, tells only part of the
> story about the underlying weakness in the labor market.
> The number of Americans out of work for at least six months is rising
> - reaching levels more typically seen deep into a recession or period
> of job contraction, not at the beginning.
> And while some economists believe that the drop in jobs reported in
> January might later be revised away to show a narrow gain, it's clear
> that the rise in long-term unemployment is a far more established
> trend and one economists say isn't going away anytime soon.
> Harder to find a new job. The number of long-term unemployed stood at
> a seasonally-adjusted 1.4 million in January, up about 21% from
> year-earlier levels and up 3% from the previous month. The full-year
> average for 2007 was 1.2 million long-term unemployed, nearly double
> the reading for 2000 - just before the last recession.
> For all of 2007, about 17.6% of those who were unemployed had been out
> of work six months or more. That compares to only 11.4% who were
> long-term unemployed in 2000.
> And while the unemployment rate dropped to 4.9% in January from 5% in
> December, the latest reading showed 18.3% of the unemployed have now
> been out of work for at least six months.
> "You have to understand that 5% unemployment today is worse than 5%
> unemployment 10-15 years ago," said Jason Furman, senior fellow,
> Brookings Institution.
> Furman and others say long-term unemployment is not just a problem for
> those struggling to find jobs. It poses a risk for the economy as a
> whole and cuts into household earnings and economic output.
> If 5% of the labor force is unemployed for a short time as they switch
> jobs, they could keep spending, drawing on a combination of government
> assistance and personal savings.
> But those who are unemployed more than six months lose unemployment
> insurance benefits and are more likely to deplete savings to the point
> where they are forced to cut back on spending.
> They also will be far more likely to accept jobs at lower pay than
> their previous positions, which puts downward pressure on wages.
> "We are looking at a labor market already that is weak and set to get
> a lot weaker," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic
> and Policy Research.
> Job seeker surprised by difficulty. Les Tarlton had worked in the
> telecom industry for eight years when the company he was working for
> shut its operations near his suburban Dallas home in January 2003.
> "I thought surely I can go out and get a job," he said. "I had a good
> reputation in the company. I had survived a lot of earlier layoffs. It
> wasn't like I lost my job because of anything I did."
> But five years later he has yet to find a permanent job to replace the
> one he had doing business performance analysis. He's had a variety of
> short-term contract positions, but nothing long-term.
> "Part of it is my age," said Tarlton, 54. "They can hire a person
> straight out of college for a lot less money. And while I have skills
> in business and finance, my college degrees in are in Christianity and
> psychology, my master's is in theology. That doesn't help."
> Tarlton is now home schooling his six-year old and taking care of his
> other four children while his wife works. But the total household
> income is a fraction of what it used to be. While he still sends out
> about five resumes a week, he said he essentially gave up hopes of a
> new job about two years ago.
> "We've burned through all of our retirement trying to survive," he
> said.
> Problem could get worse As the stimulus package makes its way through
> the Senate, there have been pushes to extend unemployment benefits
> beyond six months.
> Even if it's not included in this bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
> said she would support separate legisla

Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Bubbles anyone?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

I glanced at the article, thumbing through it at the newstand.  The
closing paragraphs indicate that another bubble is needed to support the
losses from the previous bubble.  This would mean that we have to create
still more debt to support the next bubble.  
 
The new bubble would rest on new money minus the losses absorbed by
banks and citizens.  
 
This time around I think both banks and citizens will need a longish
rest before they re-enter the casino economy ..  This is why a rest or
recession is likely.  Citizens who have lost will want to leave the
table.   
 
So the article was interesting and cynical and essentially said that a
sucker is born every minute.  I think it will really be that a sucker is
born every decade.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 7:50 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: futurework
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Bubbles anyone?



There is a very thought provoking article in February's Harper's: "The
Next Bubble; priming the markets for tomorrow's big crash." It's by Eric
Janszen who has had considerable experience in America's financial
sector.

Janszen argues that since the 1970s, high value goods producing
industries such as steel and automobiles have no longer played a
dominant role in the US economy - such items, though still made in the
US, could be purchased more cheaply from countries with lower labour
costs, such as China and Japan. The industry that has come to dominate
the US is what he calls "FIRE", finance, insurance and real estate. When
goods producing industries were dominant, the year to year pattern of
market behaviour consisted of moderate booms and busts. If too much was
produced, slowdowns or recessions occurred. If too little was produced,
aggregate demand rose, leading to a booming economy. Keynesianism made
sense in that kind of economy. The economy could be stimulated out of a
recession by government spending on infrastructure. A boom could be
moderated by a tightening of government expenditures.

The economy works very differently under FIRE. Booms and busts really
don't matter very much anymore. "Bubbles" matter. Bubbles involve the
ramping up of activity in a particular economic sector, driving its
securities up to very high values, packaging good and bad securities
into Consolidated Debt Obligations (CDOs) and then marketing the CDOs
nationally and internationally. That is essentially what happened during
the high-tech boom of the 1990s. Share prices were inflated to levels
much higher than the values of the assets they represented. Everyone
wanted into the game and a lot of money was lost when share prices
collapsed at the beginning of this century. Recently, real estate, and
particularly housing has followed a similar pattern.

What the bubble phenomenon depends on is a widespread belief that what
the investor is putting money into is something good that cannot
possibly fail or won't be allowed to fail. In the 1990s, high-tech was
the future we couldn't live without. It was well worth buying into and
wouldn't be allowed to fail. The subprime mortgage fiasco has been much
the same thing. Everyone deserved to own their own home and, as Barry
has pointed out, it wasn't just a modest starter home they deserved, it
was a big house with a two car garage and the possibility of adding a
swimming pool in a few years.

So what is going to generate the next bubble? Janszen argues that one
possibility is alternative energy. It is a wide open field which
includes everything from nuclear power, to wind power, to ethanol, to
many other possibilities. It already has its marketable heroes who are
in the forefront of saving the environment and who recognize that we
can't keeping sucking oil out of the ground forever, people like Al
Gore. Focusing on it will undoubtedly produce some very good and
necessary things, far more so than real estate, but it will likely also
draw a lot of people in and suck a lot of money out of them.

Ed
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Re: [Futurework] The Collapse of Globalism

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=review%3A+The+Collapse+of+Globalism&btnG=Google+Search&meta=


40k - Cached - Similar pages 

How to Save the WorldJohn Ralston Saul's new book The Collapse of Globalism is 
saying what most economists have been afraid to say: The emperor has no 
clothes. . 9-11 Review ...
blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/08/04.html - 110k - Cached - Similar pages 

Amazon.co.uk: The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of ...This review 
is from: The Collapse of Globalism (Hardcover). With a calm detachment, 
punctuated by occasional wit, the Canadian philosopher J.R. Saul ...
www.amazon.co.uk/Collapse-Globalism-Reinvention-World/dp/1843544091 - 139k - 
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John Ralston Saul: The Collapse of Globalism - Cafe Book BlogHaving received a 
review copy of The Collapse of Globalism a week and half  I just watched a 
recording of John Ralston Saul's October 8 speech on The . ...
writerscafe.ca/book_blogs/writers/john-ralston-saul_the-collapse-of-globalism.php
 - 50k - Cached - Similar pages 

Amazon.com: The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the ...This 
review is from: The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World 
(Hardcover). The Collapse of Globalism is a book-length version of an ...
www.amazon.com/Collapse-Globalism-Reinvention-World/dp/1585676292 - 219k - 
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Amazon.com: The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the ...This 
review is from: The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World 
(Hardcover). If this were a series of audio tapes with an liberal allowance ...
www.amazon.com/Collapse-Globalism-Reinvention-World/dp/0670063673 - 207k - 
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Saul, 'The Collapse Of Globalism' « Like Pulling Teeth4 Responses to "Saul, 
'The Collapse Of Globalism'". Well, look who's joined the blogosphere! 
SEBOTRON! You should review Martin Wolf's Why Globalisation ...
spstrangio.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/saul-the-collapse-of-globalism/ - 22k - 
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scintillating investigation into the collapse of globalism is essential reading 
for ... Average Customer Rating: 3. Anonymous's Review. Write a Review ...
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The Collapse of Globalism a week and half before, I must say that I was only 
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SaulThe Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the ... As I write this 
review, in September 2007, the most recent of these ...
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 - 24k - Cached - Similar pages 

 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 10:02 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The Collapse of Globalism

I know I have it and that I've read it though I'll be damned if I can find 
it right now or even, with any clarity, remember what it said.  It was three 
years ago, after all.

However, a few months ago I also picked up a book at a used bookshop, "The 
Mind and the Market" by Jerry Z. Muller.  It deals with how various heavy 
thinkers such as Voltaire, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Marx and Hegel thought 
about economics and its place in society.  The message in general is that 
how the economy was dealt with had to fit the prevailing philosophical, 
religious and political views of the time.  I would suggest that things are 
different now.  We live in a world that has collapsed into itself and where 
things that once happened in far off places now intrude into our own back 
yards.  In my view, economics, far from being linked to philosophy or 
religion, tries to make some rational sense of what is going on, but in a 
compressed world in which what happens in China can affect us as much as 
what happens next door.

I may comment more if I can find Saul's book.

Ed


- Original Message - 
From: "Mike Spencer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 8:09 PM
Subject: [Futurework] The Collapse of Globalism


>
> To the extent that "globalism" is a significant factor work work, this
> should be on-topic.
>
> I just found John Ralston Saul's 2005 book, _The Collapse of Globalism
> and the Reinvention of the World_ [1] on the remainder shelf for a couple
> of bucks.  (I guess I should get out more if the remainder shelf is
> the first I've heard of a new book by our former First Gentleman. :-)
>
> Has anybody (or everybody) else already seen a

Re: [Futurework] The Collapse of Globalism

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Definitions of globalization on the Web:

"Globalization refers in general to the worldwide integration of
humanity and the compression of both the temporal and spatial dimensions
of ...
www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/terms.html

Term describing the process of designing, developing, and adapting a
product for distribution in multiple countries. G11N includes in it all
the strategic and marketing preparation that goes into global deployment
of a product.
www.net-translators.com/safot/translation_glossary.asp

1. The increasing world-wide integration of markets for goods, services
and capital that attracted special attention in the late 1990s. 2. ...
www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/g.html

A term used to describe growing interdependence of people around the
world with regard to societal influence, economies, and cultural
exchanges.
www.csa.com/discoveryguides/afraid/gloss.php

Used for transnational influences on culture, economics, politics, etc.,
especially illustrating global patterns or trends.
lib.ucr.edu/depts/acquisitions/YBP%20NSP%20GLOSSARY%20EXTERNAL%20revised
6-02.php

A set of processes leading to the integration of economic, cultural,
political, and social systems across geographical boundaries.
www.hsewebdepot.org/imstool/GEMI.nsf/WEBDocs/Glossary

refers to the increasing economic integration and interdependence  

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Harry
Pollard
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 3:55 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The Collapse of Globalism

Have to ask the obvious question:

"What is globalization?"

Harry

**
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga  CA  91042
(818) 352-4141
**

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Mike Spencer
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:09 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] The Collapse of Globalism


To the extent that "globalism" is a significant factor work work,
this
should be on-topic.

I just found John Ralston Saul's 2005 book, _The Collapse of
Globalism
and the Reinvention of the World_ [1] on the remainder shelf for
a couple
of bucks.  (I guess I should get out more if the remainder shelf
is
the first I've heard of a new book by our former First Gentleman.
:-)

Has anybody (or everybody) else already seen and read this?  If
so,
I'd like to hear comments.

Browsing it in the store, when I saw that it had a chapter
entitled A
Short History of Economics Becoming a Religion, I was sold.  I've
observed before (possibly on this list) that one of the chief
targets
of 1950s rhetoric opposing "godless communism" was the allegation
that
communism made economics the foundation of civilization.  Get
labor,
production, capital, resources, trade and bookkeeping all tidied
up
and and we'll enter the Eternal Golden Age.  And of course, loyal
Americans (Canucks, Brits et al.) knew that there's more, way
more, to
civilization than the least common denominator of economics.

Fast forward to the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet
empire.
Then George Bush (41) is talking about "free markets and free
men", in
that order and the current dogma, spoken or unspoken, has become
that
free markets, unregulated trade and unrestrained capital flows
will
resolve all the world's ills and lead to democracy, liberty,
wealth
and [drumroll] the Eternal Golden Age [rimshot].

Anyhow, I haven't quite gotten to that chapter yet -- I find Saul
a
source both of fulminating ideas and insights and of rather hard
to
follow prose -- but I'd welcome others' comments on the book.

It would be nice to believe the the role of ordinary people (vs.
that
of global "investors") has been upgraded from biomass to
something more
closely resembling citizenship.


- Mike


[1] Viking Canada/Penguin, 2005, ISBN 0-670-06367-3

-- 
Michael Spencer  Nova Scotia, Canada   .~. 
   /V\ 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/^^-^^
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[Futurework] FW: France looks to alternative to GDP

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> French Use Happiness As Economic Measure 
> AP Business Writer 
> 782 words 
> 10 January 2008 
> Associated Press Newswires   
> . 
> PARIS (AP) - What price happiness? French President Nicolas Sarkozy is
> seeking an answer to the eternal question -- so that happiness can be
> included in measurements of French economic growth. 
> He's turned to two Nobel economists to help him, hoping that if
> happiness is added to the count, the persistently sluggish French
> economy may seem more rosy. 
> "It reflects a general feeling in Europe that says, 'OK, the U.S. has
> been more successful in the last 20, 25 years in raising material
> welfare, but does this mean they are happier?'" said Paul de Grauwe,
> economics professor at Leuven University in Belgium. 
> "The answer is no, because there are other elements to happiness,"
> said Grauwe, once a candidate for the European Central Bank governing
> council. 
> In terms of gross domestic product, the internationally recognized way
> of measuring the size of an economy, French growth lagged behind the
> U.S. throughout most of the 1980s and '90s and in every year since
> 2001. 
> Although recent turmoil in financial markets may hit the U.S. economy
> harder, the loss of speed in the world economy's biggest player will
> also drag down growth in France. Economists say growth may fall short
> of the government targets this year. 
> Sarkozy's move raised questions about whether he wants to ward off
> disappointing growth numbers as a rise in oil and food prices combined
> with a slowdown in the U.S. clouds the effect of his economic reforms.
> 
> Since his election in May he has sought to boost growth, notably by
> encouraging people to work longer than the much maligned 35-hour week.
> 
> Sarkozy has often appeared impatient with the French economy's
> lackluster performance, once declaring: "I will not wait for growth, I
> will go out and find it." 
> Frustrated with the what he termed Tuesday "the growing gap between
> statistics that show continuing progress and the increasing
> difficulties (French people) are having in their daily lives," Sarkozy
> said new thought should be given to the way GDP is calculated to take
> into account quality of life. 
> At a news conference Tuesday, Sarkozy said he asked U.S. economist
> Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel economics prize and a critic
> of free market economists, and Armatya Sen of India, who won the 1998
> Nobel prize for work on developing countries, to lead the analysis in
> France. 
> Sen helped create the United Nations' Human Development Index, a
> yearly welfare indicator designed to gear international policy
> decisions to take account of health and living standards. 
> Once the preserve of philosophers, measuring happiness has now become
> a hot topic in economics. 
> A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
> Development considers taking into account leisure time and income
> distribution when calculating a nation's well-being. And the European
> Commission is working on a new indicator that moves "beyond GDP" to
> account for factors such as environmental progress. 
> Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics and
> author of the 2005 book "Happiness: Lessons from a New Science," said
> Sarkozy may be seeking recognition for policies, popular in Europe,
> that promote well-being but don't show up in the GDP statistics. 
> Governments are rated on economic performance, and this influences
> policy in favor of boosting GDP, the value of goods and services
> produced over a calendar year, he said. 
> "But people don't want to think they live in a world of ruthless
> competition where everyone is against everyone," Layard said.
> "Valuable things are being lost, such as community values,
> solidarity." 
> His book shows that depression, alcoholism and crime have risen in the
> last 50 years, even as average incomes more than doubled. 
> Jean-Philippe Cotis, the former OECD chief economist who took over as
> head of France's statistics office Insee two months ago, said
> Wednesday that a measure of happiness would complement GDP by taking
> into account factors such as leisure time -- something France has a
> lot of. 
> France's unemployment rate is stubbornly high, and when French people
> do work they spend less time on the job -- 35.9 hours per week
> compared with the EU average of 37.4. 
> Cotis said he looked forward to a "passionate" debate beyond the
> traditional realms of his science. 
> "Statisticians are also interested in happiness," he said. 
> And so, it would seem, are presidents. 
> Basking in the happy glow of new love with model-turned-singer Carla
> Bruni, Sarkozy showed on Tuesday that his concern for happiness is
> universal. 
> A president, he said, "doesn't have more right to happiness than
> anyone else, but not less than anyone, either." 
> =
> 
___
Fu

[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

@3:45
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[Futurework] France looks to alternative to GDP

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

French Use Happiness As Economic Measure 
AP Business Writer 
782 words 
10 January 2008 
Associated Press Newswires   
. 
PARIS (AP) - What price happiness? French President Nicolas Sarkozy is
seeking an answer to the eternal question -- so that happiness can be
included in measurements of French economic growth. 
He's turned to two Nobel economists to help him, hoping that if
happiness is added to the count, the persistently sluggish French
economy may seem more rosy. 
"It reflects a general feeling in Europe that says, 'OK, the U.S. has
been more successful in the last 20, 25 years in raising material
welfare, but does this mean they are happier?'" said Paul de Grauwe,
economics professor at Leuven University in Belgium. 
"The answer is no, because there are other elements to happiness," said
Grauwe, once a candidate for the European Central Bank governing
council. 
In terms of gross domestic product, the internationally recognized way
of measuring the size of an economy, French growth lagged behind the
U.S. throughout most of the 1980s and '90s and in every year since 2001.

