Past dooms du jour 4/2004

Timesizing® Associates

hopes/dooms du jour,
April, 2004
[Commentary] ©2004 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Sq, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080 - HOMEPAGE

4/30/2004 friday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 704 textfiles: # visitors 4/29/thu: 871 excluding spiders (5/01/2003/thu: 847 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

US overtime changes rehashed - Chao counterattacks

WABC/NY's Jim Hoffer digs the dirt on NYC hospitals continuing violation of new worktime limits on physician trainees

same problem, different continent (UK)

same country, different industry (trucking)

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in today's (j) Wall St.Journal or (t) NY Times (archives):

U.S. economy grows 4.2%; war spending provides push (t.C1) - but Rule One of Buckminster Fuller's *World Game = anyone who resorts to war to solve problems loses - & much more externalized waste & cost in terms of human economic casualties
US Senate extends until 2007 ban on Internet access tax (t.A17) - how about until 2999?!
Google prospectus letter is manifesto of founders, Larry Page & Sergey Brin - going to go public without turning over significant control to stockholders so can avoid usual Wall St. short-term focus that dooms long-term - encourage employees to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google (j.A10) - but this is 'in addition to their regular projects', so do they or do they not cap worktime & clear a space for this '20%'??
Canada tackles corporate crime, at least vows to, in wake of Nortel accounting debacle (j.A11)
US gave upbeat terrorism report, saying 2003 attacks fell - but most Iraq violence wasn't tallied & Madrid shows all isn't well (j.A1>6)
Sinclair tells 8 stations not to air 'Nightline' special with Ted Koppel's reading names of all US military personnel who've died in Iraq (j.B2) - media consolidation takes its toll

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-strangling levels:

two Google founders get new job: handling all that money - 30-somethings expected to get $8B from IPO - up to now, frugal pair favor 1 regular bike, ollerblades, 1 gadgety Segway & 2 hybrid cars (Toyota Prius) - 'these guys will become businesses in themselves, their life is about to get incredibly complicated': David Rosenberg, billionaire advisor at Citigroup Private (j.A1)
Martha Stewart Living - ex-chief's bonus (Martha's) cut 26% to $500k for 2003 cuz of firm's diminished performance (j.B6)
Hollinger Int'l Inc. inquiry adds to claims against Conrad, Lord Black = $32m in allegedly unauthorized payments to ousted chairman (j.B2)

CEOs implement UPsizing by fake growth thru takeovers on diversity-choking scale (archives):

Union Pacific Q1 profit slid 62% as capacity woes hurt results (j.B6) - still suffering from disastrous takeover of Southern Pacific in '96 - compare Santa Fe's later disastrous takeover of Burlington Northern

CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):

outsourcing tour: India's business groups treat 9 members of Congress to week-long 4-city tour from New Delhi to Agra in attempt to counter US controversy over jobs going overseas (j.A4) - 'methinks the lady doth protest too much'

DOWNsizing everyone else’s job - today's total, 4500 +?? jobcuts that made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):

3000 jobcuts as Dow Chemical cites rising costs, but reports 600% rise in Q1 profit on rising demand from mfrs & 15% rise in revenue to $9.31B (t.C3, j.B6) = more downsizing work force & consumer base, more funneling of profits & revenues to CEOs who already have so tightly concentrated the national income that they're vacuuming the spending power & markets away from their own investments
40% of workforce cut (1500 jobs lost) as Gateway Inc. PCs duplicates similar cut last month & narrows Q1 loss, instead of just trimming 40% of its workweek (to four 6-hour days 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 60% as many PCs as before (j.B6)
unspecified jobcuts as Gillette, esp. Duracell unit, aims at lower 'overhead' (j.B2) - and, apparently, lower markets

DOWNsizing results = 1 prison item (archives):

study tracks boom in prisons & notes some U.S. counties now have over 30% of their residents behind bars - number of federal & state prisons grew from 61 in 1923 to 592 in 1974 to 1023 in 2000 - Texas built avg. 6 prisons/yr for last 20 years, has most prisons, 137, & biggest % increase, 706% (t.A15) - "Land of the Free" no more

headlines from hell (archives):

macro investor - companies are sitting on mountains of cash &, believe it or not, that's a problem, Steve Liesman says - executives may be at a loss with what to do with it all (t.A1) - how about investing it in your customers' customers = your own employees?! - here's their level of desperation...
nip, tuck, slice, hack at 'low self-esteem' - an American shot off own leg, a Brit tried to freeze one of his off with dry ice = Body Integrity Identity Disorder (j.D11) - or attempt to get on disability?
Adelphia ex-VP of finance Jas. Brown describes 5 yrs of manipulating results (j.C2) - compare: from dream to nightmare - fantasy must always genuflect before reality[?]: Bob Herbert (t.A25) - well, maybe eventually
former ambassador Joseph Wilson believes VP Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, violated law & outed his CIA-agent wife, Valerie Plame - his new book: "Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War & Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity" (t.A16)
promoter of US image quits for Wall St. job - America's chief of PR decides to leave State Dept. (t.A9) - Margaret Tutweiler, Bush family confidante in charge of improving America's image abroad (j.A4) = hopeless task? = another Bush administration resignation
Kerry told black mayors Bush has been hesitant to beef up antiterrorism security at chemical plants because of political ties to the industry (j.A1) = Bush's usual good reason for evil deed
Calif: keeping reputation for dirty air - has 10 of worst-polluted U.S. counties (t.A15)

4/29/2004 thursday - ‘hope is not a plan’, but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing ‘take’ on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 704 textfiles: # visitors 4/28/wed: 835! excluding spiders (4/30/2003/wed: 835 including spiders)
TIMEsizing news = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

