DoomwatchTM vs. Timesizing®
Collapse trends - Sept. 1-15, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Philip Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

9/15/2001  omens -
  1. Industrial output falls again in August - 0.8% decline larger than expected; terror attacks are not reflected in data, by Sue Kirchhoff, Boston Globe, C1.
    [Or the New York Times version -]
    Slump at factories continues, with output declining 0.8% - [But] retail sales rise, along with prices, AP via NYT, C2.

  2. Seeing Arafat hurt by attack on U.S., Sharon cancels plan for peace talks - For Sharon, pressure from the right trumps what the U.S. wants, by James Bennet, NYT, B1.
    Despite...Bush's request that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hold peace talks soon, Mr. Sharon decided today that he was in no hurry to ease the Palestinians' predicament in the wake of Tuesday's terror attack in the United States, and he canceled talks planned for Sunday without suggesting a new date....
    [With "friends" like Ariel Sharon, who needs enemies.]

  3. Airlines, in search of relief, warn of bankruptcy, by Laurence Zuckerman, NYT, front page.
    Airline executives and analysts expressed grave concern for the industry yesterday, warning that mounting losses stemming from this week's terrorist attacks could force most of the country's major carriers into bankruptcy.
    "This patient is dying very quickly," Gordon M. Bethune, the chairman and CEO of Continental Airlines, the fifth largest carrier, said in a telephone interview, referring to the industry. "We all are going to be bankrupt before the end of the year. There is not an airline that I know of that has the excess cash to handle this."...
    The airlines were hoping that Congress would grant themn $12.5B in loan guarantees and $2.5B in direct aid as part of a $40B emergency benefits package. Congress approved the package yesterday, but stopped short of appropriating the money for the airlines. The industry will now have to push to get the money in a later bill..\..
    The industry's losses are estimated at $100-275m a day since Tuesday, when the government grounded all flights for the first time ever....

  4. A sudden course change - For college freshmen, terrorist attack turned life of fun and discovery into self-examination and fear, by Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe, E1.
    Sean Flanagan is...a freshman at Boston College [and as] an American citizen...by law, he had to register for the draft. He did it over the Internet at home in West Virginia soon after his [18th] birthday in May.... Point, click, sign your name.... "It's surprising how simple it was to sign yourself away to killing, or being killed," he says....
    Now in his BC dorm, he finds himself in a group of [young] men...marveling at how much the world has changed.... Suddenly...those draft cards appear a lot more meaningful....

  5. [And speaking of course changes, there were also the fateful course changes of those hijacked jets on Tuesday and -]
    Otis fighter jets scrambled too late to halt the attacks, by Glen Johnson, Boston Globe, front page.
    Two armed fighter jets that were supposed to protect New York streaked away...from Otis Air National Guard Base..\..on Cape Cod as Tuesday's airline hijackings unfolded...but were able to fly only to within 70 miles of New York City before the second of the two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center towers....
    [Maybe they better keep a couple of fighter jets right at one of New York City's own many airports from now on.]

9/14/2001  omens -
  1. Some see recession as imminent after terrorist assaults, by Stevenson and Kaufman, NYT, C1.
    Citing new figures suggesting that the economy was tipping into recession even before the terrorist attacks on Tuesday, economists said yesterday that the ripple effects from the assault would almost surely bring to an end the record-setting expansion that began more than a decade ago.
    [See, that's all these pollyannas were looking for - an excuse to stop straining for optimism and just let'er sink.]
    ...Figures released yesterday showed that consumer confidence was already plunging last week and over the weekend as it became clear that unemployment had surged in August. And there were indications yesterday that people were continuing to lose jobs at a rate higher than expected at the beginning of this month....
    [How about just "at a rate higher than they were finding them"?! Who cares about analysts' expectations.]

  2. Prices of imported goods fell in August, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
    [In the words of the immortal Onslow, "Oh luvvly" - global deflation = another hallmark of depression.]