Although recent turmoil in financial markets may hit the U.S. economy
harder, the loss of speed in the world economy's biggest player will
also drag down growth in France. Economists say growth may fall short of
the government targets this year. 
Sarkozy's move raised questions about whether he wants to ward off
disappointing growth numbers as a rise in oil and food prices combined
with a slowdown in the U.S. clouds the effect of his economic reforms. 
Since his election in May he has sought to boost growth, notably by
encouraging people to work longer than the much maligned 35-hour week. 
Sarkozy has often appeared impatient with the French economy's
lackluster performance, once declaring: "I will not wait for growth, I
will go out and find it." 
Frustrated with the what he termed Tuesday "the growing gap between
statistics that show continuing progress and the increasing difficulties
(French people) are having in their daily lives," Sarkozy said new
thought should be given to the way GDP is calculated to take into
account quality of life. 
At a news conference Tuesday, Sarkozy said he asked U.S. economist
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel economics prize and a critic
of free market economists, and Armatya Sen of India, who won the 1998
Nobel prize for work on developing countries, to lead the analysis in
France. 
Sen helped create the United Nations' Human Development Index, a yearly
welfare indicator designed to gear international policy decisions to
take account of health and living standards. 
Once the preserve of philosophers, measuring happiness has now become a
hot topic in economics. 
A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development considers taking into account leisure time and income
distribution when calculating a nation's well-being. And the European
Commission is working on a new indicator that moves "beyond GDP" to
account for factors such as environmental progress. 
Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics and author
of the 2005 book "Happiness: Lessons from a New Science," said Sarkozy
may be seeking recognition for policies, popular in Europe, that promote
well-being but don't show up in the GDP statistics. 
Governments are rated on economic performance, and this influences
policy in favor of boosting GDP, the value of goods and services
produced over a calendar year, he said. 
"But people don't want to think they live in a world of ruthless
competition where everyone is against everyone," Layard said. "Valuable
things are being lost, such as community values, solidarity." 
His book shows that depression, alcoholism and crime have risen in the
last 50 years, even as average incomes more than doubled. 
Jean-Philippe Cotis, the former OECD chief economist who took over as
head of France's statistics office Insee two months ago, said Wednesday
that a measure of happiness would complement GDP by taking into account
factors such as leisure time -- something France has a lot of. 
France's unemployment rate is stubbornly high, and when French people do
work they spend less time on the job -- 35.9 hours per week compared
with the EU average of 37.4. 
Cotis said he looked forward to a "passionate" debate beyond the
traditional realms of his science. 
"Statisticians are also interested in happiness," he said. 
And so, it would seem, are presidents. 
Basking in the happy glow of new love with model-turned-singer Carla
Bruni, Sarkozy showed on Tuesday that his concern for happiness is
universal. 
A president, he said, "doesn't have more right to happiness than anyone
else, but not less than anyone, either." 
=

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[Futurework] FW: Big firms are too powerful, poll finds

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> Subject:  Big firms are too powerful, poll finds 
> 
> Big firms are too powerful, poll finds
> Big firms are too powerful, poll finds 
> Informed, wired citizens want greater controls 
>   
> Jorge Barrera 
> The Ottawa Citizen
> 
> Wednesday, January 02, 2008
> The majority of the world's most informed, engaged and connected
> citizens believe large corporations have too much influence over
> government decisions and wield more power than governments, according
> to a poll conducted by Ipsos Global Public Affairs.
> The survey found 74 per cent of respondents believe companies have too
> much influence, while 69 per cent agreed that large companies are more
> powerful than governments.
> Most of these citizens, referred to as "intelligaged" by the pollster,
> back aggressive action by their governments to regulate the activities
> of national and multinational corporations.
> The poll defined intelligaged as the most involved and influential
> population in each country surveyed. All were Internet users, 68 per
> cent voted in the most recent election, half had instigated political,
> economic and social discussions, and 37 per cent had signed a petition
> in the past year.
> Among Canada's intelligaged citizens, 80 per cent said large companies
> have too much influence over government decisions, 77 per cent said
> large companies have more power than the government, and the same
> proportion wanted more aggressive government regulation.
> Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos Global Public Affairs, said the
> Internet has created a global public square where people can share
> their experiences with a world audience. What happens in one corner of
> the world can quickly travel around the globe and influence the
> decisions and perceptions of people on a mass scale.
> "The Internet is the great leveller," said Mr. Bricker. "What this
> shows is that the public is simply not willing to allow business to
> operate totally unfettered into the future."
> Major corporations could face more government intervention and
> controls unless they become more sensitive to how global trends affect
> public perceptions, Mr. Bricker said. "It is now about companies
> operating as a global citizen and recognizing that, when things happen
> in specific countries, they may be the tip of the iceberg of a global
> trend," he said.
> The emerging markets that companies tap to keep their profits growing
> tend to be most suspicious of the corporate sector, said Mr. Bricker.
> For example, in Argentina, which suffered through a severe economic
> meltdown in the late 1990s and early 2000s, 85 per cent of respondents
> said companies have too much influence and are more powerful than
> government. Eighty-seven per cent of survey respondents said they
> wanted more aggressive government regulations.
> In another twist, people in countries where some of the world's
> biggest companies were born believe major corporations are having a
> "bad influence" on their domestic affairs. For instance, more than 70
> per cent of respondents in France and Germany said corporations are a
> bad influence at home.
> In all, 22,000 people were surveyed between Oct. 18 and Oct. 31 in 22
> countries classified as leading or emerging economic powerhouses. In
> the United States and around the world, the numbers were similar,
> although only 67 per cent of U.S. respondents demanded more government
> controls.
> The margin of error for each country is 3.1 percentage points, 19
> times out of 20. The countries surveyed were Argentina, Mexico,
> Brazil, Australia, France, Britain, Russia, Belgium, Indian, Spain,
> Canada, Turkey, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Sweden, United States,
> Singapore, Netherlands, Poland, South Korea and Japan.
> ==
> 
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[Futurework] Privacy, work and the net

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

December 30, 2007
Digital Domain
 
NY Times

How to Lose Your Job on Your Own Time 

By RANDALL STROSS

WERE Henry Ford 

  brought back to life today, he would most likely be delighted by the 
Internet: the uninhibited way many people express themselves on the Web makes 
it easy to supervise the private lives of employees.

In his day, the Ford Motor Company 

  maintained a "Sociological Department" staffed with investigators who visited 
the homes of all but the highest-level managers. Their job was to dig for 
information about the employee's religion, spending and savings patterns, 
drinking habits and how the worker "amused himself." 

Home inspections are no longer needed; many companies are using the Internet to 
snoop on their employees. If you fail to maintain amorphous "professional" 
standards of conduct in your free time, you could lose your job.

Employment law in most states provides little protection to workers who are 
punished for their online postings, said George Lenard, an employment lawyer at 
Harris Dowell Fisher & Harris in St. Louis. The main exceptions are workers who 
are covered by collective bargaining agreements or by special protections for 
public-sector employees; members of these groups can be dismissed only "for 
cause." The rest of us are "at will" employees, holding on to our jobs only at 
the whim of our employers, and thus vulnerable. 

A line needs to be drawn - Day-Glo bright - that demarcates the boundary 
between work and private life. When a worker is on the job, companies have 
every right to supervise activities closely. But what an employee does after 
hours, as long as no laws are broken, is none of the company's business. Of 
course, what we used to call "off hours" are fewer now, and employees may 
connect to the office nightly from home. But when they do go off the clock and 
off the corporate network, how they spend their private time should be of no 
concern to their employer, even if the Internet, by its nature, makes some 
off-the-job activities more visible to more people than was previously possible.

In the absence of strong protections for employees, poorly chosen words or even 
a single photograph posted online in one's off-hours can have career-altering 
consequences. Stacy Snyder, 25, who was a senior at Millersville University in 
Millersville, Pa., offers an instructive example. Last year, she was dismissed 
from the student teaching program at a nearby high school and denied her 
teaching credential after the school staff came across her photograph on her 
MySpace 

  profile. She filed a lawsuit in April this year in federal court in 
Philadelphia contending that her rights to free expression under the First 
Amendment had been violated. No trial date has been set.

Her photo, preserved at the "Wired Campus" blog of the Chronicle of Higher 
Education, turns out to be surprisingly innocuous. In a head shot snapped at a 
costume party, Ms. Snyder, with a pirate's hat perched atop her head, sips from 
a large plastic cup whose contents cannot be seen. When posting the photo, she 
fatefully captioned her self-portrait "drunken pirate," though whether she was 
serious can't be determined by looking at the photo.

Millersville University, in a motion asking the court to dismiss the case, 
contends that Ms. Snyder's student teaching had been unsatisfactory for many 
reasons. But it affirms that she was dismissed and barred from re-entering the 
school shortly after the high school staff discovered her MySpace photograph. 
The university backed the school authorities' contentions that her posting was 
"unprofessional" and might "promote under-age drinking." It also cited a 
passage in the teacher's handbook that said staff members are "to be 
well-groomed and appropriately dressed."

MR. LENARD said last week that protections for employees for off-duty behavior 
varied widely from state to state. Colorado and Minnesota have laws explicitly 
protecting all employees from discrimination for engaging in any lawful 
activity off premises during nonworking hours. In other states, like 
Pennsylvania, where Ms. Snyder lives, such protection doesn't exist.

What some employers regard as imprudent disclosure online may seem commonplace 
to the rest of us. On Dec. 16, the Pew Internet and American Life Project 

  released the results of a study, "Digital Footprints," showing that 60 
percent of Internet users surveyed are not worried about how much information 
is available about them online. 

The findings reflect a significant change with

[Futurework] Airline Employees Anger

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

NY Times
 
December 22, 2007

Fliers Fed Up? Airline Employees Feel the Same 

By JEFF BAILEY 

 

And you thought the passengers were mad.

Airline employees are fed up, too - with pay cuts, increased workloads and 
management's miserly ways, which leave workers to explain to often-enraged 
passengers why flying has become such a miserable experience.

A rich record of the employee discontent emerges from regular 
question-and-answer sessions held at US Airways 

 , which is both the worst-performing big airline in the country and a company 
that encourages its 36,000 workers to direct tough questions at its chief 
executive, W. Douglas Parker.

"Doug, I watched you on CNBC today," said one e-mail message from a worker, 
sent on Oct. 25. "And I hate to tell you but the interiors of our plans [sic] 
smell bad and they are filthy. As an employee I am embarrassed to admit working 
for US Airways. When are you going to quit talking and do something about it?"

The rancor is not any worse at US Airways than at most other big carriers. What 
is different is that Mr. Parker, 46, subscribes to the let-it-all-hang-out 
school of employee relations. He says management learns a lot about how the 
airline is actually performing through an uncensored give-and-take - and he 
willingly provided transcripts of the Q. and A. sessions.

The brawling dialogue does, however, suggest that airline service might get 
worse before it gets better. The current US Airways is a result of the most 
recent big airline merger, with America West Airlines in 2005. Mr. Parker tried 
unsuccessfully to acquire Delta Air Lines 

  a year ago. Now, other airlines are mulling mergers as a way of cutting costs 
to offset high fuel expenses. Such deals could start a broader service decline.

In recent months, US Airways had the worst record for on-time flights and 
misplaced bags among the major airlines and it piled up the most customer 
complaints at the Transportation Department.

"How long do you think the airline will be around the way it's running right 
now?" a US Airways worker wrote in July.

Many US Airways employee questions are more parochial - about benefits and free 
travel privileges. But quite a few inquiries reflect the workers' concerns for 
customers.

"Who thought it would be a good idea to have pink Pepto-Bismol ads on tray 
tables talking about diarrhea?" a worker wrote in July. The Pepto ads were 
replaced in August.

Another employee wondered in October 2006: "Why can we not get better quality 
snack items for our coach customers? One customer recently compared the generic 
pretzel nubs we serve to the fish food you buy in a .25 gumball machine at any 
zoo or park."

Actually, fish food would appear to be too costly. "We've worked with our 
purchasing team," management explained, "to bring in many companies to compete 
on our main cabin tidbit item (pretzels). To date, no one has been able to 
match our current cost, about 3 cents per package."

Mr. Parker, at quarterly sessions, answers a mix of questions from workers who 
have crowded into a meeting room at the Tempe, Ariz., headquarters and those 
sent by e-mail from around the country. The sessions are videoconferenced 
companywide. 

Workers who normally answer questions from the media handle the overflow on 
those occasions, posting answers on an internal Web site and putting some of 
the exchanges in a weekly newsletter. They often quote prior remarks by Mr. 
Parker, so much of the grilling is directly addressed to him.

What makes the exchanges unusual in corporate America is that the questions are 
presented precisely as they were asked, full of attitude and, often, anger. 

"Not some sanitized version," Mr. Parker said in an interview. Employees, he 
added, "are going to talk about it anyway." 

So, last April, a question came in: "A statement that Doug made in a letter 
today was 'Most of our reliability issues were related to a difficult 
reservations system migration. That project is now back on track ...' NO IT IS 
NOT, not even close! Could we please use some of the money that we were going 
to purchase Delta and get a computer system with the capabilities that we 
require?"

Another question that day: "I was on an Airbus 

  yesterday that was extremely dirty. The headrests on the blue fabric seats 
were a grayish brown color. Several seats were ripped. The seat cushions had no 
cushion left. Are we the 99-cent store airline? How do I take pride in this 
product?"

Airline mergers may be profitable but, in the short term a

[Futurework] compare executive pay

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

SEC launches Web tool to compare executive pay 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071221/bs_nm/sec_paydata_dc&printer=1;_ylt=
AqHLJqxge5MQxBLvBcX8miyb.HQA
The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an interactive tool on
Friday that gives investors and the public an easier way to compare
executive pay and benefits at 500 of the largest U.S. companies.
The online tool includes direct links to full proxy statements,
including footnotes and the companies' explanation of their compensation
decisions.
The site -- www.sec.gov/xbrl -- also lets users compare pay data by
industry, executive type and size of company, among other
specifications.
(Reporting by Karey Wutkowski; Editing by Andre Grenon)

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[Futurework] FW: A Brief History of Christmas

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> A Brief History of Christmas 
> By John Steele Gordon 
> 21 December 2007 
> The Wall Street Journal   
>  
> Christmas famously "comes but once a year." In fact, however, it comes
> twice. The Christmas of the Nativity, the manger and Christ child, the
> wise men and the star of Bethlehem, "Silent Night" and "Hark the
> Herald Angels Sing" is one holiday. The Christmas of parties, Santa
> Claus, evergreens, presents, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and
> "Jingle Bells" is quite another. 
> But because both celebrations fall on Dec. 25, the two are constantly
> confused. Religious Christians condemn taking "the Christ out of
> Christmas," while First Amendment absolutists see a threat to the
> separation of church and state in every poinsettia on public property
> and school dramatization of "A Christmas Carol." 
> A little history can clear things up. 
> The Christmas of parties and presents is far older than the Nativity.
> Most ancient cultures celebrated the winter solstice, when the sun
> reaches its lowest point and begins to climb once more in the sky. In
> ancient Rome, this festival was called the Saturnalia and ran from
> Dec. 17 to Dec. 24. During that week, no work was done, and the time
> was spent in parties, games, gift giving and decorating the houses
> with evergreens. (Sound familiar?) It was, needless to say, a very
> popular holiday. 
> In its earliest days, Christianity did not celebrate the Nativity at
> all. Only two of the four Gospels even mention it. Instead, the Church
> calendar was centered on Easter, still by far the most important day
> in the Christian year. The Last Supper was a Seder, celebrating
> Passover, which falls on the day of the full moon in the first month
> of spring in the Hebrew calendar. So in A.D. 325, the Council of Nicea
> decided that Easter should fall on the Sunday following the first full
> moon of spring. That's why Easter and its associated days, such as Ash
> Wednesday and Good Friday, are "moveable feasts," moving about the
> calendar at the whim of the moon. 
> It is a mark of how late Christmas came to the Christian calendar that
> it is not a moveable feast, but a fixed one, determined by the solar
> calendar established by Julius Caesar and still in use today (although
> slightly tweaked in the 16th century). 
> By the time of the Council of Nicea, the Christian Church was making
> converts by the thousands and, in hopes of still more converts, in 354
> Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the church calendar. He
> also decided to celebrate it on Dec. 25. It was, frankly, a marketing
> ploy with a little political savvy thrown in. 
> History does not tell us exactly when in the year Christ was born, but
> according to the Gospel of St. Luke, "shepherds were abiding in the
> field and keeping watch over their flocks by night." This would imply
> a date in the spring or summer when the flocks were up in the hills
> and needed to be guarded. In winter they were kept safely in corrals. 
> So Dec. 25 must have been chosen for other reasons. It is hard to
> escape the idea that by making Christmas fall immediately after the
> Saturnalia, the Pope invited converts to still enjoy the fun and games
> of the ancient holiday and just call it Christmas. Also, Dec. 25 was
> the day of the sun god, Sol Invictus, associated with the emperor. By
> using that date, the church tied itself to the imperial system. 
> By the high Middle Ages, Christmas was a rowdy, bawdy time, often
> inside the church as well as outside it. In France, many parishes
> celebrated the Feast of the Ass, supposedly honoring the donkey that
> had brought Mary to Bethlehem. Donkeys were brought into the church
> and the mass ended with priests and parishioners alike making donkey
> noises. In the so-called Feast of Fools, the lower clergy would elect
> a "bishop of fools" to temporarily run the diocese and make fun of
> church ceremonial and discipline. With this sort of thing going on
> inside the church to celebrate the Nativity, one can easily imagine
> the drunken and sexual revelries going on outside it to celebrate what
> was in all but name the Saturnalia. 
> With the Reformation, Protestants tried to rid the church of practices
> unknown in its earliest days and get back to Christian roots. Most
> Protestant sects abolished priestly celibacy (and often the priesthood
> itself), the cult of the Virgin Mary, relics, confession and . . .
> Christmas. 
> In the English-speaking world, Christmas was abolished in Scotland in
> 1563 and in England after the Puritans took power in the 1640s. It
> returned with the Restoration in 1660, but the celebrations never
> regained their medieval and Elizabethan abandon. 
> There was still no Christmas in Puritan New England, where Dec. 25 was
> just another working day. In the South, where the Church of England
> predominated, Christmas was celebrated as in England. In the middle
> colonies, matters were mixed. In polyglot New York, 

