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Makework Stories, Sep-Oct, 2003

10/31/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -

• 'Reconstruction' [our quotes] - Bush got $500,000 from companies that got contracts, study finds, by Edmund Andrews & Elizabeth Becker, NYT, A8.
  ...a comprehensive study of the contracts released on Tuesday [10/28] by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research group..\.. Nine of the ten biggest contractors - the biggest of which were Bechtel Corp. and Halliburton - either employed former senior government officials or had close ties to government agencies and to Congress....

1. Halliburton will work in Iraq, pointer summary (to A3), WSJ, front page (A1).
   ...under its exclusive contract until next year. The company's net fell but quarterly revenue rose 39%.

2. Lawmakers agree to $18.4 billion in new Iraq aid - In victory for the pResident, demand is dropped to treat part of the funds as a loan - Oil-field reconstruction is doubled to $2 billion; A delay aids Halliburton, WSJ, A3.
   [As the cartoon wildwest undertaker used to say, "You plug 'em, we (re)plant 'em." Here's job-desperate America's new role in the "recovering" global economy = going around invading anywhere we damn well please, destroying and reconstructing. Here's our new business card:  "American Wrecking & Rebuilding Unltd."]

3. Military outlays aid Boeing, Northrup, by Lynn Lunsford, WSJ, A3.
   Two of the biggest defense contractors in the U.S. benefited from Pentagon spending during the third quarter.... Both companies' results beat market expectations, and each raised performance estimates..\.. Northrop swung to profit on Pentagon spending; Boeing's net fell 31% but defense work helped offset weak commercial-jet sales [this sentence from pointer summary, WSJ, A1]....
   • Northrop Grumman [NG] Corp. swung to profit from a loss a year earlier [heyhey, just like Halliburton!].... NG, Los Angeles, reported net of $184m, or $1 a share, compared with a net loss of $59m, or 56 cents a share, a year earlier. Sales increased 57% to $6.62 billion from $4.21 billion..\..
     [Heyhey, as Alisdair on BBC's "As Time Goes By" would say, maybe we should call the "recovery" what it is. Nevermind the "stumbling, jobless, job-loss," or now, "but" (Jack Welch, WSJ, A16) recovery. It's actually just another intelligence-insulting bloody war-borne recovery. As was said on the PBS documentary on the history of New York City about the War of 1812 (or was it the Mexican War?), "War is declared - Universal joy among the merchants!"]
   • The news was particularly good for Boeing's stock, which jumped $2.46, or 6.8%, to $38.50 in 4 pm NYSE composite trading..\..
     [Universal joy also among the war profiteers, oops, speculators, oops, investors!]
     At Boeing Co., net income fell by almost a third, but the increased defense business helped offset weakness in the commercial-aviation industry.... Boeing, a Chicago maker of jetliners, combat aircraft, rockets and satellites, reported net of $256m, or 32 cents a share, compared with $372m, or 46 cents a share, the year before....
     [Ya know, it's not about Bush-hating. It's about self-hating as Americans. Bush has made us hate ourselves as Americans. "Proud to be American"? Get real - it's embarrassing, humiliating to be American today. At a time when we should be leading the world to an automatic and flexible market-driven solution to joblessness in terms of automatically unemployment-offsetting workweek fluctuation, we're still denying the labor-saving effects of technology (and denying their benefits to ourselves) and practicing the most unintelligent sort of makework and job creation - military makework and Pentagon job creation. We're still arrogating the private-sector Free Market's role of job creation and doing it in an area that unnecessarily kills people and wastes trillions of dollars in our - or our children's - unnecessarily hard earned tax money. How pathetic is that?! Especially at a time when an intelligent, Free Market-oriented alternative is available and being quietly practiced in piecemeal primitive form by thousands of companies and a few governments, worldwide.]

4. Drug makers' new intensity in defense of U.S. borders [ie: protectionism] - Prospect of cheap imports challenges industry, by Gardiner Harris, NYT, C1.
   [Where now the calls for Free Trade? Clearly, freedom is only for CEOs, not ordinary Americans - until they need drugs and we need them in our argument -]

   ...Pharma execs say that legalizing imports would endanger American patients [yeah sure] and sap profits that pay for research....
   [Think of all those research jobs, and innovation!]

5. Corporate plea for tax breaks: Ours come first - Lobbying scrum over bill - Industries vie as Congress considers replacement for export subsidy, by Edmund Andrews, NYT, front page.
   [Welfare for the rich dba corporate welfare rolls on and on - at the expense of the solidity of CEOs' own consumer markets and business growth - and popularity. We'd have 33% more growth if we'd centrifuge the income turgidly compacted in the top brackets by some such market-oriented program as Timesizing.]
   WASHINGTON...- It has been promoted as a bill to create jobs....
   [The usual excuse, unnecessary with simple, automatic sharework, instead of makework.]

• United Technologies Corp., WSJ, C15.
  Carrier Corp. rejected a $210m incentive and concession package offered by state and union officials to save 1,200 jobs at its suburban Syracuse NY complex. Carrier, a unit of Hartford CT-based United Technologies Corp., said this month that it was closing its 2 mfg plants in Syracuse, eliminating 43% of its workforce at the site.
  In an attempt to change the company's mind, Local 527 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Union and NY Gov. George Pataki offered Carrier a $210m incentive package.
  • The union proposed $105m in wage and benefit concessions over 5 years.
  • The state's incentives [=the other $105m?] included cheap power rates, loan forgiveness and forgoing property-tax payments.

