10/08/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 7000 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -

9/03/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 1000 lost jobs in NY Times (t) -

8/12/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 3300 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -

8/09/2004   1 economywide downsizing story, uncounted in roll-ups, in (j) Wall St. Journal &/or (t) NY Times - missing earlier and later dates are handled entirely on current homepage or archive pages) -

• Thanks to oil [& Cheney-Bush policy], economy faces headwinds in political season - Weak jobs data may be linked to run-up in petroleum [ya THINK?!] - Stimulus [what stimulus?] is losing steam - Dilemma for pResident Bush [our soubriquet] - Weakness in consumer spending may now be ricocheting into job growth [or more likely, weakness in job growth may now be hitting consumer spending], by Greg Ip of AP & Jackie Calmes of WSJ with Mary Kissel, Greg Hitt & Michael Williams, WSJ with text via MLive.com (MI) via Ken Ellis, A1>4.
  Is the oil curse striking again?
  Oil shocks have accompanied every American recession over the past three decades. Now, this summer's sharp rise in fuel prices appears to be hampering the current expansion, as shown by Friday's weak jobs report.
  Oil shocks helped cost two recent American presidents re-election: Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992. The 2004 fuel jolt may threaten Mr. Bush's son's bid for a second term as well.
  Less than a week ago, George W. Bush was saying, "When it comes to creating jobs for America's workers, we've turned the corner, and we're not turning back." But the news that employers added just 32,000 jobs in July - the lowest total this year and a sharp deceleration from the spring - presents the White House with a dilemma: whether to acknowledge trouble (and imply the pResident's economic measures to date haven't worked so well), or insist the expansion remains on track (and risk appearing out of touch with workers' worries).
  With polls showing voters more confident of Democratic challenger John Kerry's economic stewardship, Bush aides are honing a series of economic campaign proposals, discussing everything from simplifying the tax code to adding more tax incentives to expand access to health insurance. Just a few weeks from the Republican convention, pResident Bush is close to making final decisions on a second-term agenda that will stress economic initiatives under the theme of an "ownership era," according to one adviser.
  For Mr. Bush, who argues passionately that the economy is strong, being put on the defensive now must seem a cruel irony: Economic data released after the fact showed that the economy in 1992 had begun its long boom when the voters, not sensing that yet, booted his father from office.
  Oil shocks also make life difficult for the Federal Reserve, which has been planning a slow, steady step-up in short-term interest rates over the coming months. When Fed policymakers meet tomorrow, they are thought likely to stick to plans to raise the short-term rate for the second time this summer. But they will also debate whether to continue that course through the fall. Oil prices, which briefly hit an all-time high (not adjusted for inflation) of $44.73 early Friday, may be doing the job of curbing consumer demand for them. But they could also lead to higher inflation if workers win compensating wage gains.
  Few forecasters suggest the U.S. is tipping back into recession. There have been plenty of upbeat numbers to offset the recent weak data. Auto sales rose smartly in July. Consumer confidence numbers remain high. And some measures suggest the job picture isn't so bleak. While Friday's labor-market report showed weak job creation in July, it also showed a modest gain in factory payrolls, a longer work week, decent pay gains and a drop in the unemployment rate to 5.5% - the lowest level in nearly three years.
  Still, economists and some investors aren't nearly as bullish as they were when the summer began. A month ago, Macroeconomic Advisers LLC was projecting growth in the current quarter of 5%. Now, the widely followed St. Louis forecasting firm is estimating just 3.6%. After the Dow Jones Industrial Averaged plunged 147.7 points to 9815.33 on Friday, the blue-chip indicator is down 7% from its high this year, a poor performance this early in an expansion.
  High oil prices aren't the only thing weighing on the market and the broader economy. Another factor is the fading effect of the stimulus policies that were designed to counteract the 2001 recession and sluggish recovery. Some economists believe consumers needed the steroids of repeated tax cuts and successive rounds of mortgage-refinancing to sustain their remarkable spending binge from late 2001 through the spring. With that stimulus now wearing off and Treasury and the Fed in no position to administer more, consumers may finally be retrenching partly in response to the high debt levels they've taken on in recent years.
  This year's surge in oil prices isn't as dire as the shocks of the 1970s. In constant 2004 dollars, today's price is still some 40% below the record price hit in 1981. And the U.S. is more fuel-efficient than it was back then. However, the doubling of petroleum prices since early 2002 still represents one of the largest sustained increases since 1979 and has significantly crimped disposable income for consumers.