[Futurework] Automated Poker Without Dealers

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
The Latest in Job Cuts: Automated Poker Without Dealers 
5 November 2007 
The New York Times   
FOLSOM, Calif. -- Most card rooms and casinos in Northern California
offer live poker the old-fashioned way: with dealers doling out cards
and players tossing chips into the center of a table. 
But here at the Folsom Lake Bowl Sports Bar and Casino, just outside
Sacramento, the action is entirely different -- no cards, no chips and
no dealers whatsoever. 
Instead, players gather around poker tables outfitted with game control
software and computer touch screens that display virtual cards and chips
representing money. Gamblers say the new technology, called PokerPro,
has transformed a game that can become tedious into something quick,
easy and fun. 
''It's what I call no-brainer poker,'' said Ron Wills, who plays at
least three times a week. ''No chips to stack, no cards to shuffle, just
sit down and play.'' 
This level of automation might well become the poker room of the future.
At a time when computerized gambling is becoming increasingly popular,
PokerPro mixes the speed and efficiency of Internet poker with the
stare-them-down, in-your-face quality of playing live. 
The vendor behind the technology, PokerTek of Matthews, N.C., has
supplied these high-technology tables to more than 10 new card room and
casino customers since May, including an American Indian casino outside
Chicago and the Galaxy StarWorld Hotel and Casino in Macao. 
PokerTek's chief executive, Chris Halligan, said the company had plans
to sell a version of PokerPro for restaurants and bars. ''It's all about
accessibility,'' Mr. Halligan, a former executive at Dell, said. ''We're
using technology to make the game even bigger than it is today.'' 
The technology, he said, benefits both sides of the table. For the
lessees of the table, the 10-seat PokerPro enables poker rooms to use
fewer dealers and increases revenue from the percentage the house keeps
from each pot. Here, the math is simple: while dealer poker yields an
average of 30 hands an hour, PokerPro doles out an average of 46. 
In a California card club, a regulated gambling house where players
compete against one another, the tables would increase the house's share
to about $150 a table an hour. 
But playing more hands an hour could help gamblers, by improving the
odds that each person will see a playable (and potentially winnable)
hand. Players' bankrolls last longer at PokerPro tables since there are
no dealers to tip after winning hands. 
''If you're doing well, tossing in $1 or $2 after every win can add
up,'' said Matt Harkness, general manager of the Four Winds Casino
Resort in New Buffalo, Mich., which opened this summer with a fully
automated poker room. ''This technology keeps that money with the
players.'' 
PokerPro mimics the flow of a regular game. In the center of the table,
a large screen displays communal cards as they might look on a regular
table. Around the edge of the table, individual touch screens display
hands face down, and only make the cards visible when players cup their
hands over the screens as they would with real cards. 
The software has built-in features to protect against player error: it
gives each player up to one minute to make a decision, and every action
must be confirmed before play continues. 
Some, though, are not convinced that the technology represents an
improvement. 
Larry Anderson, who plays PokerPro at the Black Oak Casino in Tuolumne,
Calif., said that while he enjoys the automated game, occasionally he
misses the feel of real cards and the sound of clinking chips. 
''Every now and again, I want the real thing,'' he said, and when he
does, he gets into his car and drives to Reno, Nev., to play there.
''Sometimes, you just can't beat a real live game,'' he said. 

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Re: [Futurework] future work in Pharma & allopathy

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Not to your point but possibly of interest.
--
 
Donald Babey, Executive Director of Dying With Dignity Canada, is a guest on 
"The Verdict" a CTV Newsnet legal affairs program, Thursday, November 22 at 
9:00 pm EST.

Assisted dying is the focus of the upcoming program.  The full hour will be 
dedicated to this issue.  The timing of this program coincides with the airing 
this Saturday, November 24 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm local time of the documentary 
"The Suicide Tourist".  This documentary follows two couples through their 
involvement with the Swiss organization Dignitas as they consider their options 
for an assisted death.

"The Verdict" airs Sunday to Thursday on CTV Newsnet.  More information, 
including archives of previous programs, can be found at www.ctv.ca/theverdict 

 .




From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Darryl or Natalia
Sent: Thu 11/22/2007 1:04 PM
To: futurework
Subject: [Futurework] future work in Pharma & allopathy


>From the first of two articles on adverse drug reactions in older Americans, 
>with link to the full text with a summary of adverse reactions & the drugs 
>that cause them. 

http://worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=5

With the amount of business (from meds, walkers, wheelchairs, diapers, rest 
home stays, etc.) and resulting labour to treat adverse reactions, how can we 
even dream of looking at alternatives? So many manufacturers and care providers 
would be out of work!

Natalia Kuzmyn
*



Each year, more than 9.6 million adverse drug reactions occur in older 
Americans. One study found that 37 percent of adverse reactions in the elderly 
were not reported to the doctor, presumably because patients did not realize 
the reactions were due to the drug. This is not too surprising considering that 
most doctors admitted they did not explain possible adverse effects to their 
patients.1  

We based the following national estimates on well-conducted studies, mainly in 
the United States:

*   
Each year, in hospitals alone, there are 28,000 cases of 
life-threatening heart toxicity from adverse reactions to digoxin, the most 
commonly used form of digitalis (drugs that regulate the speed and strength of 
heart beats) in older adults.2 
  Since as many as 40% or 
more of these people are using this drug unnecessarily (see discussion on 
digoxin  ), many of these 
injuries are preventable.
*   
Each year 41,000 older adults are hospitalized-and 3,300 of these 
die-from ulcers caused by NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, usually 
for treatment of arthritis).3 
  Thousands of younger 
adults are hospitalized. (See list of drugs that can cause gastrointestinal 
bleeding  .)
*   
At least 16,000 injuries from auto crashes each year involving older 
drivers are attributable to the use of psychoactive drugs, specifically 
benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants.4 
  Psychoactive drugs are 
those that affect the mind or behavior. (See list of drugs that can cause 
automobile accidents  
.)
*   
Each year 32,000 older adults suffer from hip fractures attributable to 
drug-induced falls, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths.5 
 , 6 
  In one study, the main 
categories of drugs responsible for the falls leading to hip fractures were 
sleeping pills and minor tranquilizers (30%), antipsychotic drugs (52%), and 
antidepressants (17%). All of these categories of drugs are often prescribed 
unnecessarily, especially in older adults. (See section on sleeping pills and 
tranquilizers  , 
antipsychotic drugs  , and 
antidepressants  ; see also 
list of drugs that can cause hip fractures because of drug-induced falls 
 .)
*   Approximately 163,000 older Americans suffer from serious mental 
impairment (memory loss, dementia) either caused or worsened by drugs.7 
 , 8 
  In a study in the state of 
Washington, in 46% of the patients with drug-induced mental impairment, the 
problem was caused by minor tranquilizers or sleeping pills; in 14%, by high 
bl

[Futurework] Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns at Colleges

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

National Desk; SECTA 
Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns at Colleges 
20 November 2007The New York Times 
DEARBORN, Mich. -- Professors with tenure or who are on a tenure track
are now a distinct minority on the country's campuses, as the ranks of
part-time instructors and professors hired on a contract have swelled,
according to federal figures analyzed by the American Association of
University Professors. 
Elaine Zendlovitz, a former retail store manager who began teaching
college courses six years ago, is representative of the change.
Technically, Ms. Zendlovitz is a part-time Spanish professor, although,
in fact, she teaches nearly all the time. 
Her days begin at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, with
introductory classes. Some days end at 10 p.m. at Oakland Community
College, in the suburbs north of Detroit, as she teaches six courses at
four institutions. 
''I think we part-timers can be everything a full-timer can be,'' Ms.
Zendlovitz said during a break in a 10-hour teaching day. But she
acknowledged: ''It's harder to spend time with students. I don't have
the prep time, and I know how to prepare a fabulous class.'' 
The shift from a tenured faculty results from financial pressures,
administrators' desire for more flexibility in hiring, firing and
changing course offerings, and the growth of community colleges and
regional public universities focused on teaching basics and preparing
students for jobs. 
It has become so extreme, however, that some universities are pulling
back, concerned about the effect on educational quality. Rutgers
University agreed in a labor settlement in August to add 100 tenure or
tenure-track positions. Across the country, faculty unions are
organizing part-timers. And the American Federation of Teachers is
pushing legislation in 11 states to mandate that 75 percent of classes
be taught by tenured or tenure-track teachers. 
Three decades ago, adjuncts -- both part-timers and full-timers not on a
tenure track -- represented only 43 percent of professors, according to
the professors association, which has studied data reported to the
federal Education Department. Currently, the association says, they
account for nearly 70 percent of professors at colleges and
universities, both public and private. 
John W. Curtis, the union's director of research and public policy, said
that while the number of tenured and tenure-track professors has
increased by about 25 percent over the past 30 years, they have been
swamped by the growth in adjunct faculty. Over all, the number of people
teaching at colleges and universities has doubled since 1975. 
University officials agree that the use of nontraditional faculty is
soaring. But some contest the professors association's calculation,
saying that definitions of part-time and full-time professors vary, and
that it is not possible to determine how many courses, on average, each
category of professor actually teaches. 
Many state university presidents say tight budgets have made it
inevitable that they turn to adjuncts to save money. 
''We have to contend with increasing public demands for accountability,
increased financial scrutiny and declining state support,'' said Charles
F. Harrington, provost of the University of North Carolina, Pembroke.
''One of the easiest, most convenient ways of dealing with these
pressures is using part-time faculty,'' he said, though he cautioned
that colleges that rely too heavily on such faculty ''are playing a
really dangerous game.'' 
Mark B. Rosenberg, chancellor of the State University System of Florida,
said that part-timers can provide real-world experience to students and
fill gaps in nursing, math, accounting and other disciplines with a
shortage of qualified faculty. He also said the shift could come with
costs. 
Adjuncts are less likely to have doctoral degrees, educators say. They
also have less time to meet with students, and research suggests that
students who take many courses with them are somewhat less likely to
graduate. 
''Really, we are offering less educational quality to the students who
need it most,'' said Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher
Education Research Institute, noting that the soaring number of adjunct
faculty is most pronounced in community colleges and the less select
public universities. The elite universities, both public and private,
have the fewest adjuncts. 
''It's not that some of these adjuncts aren't great teachers,'' Dr.
Ehrenberg said. ''Many don't have the support that the tenure-track
faculty have, in terms of offices, secretarial help and time. Their
teaching loads are higher, and they have less time to focus on
students.'' 
Dr. Ehrenberg and a colleague analyzed 15 years of national data and
found that graduation rates declined when public universities hired
large numbers of contingent faculty. 
Several studies of individual universities have determined that freshmen
taught by many part-timers were more likely to drop out. 
''Having a

Re: [Futurework] Audit on Mental Health care for Cdn soldiers inAfghanistan

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

This one is for Natalia.

-

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/americas-army.htm
  

How America's Army Works- The U.S. military has spent millions of
dollars and thousands of man-hours on ... a video game. "America's Army"
is free and it has amazing features. Why are people getting so upset
about it?




From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Darryl or
Natalia
Sent: Thursday, November 1, 2007 2:45 PM
To: futurework
Subject: [Futurework] Audit on Mental Health care for Cdn soldiers
inAfghanistan


I suspect our affected soldiers are doing better than affected US
troops, but the stories of how soldiers are financially under-supported
to help them cope with the emotional costs of being "heroes" bear
similarity.

The audit is perplexing because it is determined that almost twice as
much funding goes to health care for military patients compared to that
spent on civilians, perhaps due to the disturbing fact that one in five
soldiers returning from Afghanistan suffer head injuries, yet mental
health care is deemed inadequate.  If that is the case, then my point,
way back when I first wanted to discuss the future of work in today's
military, is at least in part, explored here. With military spending
mostly focused upon weaponry and equipment, success of the missions in
which they partake trumps mental well being of the actual troops who
make the "sacrifice". Unchecked, this becomes not only a systemic
failure, but is cumulative, contributing to skepticism of top
command's/government's priorities. 

BTW: I just learned from the CBC that the recruitment byline being used
in Cdn. high schools and universities is "COME FIGHT WITH US". Not, come
defend with us! Hmmn. So they are targeting the most aggressive amongst
youth after-all. Oh, and we now have the Israeli army also recruiting
our youth under a program called Sar-el, who have already sent me some
spam for just going to their website @ sarelcanada.org. I also learned
that the Canadian government's largest cash outlay on youth programs, $1
billion, has gone to the military youth camps program, where they get a
taste for firing grenades and rifles. Now, is that in keeping with
putting defence first? 



Afghanistan veterans not getting needed mental health care, audit finds


Mike Blanchfield , CanWest News Service

Published: Tuesday, October 30, 2007

OTTAWA - The Canadian Forces are falling short in meeting the mental
health needs of soldiers returning from Afghanistan because the demand
for care is "outstripping available resources," Auditor General Sheila
Fraser said in a report to Parliament Tuesday.

The shortfalls, which came to light as part of a broader audit of the
rising cost of military health care, suggest the military has yet to
learn some hard lessons of the past decade, when retired general Romeo
Dallaire, now a Liberal senator, offered himself as a poster boy for the
mental health suffering of many Canadian peacekeepers who served with
him in Rwanda or on other operations in the Balkans.

This latest audit suggests that the Defence Department is failing to
meet the needs of the new generation of men and women currently serving
in Afghanistan as part of the military's most demanding combat mission
since the Korean War more than half a century ago.

One disabled veteran of Canada's involvement in the first Persian Gulf
War of 1991 questioned how the Forces can justify purchasing $20 billion
worth of new planes, helicopters and other hardware, while neglecting
the well documented mental health needs of their personnel.

"The care of families for mental health is quite small compared to some
of these equipment purchases," said Sean Bruyea, a former intelligence
officer who has battled post-traumatic stress. "The most important
resource of the military is the soldier, and the family is the primary
support of that soldier."

The audit singled out CFB Petawawa, Ont., near Ottawa, and CFB Gagetown,
N.B., as two military bases where the mental health services offered to
Afghanistan veterans and their families are inadequate.

"The department recognizes that treating mental health illnesses
appropriately should also address the member's environment, which for
many members means helping the family cope as well. Thus, in order to
meet obligations to treat the member, the department may also need to
include the family," the audit said.

"However, when surveyed by the department, mental health services in
places such as CFB Petawawa and CFB Gagetown - bases with large numbers
of members returning from deployment in Afghanistan - said they were
unable to extend member care to include family support because of
resource shortages."

Officials with the auditor general's office stressed that the Defence
Department has no legal obligation to treat families, only military
personnel. But the military itself ha

Re: [Futurework] Universal soldier?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Natalia, You say in your posting.
 
I realize that most men currently contributing to this site are WWII Vets, or 
are still tied to the military. 
 

 
You are saying something that is not proven.  There is one poster from National 
Defence.  Perhaps one other poster is a veteran.  Beyond that your statement is 
like so many you have posted: A rant, without evidence.
 
I too am against war.  But I realize that sometimes armies have to be created 
to protect citizens, even those who prefer "a peace corps"



From: Darryl or Natalia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Fri 10/26/2007 6:11 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Universal soldier?


Arthur,

You are discouraging a discussion of the future of work in the military. Is it 
less important than the future of the auto sector, agriculture, or any other 
industry for that matter? That I find its near future to be grim has 
substantial relevance to this site's mandate. That you feel emotionally charged 
by my opinion should not preclude its relevance given that the military is the 
primary focus of the US (and Israeli) economies and more increasingly their 
cultural well-being. In case you've forgotten, the US is the most frequently 
discussed economy on this site, and its economy and activities directly affect 
Canada and the global markets.

This was no slam of Israel, Arthur. You're hyper-sensitive beyond the call of 
loyalty. I was targeting chiefly US military and the elite who control them, 
but you're saying I overstepped my boundaries regarding Israel for similar 
behaviour/unspoken policies. The article was shocking to me, and reminded me of 
Abu Graib stories very actively discussed on this site with most everyone's 
participation, including your own, without any objections from you. Don't tell 
me that your recent submission of crime activities and their related illegal 
economies is anymore relevant to this site. If anything, both organizations are 
swindling the people. The difference is that people are legally employed by the 
military; most of the US treasury is being wasted upon it, and yet its 
institution accomplishes little, but destroys so much. It's a huge sector that 
you are saying is off-topic because I'm stating that as an employer, its future 
is costly, bleak and without meaningful direction?

I realize that most men currently contributing to this site are WWII Vets, or 
are still tied to the military. As a Vet, one would think that the future of 
such a significant sector would be of concern. When we envision an ideal future 
of work, are you suggesting that the military are to be exempt from criticism 
or are to be off-topic altogether? I'm someone who would prefer a peace corps, 
but let's not squash a valid discussion because you can't deal with my opinions 
in this respect.

You can't say this is irrelevant. It's hugely relevant, just as war-related 
industries are hugely relevant. The US military is stationed in 130 nations, 
and is the largest nuke peddler on the planet. Since when does such economic 
activity bear no relation to the future of work?

Natalia Kuzmyn
 

Cordell, Arthur: ECOM wrote: 

This article has no place on FW.  What does it have to do with the 
future of work?  If you wish to slam armies and the concept of war then go to 
another site.  If you want to slam Israel then, again, go to another site.
 
Arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Darryl 
or Natalia
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 9:05 PM
To: futurework
Subject: [Futurework] Universal soldier?


What is the future of work in the military to be? Most now fail to see 
a future force of peace keepers, since it's pretty obvious that controlling the 
oil industry and acquiring oil for the US are the reasons for most budget 
allocations. But where does that leave those who would otherwise have enlisted 
for a career of defense training, when the actual reason for their services is 
merely one of overcoming and overpowering?

Billions are spent on military technological improvements that result 
in more destruction, deaths and displacement than conventional combat ever did. 
An emphasis on killing, rather than actual defense, could account for the most 
obvious failures.

In World Wars I and II, soldiers and citizens alike believed they were 
defending our freedom. Far fewer came back from these wars so damaged 
psychologically. For Viet Nam, Korea, the Gulf and Iraq wars there has been a 
deployment of so-called freedom fighters with little to defend but the 
psychotic egos of the ruling elite. Add to it that the instruments of 
destruction are now much more sophisticated, and far more harmful to all life 
forms.

Re: [Futurework] Universal soldier?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Armies do commit atrocities.  All armies.  Even Canadian armies.  Yes, even 
those armies in countries without a free press.  Because Israel is a democracy 
with a relatively free press that these atrocities are made public.  Other 
countries in the mid east have similar stories to tell as do most armies in the 
world.  
 
So go ahead and show righteous indignation.  It is only possible because of the 
relatively open society that is Israel.  Anyone for looking at what is going on 
elsewhere in the mid east?  
 
arthur
 

 
 



From: Darryl or Natalia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Fri 10/26/2007 6:11 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Universal soldier?


Arthur,

You are discouraging a discussion of the future of work in the military. Is it 
less important than the future of the auto sector, agriculture, or any other 
industry for that matter? That I find its near future to be grim has 
substantial relevance to this site's mandate. That you feel emotionally charged 
by my opinion should not preclude its relevance given that the military is the 
primary focus of the US (and Israeli) economies and more increasingly their 
cultural well-being. In case you've forgotten, the US is the most frequently 
discussed economy on this site, and its economy and activities directly affect 
Canada and the global markets.

This was no slam of Israel, Arthur. You're hyper-sensitive beyond the call of 
loyalty. I was targeting chiefly US military and the elite who control them, 
but you're saying I overstepped my boundaries regarding Israel for similar 
behaviour/unspoken policies. The article was shocking to me, and reminded me of 
Abu Graib stories very actively discussed on this site with most everyone's 
participation, including your own, without any objections from you. Don't tell 
me that your recent submission of crime activities and their related illegal 
economies is anymore relevant to this site. If anything, both organizations are 
swindling the people. The difference is that people are legally employed by the 
military; most of the US treasury is being wasted upon it, and yet its 
institution accomplishes little, but destroys so much. It's a huge sector that 
you are saying is off-topic because I'm stating that as an employer, its future 
is costly, bleak and without meaningful direction?

I realize that most men currently contributing to this site are WWII Vets, or 
are still tied to the military. As a Vet, one would think that the future of 
such a significant sector would be of concern. When we envision an ideal future 
of work, are you suggesting that the military are to be exempt from criticism 
or are to be off-topic altogether? I'm someone who would prefer a peace corps, 
but let's not squash a valid discussion because you can't deal with my opinions 
in this respect.

You can't say this is irrelevant. It's hugely relevant, just as war-related 
industries are hugely relevant. The US military is stationed in 130 nations, 
and is the largest nuke peddler on the planet. Since when does such economic 
activity bear no relation to the future of work?

Natalia Kuzmyn
 

Cordell, Arthur: ECOM wrote: 

This article has no place on FW.  What does it have to do with the 
future of work?  If you wish to slam armies and the concept of war then go to 
another site.  If you want to slam Israel then, again, go to another site.
 
Arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Darryl 
or Natalia
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 9:05 PM
To: futurework
Subject: [Futurework] Universal soldier?


What is the future of work in the military to be? Most now fail to see 
a future force of peace keepers, since it's pretty obvious that controlling the 
oil industry and acquiring oil for the US are the reasons for most budget 
allocations. But where does that leave those who would otherwise have enlisted 
for a career of defense training, when the actual reason for their services is 
merely one of overcoming and overpowering?

Billions are spent on military technological improvements that result 
in more destruction, deaths and displacement than conventional combat ever did. 
An emphasis on killing, rather than actual defense, could account for the most 
obvious failures.

In World Wars I and II, soldiers and citizens alike believed they were 
defending our freedom. Far fewer came back from these wars so damaged 
psychologically. For Viet Nam, Korea, the Gulf and Iraq wars there has been a 
deployment of so-called freedom fighters with little to defend but the 
psychotic egos of the ruling elite. Add to it that the instruments of 
destruction are now much more sophisticated, and far more harmful to all life 
forms. Toda

Re: [Futurework] Universal soldier?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

This article has no place on FW.  What does it have to do with the
future of work?  If you wish to slam armies and the concept of war then
go to another site.  If you want to slam Israel then, again, go to
another site.
 
Arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Darryl or
Natalia
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 9:05 PM
To: futurework
Subject: [Futurework] Universal soldier?


What is the future of work in the military to be? Most now fail to see a
future force of peace keepers, since it's pretty obvious that
controlling the oil industry and acquiring oil for the US are the
reasons for most budget allocations. But where does that leave those who
would otherwise have enlisted for a career of defense training, when the
actual reason for their services is merely one of overcoming and
overpowering?

Billions are spent on military technological improvements that result in
more destruction, deaths and displacement than conventional combat ever
did. An emphasis on killing, rather than actual defense, could account
for the most obvious failures.

In World Wars I and II, soldiers and citizens alike believed they were
defending our freedom. Far fewer came back from these wars so damaged
psychologically. For Viet Nam, Korea, the Gulf and Iraq wars there has
been a deployment of so-called freedom fighters with little to defend
but the psychotic egos of the ruling elite. Add to it that the
instruments of destruction are now much more sophisticated, and far more
harmful to all life forms. Today's soldiers are alarmingly more
disassociated from the human targets upon whom misery is inflicted
because of this sophistication of weaponry.

When an army recruits its troops, what checks are in place to prevent
Joe/Jill Psycho from joining the ranks of "defenders"? How many
different qualifying tests does he/she take? And once enlisted, what
restraints are ensuring that defense, rather than offense, be the
primary motivator for staying in the ranks? It's rather a silly
question, isn't it, because civilians aren't usually being protected in
these current wars, as evidenced by the high casualties, costly
mercenary protection for officials only, and Iraq's billion dollar
"Green Zone",  isolated from any civilian interaction. 

My deduction, by the recent wars' outcomes and horror stories, is that
offense is the operative motivation in modern warfare. I realize the
military has some expenditures on personnel who generate beneficial
human resources studies and policies, but these outlays, retained
primarily for the sake of having public relations reps who can actually
field questions, are utterly dwarfed by egregious budgets directed at
wiping out the so-called enemy at any expense. With such a pervasive
attitude, it's no wonder we have soldiers who are either freshly
enlisted or grow to be wholly dangerous.

An Israeli psychologist blames Israeli soldiers' immoral and criminal
behaviour on boredom and poor training. This is an insane explanation!
She's an apologist not only for incompetent army recruiters and top
command, but for sadistic individuals who must never be allowed to hide
behind the stress of boredom to justify relief at the expense of human
life or injury of any type.  

>From everything I've ever read about soldiers anywhere they're
stationed, there are always too many amongst them who believe in their
right to be brutal -- and most of them get away with it because of
commanding officers' implicit approval or fellow troops covering for
them.
 
Israel boasts of having the most humane troops in the world in their
recruitment efforts. The article below certainly disputes that claim.

How many armies of any global significance are left that can define
their jobs as being ones which consist strictly of defense?  The
Pentagon's budget, the US's most crippling, undergoes scant approval,
checks or balances. It reaps the largest share of the treasury, thereby
establishing its department (if we measure in terms of dollars) as the
most revered, above health and welfare, environment, education, etc. Yet
the department does nothing beneficially significant for anyone anywhere
(excepting the elites' portfolios) and generates more harm than could
ever be imagined. One might well conclude that waste by warring is what
Americans most value, and that the future expenditures of their nation
are assuredly focused upon continued psychotic activity, if not for the
painful fact that the immoral self-serving ruling elite actually have
control of how the treasury is spent. Same goes for Israel.

The future of work, by reason of treasury allocations, is in killing or
overcoming, first and foremost. Yet there's no money in it but for the
elite and the mercenaries. So, national troops are either initially
misled into believing they are developing a career defending their
nation, are being recruited against their will, or are being selected
specifically because they possess criminal 

[Futurework] Strong economic growth: in crime

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Organized Crime Takes Lead In Italian Economy, Report Says 
23 October 2007 
The New York Times   
ROME, Oct. 22 -- Organized crime represents the biggest segment of the
Italian economy, accounting for more than $127 billion in receipts,
according to a report issued Monday. 
The new figure reflects a trend that has been under way for a few years,
the annual report says. The figure last year was $106 billion, making it
not quite the biggest segment of the economy. 
The report also said the line between legitimate business and criminal
activity was becoming harder to discern. 
The annual report was released by the Confesercenti, an association of
small businesses. It says that through various activities -- extortion,
usury, contraband, robberies, gambling and Internet piracy -- organized
crime accounts for 7 percent of Italy's gross domestic product. 
''From the weaving factories, to tourism to business and personal
services, from farming to public contracts to real estate and finance,
the criminal presence is consolidated in every economic activity,'' the
86-page report said. 
The report also points to a disturbing trend of collusion in which big
businesses participate, especially in public works. 
''The businessmen prefer to make a pact with the Mafia rather than
denounce the blackmail,'' the report said. 
The report comes on the heels of a visit to Naples by Pope Benedict XVI
on Sunday, when he condemned ''deplorable'' mob violence that he said
had insinuated itself into everyday life. 
Recent news reports have described threats to journalists in Sicily and
the Campania region from organized-crime families. 
Usury represents the most lucrative activity by organized crime, with
syndicates taking in $43 billion while racketeering brings in $14
billion, the report estimated. Illegal construction nets about $19
billion. 
The businesses most afflicted by organized crime are in the south -- in
Sicily, Campania, Calabria and Puglia, the report found. 
The report says 80 percent of the businesses in the Sicilian cities of
Catania and Palermo regularly pay protection money, known as ''pizzo.'' 
===

___
Futurework mailing list
Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework

[Futurework] Call Centers in Small Towns Can Run Into Problems

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Theory & Practice: Call Centers in Small Towns Can Run Into Problems ---
To Deal With Attrition, 1-800-Flowers.com Changed Its Approach 
22 October 2007 
The Wall Street Journal   
 
A few years after 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. opened call centers in two
small Southwestern towns, it ran into a big problem: High attrition
combined with the small populations meant the offices were running out
of people to hire. 
"It felt like we had employed everyone in town," says Denise Thompson, a
Flowers human-resource executive. 
The shortage prompted Flowers to overhaul its approach to staffing.
Executives increased efforts to retain existing agents, and expanded
their network of home-based agents to reduce reliance on local labor
markets. 
It is a cautionary tale for the call-center industry. Over the past
decade, companies have sought to lower costs by sending call-center jobs
overseas to places such as India. After customer complaints of poor
service, some companies sought alternatives closer to home, particularly
in small cities with low wages and little competition for workers. 
But as Flowers discovered, that strategy doesn't always pan out. The
conditions that attracted one company often attract others, pushing
wages higher and triggering turnover. 
In a small city, "you're going to burn through that in a couple years --
just about everybody who could work there has worked there, and has
moved on," says Tim Houlne, chief executive of Working Solutions in
Plano, Texas, which provides companies with home-based call agents. He
says the small-town labor shortage is prompting some companies to move
call centers back to big cities despite higher wages, or to use
home-based agents. 
Call-center workers often quit because the work is stressful and the pay
is low -- $8 to $14 an hour in many cases. Agents must field calls from
angry customers while being monitored. Turnover -- the annual rate at
which workers quit -- at call centers can reach 100%, consultants say.
By contrast, the national average for all employers is about 10%, says
Michael Tindall, a director at the Saratoga human-resource unit of
PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Flowers opened call centers in Ardmore, Okla., in 2000 and in
Alamogordo, N.M., in 2001. Executives liked the areas' modest wages and
supply of workers who had completed two years of college. Scouts had
visited retailers in the towns to gauge the friendliness of service
workers. 
Still, both centers were plagued by high turnover. The local economies
grew, providing workers with other options such as warehouse, mining and
construction jobs, according to Shibu Joseph, a former Flowers manager
who studied turnover at the centers for a dissertation. "People had
other avenues for a job that is not as stressful," Mr. Joseph says. 
For the year ending June 30, 2003, attrition among agents in Alamogordo
was 113%; at Ardmore, 71%. "People would try the job on and it wasn't to
their liking and would leave," says Ms. Thompson at Flowers. Managers
had trouble hiring enough agents for peak holiday times, when staffing
needs rose to 500 or 600 from 300 people per center. 
Flowers executives realized they had to change their staffing model.
They raised wages, though a spokesman declines to divulge details. They
instructed managers to focus on retaining workers. When workers said
they didn't like working seven straight days during peak times, managers
agreed not to schedule agents for more than six consecutive days. 
Flowers also bolstered supervisor training. Tina Bayless, site manager
for Ardmore, says she recently attended a course that recommended giving
workers specific feedback -- such as acknowledging a sales increase --
rather than general praise. "When they feel like you're paying attention
to the details of [their] performance, it makes them feel better,
instead of just saying, 'Oh, good job today,'" Ms. Bayless says. She
relayed the lesson to her managers. 
Flowers also expanded its pool of home-based agents around the U.S. to
about 500, from 72 about a year ago, Ms. Thompson says. Tapping those
agents during peak times eases demands at call centers. To reduce
isolation and stress among the home agents, Flowers created Internet
chat rooms where they can seek support and advice. 
For the year ending June 30, 2006, turnover at Alamogordo fell to 52%.
But it rose at Ardmore, to 81%. Flowers declined to provide current
turnover figures, but says Ardmore has improved recently and overall its
efforts "seem to be working." 
The chat room helped Ali Watt, a Long Island, N.Y., mother of four who
works as a home-based agent for Flowers. Last year, she heard from a
frustrated caller whose funeral-arrangement order hadn't arrived on
time. "I was panicked," she says. She posted a message in the chat room.
A coach helped her cancel the first order, and offer a discount on
another. 
Earlier this year, she was promoted to be a chat room coach herself,
helping other agents navigate tricky issues. She works 25 to 30 hours
per 

Re: [Futurework] FW: Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Agree.



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Sat 10/6/2007 7:45 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade



> WASHINGTON -- By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe
> free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that
> mirrors Democratic views
  
I don't have the impression that Bill Clinton "believes that free trade
is bad", neither lately at the WEF.

Chris




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Re: [Futurework] FW: Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Recall too that she was on the board of Walmart for some years.  Something that 
isn't mentioned much these days.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Sat 10/6/2007 7:55 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade



Also note that Hillary only said that further FT expansions should be
given a rest for a while.  That is, until after her election!

Chris




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[Futurework] FW: Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> Subject:  Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade 
> 
> Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade 
> 4 October 2007 
> The Wall Street Journal   
> A1 
> WASHINGTON -- By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe
> free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that
> mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high
> hurdles under a new president. 
> The sign of broadening resistance to globalization came in a new Wall
> Street Journal-NBC News Poll that showed a fraying of Republican Party
> orthodoxy on the economy. While 60% of respondents said they want the
> next president and Congress to continue cutting taxes, 32% said it's
> time for some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to reduce the
> budget deficit and pay for health care. 
> Six in 10 Republicans in the poll agreed with a statement that free
> trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a
> Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign
> imports. That represents a challenge for Republican candidates who
> generally echo Mr. Bush's calls for continued trade expansion, and
> reflects a substantial shift in sentiment from eight years ago. 
> "It's a lot harder to sell the free-trade message to Republicans,"
> said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducts the Journal/NBC
> poll with Democratic counterpart Peter Hart. The poll comes ahead of
> the Oct. 9 Republican presidential debate in Michigan sponsored by the
> Journal and the CNBC and MSNBC television networks. 
> The leading Republican candidates are still trying to promote free
> trade. "Our philosophy has to be not how many protectionist measures
> can we put in place, but how do we invent new things to sell" abroad,
> former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in a recent interview.
> "That's the view of the future. What [protectionists] are trying to do
> is lock in the inadequacies of the past." 
> Such a stance is sure to face a challenge in the 2008 general
> election. Though President Bill Clinton famously steered the
> Democratic Party toward a less-protectionist bent and promoted the
> North American Free Trade Agreement, his wife and the current
> Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has adopted more
> skeptical rhetoric. Mrs. Clinton has come out against a U.S. trade
> deal with South Korea. 
> Other leading Democrats have been harshly critical of trade expansion,
> pleasing their party's labor-union backers. In a March 2007 WSJ/NBC
> poll, before recent scandals involving tainted imports, 54% of
> Democratic voters said free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S.,
> compared with 21% who said they have helped. 
> While rank-and-file Democrats have long blasted the impact of trade on
> American jobs, slipping support among Republicans represents a fresh
> warning sign for free-market conservatives and American companies such
> as manufacturers and financial firms that benefit from markets opening
> abroad. 
> With voters provoked for years by such figures as Pat Buchanan and
> Ross Perot, "there's been a steady erosion in Republican support for
> free trade," says former Rep. Vin Weber, now an adviser to Republican
> presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 
> One fresh indication of the party's ideological crosswinds:
> Presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas, who opposes the Iraq war and
> calls free-trade deals "a threat to our independence as a nation,"
> announced yesterday that he raised $5 million in third-quarter
> donations. That nearly matches what one-time front-runner John McCain
> is expected to report. 
> In a December 1999 Wall Street Journal-NBC poll, 37% of Republicans
> said trade deals had helped the U.S. and 31% said they had hurt, while
> 26% said they made no difference. 
> The new poll asked a broader but similar question. It posed two
> statements to voters. The first was, "Foreign trade has been good for
> the U.S. economy, because demand for U.S. products abroad has resulted
> in economic growth and jobs for Americans here at home and provided
> more choices for consumers." 
> The second was, "Foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy,
> because imports from abroad have reduced demand for American-made
> goods, cost jobs here at home, and produced potentially unsafe
> products." 
> Asked which statement came closer to their own view, 59% of
> Republicans named the second statement, while 32% pointed to the
> first. 
> Such sentiment suggests a rocky outlook for trade expansion. Early in
> his term, Mr. Bush successfully promoted a number of new free-trade
> pacts, but the efforts have stalled, particularly after Democrats took
> control of Congress last November. 
> Even relatively small deals are facing resistance. While trade pacts
> with Peru and Panama have a strong chance of passing in the current
> congressional term, deals with South Korea and Colombia are in serious
> jeopardy. Some legislators believe South Korea isn't opening 

Re: [Futurework] Another 9/11 Fraudster Debunked

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

It's a fascinating story.  People can develop a full blown consistent story 
from nowhere and is found believable.  Congrats to the NYT for exposing this 
and for having the resources to track down the leads.
 