  10/28/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -

  • Bechtel gets G.O.P. support for a potential tax break, by Edmund Andrews, NYT, C5.
    ...originally intended to help shore up factory jobs in theh U.S. by reducing the corporate tax rate for domestic manufacturers to 32% from 35% but...now includ[ing a reduction] on "architectural and engineering services"..\.. Bechtel...hired a former commissioner of the IRS to lobby on its behalf [and] has won support from House Republicans for what could be a generous new tax break....
    • Bechtel [is] an engineering conglomerate that is also one of the biggest recipients of government contracts for Iraqi reconstruction....
    • The new provision would also benefit the Halliburton Co., whose previous CEO was VP Dick Cheney and which now has a Pentagon contract to repair the Iraqi oil infrastructure.
    • The Fluor Corp., which recently won a $102m contract to work on Iraq's electrical system, would receive a tax reduction as well.
    [So Bush is ripping off ordinary American taxpayers everywhichway from sideways.]
    ...But the provision is merely one example of many special-interest additions that have been attached to what Republican and Democratic lawmakers both consider a must-pass tax bill [whose] general purpose...is to replace a longstanding taxbreak...worth about $55B over the next 10 years..\..for American exporters that the WTO has declared an illegal trade subsidy [with] new taxbreaks worth $142B over the same period....
    The issue has become a bonanza for corporate tax lobbyists, and the bill's potential beneficiaries now include Hollywood movie studios, oil and gas pipeline companies like Exxon Mobil, logging companies, big agricultural cooperatives and smaller interests ranging from restaurant owners to liquor distributors....
    [More, much more corporate welfare and charity for the rich - meaning more, much dysfunctional and stifling concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the few - meaning a degree of corruption that we haven't seen since the scandals under Pres. Harding in the early 1920s. These boys couldn't be destroying America faster if they were doing it on purpose.]
  10/25-27/2003  2 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. [feeding frenzy - at the public trough - kiss goodbye to low taxes for your kids & grandkids -]
     10/25   Companies everywhere seek role in Iraq - From Lukoil to Coca-Cola, everyone wants the business, by Dale Fuchs, NYT, B15.
     [Pathetic. And all because we're still in the Dark Ages of Economic Theory with Short-Term Capitalism that still has -
     • demand-diminishing downsizing in response to technological labor savings, instead of automatic full employment and demand-maximization via timesizing, instead of
     • consumer-cutting inflation control via NAIRU-based unemployment fostering, instead of via inflationary and deflationary incentive balancing,
     • and workforce discipline via fear of job loss, instead of with clear job descriptions and prompt, fair feedback (see Deming, Out of the Crisis, et al.).]

  2. 10/27   Subsidies? Or good business? [Or corporate welfare?] - Europe wrestles over payments to companies that spark commerce, by Keith Johnson, WSJ, A17.
     [As capsulated in the summary -]
     Upstart Irish airline flies in the face of Europe's habits, pointer summary (to A17), WSJ, front page.
     Lourdes vs. Pau: Two French towns battle each other after Pau began paying Ryanair [400,000 euros ($470,000) a year for landing the airline's route from London at its airport]. The fight illustrates a bigger one: traditional, top-down regional investment vs. local public and private support.

  10/23/2003  3 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. Wesley Clark's economy, pointer summary (to A20), WSJ, front page.
     The presidential candidate's plan for "another American Century" [hemorrhaging $1B/wk on Iraq? dream on!] includes -
     • $100B for job creation
       [What does he think Iraq was supposed to be? Any amount of money won't work if it all goes to Halliburton executives, and makework is always "too little, too late" anyway - time to get back to tried&true sharework in an updated design like Timesizing. Sharing the vanishing market-demanded employment worked in the USA 1938-1940, though quickly forgotten during the war, and in France 1997-2001, though currently spun by the rightwing gov't as the root and cause of every single problem they can think of. In both cases, it achieved a one percent drop in unemployment for every hour cut from the workweek. And Chirac is now starting to lighten up on blaming France's shorter workweek for all his troubles - see 10/22/2003 #4.]
     • a reduction in Bush's taxcuts
       [Good, at least if means more taxes on the top executives with the unprecedented multiples of average pay.]
     • and the saving of $300B by "ending corporate welfare."
       [Great - but what about Clark's initial support for the neo-con artists' unnecessary, destabilizing, insecurifying and fatally costly Iraq invasion?]

  2. Amid ruins of Iraqi oil wells, investors see field of riches, NYT, C1.
     [Great, now who else's industries and infrastructure can we destroy!]

  3. Arms for jobs in Afghanistan, Afghans handed over weapons in Kunduz this week as part of a program sponsored by the UN in Afghanistan to disarm 100,000 fighters. The program encourages Afghans to exchange weapons for jobs....
     [And out of what hat are they pulling the jobs? So much for Friedman's "Let the market decide" - e.g., on what jobs there should be.]