  3. Economic fears flare up - Fed, Europe set moves; confidence slips in US, by Sue Kirchhoff, BG, D1.
    WASHINGTON -...The Federal Reserve...arranged a $50B swap with the European Central Bank to help European financial institutions faced with a shortage of dollars. The euros-for-dollars exchange was accompanied by a second day of moves by the Fed and other nations to pump tens of billions of dollars into the markets to ensure there is adequate cash for business needs....
    Yesterday brought fresh indications that consumers were in need of confidence-boosting measures even before the terrorist attack. A monthly survey conducted by the University of Michigan found that consumer confidence fell to 83.6 in September from 91.5 in August, reaching its lowest level this year. Consumer spending makes up about two thirds of the economy and has been the major force keeping the country out of a recession.
    Another report said weekly claims for first-time jobless benefits climbed to 431,000, while the number of people collecting unemployment hit a nine-year high. The nation's unemployment rate hit 4.9% in August, its highest level since 1997, and economists expect it to rise further in coming weeks.
    Neither of yesterday's economic surveys reflected the fallout from the attacks, which have shut down much of lower Manhattan and disrupted air travel nationwide.... The disruptions in air service have affected manufacturing plants, which cannot get needed supplies to keep production lines running....
    [On the less negative side, that should help our excess inventory situation.]

  4. [There's gold in thet thar rubble -]
    Gold was stored in Center, Bloomberg via BG, D5.
    NEW YORK - The NY Mercantile Exchange said there was gold stored in a vault at the World Trade Center. The 379,036 ounces (nearly 12 tons) of gold was stored in the building that had housed the exchange trading floor until 1997, said spokeswoman Nachamah Jacobovits. The building is near the Center's twin towers, which were destroyed in a terrorist attack Tuesday. ...Jacobovits said, "There is gold at the World Trade Center, and it's at the ScotiaMocatta depository." ScotiaMocatta is a trading arm of the Toronto-based Bank of Nova Scotia.
    [That'll teach them Canucks to keep their gold outside their own True North Strong and Free.]
    Gold last traded for $271.60 per troy ounce on Monday.
    [Meaning 379,036 troy? ounces would be worth nearly $103m.]
    "We have vaults, but for security reasons we can't...provide \or\ confirm locations...," [said] Bank of Nova Scotia spokeswoman Diane Flanagan.
    [More on this tomorrow from the Times - "Hoard of metals sits under ruins of Trade Center," by Jonathan Fuerbringer, 9/15/2001 NYT, C1.]

  5. As activity resumes in the bond market, investors send interest rates plummeting, by Jonathan Fuerbringer, NYT, C1.
    Investors ran to the safety of the American Treasury market yesterday as trading resumed for the first time since the World Trade Center crumbled on Tuesday morning. Interest rates plunged as investors bought securities backed by the U.S. government and bet that the Federal Reserve would cut short-term rates sharply to help revive economic activity....
    [Funny how a lot of these same "investors" are always ragging on the government about this and that and everything, but when it comes to safe havens, for all their attempts to weaken it, they rush right to the government.]

  6. F.C.C. reviews ownership rules, pointer digest (to C10), NYT, C1.
    The Federal Communications Commission proposed alternatives to a limit on cable television ownership and began reviewing a ban on ownership of a newspaper and broadcast station in the same city.
    [Oh great, let's just consolidate media ownership even more than it is already. Pretty soon we'll have about as much diversity of opinion as they do in Italy, where the Prime Minister (Berlusconi) owns all the media and the polling firms. Some feedback system!]

9/13/2001  omens -
  1. Wall Street - Way beyond any balance sheet, traders deal with losses of the most painful kind - Thousands of workers are still missing in the financial district, by Patrick McGeehan, NYT, A7.

  2. ["bad, but" -]
    In Hollywood style, the world changed before our eyes, by Ed Siegel, Boston Globe, D1.
    ...[Photo caption -] New York, Washington, and Los Angeles are destroyed...in 1996's "Independence Day" [in which] the White House and Empire State Building blow up.
    ..\..[Photo caption -] In a scene that now looks all too real, the Chrysler Building is blown apart in 1998's "Armageddon."
    [And let's not forget "Inferno" about a fire in a high-rise, on the long list of Hollywood's training films for terrorists.
    But #1, Hollywood did wake up a little -]
    Hollywood responds in wake of tragedy, by Anthony Breznican, BG, D3.
    LOS ANGELES - Real terrorism has spurred Hollywood executives to postpone at least two movies and consider rescheduling other films and TV shows that involve terrorist plots against Americans. [Hey, wouldn't it be great if Hollywood would give us a permanent rest from all this terrorist training and brainstorming?! But #2, according to an article tomorrow, it ain't gonna last -]
    No moratorium on mayhem from Hollywood, by Aucoin and Ryan, 9/14/2001 BG, C1.
    Despite the horrors visited upon America this week, filmgoers and TV viewers should expect only a brief intermission before they see another building blow up in another big-budget spectacle.... In fact, some believe cinematic treatments of violent episodes such as terrorist attacks may actually increase, despite the current flurry of delayed movie releases and TV premieres. "Hollywood is not only a dream factory; it's a nightmare factory," said TV historian Robert Thompson.... Director Edward Zwick explored that nightmare [aspect] three years ago in "The Siege," a controversial film about terrorists whose bombing campaign in New York City ultimately leads to martial law and the roundup of Arab-Americans....