I wonder what  will become of the fraudster?  Perhaps a total psychological 
collapse.
 
She imagined herself a graduate of Harvard, she imagined herself a market 
trader, she imagined herself about to married to another market trader.  I 
don't think she set out to do this (she made no money from this fraud).  I 
think she is completely delusional.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Sun 9/30/2007 2:10 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] Another 9/11 Fraudster Debunked




<>


Considering how very lame this fraud was, one has to wonder why it took 6
years to be debunked, and why it was not debunked by any official
organization or office, but by a journalist who became suspicious because
Head canceled 3 interviews in a row.

At least she should have written a book about her life, like Binjamin
Wilkomirski. ;-)( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin_Wilkomirski )



http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/nationworld/64231.php

9/11 survivors' group removes president over questions about her WTC story

   The Associated Press
   Published: 27-Sep-2007

A nonprofit organization for 9/11 survivors removed its president after
questions were raised about her harrowing account of how she survived but
lost a loved one in the World Trade Center attack.

Tania Head has said that she was badly burned on the 78th floor of the
south tower, that she was saved by a man who died trying to save others,
and that a dying man handed her his inscribed wedding ring, which she later
returned to his widow. She also said her husband, or fiance, died in the
north tower.

The New York Times reported Thursday that none of her claims had been
verified. She has described her 9/11 experiences at speaking engagements
and led Tribute WTC Visitor Center tours, and her account has appeared,
among other places, on the Web site of the World Trade Center Survivors
Network.

The board of the nonprofit organization removed her as president and
director this week.

"Tania Head is no longer associated with the World Trade Center Survivors'
Network," according to a statement on the group's Web site. "Our
organization was created so that those affected by the terrorist attacks
could help each other through crisis and its aftermath."

Head also is no longer giving tours at the Tribute center. "At this time,
we are unable to confirm the veracity of Tania Head's connection to the
events of Sept. 11," said the center's CEO, Jennifer Adams.

The Times said Merrill Lynch & Company, where Head told people she had
worked, had no record of her employment. She has claimed she had a romantic
relationship with a man who is a confirmed 9/11 victim, but the Times said
his family and friends had never heard of Head and they discount details of
her story.

No telephone listing exists for a Tania Head in New York City. A message
left by The Associated Press at a local telephone number for an Alicia Head
- a name the Times said Head had also used - was not immediately returned
Wednesday.

The Times said Head canceled three interviews in recent weeks, citing her
privacy and emotional turmoil, and declined to provide details to
corroborate her story. She also told the newspaper she had done nothing
illegal and had not filed any claim with the federal Victim Compensation
Fund.

She earned no money as president of the survivors group or as a tour guide
at ground zero, according to the Times.






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Re: [Futurework] that wild and crazy Ahmadinejad

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Whatever views I have or had on the Pres. of Iran's visit should not
have been posted to FW.
 
See my recent posting to FW on this.
 
I agree with parts of your criticismbut will not go further since it
will continue to lead us away from FW topics.
 
Arthur



From: Darryl or Natalia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 6:44 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] that wild and crazy Ahmadinejad


Arthur,

This is an embarrassing piece on the part of the Globe and Mail. Far
more statements made by Ahmadinejad on his invitational visit rang true,
and nailed Bush and his administration squarely on the head, without
being rude. Even the conservative Victoria Times Colonist printed
several of his sobering quotes that represent a far more rational leader
than Bush 43. Posting this just contributes to the ignorance;
hi-lighting such phrases as: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's talk at Columbia
University on Monday was so funny it could lead to war. is inexcusable.
No, manipulators like this guy and journalists of his ilk are who sway
public opinion, and it is their words which reflect war mongering
propaganda that pave the ugly road to more Iraq-like invasions. 

How can anyone fail to remember what similar propaganda occurred to
manipulate Americans to invade Iraq? How can anyone fail to observe what
that war was really about, and how can anyone fail to remember that
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died because of Bush's
power tripping and greed? There are over two million internally
displaced civilians in Iraq because of this war and the recent "surge",
and about 2.5 million other Iraqi refugees who were forced to leave
their homeland because of lies on the part of the Bush administration.

I think that the Columbia University speech was either a set up to try
to make the guy look bad, and thereby help prepare the US nation
psychologically for war they don't want with Iran, or that the
university president took some serious heat (for having invited the guy
to campus) or serious bribes to have so rudely discredited their guest.

One thing for sure: Bush would never have had the guts to visit a
university in Iran under similar circumstances. Apart from the fact that
some might try to kill him, Bush has way, way more to hide than Iran's
leader. Bush is one stinkin' coward and mass murderer.

To accept the official version of 9/11 is one thing, but to not
understand the preambles to warmongering is a whole other serious
problem. Not to stop and think how the $billions spent on Iraq could
have been spent to enrich lives instead of ruin them is beyond my
comprehension. I understand that most people of Jewish descent are going
to have problems with Ahmadinejad, but as has been pointed out, even
Castro and Khrushchev got more respectful treatment on their visits to
the US., the latter a parade. No doubt the Russian leader deserved it
for the fact he began selling South West Russian crude secretly to the
US amidst a cold war, but the Iranians aren't sharing.

Arab nations' leaders enjoy respect and even protection from 9/11
prosecution because they cooperate with the US for the mutual benefits
of oil, despite atrocious human rights records towards all, including
women and homosexuals. The U.S. can't take on Russia, and it can't take
on China, so their leaders get respect, too. Human rights aside, they're
just too big. Iran's leader is being targeted because the US leaders
want their oil, they want to further fatten their war-related portfolios
by continuing with another war, they want control of Iran's strategic
waterways and connecting oil spigots from and to other nations, and they
want the dollar to remain the oil trade currency. Oh, and I almost
forgot--they need a scapegoat for failing to win the hearts and minds of
the Iraqis.

I won't take up people's time by listing the ways in which corporate
America, the US government and military have stolen from Iraqi people
and ensured future rights to their resources. 

I couldn't help but notice your postings about Swiss racial profiling.
They seemed to follow Swiss Chris's postings about the other point of
view around the Iranian leader's US visit. (Are you bearing in mind that
the US only allowed some 500 Iraqis into the country 2001-2006, and no
more than that many since the Surge?)

I hope you're aware that it is you who first brought up a topic that is
currently but barely directly related to the future of work. I recall
that once the USS Liberty topic got too hot, you took sharp reins to
steer us away from what quickly festered into a war of words. Now you
have initiated another such topic. 

Arthur, politics is an inevitable ingredient within the future of work,
and people's attitudes and beliefs are those which shape economies. Your
beliefs have fueled th

Re: [Futurework] Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

I agree and plead guilty to leading this list off track.
 
I am a co-owner of the list and have intervened in the past to prevent
precisely this.  
 
I posted the Swiss material in response to a list-member from
Switzerland who has, in the past,  flung some arrows at other countries
and how they run their affairs.  It was posted in the spirit of "people
in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"  Tempting to do on my part, but
I should have practiced restraint.
 
However I did post the material and I shouldn't have.  It led the list
astray.
 
And to the others, posting the material on the Pres. of Iran was also
off-topic and so I apologize on this account too.
 
So.thanx for the reminder.  
 
To all remaining list members let's try to stay on topic.  I will do so
and hope that others who have strongly felt views on non-FW topics will
post those views to the relevant lists.
 
All the best.
 
Arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stephen
Markan
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 10:27 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness?


While I cam see this is an important topic deserving of deep academic
debate and investigation - I  am just curious as  to how this relates to
the "purpose" of this futurework list?

I am just one of the technical drones that monitor the status of the
list and the hardware it resides on - and every once in a while I browse
the posts. 

from the listinfo page:
"FUTUREWORK: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION 

FUTUREWORK is an international e-mail forum for discussion of how to
deal with the new realities created by economic globalization and
technological change. Basic changes are occurring in the nature of work
in all industrialized countries. Information technology has hastened the
advent of the global economic village. Jobs that workers at all skill
levels in developed countries once held are now filled by smart machines
and/or in low-wage countries. Contemporary rhetoric proclaims the need
for ever-escalating competition, leaner and meaner ways of doing
business, a totally *flexible* workforce, jobless growth. 

What would a large permanent reduction in the number of secure,
adequately-waged jobs mean for communities, families and individuals?
This is not being adequately discussed, nor are the implications for
income distribution and education. Even less adequately addressed are
questions of how to take back control of these events, how to turn
technological change into the opportunity for a richer life rather than
the recipe for a bladerunner society. 

Our objective in creating this list is to involve as many people as
possible in re-designing for the new realities. We hope that this list
will help to move these issues to a prominent place on public and
political agendas worldwide. 

The FUTUREWORK list is hosted by the Faculty of Environmental Studies at
the University of Waterloo. "


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[Futurework] Swiss Expulsion Proposal Draws Criticism

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070901/D8RCI31O0.html
GENEVA (AP) - The campaign poster was blatant in its xenophobic
symbolism: Three white sheep kicking out a black sheep over a caption
that read "for more security." The message was not from a fringe force
in Switzerland's political scene but from its largest party. 
The nationalist Swiss People's Party is proposing a deportation policy
that anti-racism campaigners say evokes Nazi-era practices. Under the
plan, entire families would be expelled if their children are convicted
of a violent crime, drug offenses or benefits fraud. 
The party is trying to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to force a
referendum on the issue. If approved in a referendum, the law would be
the only one of its kind in Europe. 
"We believe that parents are responsible for bringing up their children.
If they can't do it properly, they will have to bear the consequences,"
Ueli Maurer, president of the People's Party, told The Associated Press.

Ronnie Bernheim of the Swiss Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism
said the proposal was similar to the Nazi practice of "Sippenhaft" - or
kin liability - whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for
his or her crimes and punished equally. 
Similar practices occurred during Stalin's purges in the early days of
the Soviet Union and the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution in China, when
millions were persecuted for their alleged ideological failings. 
"As soon as the first 10 families and their children have been expelled
from the country, then things will get better at a stroke," said Maurer,
whose party controls the Justice Ministry and shares power in an
unwieldy coalition that includes all major parties. 
He explained that his party has long campaigned to make deportation
compulsory for convicted immigrants rather than an optional and rarely
applied punishment. 
The party claims foreigners - who make up about 20 percent of the
population - are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss
nationals. 
Bernheim said the vast majority of Switzerland's immigrants are
law-abiding and warned against generalizations. 
"If you don't treat a complicated issue with the necessary nuance and
care, then you won't do it justice," he said. 
Commentators have expressed horror over the symbolism used by the
People's Party to make its point. 
"This way of thinking shows an obvious blood-and-soil mentality," read
one editorial in the Zurich daily Tages-Anzeiger, calling for a broader
public reaction against the campaign. 
So far, however, there has been little popular backlash against the
posters. 
"We haven't had any complaints," said Maurer. 
The city of Geneva - home to Switzerland's humanitarian traditions as
well as the European headquarters of the United Nations and the U.N.
Refugee Agency, or UNHCR - said the campaign was likely to stir up
intolerance. 
The UNHCR said the law would run contrary to the U.N. refugee
convention, of which Switzerland is a signatory. 
But observers say the People's Party's hardline stance on immigration
could help it in the Oct. 21 national elections. In 2004, the party
successfully campaigned for tighter immigration laws using the image of
black hands reaching into a pot filled with Swiss passports. 
"It's certainly no coincidence that the People's Party launched this
initiative before the elections," said Oliver Geden, a political
scientist at the Berlin Institute for International and Security
Affairs. 
He said provocative campaigns such as this had worked well for the party
in the past. 
"The symbol of the black sheep was clearly intended to have a double
meaning. On the one hand there's the familiar idea of the black sheep,
but a lot of voters are also going to associate it with the notion of
dark-skinned drug dealers," said Geden. 
The party also has put forward a proposal to ban the building of minaret
towers alongside mosques. And one of its leading figures, Justice
Minister Christoph Blocher, said he wants to soften anti-racism laws
because they prevent freedom of speech. 



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[Futurework] Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Perhaps some Swiss might look inward just a bit.
===

Switzerland: Europe's heart of darkness? 
Switzerland is known as a haven of peace and neutrality. But today it is home 
to a new extremism that has alarmed the United Nations. Proposals for draconian 
new laws that target the country's immigrants have been condemned as unjust and 
racist. A poster campaign, the work of its leading political party, is decried 
as xenophobic. Has Switzerland become Europe's heart of darkness? By Paul 
Vallely 
Published: 07 September 2007 
At first sight, the poster looks like an innocent children's cartoon. Three 
white sheep stand beside a black sheep. The drawing makes it looks as though 
the animals are smiling. But then you notice that the three white beasts are 
standing on the Swiss flag. One of the white sheep is kicking the black one off 
the flag, with a crafty flick of its back legs. 
The poster is, according to the United Nations, the sinister symbol of the rise 
of a new racism and xenophobia in the heart of one of the world's oldest 
independent democracies.
A worrying new extremism is on the rise. For the poster - which bears the 
slogan "For More Security" - is not the work of a fringe neo-Nazi group. It has 
been conceived - and plastered on to billboards, into newspapers and posted to 
every home in a direct mailshot - by the Swiss People's Party (the 
Schweizerische Volkspartei or SVP) which has the largest number of seats in the 
Swiss parliament and is a member of the country's coalition government.
With a general election due next month, it has launched a twofold campaign 
which has caused the UN's special rapporteur on racism to ask for an official 
explanation from the government. The party has launched a campaign to raise the 
100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to reintroduce into the 
penal code a measure to allow judges to deport foreigners who commit serious 
crimes once they have served their jail sentence.
But far more dramatically, it has announced its intention to lay before 
parliament a law allowing the entire family of a criminal under the age of 18 
to be deported as soon as sentence is passed.
It will be the first such law in Europe since the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft - 
kin liability - whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for their 
crimes and punished equally.
The proposal will be a test case not just for Switzerland but for the whole of 
Europe, where a division between liberal multiculturalism and a conservative 
isolationism is opening up in political discourse in many countries, the UK 
included.
SWISS TRAINS being the acme of punctuality, the appointment was very precise. I 
was to meet Dr Ulrich Schlüer - one of the men behind the draconian proposal - 
in the restaurant at the main railway station in Zürich at 7.10pm. As I made my 
way through the concourse, I wondered what Dr Schlüer made of this station of 
hyper-efficiency and cleanliness that has a smiling Somali girl selling pickled 
herring sandwiches, a north African man sweeping the floor, and a black nanny 
speaking in broken English to her young Swiss charge. The Swiss People's 
Party's attitude to foreigners is, shall we say, ambivalent.
A quarter of Switzerland's workers - one in four, like the black sheep in the 
poster - are now foreign immigrants to this peaceful, prosperous and stable 
economy with low unemployment and a per capita GDP larger than that of other 
Western economies. Zürich has, for the past two years, been named as the city 
with the best quality of life in the world.
What did the nanny think of the sheep poster, I asked her. "I'm a guest in this 
country," she replied. "It's best I don't say."
Dr Schlüer is a small affable man. But if he speaks softly he wields a big 
stick. The statistics are clear, he said, foreigners are four times more likely 
to commit crimes than Swiss nationals. "In a suburb of Zürich, a group of 
youths between 14 and 18 recently raped a 13-year-old girl," he said. "It 
turned out that all of them were already under investigation for some previous 
offence. They were all foreigners from the Balkans or Turkey. Their parents 
said these boys are out of control. We say: 'That's not acceptable. It's your 
job to control them and if you can't do that you'll have to leave'. It's a 
punishment everyone understands."
It is far from the party's only controversial idea. Dr Schlüer has launched a 
campaign for a referendum to ban the building of Muslim minarets. In 2004, the 
party successfully campaigned for tighter immigration laws using the image of 
black hands reaching into a pot filled with Swiss passports. And its leading 
figure, the Justice Minister, Christoph Blocher, has said he wants to soften 
anti-racism laws because they prevent freedom of speech.
Political opponents say it is all posturing ahead of next month's general 
election. Though deportation has been dropped from the penal code, it is s