  10/22/2003  2 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. [here's some more help for the "job-loss recovery" -]
     Troop strength - Pentagon says it will call up added reserves, by Thom Shanker, NYT, A10.
     ...Pentagon officials said...that the all-ups of support troops from the Guard and Reserves could affect dozens of units with hundreds of members in each..\..
     [Estimating conservatively 3 doz. units with 200 members each, we have 3x12x200= 7,200 new "jobs."]
     The announcement was made amid complaints from Congress and the families of part-time troops about the stress of lengthy deployments....
     [Hey, if Cheney-Rummy-Bush can rack up enough Guard and Reserve casualties, we can do another WorldWar2 economic miracle because again, we won't need Timesizing to solve our labor surplus and our consequently weakening consumer base. (But realistically, the Iraq adventure is only big enough to engineer prosperity for Bush & Buds, not the entire US economy.) ]

  2. New questions about Halliburton pricing, pointer digest (to C9), NYT, C1.
     The head of an Iraqi oil agency said that his group has been trucking in gasoline and other needed fuels to Iraq for considerably less money than Halliburton, which has so far received more than $700m from the Army Corps of Engineers to stave off shortages.
     [Can any American spell "w-a-r p-r-o-f-i-t-e-e-r-i-n-g"? It's so much easier to just spell "d-u-h".]
     Separately, a report by the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan public policy research arm of Congress, warned that the Corps of Engineers might be paying too much to import fuel.
     [Nooo, REEEALLY? The indicated article is -]
     New information may bolster questions on Halliburton - Congressional and Iraqi skepticism on oil import charges, NYT, C9.
     [Unspecified new "jobs" for Bush-Cheney pals. Followup -]
     The Army Corps of Engineers, pointer blurb, 11/06/2003 WSJ, front page.
     ...has begun talks to end Halliburton's role in importing fuel into Iraq after criticism of the cost.

  10/21/2003  2 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. A part-time firefighter, news blurb, WSJ, front page.
     ...pleaded guilty to setting what became Arizona's biggest wildfire ever last year, saying he needed to drum up work.
     [Unspecified temporary public-sector "jobs," all demotivated by an automatically self-maximizing full-employment program such as Timesizing.]

  2. Advertising - Microsoft decides this upgrade of Office merits five times the promotional budget of the last one, by Nat Ives, NYT, C6.
     [Pathetic. Still "don't begrudge Bill Gates one penny of his $60,000,000,000"? - Unspecified permanent(?) private-sector "jobs."]

  10/18/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • Lawmakers back requrest by Bush on funds for Iraq - An $87B package - Afghan money is included - Senators want Baghdad to repay some of the aid, NYT, front page.
    [As David Frost recently pointed out in his Strategic Humor Initiative, Bush could have BOUGHT Iraq from Saddam Hussein for, at most, HALF of $87,000,000,000. Compare -]
    Quotation of the day, by Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla) [after Bush suckered Congress into picking up the $87,000,000,000 bill], NYT, A2.
    "After Desert Storm, over a decade ago, the one complaint I still hear is that we went to war against Saddam Hussein but we never finished the job. Well, this finishes the job."
    [No, it doesn't. This finishes us, the U.S. Saddam Hussein is still alive and free - quite possibly under CIA protection judging from the meetings Cheney was holding on Iraq oilwells in early March 2001 - and still alive and free also is Osama bin Laden, the anthrax mailer, the leaker of Mrs. Wilson's CIA cover, the nuclear-armed dictator of North Korea, and all the Saudi backup of the 15 Saudi 9/11 terrorists. And with this kind of stupidity and cupidity, it's just as well we're taking ourselves from global dominance so efficiently - more efficiently than Osama et al. could ever have dreamed. Our plutocratic power elite have become just too insulated, isolated, self-referencing and self-congratulating.]
  10/17/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. [Today, a heart-warming, almost tear-jerking, whitewash of Halliburton's massive makework role by its CEO -]
     Halliburton's mission, editorial-page opinion by Dave Lesar, WSJ, A10.

  2. [Compare -]
     Congress is furious, pointer blurb (to A6), WSJ, front page.
     ...that most to the Transportation Security Administration's $75m bomb-detector budget went into salaries.

  10/14/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • [more BIG GOV'T Republican-style -]
    New office created to rebuild Iraq - Pentagon-run operation to award contracts in move to prioritize reconstruction, by Cummins & King, WSJ, A3.
    ...Project Management Office in Baghdad...a central clearinghouse for all US [taxpayer]-funded nonsecurity-related contracts....
    [And how much will this boondoggle cost the American taxpayer? We aren't told.]
  10/12/2003  2 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • [Bush's latest attack on America's future -]
    Bush eases land rules for miners, angering environmentalists, by Elizabeth Shogren, LA Times via Boston Globe, A18.
    ...allowing companies that mine gold, silver, and other precious metals [for private profit] as much public land as they need to help them develop their claims....
    [Never mind the unimaginable tab this S.O.B. has laid on the American taxpayer, and our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren....]
    The National Mining Assoc. president, Jack Girard, said the new policy "is good for jobs, mining communities [esp. CEOs], and the American economy...."
    [Not to mention motherhood and apple pie. As long as shortsighted CEOs can keep us away from easing into worksharing and straining for sub-adequate job creation, they can keep the megabucks concentrating in their few pockets, regardless of the fact that their levels of income concentration are suctioning the markets away from the productivity they wish to invest it in. It all comes down to jobs. And 75-90% of our Big Government is job creation and makework of one kind or another. All this is another huge pressure to abandon make-work and switch to share-work. Sharing and spreading the vanishing market-demanded demand for labor on a fluctuating-workweek basis is becoming more and more urgent on a national and global scale. The first economy that implements it properly will outdistance the rest, as Japan did in the 1980s, and elicit volumes of books on new management strategy and government policy. Meanwhile, across the page we learn, with no surprise, a possible reason for all this too-indirect&$$concentrating-to-work job creation -]
    Job woes pursue Bush as he leaves for Asia, Boston Globe, A19.
    [The good news is, this adds to his re-election problems.]