  3. Mood of sellers and buyers, as well as purchases, reflect the devastating events - An upturn in the buying of survival gear like guns and gas masks, by Harden and Kaufman, NYT, A23.
    [America the paranoid. Or should we recall the old joke, "You're not paranoid. Everybody really is out to get you!"]
    Larry Lockert, owner of L&L Guns in Lakewood, Colo., said his business had increased since the terrorist attacks on Tuesday. [Photo caption.]
    [Of course, they're not going to let you on any commercial airliners with your arsenal - and that's where it would have come in handy on Tuesday morning.]

  4. Already facing a bad year, the airlines brace for worse, by Stephanie Stoughton, BG, C1.
    [And in fact, the #2 airline way Down Under filed for bankruptcy yesterday - see today's report, 9/13/2001.]

  5. Corporate paper trails lay buried in soot - Companies may rely on clients to provide original documents, by Jonathan Glater, NYT, C2.

  6. Billions of dollars in [insurance] claims expected, but compensation could vary widely, by Treaster and Johnston, NYT, C1.
    [Biggest claims in history, by far, according to insurance consultant on TV.]

9/12/2001  omens -
  1. U.S. attacked - Hijacked jets destroy twin towers and hit Pentagon in day of terror, by Kleinfield and Schmemann, NYT, front page.
    [What a coincidence that this happened just when Bush needed a war to get his public image out of the toilet, not to mention save the economy via the usual big-government buildup and bloodbath. On the other hand, when 20 guys can pull this off with only boxcutters, pepperspray and fully fueled commercial jetliners, there can't be much priority on breaking the ABM Treaty for the sake of a multibillion-dollar "missile defense" or pushing the envelope on biological warfare.]

  2. Fear biggest threat to economy - consumer fear..., by Syre & Stein, Boston Globe, F1.
    The biggest thing the American economy has to fear is fear itself....
    [Not necessarily. There's also unpredictable terrorism and -]
    The worry is that people will circle the wagons, stay at home, and cut back on spending.
    [Aside from a certain reluctance to hop on an airline, what if we've allowed technology-fueled labor redundance to clobber wages and concentrate income sooo much that people are just fearfully opting to cut back on spending - they actually DON'T HAVE THE SPENDING POWER.]

  3. Wall Street is left staggering, by Nelson & Kerber, Boston Globe, F1.
    [And let's not forget their errandboys at the Pentagon.]

  4. Across the nation, commerce disrupted, by Wilmsen and Stoughton, BG, F1.
    [And all this by 20 kamekazi guys with boxcutters, pepperspray and three fully fueled commercial jets? It all begins to sound like Luke Skywalker successfully targeting that one vulnerable spot in The Empire's mighty Death Star - except Luke had guns and this time we're playing the Death Star.]

9/11/2001  omens -
  1. Economists lower forecasts but do not expect a recession, Reuters via NYT, C16.
    [Guys, cut the mealy-mouthed spindoctoring and come up some solutions. And not the same old sugarpills of taxcuts or jobs programs.]

  2. [This is our future -]
    Japan: Wholesale prices slide, by Ken Belson, NYT, W1.
    Wholesale prices in Japan fell in August, the 11th straight monthly decline to a level 0.9% below August 2000. Electrical equipment and steel and other metals led the decline, the Bank of Japan said, as manufacturers cut back production.
    [The march of technology absolutely requires the reduction of working hours per person, because if that doesn't happen, output rises but wages don't, and spending power funnels in unspendable profusion to the top brackets, suctioning markets away from productivity in which they have placed their own necessarily massive investments.]

  3. [And not to put too fine a point on it -]
    Nikkei plunge has investors on the edge, by James Brooke, NYT, C1.
    TOKYO...- After the biggest plunge in a month pushed the Nikkei 225 stock index down 321 points on Monday, this popular economic barometer had left far behind "the Koizumi effect" - the gains surrounding the emergence of Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister five months ago.... The index could fall below the Dow Jones industrial average, a situation not seen since 1957, the opening days of Japan's economic boom....