[Futurework] that wild and crazy Ahmadinejad

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

AMERICA 
Comment Column 
The consequences of that wild and crazy Ahmadinejad 
JOHN IBBITSON 
26 September 2007The Globe and Mail 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's talk at Columbia University on Monday was so funny
it could lead to war. 
The Iranian President, who was in New York to attend the United Nations
General Assembly, accepted an invitation to speak and to take questions
at Columbia. The invitation afforded a valuable opportunity to assess
the political leader directly rather than through the filter of press
reports. 
Mr. Ahmadinejad, it turns out, is a laugh riot. When asked why his
regime executed homosexuals, he replied: "In Iran, we don't have
homosexuals, like in your country. I don't know who's told you that we
have it." 
As one wag in this office observed, there'd be no homosexuals in Canada,
either, if it were a hanging offence. 
When asked why women in Iran are deprived of fundamental human rights,
Mr. Ahmadinejad insisted the very opposite was the case. Iranian women
are so highly valued, he said, that "they are exempt from many
responsibilities. Many of the legal responsibilities rest on the
shoulders of men in our society because of the respect, culturally
given, to women." 
There's more, folks. After exalting the importance of scientific
inquiry, Mr. Ahmadinejad went on to warn that "one of the main harms
inflicted against science is to limit it to experimental and physical
sciences." Scientific research, he insisted, must be guided by purity of
spirit and submission to divine will - which explains why the Islamic
world took a pass on the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. 
And he castigated those "bullying powers" who "violate individual and
social freedoms in their own nations," who "do not respect the privacy
of their own people," and who "create an insecure psychological
atmosphere in order to justify their warmongering acts." This, from the
President of Iran? Stop, you're killing me. 
Anyone who watched that presentation with an open mind, or who listened
to Mr. Ahmadinejad's arrogant diatribe against "impious powers" at the
General Assembly yesterday, must have shared Columbia president Lee
Bollinger's "revulsion at what you stand for." And that's a problem. 
We are entering very dangerous days with Iran. Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's
insistence that his country has neither homosexuals nor a covert nuclear
weapons program, it's pretty certain that both exist. The United States
and Britain want the UN to tighten economic sanctions against Iran, and
France has gone from cringing accommodation under Jacques Chirac to
blunt confrontation under Nicolas Sarkozy. 
"There will be no peace in the world if the international community
falters in the face of nuclear arms proliferation," the French President
told the General Assembly yesterday. "Weakness and renunciation do not
lead to peace. They lead to war." Welcome back, France. 
But Russia and China continue to block tougher sanctions. One solution
might be a joint European-North American agreement on stricter trade and
financial embargoes. If Iran persists in its nuclear weapons program,
however, it will become increasingly difficult to stay the hands of the
hawks. The West mustn't, and Israel won't, ever allow people such as Mr.
Ahmadinejad to acquire nuclear capability. 
And yet, it's more complicated than that. Iran's President is only one
of several actors in the country's power structure, and not necessarily
the most powerful. There is internal opposition to the current regime;
Mr. Ahmadinejad could be removed by the voters before he is removed by
any coalition. 
If the sanctions are too oppressive, or if Israel or the West strikes
prematurely, then moderate voices in Tehran could be silenced. How do we
know the current regime isn't actually trying to incite an attack, as an
excuse to suppress domestic opposition? 
If Mr. Ahmadinejad sought, through his talks at Columbia and the UN, to
soften his personal image and to present his regime as moderate and
humane, he failed miserably. His endless evasions, circumlocutions and
occasional accidental flashes of brutality could only harden opposition
among people of goodwill to him and to his regime. 
It would be good to see the end of Mr. Ahmadinejad. It was good to see
the end of Saddam Hussein. There were consequences in that instance,
however, and there would be consequences this time, too. 
It will take wisdom in Washington and London and Paris and Berlin to
navigate between the evils of appeasement and imperialism, to contain
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without turning Iran into Iraq. 
Still, I don't know about you, but I could do without having to listen
to that man again. 

___
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[Futurework] FW: India is outsourcing jobs !!

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> Subject:  India is outsourcing jobs !!
> 
> the future of outsourcing is ''to take the work from any part of the
> world and do it in any part of the world.'' 
> 
> Outsourcing Works So Well, India Is Sending Jobs Abroad 
> By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS 
> 25 September 2007 
> The New York Times   
> MYSORE, India -- Thousands of Indians report to Infosys Technologies'
> campus here to learn the finer points of programming. Lately, though,
> packs of foreigners have been roaming the manicured lawns, too. 
> Many of them are recent American college graduates, and some have even
> turned down job offers from coveted employers like Google. Instead,
> they accepted a novel assignment from Infosys, the Indian technology
> giant: fly here for six months of training, then return home to work
> in the company's American back offices. 
> India is outsourcing outsourcing. 
> One of the constants of the global economy has been companies moving
> their tasks -- and jobs -- to India. But rising wages and a stronger
> currency here, demands for workers who speak languages other than
> English, and competition from countries looking to emulate India's
> success as a back office -- including China, Morocco and Mexico -- are
> challenging that model. 
> Many executives here acknowledge that outsourcing, having rained most
> heavily on India, will increasingly sprinkle tasks around the globe.
> Or, as Ashok Vemuri, an Infosys senior vice president, put it, the
> future of outsourcing is ''to take the work from any part of the world
> and do it in any part of the world.'' 
> To fight on the shifting terrain, and to beat back emerging rivals,
> Indian companies are hiring workers and opening offices in developing
> countries themselves, before their clients do. 
> In May, Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys's Indian rival, announced a
> new back office in Guadalajara, Mexico; Tata already has 5,000 workers
> in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Cognizant Technology Solutions, with
> most of its operations in India, has now opened back offices in
> Phoenix and Shanghai. 
> Wipro, another Indian technology services company, has outsourcing
> offices in Canada, China, Portugal, Romania and Saudi Arabia, among
> other locations. 
> And last month, Wipro said it was opening a software development
> center in Atlanta that would hire 500 programmers in three years. 
> In a poetic reflection of outsourcing's new face, Wipro's chairman,
> Azim Premji, told Wall Street analysts this year that he was
> considering hubs in Idaho and Virginia, in addition to Georgia, to
> take advantage of American ''states which are less developed.''
> (India's per capita income is less than $1,000 a year.) 
> For its part, Infosys is building a whole archipelago of back offices
> -- in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Thailand and China, as well as
> low-cost regions of the United States. 
> The company seeks to become a global matchmaker for outsourcing: any
> time a company wants work done somewhere else, even just down the
> street, Infosys wants to get the call. 
> It is a peculiar ambition for a company that symbolizes the flow of
> tasks from the West to India. 
> Most of Infosys's 75,000 employees are Indians, in India. They account
> for most of the company's $3.1 billion in sales in the year that ended
> March 31, from work for clients like Bank of America and Goldman
> Sachs.
> ''India continues to be the No. 1 location for outsourcing,'' S.
> Gopalakrishnan, the company's chief executive, said in a telephone
> interview. 
> And yet the company opened a Philippines office in August and, a month
> earlier, bought back offices in Thailand and Poland from Royal Philips
> Electronics, the Dutch company. In each outsourcing hub, local
> employees work with little help from Indian managers. 
> Infosys says its outsourcing experience in India has taught it to
> carve up a project, apportion each slice to suitable workers,
> double-check quality and then export a final, reassembled product to
> clients. The company argues it can clone its Indian back offices in
> other nations and groom Chinese, Mexican or Czech employees to be more
> productive than local outsourcing companies could make them. 
> ''We have pioneered this movement of work,'' Mr. Gopalakrishnan said.
> ''These new countries don't have experience and maturity in doing
> that, and that's what we're taking to these countries.'' 
> Some analysts compare the strategy to Japanese penetration of auto
> manufacturing in the United States in the 1970s. Just as the Japanese
> learned to make cars in America without Japanese workers, Indian
> vendors are learning to outsource without Indians, said Dennis
> McGuire, chairman of TPI, a Texas-based outsourcing consultancy. 
> Though work that bypasses India remains a small part of the Infosys
> business, it is growing. The company can be highly secretive, but
> executives agreed to describe some of the new projects on the
> condition that clients not be identifie

[Futurework] Mid-income earners stuck in neutral

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Re: Canada
==
National News 
Mid-income earners are stuck in neutral 
25 September 2007 
The Globe and Mail   
MONTREAL -- Decades of economically buoyant times have failed to drive
up the fortunes of middle-income Canadians, who have found their average
earnings stalled, a new study indicates. 
Fresh Statistics Canada figures show "the rich are getting richer,"
several economists interviewed yesterday said, yet most of their good
fortune hasn't found its way to vast numbers of working Canadians. 
After two decades of overall economic expansion, the top 5 per cent of
earners saw average incomes leap from $133,000 to $178,000. During the
same period, earners in the middle of the pack saw average incomes
frozen at $25,000, with family incomes nudging up slightly from $42,000
and $43,000. 
"People in the middle have genuine reason to be puzzled about where
these benefits from economic growth are," McGill University economist
Christopher Ragan said. 
"People who are not rich - those in the middle - got no more in real
terms in 20 years. The real purchasing power of the average guy in the
middle hasn't gone up in that time." 
"The concern from Canada's point of view is that income growth is not
even." 
Statscan used tax returns and survey data to track income from 1982 to
2004. Results are adjusted to 2004 dollars. 
The period witnessed "substantial" growth in the average income of the
richest Canadians, the agency found. "These increases, for the most
part, were not paralleled in lower parts of the income spectrum." 
Some economists said the figures indicate Canada has failed to see its
prosperity shared equally down the income scale. 
"We're told we should be grateful for the rich around us, and the result
would be a trickle-down effect," said Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and
research fellow the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "That would
be terrific if it weren't for the sponges at the top." 
Over all, Statscan's study focused on those on the top of the economic
heap. It found that, compared with the United States, the club of
high-income earners is easier to join in Canada than it is in the Unites
States. 
About $89,000 catapults a Canadian into the country's top 5 per cent of
individual earners, compared with a minimum of $165,000 in the U.S. 
The threshold to pierce the highest 0.01 per cent of earners in Canada
was just over $2.8-million. In the U.S., it was $9.4-million. 
Those who fit into Canada's high-earning world can be found in some
predictable places, including the Alberta oil patch. Calgary leads
cities with a higher-than-average share of families with incomes over
$250,000, followed by Toronto, Hamilton and Vancouver. 
Three quarters of high-income Canadians are men, mostly in their
preretirement years. Almost half of the wealthiest income earners live
in Ontario. 
"We've known the rich are getting richer, but we know more about who
these people are," said economist Brian Murphy, the lead author of the
study. "They're middle-aged married men living mostly in Alberta and
Ontario." 
Women are vaulting into the clan of the Canadian rich, too. While
females made up only one in seven top income earners in 1982, their
share grew to one in four by 2004. "Women are sharing in high incomes in
a way they haven't in the past," Mr. Murphy said. 
Still, some economists didn't find cause for celebration, saying the
figures for low- and middle-income earners are troubling. 
"People have been playing by the rules and they're being left behind,"
said Ms. Yalnizyan. "Since 1982, people have been told to work hard, get
better educated, improve productivity and grow the economy. Checklist
done. 
"Yet most of the population has gone nowhere. When 80 per cent don't get
a piece of the pie, there's trouble in paradise." 

___
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Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
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[Futurework] Has the Jump In Wages Met Its End?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

By David Leonhardt
12 September 2007 
The New York Times   

ECONOMIC SCENE 
Business/Financial Desk; SECTC 
Has the Jump In Wages Met Its End? 
When Americans think about their lives in relation to the past, they are
decidedly upbeat. In resounding numbers -- regardless of whether the
economy is in a boom or a bust, whether the country is at war or peace
-- they tell pollsters that they live better than their parents did. And
there is good reason for the good cheer: People live longer today than
past generations did; they're healthier while alive; they're more
educated; they're richer; and they face less discrimination. 
But when the discussion is about the future, the national mood darkens.
In one typical poll from last year, only 34 percent of people said they
expected today's children to be better off than people are now, down
from 55 percent when a similar question was asked in 1999. So while
Americans are generally pleased with their lot in life today, they're
anxious about the future. 
It's in this context that most people may want to think about last
week's bad employment report from the Labor Department. Professional
economists are now trying to figure out whether the unexpected loss of
jobs in August means that a recession is on the way or whether the
decline was just a blip that will soon be reversed. Wall Street puts the
odds of a recession at around one in three, which -- given Wall Street's
penchant for rosy forecasts -- means the odds are probably closer to one
in two. 
In an earlier time, the recession question would have been the one that
mattered most for typical American families. The answer would have meant
the difference between getting continued raises above inflation and
being forced to take an effective pay cut. But something important has
changed since the 1970s. A growing economy, by itself, is no longer
enough to bring solid pay increases, which are in turn the lifeblood of
rising living standards. We now seem to need a major boom. 
As Lawrence Katz, the labor economist and Harvard professor, says,
''What's striking about the last few decades is that unless the labor
market is really, really tight, we don't see widespread benefits like we
did in the past.'' 
If you look at the chart above, you'll notice that inflation-adjusted
wages fell throughout most of the 1980s, even though the overall economy
was growing nicely. It took the boom (and bubble) of the 1990s to get
real wages rising. By the time its effects had fully worn off, in about
2003, pay began stagnating again, despite good economic growth. 
Only in the last year did the current expansion get strong enough to
deliver real pay increases. And for all the talk about how inequality
has grown under President Bush -- which it has -- the gains for ordinary
workers in late 2006 were truly impressive. For a few months, wages were
growing as fast as they had been in the roaring 1990s. 
The problem is that, as far as most families are concerned, the modern
economy has little room for error. It has to be firing on almost all
cylinders -- adding something like 200,000 jobs a month for at least a
couple of consecutive years -- before employers feel competitive
pressure to pay their workers more. 
Even if the economy does bounce back from the mortgage crisis, almost no
economist is expecting sustained monthly gains of 200,000 jobs anytime
soon. In fact, the housing slump was already causing job and wage growth
to weaken before stocks dropped last month. In both June and July, the
economy added fewer than 70,000 jobs and in August, it lost 4,000, the
first loss in four years. 
Going forward, the debate is between those who see a continued slowdown
and those who see a recession. In either case, wages will probably keep
rising for a while because it takes time for a weakening job market to
affect paychecks. Sometime soon, though, most workers can probably say
goodbye to healthy raises. 
By now, the reasons that middle-class pay increases are so hard to come
by will sound familiar. Technology lets computers do jobs that people
once did, and it also allows jobs to be done in low-wage countries on
the other side of the globe. As a result, workers, save for the most
skilled, have less bargaining power. These trends can't be reversed. 
What's disappointing is that the political response to the changes has
been so limp. If anything, government has probably made the situation
worse. 
Just look at schools. Every successive generation over the last century
has been more educated than the previous one, measured by the average
level of educational attainment. But the gains for men have stopped in
recent decades, and for women they have slowed to a crawl, Mr. Katz
notes. 
The United States, the world's leader in producing college graduates 25
years ago, has fallen behind South Korea, Norway and the Netherlands.
Our lead over Japan, Australia, England and Canada has shrunk. 
Remember that this has happened over a 25-year span in which the
economic be

Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Viruses anybody?

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Weltschmerz -- sadness on thinking about the evils of the world 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz
 
might also be relevant.
 
 
arthur 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ed Weick
Sent: Sun 9/2/2007 10:12 AM
To: futurework
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Viruses anybody?


I've been doing something dangerous, going through stuff I had stored on old 
floppies and zips to see if anything of interest is on them.  I do find the odd 
thing, like the following which I wrote in 1996 and sent to the Futurework 
list, a very good list at the time.  Read it if you feel like it, but delete if 
don't.  Even though I call it a short essay, it's quite long.
 
I don't quite recall where I got the idea of viruses, but it wasn't from 
Richard Dawkins.  I hadn't yet encountered his viruses of the mind or "memes".  
 
Ed


 
A Short Essay on Viruses

Some recent postings have raised the fascinating topic of the effect of disease 
on history. Recurrent pandemics such as bubonic plague, cholera, typhus and 
influenza have played an enormous role in defining the course taken by peoples 
for several centuries thereafter. Syphilis has brought dynasties to ruin. The 
viruses or bacteria which were at issue affected physical health. I would 
suggest that another type of virus, a intellectual one, has been at least 
equally potent in shaping human history. As an entity, we can think of it as 
something like a computer virus - as something which does not take the shape of 
an organism, but which is transmittable from person to person nevertheless.

What does this intellectual virus do? Just as biophysical viruses sicken the 
body, it sickens and immobilizes the mind. It numbs and dulls human potential, 
and plunges people into states of pessimism, meanness and despair.

The impact of this virus varies from civilization to civilization, and from era 
to era. The Aztecs have recently been mentioned on this list. Some years ago I 
did some reading on the Aztecs, and one of the things I recall is that, for 
many years before the coming of Cortez, the Aztecs were in a state of deep 
pessimism. They felt their world to be ending. I believe it had something to do 
with their calendar, a human invention which they invested with cosmic powers. 
When Cortez finally came along, they were immobilized to the point of not being 
able to do anything about him and his small army. However, the facts of 
smallpox and rebellion by peoples the Aztecs had subjugated did not help.

Another example of the virus comes from the 11th to 14th Century Europe.  Led 
by activist thinkers such as Peter Abelard, and fed by the accessibility of 
Arabic and Classical material, the 11th Century witnessed an increasing 
secularization of the Christian world, and an explosion of initiatives toward a 
more rational theology, which laid the foundations for the development of 
science. Heretical liberally-religious groups such as the Waldensians and 
Cathers sprang up and found fertile ground among intellectuals who had been 
long dominated by oppressive Catholicism. It was not long, however, before the 
virus set in. The very foundations of the Church were threatened. The Church 
moved to suppress the liberalizing influences in whatever way seemed necessary. 
People such as Abelard were isolated. Heretics were burned at the stake. 
Finally, in 1277, the Pope issued a statement on where the church stood on the 
matter of faith versus reason. If you wanted openness and reason, you could not 
have it in the Church and the Church was very much in control.