  10/08/2003  2 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. Popular program for manufacturers may get reprieve, by Timothy Aeppel, WSJ, A2.
     Capitalizing on political heat over job losses and erosion in their sector, smaller manufacturers are expected to win a reprieve for a federally supported program designed to help them become more competitive....

  2. Pork at the end of the tunnel? - Capitol's $10m passageway derided as a classic boondoggle, by Shailagh Murray, WSJ, A4.
     As the federal deficit is widening, Congress is preparing to dig itself...a $10 million pedestrian tunnel connecting the US Capitol to the Library of Congress across the street....
     [Seriously out of touch.]

  10/07/2003  3-in-1 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • An Egyptian concern, pointer blurb (to B2), WSJ, front page.
    ...and two groups with Kuwaiti participation won licenses to provide Iraq with nationwide cellphone coverage.
    [main story -]
    Telecom groups win licenses for nationwide service in Iraq, by Neil King Jr., WSJ, B2.
    
    • ...Egypt's Orascom...
    • Kuwait's MTC...
    • a third group that includes Kuwait's National Mobile Telecoms aka Wataniya Telecom..\..
    Several losing bidders criticized the selection process as politically skewed....
    [So this is who Bush was excluding Iraqis to save the contracts for! = the usual Bushwhack and a USA thoroughly slimed.]
  10/04/2003  1 actual, and 1 potential, makework case mentioned in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. [1 gigantic actual makework program, unspecified new "jobs" -]
     Iraqis say U.S. occupation authority misspent millions in its awarding of contracts - Lots of money, an urge for speed, complex accounting, NYT, A6.
     Work is under way to rebuild Baghdad's telephone system, a crucial part of getting Iraq back on its feet. Each line must be spliced and tested. [photo caption]
     [The usual war solution - break it so somebody, hopefully your croneys, will have to fix it. Unspecified new "jobs."]

  2. [and 1 gigantic potential makework program -]
     Washington's sour sales pitch - Public diplomacy debacles in the Muslim world, op ed by Michael Holtzman, NYT, A27.
     It is no surprise that a federal panel investigating American "pubic diplomacy" in the Arab world reported this week that despite our efforts to win hearts and minds, "hostility toward America has reached shocking levels." However, I doubt that recommendations like spending millions more on public relations and naming "a special White House coordinator for public relations abroad" will be of much help....

  10/02/2003  1 makework case mentioned in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • Senate talks stall on ending programs for tobacco farms, NYT, A24.
    ...a Depression-era program of price supports for tobacco farmers....
    [perpetuating how many artificial and unhealthy "jobs" and costing taxpayers how many billion? We aren't told.]
  9/30/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • Insiders' new firm consults on Iraq - Provides advice on how to get reconstruction contracts, by Douglas Jehl, NYT, front page.
    A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to pResident Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects.
    [thus adding insult to injury.]
    The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until March. Other directors include Edward Rogers Jr., vice chairman, and Lanny Griffith, lobbyists who were assistants to the first Pres. Bush and now have close ties to the White House.
    [The outrageous taxpayer shakedown gets worse -]
    At a time when the administration seeks Congressional approval for $20.3B to rebuild Iraq, part of an [$79B+] $87B package for military and other spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, the company's website, newbridgestrategies.com, says, "The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington DC and on the ground in Iraq."...
    [We have not seen this kind of gargantuan taxpayer ripoff since the Harding administration in the early 1920s. Note Krugman's comments on op ed page -]
    Who's sordid now? - Cronyism in Iraq: Yes, it matters, op ed by Paul Krugman, NYT, A29.
    It's official: the administration that once scorned nation-building now says that it's engaged in a modern version of the Marshall Plan. ...But at the time of the Marshall Plan, Americans were very concerned about profiteering in the name of patriotism. To get Congressional approval, Truman had to provide assurances that the plan would not become a boondoggle. Funds were administered by an agency independent of the White House, and Marshall [himself] promised that priorities would be determined by Europeans, not Americans.
    [Which raises the point that the Marshall Plan was in aid of a host of strategically important countries, mostly allies (ie: Europe), and not a single strategically irrelevant nation, no longer an ally (ie: Iraq).]
    ...Truman's assurances were credible [because] he initially rose to prominence as a fierce crusader against war profiteering, which he considered treason.
    Iraq's reconstruction, by contrast, remains firmly under White House control. And this is an administration of, by, and for crony capitalists; to match this White House's blithe lack of concern about conflicts of interest you have to go back to the Harding administration. That giant, no-bid contract given to Halliburton, the company that made Dick Cheney rich, was just what you'd expect.
    [And far from having priorities determined by local people, as in the Marshall Plan -]
    American officials continue to block local initiatives, and are still trying to keep the big contracts in the hands of [Halliburton]. For example,
    • ...in July, two enterprising Middle Eastern firms started offering cellphone service in Baghdad.... The authorities promptly shut down the services. Cell service, they said, could be offered only by the winners in a bidding process - one whose rules, revealed on July 31, seemed carefully designed to shut out any non-American companies. (In the face of strenuous protests, the rules were revised, but still seem to favor the usual suspects.) Oddly, the announcement of the winners, originally scheduled for Sept. 5, keeps being delayed. Meanwhile, only Paul Bremer and his people have cellphones....
    • One reason Iraq still faces blackouts is that local experts and institutions were excluded from the repair business. Instead, the exclusive contract was given to Bechtel, whose Republican ties are almost as strong as Halliburton's....
    Meanwhile, several companies with close personal ties to top administration officials have begun brazenly offering their services as facilitators for companies seeking Iraqi business.
    • The former law firm of Douglas Feith, the Pentagon under-secretary who oversees Iraq reconstruction, has hung out its shingle.
    • So has another company headed by Joe Allbaugh, who ran the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and ran FEMA until a few months ago.
    • And a third entrant is run by Ahmad Chalabi's nephew.
      [Chalabi being Bush's pet expatriate Iraqi.]
  9/27/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • More reservists are called up for duty in Iraq, Reuters via NYT, A11.
    The United States [ie: Bush administration] activated 10,000 National Guard troops [yester]day for service in Iraq and put 5,000 others on alert for call-up after an appeal for foreign military help met no immediate response.
    [Makework, not sharework.]
    The 30th Infantry Brigade, from North Carolina, and the 39th Infantry Brigade, from Arkansas, each with 5,000 soldiers, were ordered to join the active duty force on Oct.1 and Oct.12, respectively. They will undergo about 3 months of training before going to Iraq early next year for 12 months....
    [That'll teach'em to join the National Guard! - unless they're really desperate for a job. Note the last standing old Democrat finally spoke up -]
    Kennedy lashes out on Iraq, angering GOP colleagues, by Carl Hulse, NYT, A7.
    ...Sen. Edward Kennedy...call[ed] it the "defining issue" of this congressional session...comments were only slightly toned down from remarks Mr. Kennedy made last week when he called the rationale for the war a "fraud"....
    [Followup, with the fruits of this call-up and all-too-late lash-out -]
    Arkansas - Leaders off to Iraq, city left scrambling, AP via 10/06/2003 Boston Globe, A2.
    BRADFORD - The mayor [Paul Bunn], police chief [Josh Chambliss] and school librarian [Nolan Brown] were all leaving today for military duty that is expected to take them to Iraq, and the residents left behind in this tiny community of 800 are scrambling to fill their roles. ...Five other residents have [also] received orders to report to Fort Hood, TX....
  9/23/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • The EU allowed France, pointer blurb (to A22), WSJ, front page.
    ...to temporarily [ha!] bail out Alstom [to the tune of nearly 3.1 billion euros], averting an immediate bankruptcy.
    [Remember the "temporary" bailout of Chrysler? Then when Iacocca brought it back (temporarily), everyone concluded it was The Right Thing for the gov't to have done - but then Chrysler sank again and got bought for a song by a foreign company (Daimler). It would have been smarter for the gov't to have just stayed out - let the chips fall where they may - and wake up the country to the Worksharing Imperative. It's not optional. We do it or we sink, either into depression, or big big war, or both.]
    