  Average hourly wages advanced a respectable 0.3% in July from June. But adjusting for the most recent 3.3% inflation rate - a figure boosted largely by current energy prices - purchasing power has fallen 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the biggest such drop since 1991.
  This appears to be a leading factor in recent sluggish retail sales, especially among stores serving less-affluent consumers. "For the low- to middle-income consumer, higher gasoline prices take a larger percentage of their disposable income," notes George Mahoney, executive vice president at Family Dollar Stores Inc. The Matthews, N.C., chain reported sales rose just 1.4% in the four weeks ended July 31 from a year earlier, at stores open at least a year. "We see the impact not on the basic consumables - household chemicals, paper products, food," Mr. Mahoney adds, "but on the more discretionary items, such as ... giftwear, sheets, towels, pillows."
  As energy costs rise, "you feel kind of helpless," says Michael Nagy, who works for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Nagy drives about 130 miles in his daily commute and now spends some $60 a week to fill up his tank. To compensate for the added fuel expense, he and his wife eat out less, scrimp on home heating or air conditioning, and search for grocery-store sales. The 32-year-old Mr. Nagy also wants to trade in his V-6 Chevrolet Malibu for "something that gets 30 miles to a gallon."
  Weakness in consumer spending may now be ricocheting into job growth. The retail and hospitality industries were two principal job losers in July. Both are sensitive to consumer discretionary spending. Retailers shed a net 19,000 jobs (including 2,600 at gasoline stations), while employment in leisure and hospitality fell by 2,000.
  Indeed, there are troubling signs that the business caution about investing and hiring that restrained the economy from 2001 to mid-2003 might be returning. Software companies reported a sudden falloff in orders in late June. And the growth in capital-equipment orders appears to have eased.
  The new softness in the labor market risks creating a vicious circle of weakening growth. The economy's "only tailwind was significant employment growth," says George Magnus, an economist at UBS AG. "Without it, we're facing an uphill task."
  Oil remains the leading risk to the U.S. economic outlook. And barring a sudden easing of geopolitical worries, significant short-term relief seems unlikely.
  Earlier oil-price run-ups were primarily caused by a withdrawal of supply, or fear of one. This time around, most of the increase results from strong demand, especially in fast-growing China.
  [Ah, some things in China ain't growin' so fast any more - "Chinese auto-finance effort receives approval to begin - Falloff in loans is one reason car sales in China have been stagnating," 8/06/2004 WSJ, C6.]
  World oil consumption is expected to grow by 3.2% this year, or 2.5 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. Growth was generally around 2% or less for most of the prior decade.
  Of course, a strong global economy is mainly good for the U.S., giving exporters a much-needed boost. And manufacturers added 10,000 jobs in July.
  But the strong global demand for oil has left the petroleum industry with almost no spare capacity to cushion any disruptions in supply, which has been growing far more slowly than demand. The world's oil producers are thus operating with a tiny margin of spare pumping capacity of just one million barrels, in a market of 80 million barrels a day.
  That, in turn, means, any supply problems could send prices skyrocketing. Last week's jump was driven by concerns that Russia's OAO Yukos will be forced to suspend production - a situation that shifts almost daily as Moscow pursues the oil giant's unpaid back taxes and prosecutes its former chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Oil prices jumped again Friday on news of a refinery fire in Texas, before retreating.
  Another force driving oil prices higher is turmoil in the Middle East. That factor means prices could fall just as sharply as they rose, if fears of instability were calmed. But it also risks raising the political damage to pResident Bush. To the extent voters connect the dots, they may combine two of the American public's main concerns about Mr. Bush - an uncertain economy and instability in Iraq - into one big one.
  Mr. Kerry, touting his energy plan in Missouri Friday, did his best to link the two. "We are at war, a war on terror, where much of the focus of that war is in the Middle East," he said. "Guess what else is in the Middle East," he added. "Oil." Kerry campaign advisers assert that the "terror premium" has added as much as $15 to a barrel of oil, higher than many private estimates. "Instability and danger in the Middle East are driving up the price of oil," Mr. Kerry said in another recent speech. "Higher premiums weaken our economy and risk our security," he added. "But it doesn't have to be this way."
  As a short-term response to high oil prices, Mr. Kerry has called on the White House to suspend daily additions of about 100,000 barrels a day to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a reservoir set up after the 1970s oil shocks to protect against future supply disruptions. Some White House advisers favor such a move. Mr. Bush has steadfastly refused those suggestions, saying that the reserve must be filled to guard against emergency situations.