Now, some will argue that there was no virus at all, that all that happened was 
that the dominant power structure, the Catholic Church, had been challenged and 
had retaliated. But that was not all that there was to it. The drama played 
itself out over two Centuries, and it would appear that for much of that time 
the Church had been tolerant of what was going on, and even encouraging. Anselm 
of Canterbury, 1030-1109, who lived at the beginning of the so-called "Twelfth 
Century Awakening", was an early rationalist. Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, was 
condoned by the Church for a considerable part of his life as a teacher. But 
what gradually happened was something of a slow "gathering of dark forces", to 
use a Tolkien-like image.

The growing virus of the intellect was aided and abetted by natural disasters 
and real biophysical viruses which reinforced the vengeful power of God. 
Between 1315-1317 Europe was devastated by a "hideous famine".  Adverse trends 
in climate which had begun in the 13th Century culminated in appalling weather 
conditions which led to an "medieval economic depression" which continued to 
have effects to the beginning of the Renaissance. And, of course, 1347 brought 
the Black Death. 

What does all this have to do with the world of today? Some years ago, Barbara 
Tuchman held the world of the 14th Centu

Re: [Futurework] Fw: More on money, money, money!

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Or we could try a Tobin tax.  This would slow down speculation while generating 
income for "good works."
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Darryl or Natalia
Sent: Sat 9/1/2007 3:10 PM
To: Ed Weick
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: More on money, money, money!


Good point below about single currency reducing currency speculation. That 
would scale back, in perpetuity, fictitious profits made from baseless profits. 
Would definitely upset the wealth of the top .01% by $3-500 trillion annually. 
Too good an idea, Ed.
Natalia 


ED: "I'd have to think about it some more, but one law I might set if I were 
chief global law-giver is that you cannot speculate on currency.  Of course, if 
there were a single currency you couldn't bet on its value against other 
currencies.  All you could bet on is whether is whether it's going to maintain 
its value from day to day."


Ed Weick wrote:


I meant the following to go to Futurework as well as Natalia.
 
Ed
 
- Original Message - 
From: Ed Weick   
To: Darryl or Natalia   
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] More on money, money, money!

Good morning, Natalia
 
I believe one has to think of currency as something that facilitates 
the flow of goods and services in an economy, nothing more.  Life is ever so 
much easier with it than without it.  But to have it and use it means that you 
have to have some very firm rules around it, such as rules that maintain its 
value relative to goods and services and that ensure that its value does not 
change too rapidly.  To have such rules you need a stable and authoritative 
institutional infrastructure, like a strong, well-staffed central bank and a 
set of laws about what you can and can't do with money.  You also need ways of 
avoiding and handling whammo events like the sub-prime meltdown in the US.  
There could, I suppose, be a single global currency system, but whether it 
worked or not would depend greatly on whether there was global acceptance and 
agreement about its rules and institutions.  If Robert Magabwe didn't want to 
play by the rules, I suppose it really wouldn't matter, but if China or the US 
decided not to, it would matter greatly.
 
I'd have to think about it some more, but one law I might set if I were 
chief global law-giver is that you cannot speculate on currency.  Of course, if 
there were a single currency you couldn't bet on its value against other 
currencies.  All you could bet on is whether is whether it's going to maintain 
its value from day to day.
 
The euro is a good example of single currency used by a number of 
countries over a wide geographic area, but bringing the euro into existence 
required a lot of work and a lot of agreement by EU countries.  It was not an 
easy job, but it seems to have worked.
 
Ed
 

- Original Message - 
From: Darryl or Natalia   
To: Ed Weick   
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] More on money, money, money!

Hi Ed,

I wasn't sure whether you thought single currency was a good 
thing, or yet another reason to acquire gold for fear it will come to pass.

McKenna's idealistic views would be worth thinking about if 
there were such a thing as true global value or meaning to said standard 
currency. This particular perspective reflects someone's ideal Western version 
of value, which has no basis of fairness to it whatsoever, here or in 
Mauritius, but as history has shown, a single currency ensures that those who 
have most of it benefit from its sole distribution. Iraq tried the more 
beneficial Euro for oil currency until Bush 43 declared the end of major combat 
in his takeover war, and switched the oil currency back to the dollar because, 
thereby, imperial US could indirectly continue to tax Iraq, just as Rome did 
all other nations in its single currency conquered world.

Countless examples of fictional wealth tabulated by computers 
as money have flooded the collective of recognized assets, but still maintain 
very questionable value. The most outstanding example is, once again, that of 
currency markets profits. Money made off of global gambling on various nations' 
currency values have far exceeded in one day the sum total of the US annual 
GDP. A loss of $3.3 trillion Defense budget to US taxpayers is not even 
investigated. The money was either honestly made or not, and which designation 
determines the value or loss? If it is ever recovered, w

[Futurework] IBM and vacations

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, Or Maybe No Vacation at All 
31 August 2007 
The New York Times   
SOMERS, N.Y. -- It's every worker's dream: take as much vacation time as
you want, on short notice, and don't worry about your boss calling you
on it. Cut out early, make it a long weekend, string two weeks together
-- as you like. No need to call in sick on a Friday so you can disappear
for a fishing trip. Just go; nobody's keeping track. 
That is essentially what goes on at I.B.M., one of the cornerstones of
corporate America, where each of the 355,000 workers is entitled to
three or more weeks of vacation. The company does not keep track of who
takes how much time or when, does not dole out choice vacation times by
seniority and does not let people carry days off from year to year. 
Instead, for the past few years, employees at all levels have made
informal arrangements with their direct supervisors, guided mainly by
their ability to get their work done on time. Many people post their
vacation plans on electronic calendars that colleagues can view online,
and they leave word about how they can be reached in a pinch. 
''It's like when you went to college and you didn't have high school
teachers nagging you anymore,'' said Mark L. Hanny, I.B.M.'s vice
president of independent software vendor alliances. ''Employees like
that we put more accountability on them.'' 
But the flip side of flexibility, at least at I.B.M., is peer pressure.
Mr. Hanny and other I.B.M. employees, including his assistant, Shari
Chiara, say that they frequently check their e-mail and voice mail
messages while on vacation. Bosses sometimes ask subordinates to cancel
days off to meet deadlines. 
Some workplace experts say such continued blurring of the boundaries
between work and play can overtax employees and lead to health problems,
particularly at companies where there is an expectation that everyone is
always on call. 
''If leadership never takes time off, people will be skeptical whether
they can,'' said Kim Stattner of Hewitt Associates, a human resources
consultant. ''There is the potential for a domino effect.'' 
Frances Schneider, who retired from an I.B.M. sales division last year,
after 34 years, said one thing never changed; there was not one year in
which she took all her allotted time off. 
''It wasn't seven days a week, but people ended up putting in longer
hours because of all the flexibility, without really thinking about
it,'' Ms. Schneider said. ''Although you had this wonderful freedom to
take days when you want, you really couldn't. I.B.M. tends to be a group
of workaholics.'' 
I.B.M. officials said they have no idea whether workers take more or
fewer days off now than before, and have not studied the policy's effect
on efficiency. 
But they point to employee surveys showing that the self-directed work
and vacation policy is one of the top three reasons workers choose to
stay there. 
''Change is change,'' said Richard Calo, vice president of global
workforce relations. ''We had some initial questioning of it. But at the
end of the day, you remember how much time you spent. This wasn't a
difficult sell.'' 
Mr. Calo, the human resources chief, said that the open-ended vacation
policy is ''not a total license to do whatever you want to do,'' and
that workers are expected to produce quality work, even if the company
is not paying attention to when or where they complete it. 
The hands-off approach to vacation time, which gradually took hold over
the past decade, has come amid I.B.M.'s shift from engineering and
manufacturing into services like consulting and is part of a broader
demise of old notions of eight hours' pay for eight hours' work at a
fixed location. 
Aided by broadband connections, cellphones and video conferencing
software, 40 percent of I.B.M.'s employees have no dedicated offices,
working instead at home, at a client's site, or at one of the company's
hundreds of ''e-mobility centers'' around the world, where workers drop
in to use phones, Internet connections and other resources. 
Long a trendsetter in human resources -- it began offering family leave
in the 1950s -- I.B.M. is probably the largest company to do away so
completely with tracking vacation, although a number of newer, smaller
firms have similar policies. 
Best Buy has introduced a program called Results Oriented Work
Environment for its 4,000 corporate employees, giving them freedom to do
their jobs without regard to the hours they put in daily. 
Motley Fool, the online investment adviser, has, since its founding 13
years ago, let employees take as many paid vacation or sick days as they
need; the company's director of human resources, Lee Burbage, said that
most of its 180 workers take three to four weeks a year. Netflix, the
online DVD distributor, no longer allots specific numbers of vacation
days to its 400 salaried employees. 
''When you have a work force of fully formed professionals who have been
working for much of their life,'' Patty 

Re: [Futurework] Modernizing the market economy

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

1. some people like to "go to work".  they would prefer to be employed,
work all day and leave the work site and do something different at the
end of the day.  they would prefer to not think about their work in
their off-hours.
 
2. not everyone is able to become entrepreneurial with the ability to
"brand " themselves and market their services effectively.
 
3. there may still be asymmetry in the power relations as individuals
team up to market themselves.  If A teams with B that is one thing, if A
teams with General Electric then the asymmetry is obvious.  
 
4. It occurred to me that a self-employed prostitute who enjoyed his/her
activities would fit well in a modernized market economy as described.
 
5. still the idea of moving away from the employee-employer relationship
is a good idea as long as this doesn't increase other more subtle forms
of exploitation by the powerful.
 
6. the trade union movement is in decline.  it has served a purpose in
the industrial model.  perhaps there is a role for more modernized trade
union or for some sort of tribunal to intervene as a dispute resolution
mechanism when misunderstandings occur.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gail
Stewart
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 10:13 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] Modernizing the market economy


The Future of Work

Modernizing the Market Economy

1. Human relations

Draft 1.0. Comments would be appreciated.

  

1. Our future is deeply uncertain: plausible possibilities --
environmental, social, economic, cultural -- range widely.

 

2. In such circumstances, each of us, in preparing for future work,
might best engage also in risk containment by acquiring and sustaining
versatile capabilities including skills in teamwork.

 

3. A major a society-wide initiative may be desirable however to address
an existing risk -- the prevailing lag within the market economy in
modernizing its structures of human relationships.

 

4. The structures of human relationships in the economy have not kept
pace with the personal, social and political enfranchisement prevailing
in the surrounding society.

 

5. This failure not only affects the economy, heightening discontent
within it, but adversely affects the broader matter of social and
political stability and flexibility

 

6. The lag also adversely affects the health and productivity of
participants at all levels in the economy and the productivity of the
economy itself.

 

7. A major step toward the modernization of human relations was taken
two hundred years ago by the abolition of slavery in Great Britain,
thanks to William Wilberforce and others who led the campaign against
the slave trade.

 

8. A similar major step toward a modernization of human relations is
currently overdue: the abolition of employment, i.e., of situations
where one person works "for" rather than "with" another, each freely
self-governing as they already are in their capacity as citizens.

 

9. Many participants in the current market economy, perhaps as many as
25%, already work as independent contractors including senior executives
who, almost universally, have already made this transition. 

 

10. Such emancipation is however more difficult and costly to achieve at
the individual personal or corporate level and might be more readily
accomplished through mutual society-wide agreement that the employment
of one person by another should end.

 

11. This suggests that a campaign against the employment trade, toward
universal emancipation from employment, might be timely.

 

12. The abolition of employment could usefully be accompanied by public
policies supportive of the new working conditions, increasing their
benefit to the economy and to the participants involved.

 

13. The abolition of employment (and with it the roles of employer and
employee) and the resulting greater flexibility and dignity in the world
of work may be expected, over time, to change the perception of "work." 

 

14. Commonly perceived today as a functional disutility, work may become
a social and personal practice, a developmental element in the lives of
each of us as we more entrepreneurially allocate our personal resources
of time and energy and skills. 

 

15. Co-evolving within and among ourselves and with our social and
natural environment with greater human dignity than is now involved in
being either an "employer" or "employee" (both roles being now rather
embarrassing, a sure sign of their passing, their growing decadence), we
will also better enabled to develop our human capacities. 

 

16. Similarly, our shared hopes may better prosper, for life, liberty
and happiness, peace, order and good government, etc., and our
capacities to function as citizens responsible for our own
self-governance and for our governments.  

 

17. Who will step up to become today's Wilberforces: it will not be
easy, e.g., can the economy survive without empl

Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Money as Debt

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

I agree with Ed.  In effect money is created by the banking systme
(based on reserve ratios, etc.)  
 
But I have always liked the following definition of money:  Money is
what money does.  (In this way money is like information)
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 11:25 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Ottawadissenters] Money as Debt


The following are my comments on Paul Grignon's Money as Debt,
http://tinyurl.com/2uoexg   .  You might want
to view the video before reading the comments.  But be warned, it takes
about 45 minutes.
 
What I felt about the video is that it oversimplifies.  As well as being
debt when issued to a borrower by a bank, it is a medium of exchange.  I
bought an ice-cream cone the other day.  It was a very simple
transaction, but it would have been immensely complicated if I had no
money with me and had to find something tangible to give the vendor.
Better to go to my wallet, pull out a little fiat money, receive both
the cone and a little certificate that says I'm now the cone's owner,
and walk away and enjoy the ice-cream.
 
A point that the video does not make, but should, is that there are good
banking systems and bad (or not so good) banking systems, and there are
governments that are able of enforce sound banking and governments that
either cannot or may not want to.  While nothing is ever perfect, I'm
glad that I can access the Canadian banking system and not the
Zimbabwean banking system.  When I was in Russia in 1995, the banking
system and everything else was in chaos.  The ruble had fallen from
parity with the US$ to 500 rubles to the $.  This is not to say that the
value of the Canadian $ hasn't changed.  It has, but slowly enough to
permit most people to adjust.  When I was a student back in the 1950s I
spent my summers working on the log booms on the BC coast.  I was a top
rate boom man, earning $2.12 an hour!!  If I were a boom man now, my
union would have ensured that I would be getting many times that amount.
However, $2.12 was good enough in the 1950s.  It enabled me to earn
enough money to pay for my tuition, room and board and beer back then.
 
What I'm arguing is that a modern economy, to thrive, requires a soundly
administered banking system based on fiat money.  It is far to complex
and diverse to rely on digging up gold, on LETS or on single source
money such as government expenditures.  And yes, there will be abuses
but we have to live with them.  IMHO, people aren't moral by nature.
They're moral only if they have to be.  Getting back to Moscow in the
1990s, the place was in chaos because the rules under which people had
lived for some six or seven decades had fallen away.  People like the
nomenklatura and the oligarchs got very rich; everybody else got very
poor.  What Putin and his ex-KGB associates have done is imposed new
rules, step by step.
 
The video, via some of the quotes it uses, suggests a conspiracy
involving bankers, politicians and others in a position of power.  Well,
yes, that is likely the case.  Wherever there are gains to be made and
advantages to be taken, conspiratorial relations develop.  I've just
read John Perkin's "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" which documents
quite a few of them (truthfully, I hope).  So what.  We live with, and
try to improve, whatever we've got.  And when it comes to the monetary
system, I would far rather have ours than Zimbabwe's.
 
Ed
 
 

__._,_.___
 



SPONSORED LINKS 
Social science book

Online social science degree
 Social science course

Re: [Futurework] Four sentences and a request

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

And mixed into this in a display of cynicism is the declaration of Green 
production as being good for all.  Good for business and good for consumers. 
(as long as it doesn't negatively affect GDP.)



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Thu 8/16/2007 8:02 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Four sentences and a request



The future of work in 3 sentences, from a Producer/Predator perspective:


Producers will continue to solve the production problem, although that's
becoming harder because Predators continue to sabotage the distribution
problem and mess up the bases & preconditions of production.

Worse, the armageddonist branch of Predators will probably precipitate
wars and crises so badly that we'll return to the trees (if there'll be
any trees left) on which we would have been sitting all those millennia
if it wasn't for Producers.

To avoid that sorry retro outcome, the immediate future of work should
focus on disempowering the Predators before it will be too late, with
the first step of seeing thru mega-fraudulent schemes like "Free Trade"
and the "War on Terror".


Chris




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Re: [Futurework] China has US by the balls

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

This could be a global financial market version of MAD (mutually assured 
destruction)   Both China and the US would lose from this.  All China has to do 
is sit tight and they will be able to pick up all the poker chips.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Thu 8/9/2007 6:33 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] China has US by the balls



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/07/bcnchina10
7a.xml

China Threatens "Nuclear Option" of Dollar Sales

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Telegraph UK
Wednesday 08 August 2007

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of
economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may
liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes
trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given
interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that
Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as
a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think
tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such
action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency
is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US
housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It
is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre
(which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be
government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign
reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in
the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the
power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big
sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds,
contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar
as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other
countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's
exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central
bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated
dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the
dollar," he told China Daily.

The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of
Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to
prevent America being "held hostage to economic decisions being
made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo."

She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had
left America acutely vulnerable.

Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York
Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as
Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.

"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear
political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time
when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the
subprime troubles," he said.

A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the
Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese
goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.

The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last
two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise
of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.

Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, said any such
sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a
global cycle of protectionist legislation."

Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman
Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to
win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last
week aimed at calming the waters.




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Re: [Futurework] Corn-Ethanol Craze Raises Farmland Prices

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

And food prices will follow.
 
arthur



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Thu 8/9/2007 5:15 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] Corn-Ethanol Craze Raises Farmland Prices



http://www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20070808-1900-bc-us-farmland.xml


Farmland prices soar amid ethanol interest

DEKALB, Ill., Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Interest in corn-based ethanol is driving up
farmland prices in states including Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois, where
farmland sells for $5,000 an acre.