  9/19/2003  1 makework case - cited in Boston Globe -
  • A spending plan to revive Europe, pointer digest (to C7), NYT, C1.
    [Unspecified new 'jobs'.]
    Pres. Jacques Chirac...of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany announced a list of spending projects that they would like to see adopted in an effort to revitalize Europe's economy.
    [Two economies with some of the shortest hours in the world still don't understand that shorter hours is an efficient, market-oriented alternative to Keynesianism with all its artificial makework and job creation, whether via public works and patronage or private-sector pork and boondoggles.]
    The projects include developing digital TV and radio networks [no business of govt's], linking French and German high-speed rail networks [govt needed only at borders], and developing the European satellite navigation system [only one of the three that needs gov't leadership].
  9/18/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • U.S. is speeding up plan for creating a new Iraqi army - 40,000 troops next year - Training by former officers - New force could help ease some pressure on G.I.'s, by Thom Shanker, NYT, front page.
    [Great. Now we're responsible for Iraqi military makework as well as our own mammoth military and prison job creation pork barrels. And how much is the incompetent Bush administration going to charge us for a "new" US-financed Iraqi army? Bush has the worst administration since Warren G. Harding, who was also "nice house, nobody home."]
  9/16/2003  1 makework case - cited in Boston Globe -
  • Romney eyes tax cut for job creation, by Rick Klein, BG, front page.
    ...for companies that create manufacturing jobs in biotech and medical devices,
    [Mistake 1, straining for job creation, however artificial, instead of simply sharing the vanishing market-demanded working hours.
    Mistake 2, favoring one industry over all the others. What the heck does Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney care where the jobs are, as long as they're jobs?! When, oh when, will governments learn to quit the micromanagement and stay as general as possible?]
    and called for beefed-up spending on training workers for the new economy....
    [You mean the "new economy" where all the work is done by automation and robots and there are no jobs? Training should be targeted and financed by market-demanded overtime, period.]
    The governor said he will file an economic development bill that will also include incentives for businesses that redevelop polluted sites and new ideas to prod cities and towns into building more housing. Romney said his $125-million, 3-year plan would make Massachusetts a friendlier place for businesses and add "thousands and tens of thousands" of jobs....
    [Let's, with incredible liberality, let's estimate 20,000 new "jobs." Expanding Massachusetts' existing worksharing program would be a lot smarter.]
  9/13/2003  3 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. Bush seeks $2.1B more for Iraqi oil industry, NYT, B1.
     [ie: Halliburton. Journal version -]
     Bush seeks more money to fix Iraqi oil fields, by John Biers, Dow Jones via WSJ, A18.
     HOUSTON - As part of its $87 billion request for postwar Iraq, the Bush administration has asked Congress for $2.1 billion to restore the country's oilfields, almost tripling what the operation was projected to cost just last month....
     [ie: what the Bush administrion projected the operation would cost just last month. These people are right and truly called neo-cons. They have conned American taxpayers hook, line and sinker. America might as well be ruled by Count Dracula and his pet leaches. The sooner we scrape them off us, the better.]