  4. Sex trade targeting the young is called hidden epidemic - Widespread abuse found in US cities, by Marian Uhlman, Boston Globe, A6.
    PHILADELPHIA - Thousands of girls and boys, ages 9 to 17, trade their bodies to secure food, shelter, clothing, and other basic needs to survive on the nation's streets.... Between 300,000 and 400,000 children in the United States are victims of prostitution, pornography, and other forms of commercial sex..\..according to a University of Pennsylvania professor...Richard J. Estes...a professor of social work and coauthor of "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the US, Canada and Mexico" [from a] three-year study....
    [Why wait 25-years? With this revelation, the US has already joined the Third World.]

9/9/2001  omens - 9/08/2001  omens - 9/07/2001  one omen/accelerant plus multiple symptoms that it's working - our economic self-entumoring is metastasizing -
  1. [This license for further concentration of power and income should worsen our econopains -]
    U.S. abandoning its effort to break apart Microsoft, saying it seeks resolution [sure sure] - Sharp shift from Clinton's policy focuses on less severe steps, by Stephen Labaton, NYT, front page.
    Reversing the government's strategy in the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft, the Bush administration announced today that it would no longer seek a breakup of the company. The government also abandoned a central claim of the lawsuit: that Microsoft had violated federal antitrust law by integrating its Internet Explorer browser software into its Windows operating system.... Clinton administration officials [had] argued that anything short of [breakup] would require years of court supervision and would ultimately be ineffective in restoring competition.
    [Which is pretty obvious. So for all their lipservice to "competition," the Bush leaguers don't really give a damn about it.]
    As the first major antitrust decision by a new group of political appointees at the Justice Dept., the move also suggests that the Bush administration is willing to seek less-severe penalties to move such corporate cases more quickly through the legal system....
    [I.e., to slap their wrists and let them do whatever they want. That means the U.S. no longer has even the illusion of an antitrust agency and the only one left is Europe's.]
    The company's stock declined...today in a market that was broadly down....
    [And the market will continue to take one step up and two steps down because Bill Gates and his short-sighted buds have ignored the Marginal Efficiency of Capital = the more concentration, the less circulation. In short, they have concentrated so much of the income and wealth of the nation into the unspendable oceans of spending power in their own relatively few pockets that they are actually suctioning the markets away from their own necessarily HUGE investments in technology-amplified productivity. And trying to centrifuge income and wealth by discretionary means (i.e., charity) rather than systemic means (e.g., Timesizing) is laughably inadequate. How much did Bill Gates payoff everybody?]
    The lobbying - A huge 4-year crusade gets credit for a coup - From a one-man lobbying shop to a hired phalanx of prominent voices, by Joel Brinkley, NYT, C5.
    WASHINGTON...- If the Microsoft Corp. won...today,...the company's huge and far-reaching lobbying crusade of the last few years should receive a healthy share of the credit.... Microsoft and its employees donated $4.86m last year to federal political candidates or parties, more than two-thirds of it to Republicans, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics..\..particularly, during last year's election campaign, Republican candidates, including George W. Bush....
    [So we have a corrupt Supreme Court, a corrupt "president," and a corrupt Congress. Kiss America goodby. Kiss your future goodby.]
    And the company paid at least $6m more to lobbyists, who were charged with persuading politicians to accept Microsoft's point of view....
    ["America, America, god sing a requiem for thee...." Think we're exaggerating? Then look what else we see on the front page. This shows what the am-Bush-ers came up with when they looked around to see what else they could "fix" -]

  2. U.S. may ease rein on nursing homes - Administration would reduced inspections and penalties, by Robert Pear, NYT, front page.
    [Still looking forward to old age and retirement? No? What number? Oh yeah, OK, 1-800-KEVORKIAN. And while we're on the front page -]

  3. State colleges begin feel pinch of softening economy, by Jacques Steinberg, NYT, front page.
    CLEMSON, S.C. - ...Like dozens of other public universities around the country, Clemson [University] raised its tuition sharply this summer and put off a number of maintenance projects, signaling the abrupt end of a relatively flush period for the nation's state colleges....
    [And speaking of the Carolinas, they're also a bellwether on a more general front -]