  Yet the fresh signs of a slowing pace of expansion require some kind of White House response. The bad job news in particular poses acute risks to Mr. Bush's re-election, since job concerns eclipse other economic issues in voters' minds. Moreover, the states with the worst job markets are the very battleground states, mostly in the Midwestern industrial belt, that he and Mr. Kerry are fighting over most intensely. "It's not what we would have hoped for this close to the election," says Republican strategist Jeff Bell. And time is running out to change voter perceptions: There are just two more monthly job reports before Nov. 2.
  Mr. Bush's first challenge is what to say - acknowledge that there's a problem, or ignore it. Both carry big risks in an election season. His father, doggedly making a case that the economy was improving, looked out of touch in 1992, contributing to his loss to Bill Clinton. It was little consolation when revised government data later confirmed that he was correct. For now, one adviser to Mr. Bush says the latest job data "won't make a difference" in either the pResident's rhetoric or his actions. Indeed, top administration officials labored to portray Friday's report as good news. "The economy is back on track," Vice pResident Dick Cheney declared on Friday in East Grand Forks, Minn. Mr. Bush, the same day, said, "Economic growth is strong and it's getting stronger," though he seemed to have dropped his line about the job situation having "turned the corner."
  Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Mr. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview, "I'm not satisfied with the payroll employment data." But, like many Republicans, he noted that the Labor Department's more volatile survey of households showed employment gains of 629,000 in July (though 30% were part time). The two surveys diverge in part because they measure employment differently. The household survey, for example, found an increase of 175,000 among the self-employed in July, which the payroll survey doesn't measure. Republicans highlight the household survey because it shows 1.9 million more jobs since Mr. Bush took office, while the payroll survey shows a loss of 1.1 million. But most economists, including Mr. Greenspan, consider the household survey less reliable because it is based on a far smaller sample.
  Mr. Mankiw added, "Oil prices are clearly a drag on the economy. Price spikes have been associated with economic downturns in the past, (so) whenever oil prices spike up, one starts worrying." Still, he noted conventional economic models find that even a $10 increase in crude-oil prices per barrel trims just a third of a percentage point off annual growth.
  The other challenge facing Mr. Bush is what, if any, policy actions to take. Even before the latest economic reports, the White House was in the midst of an internal struggle over whether to produce an ambitious second-term economic agenda - so far lacking - as part of the re-election campaign.
  The pResident, attending a family wedding at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Me., over the weekend took some policy options to study. A top adviser says Mr. Bush is inclined to propose major economic initiatives, figuring that "elections are about the future, not the past."
  The theme of the proposals will be about creating "an ownership era." As part of that, Mr. Bush is likely to stress homeownership, creating private retirement accounts as part of Social Security and simplifying the tax code. He might propose giving individuals and businesses tax incentives for health insurance and for the production and use of alternative energy sources, among other things. For the past month, economic advisers have been vetting all sorts of potential tax-code variations. The adviser said Mr. Bush was likely to propose "tax-code simplification" in general terms, perhaps directing his administration or a commission next year to recommend changes - much as Ronald Reagan did amid his 1984 campaign, giving rise to the landmark 1986 tax-reform act.
  While Mr. Bush wrestles with the political fallout of the softening economy, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is struggling with the policy implications. In June, the Fed began what it thought would be a series of quarter-point increases in the federal-funds rate, the rate on overnight loans among banks. That would raise it from the unusually low 1% earlier this year to a "neutral" level (probably between 3% and 5 percent) that would neither stimulate nor retard growth. The rate is currently 1.25%.
  Fed officials were prepared to tolerate fluctuations in economic growth as they proceeded, believing the risk of breeding inflation later on by leaving rates low exceeded the risk of aborting the expansion with tighter credit. When job growth and consumer spending softened in June, Mr. Greenspan said it was a "soft patch" that would prove "short-lived."
  The latest job numbers surprised the Fed much as they surprised Wall Street, raising the possibility that the soft patch may be something more ominous. So far, there is enough offsetting evidence for the Fed to stick with its view that the economy will grow solidly in the second half. On Tuesday, it is likely to raise its federal-funds target to 1.5%. If August data suggest the soft patch is indeed ending, the Fed would likely raise it again on Sept. 21, its last meeting before the Nov. 2 election.
  But Friday's jobs data prompted some on Wall Street to speculate the Fed will convey a more worried economic outlook in the statement following its meeting Tuesday. That would leave the door open to pausing in its program of "measured" rate increases, perhaps in September.