  2. Hue and cry replaces yawns in vote on Texas constitution, by Ralph Blumenthal, NYT, front page.
     [So where's the makework? Check it out -]
     HOUSTON...- Yep, it's constitutional amendment time again in Texas. Time for another stab at improving, or at any rate expanding, an already enormous document of 82,800 words, more than 8 times as long as the federal Constitution, that has been amended no fewer than 410 times since 1876, according to the Texas Legislative Reference Library. Another 174 efforts failed.
     In other states, legislators pass bills. In Texas, they put it into the Constitution. It happens again on Saturday, when voters will decide on almost 2 doz. amendments to the bulging document. (Only Alabama's Constitution is longer - a whopping 315,000 words, with 740 amendments.)...
     Often the plebiscites are heavy with local minutiae.... [The good news is they're using direct democracy = binding, issue-oriented public referendums. The bad news is, they don't seem to be able to distinguish between detailed and generalized. If there happens to be a bunch of these states in Dixie, it could be another example of the more primitive mentality preserved in the old Confederacy relative to the North.]

  9/12/2003  3 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. Halliburton's contracts , pointer blurb (to A3), WSJ, front page.
     for work in Iraq will cost taxpayers an estimated $2B and are expected to rise, the Army said.
     [and the main headline -]
     Costs escalate for Iraq contracts of Halliburton, by John Biers, Dow Jones via WSJ, A3.
     HOUSTON - Halliburton Corp's US government contracts to restore Iraqi oil production and provide support services to troops will cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion and are expected to rise, Army spokesmen said.
     An Army Corps of Engineers contract to rehabilitate the country's oil fields, controversial because it wasn't competitively bid, now is valued at $948 million, more than $200 million above the level projected last month. One particularly expensive item: importing fuel to the oil-rich country, at a cost of as much as $6 million a day.
     [Surely this should get the "Golden Fleece" award (an eternal concept credit to the late Sen. Proxmire) for ripping off the public.]
     Halliburton's separate Army Field Support Command contract, which it 'won' [our quotes] in 2001, now is estimated to cost $1B in Iraq alone. That is up more than $400m from the level in late May....
     The rising price tags could renew challenges for the Bush administration, because Vice[!] pResident Dick Cheney previously was the company's CEO....
     [Where are the calls to impeach this war criminal?!]
     In 2001, the Army selected Halliburton to provide support services worldwide as military needs arise....
     [“War is declared! Universal joy among the merchants!” - quote from PBS documentary on the history of New York City, with reference probably to the War of 1812 or possibly the Mexican War.]
     Halliburton reported $282m in Iraq-related revenue for the quarter ended June 30. Analysts said the Iraq work added 2 or 3 cents a share. Halliburton reported Q2 net income of $26m, or 6 cents a share.
     [And before this blood-drenched bonanza, these big-government parasites were in the red. Now they're acting like Reds. Note glimmer of hope -]
     Cheney rebuffed in energy case, AP via Boston Globe, A2.
     WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court rebuffed VP Dick Cheney, refusing to intervene in a lawsuit delving into the role of business executives and industry lobbyists in formulating the Bush administration's energy plan in 2001.
     The administration won only three [out of nine] votes in favor of rehearing the request to step into the case, in which Cheney and his energy taskforce are being ordered to turn over a large number of documents to the conservative group Judicial Watch and the environmental group Sierra Club....
     [And the stuff we've already jimmied out of them - e.g., a detailed map of Iraqi oilfields dated March 5, 2001, six months BEFORE 9/11 - is damning enough for impeachment. And while we're at it, let's toss in a related glimmer of hope here -]
     Advertising - Celebrities line up to criticize Bush in ACLU [ad] campaign, by Nat Ives, NYT, C4.
     Michael Stipe, the lead singer of the group REM, appears in an ad from the ACLU that reads, "I am not an American who wants to be shut up or have my neighbors be shut up." [photo caption]
     As the second anniversary of 9/11/01 passed yesterday and pResident Bush pressed for greater expansion of law enforcement powers [see "Bush seeks to broaden US powers with special subpoenas," 9/14/2003 Boston Globe, A19], a new advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] has been rolling out to oppose the tactics and proposals of the Black oops White House.... "The definition of 'crisis' has been changed and been made much more elastic," said Richard Dreyfuss, the actor, who appears in one ad. "Criticism of the administration is not looked upon as allowable or appropriate, because we're in a 'crisis'." With a budget of $3m, the campaign is consuming much of the $4.5m the ACLU typically spends in a year. ...The decision...reflected a belief that disaffection with the Bush administration and its policies was growing, and that opportunities to gain new support and members were growing along with it....
     [Good call! Note Krugman's warning today -]
     Exploiting the atrocity - Is the worst ahead of us?, op ed by Paul Krugman, NYT, A27.
     ...As the Washington Post pointed out yesterday, in the past 6 wks...Bush has invoked 9/11 -
     • not just to defend Iraq policy
     • and argue for oil drilling in the Arctic,
     • but in response to questions about taxcuts,
     • unemployment,
     • budget deficits
     • and even campaign finance....
     • [and probably the major weakening of the Clean Air Act...]
     Now it has all gone wrong...and Mr. Bush's poll numbers are at or below their pre-9/11 levels. ...The members of this administration [cannot] simply lose [in 2004] like gentlemen. ...That's not how they operate. Furthermore, everything suggests that there are major scandals -...energy policy, environmental policy, Iraq contracts...cooked intelligence - that would burst into the light of day if the current management lost its grip on power. So these people must win at any cost.
     The result...will be an ugly, bitter campaign.... Donald Rumsfeld has already rolled out the stab-in-the-back argument: if you criticize the administration, you're lending aid and comfort to the enemy.
     [And there goes the basic tenet of democracy = the concept of loyal opposition.]
     ...The administration's infallibility complex...inability to admit ever making a mistake - will get worse....
     [Back to the ACLU ad campaign for an example -]
     "It is absolutely outrageous," said Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the 'Justice' Dept. "You have men and women who are sworn to uphold the Constitution who are literally putting their lives on the line to keep us safe and our lives intact, and the ACLU is making them out to be some sort of Gestapo-like organization."...
     [Since when has the Bush administration - or any but one member of Congress for that matter - literally put their lives on the line? Bush was flying around leaving DC to its fate all day 9/11/01, and Cheney's been hiding out in "undisclosed locations" ever since! What a contrast to the real courage of King George VI who refused to leave London during the Blitz! Time for Mark Corallo and his ilk to wake up and smell the coffee.]