  4. A region's workers go from flush time to hard times, fast, by David Firestone, NYT, front page.
    HICKORY, N.C. - ...In just 12 months, Hickory's economy has moved through the looking glass. The region's main industries have slumped and unemployment is at 7.2% [from 2.2%], the nation's highest increase in joblessness over the past year....
    J.D. Lane, at the unemployment office with his daughter, Lisa Padilla, recently lost his manufacturing job. [this para. from inside photo caption] "I always figured there would always be a job for people like me," he said.
    [Never say "always" - at least as long as there are people like Bill Gates out there, and people around you chanting, "Oh we don't begrudge them their billions."]
    "Now there's just nothing out there"..\.. "Instead of employees being in the driver's seat, now we're in the driver's seat," said Bill McBrayer, the operations manager for the upholstery division of Lexington Home Brands, a...large furniture maker with a plant [in] town....
    [Ah, spoiled, spoiled employers who have the illusion they were ever out of the driver's seat the last thirty years! Now let's see them struggle with the illusion that they're still selling anything - see article below.]

  5. [Yet another sign that this is The Big One - the grabbers and greedsters have finally succeeded in getting us (& their own stupid selves) firmly on the (up'n') down rollercoaster -]
    Retailers report disappointing sales in August, by Constance Hays, NYT, C8.
    The federal tax rebates, which were supposed to stimulate demand for consumer goods, failed to transform America's shoppers into bigger spenders in August, resulting in disappointing sales for many stores and renewing fears that the December holiday shopping season will be one of the most lackluster in years....
    [Can you count to 1-2-/-1-9-2-9?]
    Even Wal-Mart executives, who had offered to cash the rebate checks for shoppers rigth in their stores, said on Wednesday that there had been no "overly signficant" impact on sales as a result....
    Job layoffs...have affected consumer confidence," said Jeffrey Feiner, a retail analyst with Lehman Brothers. "The discounters did better, reflecting the fact that people are trading down."...
    [Our B-schools and CEOs in their teaching and practice of mass layoffs have denied a central fact about our species - it's the most social species on the planet and as such, the most interdependent. Cutting jobs completely and isolating and scaring people, instead of cutting worktime a little and keeping people together working and earning something, cannot succeed. And no matter how "rich" a country is, if only a few people have all the money, it is poor and wretched. And that goes for the "richest" country in the world as well. Wretched, not richest.]

  6. Banks' credit card debt writeoffs up, by Marcy Gordon, AP-NY-09-06-01 0020EDT via AOLNews.
    The nation's commercial banks wrote off $2.8B in credit card debt in the April-June period, up nearly 27% from a year earlier, as the economy dragged and personal bankrupty filings rose [see 8/25/2001], the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. [FDIC] reported Wednesday. Still, "We're not seeing a general downturn in banking," said Donald Powell, the new FDIC chairman. "They're still earning a lot of money."...
    [No kidding. Doesn't he mean "extorting" - with their 18% interest and $29/mon. "late fees" (despite "no annual fee").]
    Personal debt [alias consumer debt] is at an all-time high, and the amount of income Americans are dedicating to making payments on it is at levels unseen in 15 years. Mortgage deliquencies also are rising....

9/04/2001  symptoms of a deepening sickness -
  1. Tokyo stocks close at 17-year low, pointer digest (to C4), NYT, C1.
    ...following profit warnings by high-tech companies. The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei stock average extended its losing streak to five consecutive sessions, losing 303.83 points, or 2.84%, to end at 10,409.68, its lowest close since Aug. 14, 1984, when it ended at 10,360.92.
    [1929 deja vu, Japanese-style.]

  2. Waiter, hold the foie gras: Slump hits New York dining, by Marian Burros, NYT, front page.
    ...The unluckiest [restaurants] have seen business drop as much as 30%, and the city's top restaurants , the places whose stature makes them the least vulnerable to a cooling economy, are starting to feel the chill....
    [Maybe they should start practicing and preaching timesizing, not downsizing, so more people have more time and money to dine out. And the restaurants aren't the only ones -]

  3. Manhattan hotels strive to find heads for beds - Occupancy rates fall after [bubble] years, by James Barron, NYT, A18.
    ...The occupancy rate...fell [10.4%] from April through June [this year, 77.9%] compared with the same three months last year [88.3%].... The reasons...are by now familiar...