  7/23/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 8,246 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -

  • 13% workforce cut (6446+1800= 8246 jobs lost) as Washington Mutual mtg shrinks, now to close 100 offices, instead of just trimming 13% of its workweek (to five 7-hour days for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning and (re)financing at least 87% as much as before (j.A2)

  7/17/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling up to 14000 lost jobs in NY Times (t) -
  • 3000 lost jobs as Brown & Williamson closes cigarette plant in Macon GA - will have ripple effect of 9000-14000 more lost jobs in region (t.A7)

  6/04/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 2,940 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -
  • 7% workforce cut (2940 jobs lost) as Seagate Technology diskdrives responds to shrinking markets by shrinking employment (and markets), instead of just trimming 7% of its workweek (34 minutes a day for the whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning & buying at least 93% as many diskdrives as usual (t.C3, 6/04 j.B4)

  5/03/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 10,000 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -
  • 10% of workforce cut (10,000 jobs lost) as Winn-Dixie Stores closes or sells 156 stores, 3 distribution centers & several mfg businesses, instead of just trimming 10% of its workweek (to four 9-hour days for whole firm, including top execs), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone working, earning & buying at least 90% as many groceries as before (j.A12)

  4/13/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 3500 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -
  • 6% of workforce cut (3500 lost jobs) as DuPont Co. chemicals faces high natural-gas prices by cutting costs (& consumers), instead of just trimming 6% of workweek (29 minutes a day for whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning, confident & buying at least 94% as many chemicals as before (j.A1>16)

  3/17/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 13,000 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -
  • 7% combined-workforce cut (13,000 jobs to be lost) as Bank of America gobbles FleetBoston (10/28/2003 #1) & cuts expences (& markets), instead of just trimming its workweek 7% (34 minutes a day for whole firm, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning, confident & banking at least 93% as much as before (j.A3) - again the toxic takeover-downsizing connection

  2/17/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 15,000 lost jobs in Boston Globe (g) -
  • Siemens to shift 15,000 jobs from US & W.Europe to India, China & E.Europe (g.C2)

  2/10/2004   1 economywide downsizing story (uncounted in roll-ups) in Wall St. Journal (j) &/or NY Times (t) - (missing earlier and later dates are handled entirely on current homepage or archive pages) -