  2. Alstom SA - France to revise bailout plan to satisfy demands from EU, Dow Jones via WSJ, A12.
     ...Two days [ago] the EU said it would issue an injunction aimed at stopping further payments to Alstom if there is no agreement with Brussels over France's multi-billion-euro bailout package..\.. French Industry Minister Nicole Fontaine...said EU competition rules and rules limiting the French government's budget deficit "are all too strict."
     [or maybe all too lax -]
     The EU and the French government have been locked in a standoff over Paris's proposed 3.1B euro ($3.48B) aid to Alstom....
     [The big tear-jerking plea from the astronomically overpaid top execs in these cases always centers on saving jobs. An aggregate-level, market-oriented, homeostatic full-employment program based on worksharing a la Timesizing would cut off this plea at the knees, and let these coddled nabobs collapse, as they should. As it is, there's no feedback system in this type of cartel-coddling capitalism. And systems without feedback don't last.]

  3. Ghana: Slave boys go home, Reuters via NYT, A8.
     Nearly 200 boys, some as young as 4, were reunited with the families who sold them to Lake Volta fishermen as laborers, local officials said.
     [There's a business for you - having kids and selling them into slavery.]
     The fishermen buy the youngsters for up to $180 because their fingers are nimble enough to work the tiny mesh of their nets. Some 3,000 children are thought to be involved. The return of the children was organized by the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, which ensured that their 'parents' [our quotes] and the fishermen got farm tools, building materials and training in other ways to make money.
     [But is there anything to really stop them from selling the kids again, and getting them returned, and selling them again, etc. etc.? Compare the weapons-buyback programs in the U.S.]

  9/11/2003  1 makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • FAA spending comes under scrutiny - While carriers have slashed costs, the aviation regulator has flown under the radar, by Stephen Power, WSJ, A4.
    ...The Federal Aviation Authority's [FAA's] spending - fueled partly by taxes on tickets - has remained sky high. The agency's budget has grown 70% since 1996, to $14 billion this year, driven by ballooning labor pacts, billion-dollar contract overruns, and managers who have "not followed sound business practices," the Transportation Dept's inspector general [Kenneth Mead] says.
    That trend means higher costs for taxpayers and the strapped airlines. Roughly a quarter of the FAA's budget came from the general fund during the latest fiscal year, compared with zero in 2000, according to...Mead.
    [Honestly, this administration is like the Harding administration - handsome front man masking gross corruption.]
    "The money we take out of that for the FAA could go for some other purposes, like medical research of Amtrak...or any number of things," says Mr. Mead.
    Meanwhile, the fees and taxes on each ticket also have been rising. The load on a $200 ticket, with a single connection each way, has risen to as much as 26% from...15% a decade ago, according to industry figures....
  9/9/2003  3 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  1. Firm wins grant to develop oral drug to prevent smallpox, by Andrew Pollack, NYT, C12.
     The government is giving $36.1 million to a small biotech company to develop a pill that could be used to treat and possibly prevent smallpox infection, providing a possible alternative to a vaccine....
     [So this is presumably a private-sector company with uncapped executive compensation. May we ask who set these priorities, now that we taxpayers have to 'give' this private company $36.1 million of our money without being asked? May we ask what strings are attached to make sure we get value for money? This is nothing other than more big-government makework, another parasitic company warned against in Paul Weaver's "The Suicidal Corporation." And the ultimate villain? Job desperation caused by our fatal choice of makework instead of worksharing the last 63 years. And how many jobs is this perpetuating?]
     The money, in the form of a grant from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, is going to Chimerix, a young company in San Diego with only nine employees. The grant will extend over 4½ years.... So far, the drug, called CMX-001, has been tested only in mice and not against smallpox itself....

  2. Western farmers [in France, U.S...] fear third-world challenge to subsidies, by Elizabeth Becker, NYT, front page.
     ...The world's wealthiest nations give more than $300B of subsidies to their farmers every year, more than the GNP of sub-Saharan Africa....
     [Ergo, socialized agriculture. Maybe as the Timesizing substitute, the downsizing-merger-moredownsizing response to worksaving technology, razes one sector after another - agriculture, manufacturing (autos, steel...), and now, services - maybe they will all get depopulated and effectively socialized - all the while with volumes of free-market capitalist rhetoric, all hypocrisy. Timesizing may turn out to be the only way to save true, competitive, non-monopolized&socialized-with-corporate-welfare capitalism.]
     [Followup -]
     As U.S. food aid enriches farmers, poor nations cry foul - Sending crops, not cash, eases American [surpluses], ignores local surpluses, 9/11/2003 WSJ, front page.