The $5,000 average in Illinois is a vast increase from $3,000 in 2002, The
New York Times reported Wednesday. An 80-acre DeKalb, Ill., corn and
soybean farm recently sold for $10,000 an acre at an auction. It was
purchased for $32,000 in 1962.

Jason Henderson, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City,
Neb., said land values in his state rose 17 percent in the first quarter of
this year over the same time last year.

"Right now, a lot are still betting that corn-based ethanol will be around
a while," said Michael Duffy, a farm economist at Iowa State University.

However, some in the farm industry say the rising price of land is damaging
to farmers.

Paul Burrs, who farms about 400 acres near Dixon, Ill., said he bids
constantly on farmland but regularly loses to higher bidders.

"It's extremely frustrating," he said. "I crunch the numbers and go as high
as I can. But then that's it. There's nothing more I can do."




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[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

@ 1:10 pm aug. 15
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[Futurework] Vacation Deflation: Breaks Get Shorter

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

Vacation Deflation: Breaks Get Shorter --- 
Work Demands Edge Out Classic Weeklong Holiday; A Business Trip With
Kids 
15 August 2007 
The Wall Street Journal   
When Jacqueline Platt goes on a trip to Barcelona next month, she plans
to hit the beach, eat tapas, see the sights and party until 5 a.m. The
hard part: She has to squeeze it all into one weekend. 
"Everyone's telling me I'm crazy," says Ms. Platt, a 26-year-old account
executive at PJ Inc., a public-relations firm in New York. Two years
ago, when she was an executive assistant at another firm, she took a
week off to go to London -- but her schedule doesn't allow for such
luxuries anymore. She plans to take a red-eye flight on Thursday, return
to New York on Monday, and work a full day Tuesday. "To be out of the
loop for a full week is really hard," she says. 
The leisurely summer vacation -- long considered a chance for employees
to break away from work for at least a full week, if not two -- has
fallen out of favor. Instead, many people are opting to break their
vacation time into long weekends, say researchers who track vacation
patterns. Some employees are even combining their vacations with two- to
three-day business trips to avoid being away from work at all. 
"There are no more 'off' switches in life," says Peter Rose, a partner
at consumer-research company Yankelovich Inc., based in Chapel Hill,
N.C. "We may sleep, but our in-boxes don't. It's made it tougher for
people to walk away for long periods of time for anything." 
A full 35% of employed U.S. adults aren't taking all the vacation days
they get for the year, inching up from 33% last year, according to
Expedia.com's annual Vacation Deprivation survey. Only 14% plan to take
off a full two-week vacation this year, down from 16% last year. 
The trend has picked up as the work force has grown leaner. These days,
many employers don't hire temporary help to replace salaried workers
while they are gone, says George Faulkner, a principal at Mercer Human
Resource Consulting's health and benefits practice. Employees often work
on multiple projects and report to more than one manager, making it more
difficult to get vacation dates approved. 
Another factor: Growth in the number of dual-income couples has made it
harder for people to coordinate their vacations, consultants and firms
who track vacation trends say. Last year, more than 40% of
married-couple families were dual-income, compared with about 35% in
1977, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
To be sure, younger employees use their vacation time differently -- a
trend that could alter the work environment over time. According to
Yankelovich's annual Monitor survey of consumer trends, more working
Generation Xers -- which the company defined as those born between 1965
and 1978 -- than baby boomers use all their vacation time. "Generation X
is more balance-focused," says Mr. Rose of Yankelovich. "That means not
living their lives in the office." 
But for the most part, employees in the U.S. are reluctant to take
breaks. "I think we've moved into the era of the long weekend," says
John Challenger, chief executive of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &
Christmas Inc. He says people are generally more insecure about their
jobs now. 
Some workers are even combining their family vacations with business
trips. When Shirish Lal, 40 years old, travels for work, he occasionally
brings his family along. His wife and children joined him for a weekend
in New Orleans recently. Mr. Lal, vice president of marketing for
telecommunications provider CenturyTel Inc. in Monroe, La., gets two
weeks a year, plus holidays. But "it's tough to get away from work," he
says. Even when he is gone, he stays plugged in through email and his
cellphone. "It's hard to disconnect, and it's not worth it," he says. 
To be sure, BlackBerrys have made it easier to stay plugged into work
from afar -- but "for many, it is a stop-gap measure," says
Yankelovich's Mr. Rose. "It still doesn't replace being in the office,
being on the call, being in the meeting." 
For many employees, the thought of coming back to a full in-box and
answering machine makes leaving the office a challenge. "I have lots of
vacation time, but working for an elected official, it's difficult to
find a good stopping point," says Blanca Madriz, 30, a legislative
assistant in the office of Texas Rep. Veronica Gonzales (D., McAllen). 
The last time she took a long vacation was four years ago, when she took
a two-week trip to Guadalajara, Mexico, for her grandparents' wedding
anniversary. Now she takes only extended weekends and prefers to stay
inside Texas, visiting cities such as Houston and Brenham. "We're a
small staff, so taking two weeks off just puts a huge burden on everyone
else," Ms. Madriz says. 
In a push to go after regional markets, the travel industry is offering
more options geared toward people who are looking for a quick trip,
either by car or short flight, says Cathy Keefe, spokeswom

[Futurework] FW: Infomania

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> __ 
> From:     Cordell, Arthur: ECOM  
> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 4:40 PM
> To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject:  Infomania
> 
> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/zeldes/index.html
> Infomania: Why we can't afford to ignore it any longer
> <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/zeldes/index.html> 
> by Nathan Zeldes, David Sward, and Sigal Louchheim
> Infomania is the mental state of continuous stress and distraction
> caused by the combination of queued messaging overload and incessant
> interruptions.
> 
> The combination of e-mail overload and interruptions is widely
> recognized as a major disrupter of knowledge worker productivity and
> quality of life, yet few organizations take serious action against it.
> This paper makes the case that this action should be a high priority,
> by analyzing the severe impact of the problem in both qualitative and
> quantitative terms. We attempt to provide sufficient supporting data
> from the scientific literature and from corporate surveys to enable
> change agents to make the case and convince their organizations to
> authorize such action
> 
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[Futurework] test

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

at 7:15 pm
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[Futurework] Infomania

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/zeldes/index.html
Infomania: Why we can't afford to ignore it any longer
 
by Nathan Zeldes, David Sward, and Sigal Louchheim
Infomania is the mental state of continuous stress and distraction
caused by the combination of queued messaging overload and incessant
interruptions.

The combination of e-mail overload and interruptions is widely
recognized as a major disrupter of knowledge worker productivity and
quality of life, yet few organizations take serious action against it.
This paper makes the case that this action should be a high priority, by
analyzing the severe impact of the problem in both qualitative and
quantitative terms. We attempt to provide sufficient supporting data
from the scientific literature and from corporate surveys to enable
change agents to make the case and convince their organizations to
authorize such action

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[Futurework] FW: Newsletter August 2007

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

 this may be of interest to some.

-Original Message-
From: Pari Center for New Learning [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Friday, August 3, 2007 12:57 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Subject: Newsletter August 2007


Pari Center for New Learning - Newsletter August 2007


In this edition:

- Course: Art Science and the Sacred
- International Conference: Towards a New Renaissance
- New Workshop: Poetry and Short-Story Writing
- Courses offered in 2008
- Internet-based Courses
- Pari Network Website


The purpose of this newsletter is to give information about
future courses at the Pari Center and a conference that will be
held this October.



===
 COURSE: ART, SCIENCE AND THE SACRED
===

A few places are still available on this course running 6-12
September, 2007. It is given by David Peat and explores, amongst
other topics, the role of the sacred within the arts, the
relationship between the sciences and the arts and the role of
belief and a sense of the sacred in the lives of scientists.

For more information see
http://www.paricenter.com/programs/courses/artscisacred2.php



===
 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: TOWARDS A NEW RENAISSANCE 2
===

The Classical Renaissance vision that "man is the measure of all
things" is being replaced by a view of the human being as a
cosmic spiritual being involved in an act of co-creation with
the cosmos. The Scientific and Medical Network and the Pari
Center for New Learning are organizing a conference to explore
this emerging world-view. The meeting will he held in Pari 12-15
October, 2007. A few places are still available.

Download the leaflet and registration form at
http://www.scimednet.org/pdf/paricentrev5.pdf.



===
 VIEWS FROM PARI: POETRY AND SHORT-STORY WRITING
===

We would like to announce a new course/workshop "Views from
Pari: Poetry and Short-Story Writing". This will be held in Pari
June 11-18, 2008 and will be run by the poet David Keplinger and
the novelist and short story writer, Alison MacLeod.

For additional information see
http://www.paricenter.com/programs/courses/viewsfrompari.php



===
 COURSES OFFERED IN 2008
===

New Science/New Paradigms
15-21 May, 2008

David Peat will again be offering New Science/New Paradigms.

For a complete course description see
http://www.paricenter.com/programs/courses/newscience5.php


Art, Science and the Sacred
4-10 September, 2008

David Peat will be offering this course that explores such
notions as the relationship of the sacred in the arts, the
connections between science and belief, the role of beauty and
aesthetics in both science and art.

For additional information see
http://www.paricenter.com/programs/courses/artscisacred3.php


Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind
2-8 October, 2008

The course will cover the notions and experiences of
synchronicity within the context of Jungian ideas as well as
referring to James Joyce's "epiphanies" and Gerard Manley
Hopkins' idea of "inscape" and "instress".

For additional information see
http://www.paricenter.com/programs/courses/synchronicity2.php



===
 INTERNET-BASED COURSES
===

David Peat is running Internet-based courses in 2007 and 2008 at
the California Institute of Integral Studies. These begin on
August 30, 2007.

To find out more about CIIS see http://www.ciis.edu



===
 PARI NETWORK WEBSITE
===

Please note that the Pari Network - a forum for discussion is up
and running. Anyone can add a comment simply by clicking but if
you wish to create a new topic you should first register. The
Pari Center would like to encourage your comments and
contributions.

http://www.parinetwork.org



===
 THE PARI DIALOGUES: ESSAYS IN SCIENCE, RELIGION AND THE ARTS
===

Pari Publishing will be bringing out the first volume of the
Pari Dialogues. These essays are mainly based upon lectures run
at the Pari Center and are written by experts in their fields.
Many of these concern the debate between religion and science
and the role of religions in creating a just society. Additional
essays discuss the road to world peace, moderating the forces of
globalization and the mar

[Futurework] FW: Bisphenol A

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

> To:   '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject:  Bisphenol A 
> 
> Unsafe levels of Bisphenol A found in humans, scientists say
>  <> 
> By Ahmed ElAmin
> http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/printNewsBis.asp?id=78679
> 
> 01/08/2007- Human exposure to food packaging chemical Bisphenol A
> (BPA) is higher than levels found to have caused cancer in laboratory
> animals, according to new scientific studies.
> 
> In addition a group of 38 scientists associated with BPA research have
> issued a consensus statement saying that they are particularly
> concerned about the use of concern is the use of BPA in food and
> beverage plastic storage and heating containers and to line metal
> cans. 
> 
> The findings and statement will add to the body of research on the
> toxin and fuel growing consumer concerns. The resulting consumer and
> regulatory fallout from the health scare could force processors to
> seek safer packaging alternatives. 
> 
> Three of the scientists are due to discuss their conclusions tomorrow
> in a conference call with the press. Their conclusions are based on a
> collection of new studies and reviews of the chemical due to be
> published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology. 
> 
> BPA is an additive widely used in plastic packaging and the resin
> linings of food cans. It is also used in dental filling. Other
> published studies have found that the chemical migrates in small
> amounts into food and beverages from packaging containing the
> substance.
> 
> In previous statements the Can Manufacturers Institute, with members
> manufacturing about 80 per cent of cans produced in the US, has said
> there is no scientific basis for concern that exposure to trace levels
> of BPA will cause human harm, even in children.
> 
> The studies broaden scientific concerns about potential adverse health
> effects of very low levels of BPA exposure, especially during early
> development, according to a spokesperson for the group.
> 
> Three of the reviews focus on the extensive studies already done on
> animals, and examine outcomes, including early stage breast and
> prostate cancer, decreased sperm counts and early puberty in mice and
> rats, at exposure levels comparable to those experienced by most
> Americans. 
> 
> "Unfortunately, there are very few epidemiological studies of human
> effects of BPA to determine how well this extensive animal data will
> translate to human diseases and dysfunctions," according to a
> statement from the spokesperson organising the conference.
> 
> One review reports that BPA is present in many forms in the daily
> lives of Americans. The common exposure sources are the linings of
> food cans and some plastic containers, including some popular water
> and baby bottles.
> 
> The journal will also publish simultaneously a new study claiming that
> BPA is functionally similar to diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic
> estrogen banned long ago for use by pregnant women.
> 
> DES was banned after studies implicated the chemical in causing
> reproductive tract problems. The experimental animal study, done by a
> team led by Retha Newbold, claims to be the first to link
> developmental exposure to bisphenol A to diseases such as uterine
> fibroids, precancerous changes in the reproductive tract, and to
> cystic ovaries.
> 
> The conference call will involve Jerrold Heindel, a scientist with the
> National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, his colleague
> Retha Newbold, and Frederick vom Saal, a scientist with the department
> of reproductive biology and neurobiology at the University of
> Missouri-Columbia.
> 
> About six billion pounds of BPA are used annually to make resins and
> polycarbonate plastic.
> 
> Previous studies have linked BPA with increases in abnormal penile and
> urethra development in males, early sexual maturation in females, an
> increase in neurobehavioral problems such as attention deficit
> hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism, an increase in childhood and
> adult obesity and type 2 diabetes, a regional decrease in sperm count,
> and an increase in hormonally mediated cancers, such as prostate and
> breast cancers.
> 
<>___
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[Futurework] INDIAN PERSPECTIVE ON OUTSOURCING

[Cordell, Arthur: ECOM]

THE INDIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING SCENE:
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
by K.V.K.K. Prasad

For a developing country like India, the IT industry has done wonders at
least for a small
percentage of the population. The outsourcing of IT services from
developed countries,
particularly the US, is making a tremendous impact on the economic,
social and
psychological aspects of a young generation of boys and girls. And, this
is the best of
times and also the worst of times..

Almost 25 years ago, when the IT 'revolution' was yet to start in India,
the fresh graduates
had very few job options--only in government organizations and public
sector
organizations. Thanks to the IT outsourcing industry, today's
opportunities for the fresh
engineers are extraordinary. And, every graduate, irrespective of
his/her major, is opting
for a career in IT. That is no surprise, when an engineer with 2 years
experience gets
more salary than the Professors who taught him.

In many other countries while the reasons for lesser enrolment of girls
in computer
science are being probed, in India that is THE field of choice for
majority of the girls. A
visit to any computer science classroom shows that almost 50% of the
students are girls.
It is a welcome trend; the parents of girls are encouraging their
daughters to take up
computer science stream as the jobs are 'soft'.

I dislike it when my wife compares me with my neighbors, but then such
comparisons are
inevitable in life. When I got married, my wife joined me in a small
rented house with no
amenities. With my meager salary what all I could buy was a portable
black and white
TV to watch programs broadcast by an agency under government control. It
is amazing
for my wife when my neighbor, the young IT boy gets married and his wife
walks into a
spacious own house equipped with a home theatre, refrigerator, microwave
oven, airconditioned
bedrooms; and a big car.

Branded shirts, branded shoes, dinners at Pizza huts and McDonalds, a
new car every 2/3
years--life cannot be better. And, it is as if the whole economic growth
is by them and for
them. When insurance agencies and banks announce new financial plans
exclusively
targeting the IT professionals, when parents want that their daughter is
married only to an
IT professional, when the real estate developers build homes exclusively
for IT
professionals--you certainly feel that the Indian IT professional has
made the greatest
impact on everything and everybody. It is as though all other industries
are ancillary to
this industry.

The accelerated economic and professional growth certainly will have its
implications.
Sedentary and stressful life style of these professionals is now leading
to major health
problems--hypertension, heart ailments, gastroenterology problems for
people in their
late 20's and early 30's even. But then every problem is a business
opportunity. Now
emerged a new industry for keeping IT professionals fit through gyms,
yoga, crash
courses on art of living and art of managing stress. Cyber-yoga is yoga
designed
specifically for IT professionals of this cyberspace; desktop yoga deals
with yogic
exercises that can be done while sitting in front of your desktop.

As more and more reports pour in (for example, "Globalization and Off
shoring of
Software" of the ACM Job Migration Task Force), the software industry
associations
give projections for the next few years on the demand for IT
professionals and also ring
alarm bells on how much shortage is there for manpower. Then, the
governments
sanction engineering colleges. If nearly 1 million students are educated
on IT related
fields every year how do you ensure quality? If the HR managers of the
IT industry
complain that the hit percentage is just 5 (if 100 persons are
interviewed, only 5 are
selected), then suddenly you realize that focus is not the quantity, not
quality. When the
teaching community continues to get those small pay packets, every
university/college is
short of quality teachers, and hence their output, is also short of
quality. As a result, for
every IT professional that is having a great time and a lucrative job,
there are 20 others
who are either unemployed or underemployed (if degree is the only
yardstick). That has
given a chance for another industry--training industry. Training of
fresh engineering
graduates in latest tools and techniques and certification examinations
is a real money
spinner. The offers are attractive too, "if you pay for training in
Unix, training in C is
free".

But then, this additional training does not get a job for everyone.
Those who are still left
out produce false experience certificates and try to get into the jobs.
Yeh, there is a
business opportunity here too--some business houses give a false
certificate, generate
false pay bills and even answer the verification queries of the
prospective employers--all
at a price.

Unfortunately, even with false claims of experience, some candidates are
still on the
str