  • Jobs, jobs, jobs - Why is this man so cheerful?, op ed by Paul Krugman, NYT, A27.
    Last Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered yet another disappointing employment report.
    Since there's a lot of confusion on this subject, let's talk about the numbers. The bureau actually produces two estimates of employment,
    1. ...based on a survey that asks each employer in a random [danger!] sample how many workers are on its payroll,
    2. ...[based] on a survey that asks each household in a random [danger!] sample how many of its members are employed.
    Most experts regard the employer survey as more reliable; even in the midst of the recovery, that survey has contained nothing but bad news. The household numbers look better, but not particularly good.... (Why the discrepancy? We don't know.) ...The official unemployment rate is based \on\ the household survey..\..
    ...Employment as measured by the payroll survey rose by only 112,000 - well short of the increase needed just to keep up with a growing population [which is ??]. If employment were rising as rapidly as it did when the economy was emerging from the 1990-91 recession, we'd be seeing monthly numbers more like 275,000.
    ...Since the recovery officially began in November 2001, employment has actually fallen by 0.5%, while the working-age population has increased about 2.4%. By this measure, jobs are becoming ever scarcer.... The number of people who say they have jobs has risen since the recovery began - but has still lagged behind population growth.
    The only seemingly favorable statistic is the unemployment rate, which has recently fallen to 5.6%, the same as in November 2001. But how is that possible, when employment has grown more slowly than the population, or even declined? The answer is that people aren't counted as unemployed unless they're looking for work, and a growing fraction of the population isn't even looking. It's hard to see how this is good news.
    Other indicators continue to suggest a grim job picture. In the last 3 months, more than 40% of the unemployed have been out of work more than 15 weeks. That's the worst number since 1963, and a sign that jobs remain very hard to find - which is what anyone who has lost a job will tell you.
    One last statistic - not about jobs, but about wages. Since the last quarter of 2001, real GDP has risen 7.2%. But wage and salary income, after adjusting for inflation, is up only 0.6%.
    [And yet standard economists are still claiming that wages go up with productivity?!!]
    This matches what the employer survey is telling us: America's workers have seen very little benefit from this recovery.
    In the light of these dreary statistics, pResident Bush's recent cheerfulness seems almost surreal. On Friday, he said that he was "pleased, obviously, with the new job growth." When Tim Russert asked in the "Meet the Press" interview what happened to all the jobs that Mr. Bush promised his tax cuts would create, he replied: "It's happening. And there is good momentum when it comes to the creation of new jobs."
    We expect politicians to place a positive spin on economic news, but to insist that things are going great when many people have personal experience to the contrary seems foolish. Mr. Bush's father lost the 1992 election in large part because he was perceived as being out of touch with the difficulties faced by ordinary Americans. Why is Mr. Bush - whose poll numbers are a bit worse than his father's were at this point in 1992 - running the risk of repeating his experience?
    The answer, I think, is that the younger Bush has no choice. He has literally gone for broke, with repeated tax cuts that have fed a $500B deficit. To justify policies that more and more people call irresponsible, he must claim that wonderful things are happening as a result.
    For awhile, that famous 8% growth rate [Q3?] seemed to be just what he needed. But in Q4, growth dropped to 4%. And as we've seen, the jobs still aren't there.
    So Mr. Bush must put on a brave face. He and his officials must talk up weak economic statistics as if they represented stunning success, and predict marvelous things any day now. After all, they have to keep this up for only 9 more months.
    [See also our main webpage on the rose-colored glasses presented by the BLS's unemployment statistics.]

  1/28/2004   3 looming downsizing stories (uncounted in roll-ups) in Wall St. Journal (j) &/or NY Times (t) &/or Boston Globe - (missing earlier and later dates are handled entirely on current homepage or archive pages) -

  • French gov't talks loudly vs. Aventis takeover but has little power to prevent it or its est. 12k jobcuts (t.W1)
  • Germans worried too - Aventis has major operations in Frankfurt (t.W1)
  • Cargill & IMC Global to combine fertilizer units & execs predict large jobcuts (t.C11)

  1/27/2004   11 general downsizing stories (uncounted in roll-ups) in Wall St. Journal (j) &/or NY Times (t) &/or Boston Globe - (missing earlier and later dates are handled entirely on current homepage or archive pages) -

  • Recovery, unlike others, has barely 1% inflation (=deflation) & weaker job creation than any recovery since World War II (t.C1)

  • Education is no protection - white collar jobs are headed abroad (t.A27)

  • Migration of skilled jobs abroad unsettles globalization fans (j.A1)
    [except one globalization fan -]
    
  • Greenspan sees a jobs benefit in globalization (j.A2) - such a benefit has had plenty of time to show itself - how come Greenspan is the only one who sees it? autism leaps from White House to Federal Reserve? (or v.v.?)
    [or tomorrow, two -]
    
  • 'Outsourcing' is good for America, by Prof. Douglas A. Irwin of Dartmouth economics, 1/28/2004 WSJ, A16.
    [IF you like a weaker consumer base and the inefficiencies of switching from Ford's huge do-it-all River Rouge plant...]
    ...to sourcing component parts from a vast array of domestic and foreign suppliers....
    [which might be called, not only private sector makework like the sabotage of US freight trains in favor of the trucking lobby, but also thinly camouflaged Luddism, due to the obvious obstacles in the way of robotizing the whole operation.]