  4. [US taxcut no help -]
    11-year tax cut the wrong fix - No one for a moment believes that the tax cut will remain untouched for the next 11 years, by Lester Thurow, Boston Globe, D2.
    ...To get a recovery started, one would want
    1. a very large short-run tax cut [to] provide the extra aggregate demand the economy needs to get started again..\..
    2. combined with the complete confidence that in the long run the government would go back to running big budget surpluses [to] provide the savings necessary to lower long-term interest rates and to fund future business investment.
    ..\..[But] Bush['s] tax cut...is, in fact, precisely the opposite. If anything, it inhibits the current recovery.... If panic hasn't yet set in at the White House and among Republican congressmen, it soon will. ...Bush inherited this slowdown from President Clinton...
    [Though neither had anything to do with it, although Clinton should already have started copying France's workweek reduction and income centrifugation to head it off, more people blame Bush than Clinton, because as Bush "owned" the downturn by mentioning it in trying to issue disclaimers about it, and the downturn became obvious after the Bushes' packed Hi Cort (can they even spell?) stole the election.]
    but that won't be an acceptable excuse in the fall of 2002.... Bush must be having nightmares. The previous President Bush lost his job because of the 1990 recession. ...The time has come to admit that the 11-year tax cut was a mistake..\..
    ["Time" may be "of the essence." Indeed, it may be that "time is money." But timeblind Les Thurow mentions a slew of general ways to get a recovery (after the above pair of taxcut-specific ways) without mentioning worktime -]
    To get a recovery, something has to go up. The possibilities are
    1. consumption
      [out, because] consumption already equals family income, and the consumer credit is at an all-time high
      [doesn't he mean consumer debt?!]
    2. business investment
      [out, because it] isn't going up without much lower long-term interest rates
      [not to mention the fact that we've just gone through a huge bubble-burst of business-investment-without-profits - or markets - and when you think about it, it was supply side without demand side and it flopped (and still nobody's talking about "balance side"!)]
    3. residential investment
      [out, because, though rising,] it isn't going to boom without lower long-term interest rates.
    4. government spending
      [out, because] there are no funds for extra government spending
      [presumably because of the braindead Bush taxcut]
    5. and net exports
      [out,] because of the slowdown in the rest of the world
      [not to mention the strong dollar and our record trade deficit]
    [What timeblind Thurow should be talking about is the ersatz war solution to economic slowdown. This is actually a general case of which his #1m, consumption, is a special case. It's something that actually goes down first, in order for consumption to go up. War works by reducing excess manhours and removing them from the job market (plagues, such as the Black Death, work effectively too) - it harnesses market forces to raise wages in response to the "shortage" (actually a balance at last) and centrifuge income out of the unspendable concentrations it has reached in the top income brackets (in 1348 you might have called it the Black Death solution to the Black Hole of wealth). The "ersatz" war solution also removes excess manhours from the job market but does so much more intelligently and less violently - it simply reduces the workweek, as France has been doing with good recession-resistant results, and as we did in the USA, as a nation, for the 100-150 years before 1940 when our workweek gradually halved from over 80 hours a week to 40. This is balance-side economics because demand is automatically adjusted to supply, and consumption to production, by automatically adjusting overtime-driven reinvestment in skills and jobs to our rising level of technology, and by automatically adjusting spendable wages and shopping time to our level of under-employment.   Oh but we forgot - don't bother Less Thorough with facts, his mind's made up. He's convinced that workweek reduction has been tried and failed, or so he said at BU's Morrison Hall in 1982. One wonders if any news from France lately has penetrated his cocoon.]

  5. [bonus - just to finish us off -]
    US germ warfare research pushes treaty limits - Pentagon says projects are defensive, and is pressing ahead, by Miller, Engelberg & Broad, NYT, front page.
    [Oh great. So what's our score so far? We are definitely the most dangerous bunch o' damn fools on the face on this planet. Somebody nailed it Sunday in the Globe's Letters to the Editor -
    "Europeans don't share US values,"
    ...by John Ward, 9/02/2001 Boston Globe, D6.
    "Kevin Cullen gives us a lengthy explanation ("From misunderstanding to worse," Page D1, Aug. 26) of why Europeans in great numbers resent the United States as an energy-guzzling, death-penalty-obsessed behemoth whose current president (whose claim to office remains under a cloud) has in the few months of his tenure expressed his intention to flout treaties relating to Is it too much to suggest that all this ratiocination is unnecessary - that the Western Europeans (whose views are shared by millions of American voters) are simply right, that the United States needs to rejoin the world community, and that its current president needs to learn some much-needed lessons about just about everything, beginning, perhaps, with how much he just doesn't know."]

For earlier collapse stories, click on the desired date -
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        Earlier Y2000 months accessible via links at bottom of Dec.1-10/2000 page.
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