  3. [and another one involving France -]
     France to continue bailouts despite criticism by Europe, NYT, W1.
     ...300m-euro bailout of Allstom.... 450m euro ($500m) [bailout last year of] Bull....
     [And how much was our bailout of Chrysler back in the 1980s? And now it's owned by Daimler of Germany which is busy outsourcing its jobs. If France would wake up to the power of its 4-hour workweek cut in 200-2001, in planning and preparation since 1997, it could do away with all this corporate welfare alias forced taxpayer charity for the rich.]

  9/08/2003  1 huge makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) -
  • [the lord of misrule does it again - your daily dose of infuriating top-exec incompetence -]
    $87B sought to fight terror - Bush says 'central front' in Iraq could require long, costly commitment, Boston Globe, front page.
    [and the Times version -]
    Bush seeks $87B and U.N. aid for war effort - Iraq is labeled central front for terror, NYT, front page.
    [but central front only after Bush's chaos-wreaking unprovoked invasion - here's the Journal version -]
    Bush reaffirms fight on terror as woes mount - pResident seeks $87 billion as attacks in Iraq persist, Palestinian premier quits, WSJ, A3.
    [followup -]
    Bush likely to get money he sought, [GOP] lawmakers agree - Spending on [unnecessary] war effort - Members of Congress predict debate on how $87B bill affects deficit, 9/9/2003 NYT, front page.
    [and]
    Bush's request [cum gun-at-your-head demand], pointer blurb (to A2), 9/9/2003 WSJ, front page.
    ...for new spending for Iraq and Afghanistan could boost the federal deficit to over half a trillion dollars a year.
    [Remember when we were aghast at Reagan's raising the whole national debt to over a $trillion?! Here's the indicated article's headline -]
    Deficit may pass $500 billion mark - Bush spending request could compound pressure on economic 'recovery' [our quotes], 9/9/2003 WSJ, A2.
  9/05/2003  2 makework cases - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) - that illustrate the point that the dirty secret goal of war is makework, and that if the peace research institutes around the world want to get serious, they will find an alternative to makework -
  1. World watch -...Briefly, WSJ, A7.
     WASHINGTON - The U.S. is very close to lending millions of dollars to Turkey, Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said.
     [With the unemployment we've got at home, where are we sending millions to create jobs? Turkey. This whole administration including the Treasury are a bunch of turkeys.]
     The pact requires Turkey to continue with economic reforms and cooperate in Washington's [stupid] plans for Iraq, though it won't require Turkey to send troops.
     [Thank God for that!]
     pResident Bush signed a bill in April that provides $1 billion in 'aid' [alias bribe] to Turkey, convertible to as much as $8.5 billion in loans. Turkey's rejection of the deployment of US troops on its soil during the Iraq war was an embarrassment to the Bush administration, a hurdle in its prosecution of the [unnecessary] war and a blow to the Turkish government, depriving it of a multibillion-dollar aid package.
     [With a billion in 'aid' or 8½ billion in loans, aren't you glad we aren't throwing "a multibillion-dollar aid package" down Turkey's gizzard? The Bush administration is damaging the USA far worse than any terrorists could hope to.]

  2. [and look what our pet pitbull in the Mideast is doing with our usual $3½B/yr but over $9B this year -]
     Israeli arms sale to Delhi may alter balance in Pakistan-India feud, WSJ, A7.
     [Is this any way to stabilize Asia? The value of the sale is never given. Makework for Turkey, makework for Israel - forced from the US taxpayer - who's losing his/her job. Brilliant. Well, maybe if our wilful puppet succeeds in fanning the subcontinent's feud into flame, the antagonists will both 'benefit' from the makework of war as well.]

  9/04/2003  1 outrageous, compound-complex makework case - cited in Wall Street Journal (WSJ) &/or New York Times (NYT) or Boston Globe (BG) -
  1. Despite Bush's credo, government grows - As conservatives groan, study cites increase of employees on federal contracts, grants, by Tom Hamburger, WSJ, A4.
     ...by more than one million people since 1999, bringing the overall headcount to more than 12.1 million as of this past October.
     [Wonder how that compares with New Deal at its most padded - 12m, or overall total 17m below, certainly exceeds it.]
     ...The report [was] written by Paul Light, who directs the Center for Public Service at Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan [but "liberal"] thinktank.... Mr. Light's [8-page] study contends the expansion is here to stay and that using grant and contract employees rather than civil servants "reflects a deliberate strategy by both Congress and the pResident to disguise the true size of government." In addition to individuals who owe their employment directly to the federal government, the report suggests states still need to add about 3 million jobs by 2010 to meet Bush administration mandates [as in "unfunded mandates"] in education and homeland security, although no such growth appears yet in the study. That would bring total federal-related employment to 20m from [current!] 17 million, Mr. Light predicts.
     [For true conservatives, the Bush-Jr administration is the biggest disaster since 'nice-house nobody-home' Warren Harding in the early 1920s. Some would say Hoover, but Hoover was more on target in terms of timesizing, not government-upsizing, than FDR, and over his long life, Hoover made a very valuable running conservative commentary after he was defeated in 1932 for dissing the Bonus Army and simply not moving fast and focused enough on nationwide workweek capping and cutting - finally done in 1938 (44 hrs/wk), '39 (42) and '40 (40) via the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was the weaker but still helpul (1% cut in joblessness for each hour cut in workweek) version of the 30-hour workweek bill that FDR blocked in the House in 1933.]

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