  • Asia poulty farmers despair as avian flu spreads into Thailand (j.A1)

  • Rise of the machines - but mfg jobloss eases - but so what in svc econ (j.A1)

  • The way we live now - pols (& jobless!) bemoan loss of jobs to China, India... & Warren Buffett calls USA 'Squanderville' (j.A14)

  • Europe's great 'reform' wimp-out - except for more of most basic freedom, free time (j.A15)

  • Mfrs show a pulse but key to jobs is adding capacity = not happening in any major country (j.A2)

  • [numbers we don't have -]
    Realistic jobless numbers, letter to editor by John Rexine of Arlington MA, Boston Globe, H10.
    Are we now at the point where the government unemployment figures, used by the pResident in his State of the Union address, should no longer be used by the press to report on the number of unemployed in this country ("Bush used selective data in his address, critics say" (1/22 BG, A3)?
    Isn't there a more realistic statistic that includes those no longer eligible for unemployment benefits? [Yup.] Or is the reality of that number too frightening to publicize? [Duh, yup yup.]
    [What we really need is the proportion of people who need to support themselves and are not privately supported (like children and traditional house-spouses and old-fashioned 'live-with' grandparents) relative to the total population of people who need to support themselves more easily, including those in unemployment, welfare, disability, homelessness, prison, and also those in under-employment (forced into part-time, early retirement, interrupted retirement, or self-employment regardless of lack of skills, benefits, or ... clients). The Timesizing program creates and collects this figure as one of its two main referendum targets in Phase One (the other referendum target being central-bank interest rates).]

  1/23/2004   1 megadownsizing, totaling 15,000 lost jobs in Wall St Journal (j) -

  • Tech blessing becomes Rochester's curse (j.A8) - 21% workforce cut (15000 jobs lost) - there goes Rochester! - as Kodak cuts costs (& its own best markets) in response to digital push, instead of just trimming its workweek 21% (to five 6hr20min days for everyone, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together

  1/15/2004   1 downsizing, totaling 1,421 lost jobs and (3-in-1) uncounted economywide downsizing stories, in WSJ &/or NYT -

  1. US Airways to close its Allegheny Airlines unit, AP via NYT, C4.
     [Most people thought "Agony Airlines" was long gone anyway.]
     ...either by merging operations into another subsidiary or by liquidation. Allegheny, based in Middletown PA, employs 1,421 workers &...serves 38 cities, mostly in the mid-Atlantic region....

  • The sound of jobs floating away offshore, (3-4) letters to editor, WSJ, A15.
    • ...By Joseph A. Ames Jr., BA, MBA, of Bryn Mawr PA.
      Well gosh golly. I feel so much better about being broke and ruined at age 39 knowing that Schumpeter's [Jan.6 'creative destruction'] theorizing [may] make things better for future generations of Americans. In the time being, perhaps the estate of Dr. Schumpeter - and the gang at the editorial page - can pass the hat for this destroyed piece of human capital that still resembles a man, beaten and bloodied as he is.
      After all, unlike those beloved Indians, Mexicans and Chinese, I had to pay for my education and my $120,000 in student loans must be repaid whether or not I have a job.
      Phooey on you all.
    • ..\..By Jeffrey Katcher of Bainbridge Island WA. You've grasped an important truth when you declare that software professionals are not interchangeable. Unfortunately, those who make outsourcing decisions rarely recognize this fact.... Managers have gone abroad to seek their zombie armies....
      [An apt metaphor. Zombies are Haitians who have committed a capital crime, such as adultery, under the rules of the Voodoo or Vodoun cult, and are punished by the Vodoun priest (the 'bokor' or 'houngan') by being touched with pufferfish toxin (which simulates death), buried, dug up (before 3 days are up, else too late), awakened with a beating, and kept dazed with datura while worked for the rest of their lives as slaves on sugar plantations. See Wade Davis' "Serpent and Rainbow."]
      I can personally testify to the...lack of success of many of those efforts, but they somehow never rise to the same visibility as the statements of outsourcing intent.
      [Compare the many merger disasters, which "somehow never rise to the same visibility as the statements of (merger) intent." In fact, this very day we have "Big mergers have a long history of failure and troubles," NYT, C8.]
    • ..\..By Ferish Patel of NYC.
      [This one starts off well then totally crashes -]
      It would be myopic to believe that the threat India poses to American workers extends no further than "bottom end" programming jobs and call centers [though the letter above, by Corwin Slack of Houston, seems to believe this - the WSJ put it first]. In the coming years, any American job whose end product or service could be cheaply and expeditiously returned to [and sold in] the U.S. will face the possibility [we'd say probability] of being outsourced to India.
      [Now at this point, you'd expect the obvious remedy of denying American markets to those who are gutting them by offshore-outsourcing, would you not? But au contraire, this genius suggests gutting them faster -]
      Unless serious efforts are made to reduce immigration restrictions on talented individuals
      [now you might think this guy's naive enough to assume Indian immigrants are going to get the same high pay as the American programmers whose jobs they're taking, just because they've come here, but the next clause would prove you wrong]
      and to pare back significantly higher American labor costs, including those of high-skilled workers,
      [so American programmers' pay should be pared to India's levels - ergo, downsized American markets for end products and services]
      India's highly educated, English-speaking workforce of programmers, engineers and scientists will eventually compete against more crucial American jobs.
      [They're already competing against "more crucial" (= high-skilled/high-paid?) American jobs and taking them over. The only strategies that will retard and reverse this drain are Timesizing including Phase Five's option of tight immigration controls, and a trade policy of "you access US markets for your output only to the extent you maintain US markets with jobs and salaries" - also in Phase Five.]
      In such a scenario [already happening] it would [WILL] be only a matter of years before America's technological superiority is permanently outsourced.
      [whereas, in the scenario Patel is advocating, it would be only a matter of months. The naive letter by the aptly named Corwin Slack that the faith-based Journal puts first still believes in the invulnerability of American productivity, despite its dependence on employee burnout.]

  1/06/2004   (2) uncounted economywide downsizing stories in WSJ &/or NYT, copied from our general badnews page & elaborated here due to length -

  • The broken promise of NAFTA - Does the U.S. really want to finish what it started 10 years ago?, op ed by Joseph Stiglitz, NYT, A27.
    The celebrations of NAFTA's 10th anniversary are far more muted than those involved in its creation might have hoped.... In Mexico [we'd add Canada - ed.]...the treaty remains controversial and even harmful - as do America's efforts to liberalize trade throughout the hemisphere. There is some good news.
    [Oh yeah?]
    In America, the "giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country" that Ross Perot predicted never quite materialized.
    [Or did it just change from Mexico to China and India, which are now suctioning even Mexico? Is Stiglitz on another planet, or does he have some weird data? -]
    The first 6 years of NAFTA saw unemployment in the U.S. fall to new lows.
    [They also saw the U.S. tinker with its definition of unemployment to make its rate look lower.]
    (Of course, to most economists there was little basis for Mr. Perot's worries in the first place.
    [Could that be because most economists have to be slugged between the eyes with a sledgehammer before they see a problem with the status quo they've bought into and are so superciliously defending? You'd think maverick Stiglitz would be beyond this but alas -]
    Maintaining full employment is the concern of monetary and fiscal policy [we haven't noticed much effectiveness from that quarter lately despite near-zero interest rates and massive gov't spending], not of trade policy.
    [Here Stiglitz, of all people, is parrotting party line. He astonishly buys the effectiveness of superficial monetary and fiscal policy whose limits even Greenspan has admitted. He fails to see the future in our 150-year pre-1940 past of worksharing (the workweek halved between 1776 and 1940 while pay doubled and redoubled). And he is rebutted in the neighboring article by Charles Schumer and Paul Roberts, which argues that "America's trade agreements need to reflect the new reality," meaning the recent death of comparative advantage due to the new mobility of all factors of production except cheap labor, now increasingly skilled and educated, and the recent massive loss of jobs "not to competition from foreign companies but to multinational corporations" (MNCs), i.e., to MNCs' CEOs, determined, as they still are, on downsizing instead of timesizing.]

  • [The neighboring article is -]
    Second thoughts on free trade - Ricardo's dictums have lost relevance in a digital age, op ed by Sen. Charles Schumer & Reagan's Asst. Secy. of Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, NYT, A27.
    [This article winds up with a version of The Big Question -]
    ...Old-fashioned protectionist measures are not the answer, but the new era will demand new thinking and new solutions....
    [Sounds like a call for Timesizing. Note the attempted WSJ preemptive rebuttals today -]
    Feeling the muscles of the multinationals, by George Melloan, WSJ, A19.
    [and]
    Creative jobs destruction - Schumpeter's law and the transfer of work to India, editorial, WSJ, A18.
    [wherein the simple-minded cheerleaders of the WSJ editorial staff refer wishfully not only to Schumpeter's "law" of creative destruction [no thought of the dangers of cumulative destruction or diverging rates or destruction and creation or production-consumption imbalance or uncapped concentration and consequent de-dynamization of national income] but also to the "law" of comparative advantage - now destroyed by Schumer & Craig's "blinding glimpses of the obvious" - see above.]

  1/01/2004   2 downsizings, totaling 672 lost jobs, in WSJ &/or NYT -
  (we're duplicating these entries on our general badnews page, where we'll be putting even the targeted badnews like downsizings in future unless we get carried away with our coverage or our comments - hopefully this will leave us time to revise the book, slap some tollbooths on this site to make it self-supporting and rack our brains how to take this agenda the next steps to pervasiveness) -
  1. US Airways to lay off [552] flight attendants, AP via NYT, C3.
     ...most of them in Philadelphia...on Jan.15 based on seniority..\..after hundreds of others return from voluntary leave, which was intended to help the airline weather its spiraling finances and bankruptcy....

  2. Rayovac Corp. to close Remington razor service stores, Bloomberg via NYT, C3.
     ...The battery maker...based in Madison, Wisc.\..will close the last 65 service stores belonging to its recently acquired Remington Products Co. razor business and cut as many as 120 jobs...by the end of February....
     [Again, the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]
     Rayovac agreed in August to buy Remington for about $322m to enter the more-profitable razor business amid slowing battery sales.
     [Lordy, if the battery biz is in tougher shape than razors, it's trash indeed. The razor biz is so desperate, it's straining to a 3-blade and even a 4-blade shave. Quadruple jumps in figure-skating, quadruple blades in shaving. Must be something in the letters SHA_ING.]

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  Click here for downsizing stories in -
  Dec/2003.
  Nov/2003.
  Oct/2003.
  Sept/2003.
  Aug.16-31/2003.
  Aug.1-15/2003.
  July/2003.
  Jun.17-30/2003.
  Jun.3-16/2003.
  May/2003 (+Jun.1-2).
  Apr.16-30/2003.
  Apr.1-15/2003.
  March/2003.
  Feb.16-28/2003.
  Feb.1-15/2003.
  Jan.16-31/2003.
  Jan.1-15/2003.
  Dec/2002.
  Nov.16-29/2002.
  Nov.1-15/2002.
  Oct.16-31/2002.
  Oct.1-15/2002.
  Sept/2002.
  Aug.16-31/2002.
  Aug.1-15/2002.
  July/2002.
  June/2002.
  May/2002.
  Apr/2002.
  Mar/2002.
  Feb/2002.
  Jan. 16-31/2002.
  Jan. 1-15/2002.
  Dec. 16-31/2001.
  Earlier 2001 downsizings accessible via links at bottom of Dec.16-31/2001 page.
  Dec.16-31/2000.
  Earlier Y2000 downsizings accessible via links at bottom of Dec.16-31/2000 page.
  Dec/1999.
  Earlier 1999 months accessible via links at bottom of Dec/1999 page.
  December/98.
  Earlier months accessible via links at bottom of Dec/98 page.

  For more details, our laypersons' handbook Timesizing, Not Downsizing is available at bookstores in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass. or from *Amazon.com online.

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