Bloomberg News intros WSJ/Europe's article on attack on German 35-hour workweek

WSJ/US version of the article

British hospital management too incompetent to observe worktime limits

the 'infoganda' rolls on - Bush regime on defensive re new overtime rules

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in today's (j) Wall St.Journal or (t) NY Times (archives):

2 UPsizings with unspecified new jobs: - Corning will build another factory in Taiwan (t.C4)
- Kmart Holding, Troy MI, opened an office in New York for its apparel-design staff (t.C4)
support for war is down sharply, poll concludes - growing doubts on Iraq - Bush's rating is at a low - only 47% say US did right thing in Iraq invasion, down from 58% last month (t.A1)
recovery room - it's increasingly difficult to be a skeptic about the sustainability of the economic expansion (j.C1) - but downsizing has only slowed while pre-downsizing takeovers have sped up, & downsizing means weaker consumer demand
US incomes rose in '03, led by plains states (j.D2) - but how much of that went awasting into top brackets where they're already spending all they care to?
lawmakers launch effort to roll back a new OCC policy that exempts national banks from many state laws (j.C5) - now we've gutted the hard-learned bank protections of the 1930s (Glass-Steagall), we're having to reinvent them
EU antitrust regulators gain more enforcement muscle (j.C1)

+ clouded hope = makework: 2 PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):

Halliburton posted net loss for Q1 on asbestos-settlement charge, but revenue jumped 80%, largely reflecting defense work in Iraq (j.A1>8, t.C14)
Kerry outlines his jobs program in swing through Midwest - adds 2 ideas: creation of Mfg Business Investment Corp. to provide venture capital & $200m in gov't money to Mfg Extension Partnership & to Advanced Technology Program (t.A19) = more impotent job creation instead of work sharing

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

CEOs are constantly UPsizing their own pay, perks & pensions, to economy-strangling levels:

Fannie Mae late last year lifted what it pays its [how many?] directors for attending meetings [how many, how long?] 'to make sure we attract & retain top directors':
- raised payments from $600 for phone mtgs & $1000 for in-person mtgs to $1500 for each
- outside directors get $35k/yr fee & committee chairmen get extra $10k
- raised their annual stock-based compensation
- gave each a one-time lumpsum payout of $192k in 2600 shares of restricted stock, 25% of which vests annually (j.C3) - after all its troubles?
Freddie Mac also raised fees paid to non-mgmt board directors in '03 by 15k to $50k - median cash compensation assuming perfect attendance was $93k - highest paid directors were chairman Shaun O'Malley & presiding director George Gould with potential cash compensation of $409k & $171k resp. (j.C3) - how much of this is taxpayers' money?

CEOs implement UPsizing by fake growth thru takeovers on diversity-choking scale (archives):

China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd. to purchase 10 provincial Chinese cellular networks from its parent China Mobile Communications for $3.65B (j.D5)
Associated Banc-Corp of Wisc. is buying rival First Federal Corp. for $613m (t.C4)
BNP Paribas bank of Europe will buy Calif.'s Union Safe Deposit Bank for $245m (j.D5)

CEOs end up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):

tech jobs start to come back in U.S. after deep 3-year slump that erased more than 1m jobs - gains to date are tiny, fewer than 20,000 since late last year & concentrated among smaller firms (j.A1) - and tech jobs produce more worksavings, then further downsizing means fewer jobs
more men live a life like Kramer's, the character in Seinfeld - growing number are not working or attending school: in 1967, 2.2% of noninstitutionalized men aged 25-54 spent whole year this way, in 2002, 8% - so what are they doing? - can't find work; retired young; provide family care; & more than half report selves as sick or disabled (t.C1>2) - US total disabled = 5.7m as of 7/03

DOWNsizing everyone else’s jobs - today's total, ?? jobcuts that made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):

unspecified jobcuts as Capital One Financial creditcards restructures costs (j.A8)

headlines from hell (archives):

more angry than ever at the U.S., the Iraqis crave security (t.A12)
Supreme Court justices bow, 5-4, to GOP legislators in Pennsy gerrymander case (t.A18, j.A1)
justices, 8-1, said federal law pre-empts Calif. antismog rules (j.A1)
traffic deaths in the U.S. increased last year by 1% to 43,220 (j.D2)
fuel economy barely rises - SUVs are blamed (t.C8) - technology enhances efficiency??
glitches plague college admissions - errors multiply as process gets more high-tech & apps rise (j.D1) - technology enhances efficiency??
border-jumping from Mexico surges (j.A5) - Mexican-born, in U.S. illegally, a top student seeks college funds (j.B1>2) - see Timesizing's immigration policy in Phase Five
human warfare cut lowland gorilla population over 70% since 1994 in eastern Congo (j.A1)

4/28/2004 wed. - “hope is not a plan” – but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing 'take' on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 704 textfiles: # visitors 4/27/tue: 912 excluding spiders (4/29/2003/tue: 856 including spiders)
TIMEsizing news = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

Province of Ontario in Canada is going to start enforcing its Employment Standards Act, starting with its maximum workweek

S.Korea will start enforcing 40-hour maximum workweek on July 1: on private firms with over 1000 employees this year, over 300 employees next year, & so on by next-strongest category till entire economy included by 2011

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in today's (j) Wall St.Journal or (t) NY Times (archives):

world wide (tax) web - don't start taxing access to the Internet: editorial (j.A16)
gains for women-owned companies - growing at twice the rate of all US small businesses (t.C5)
Iraq battle plan - Gen. William Odom, old-time military man of rock-ribbed conservative credentials now at Hudson Inst., urges Bush to cut & run - delusional to believe staying the course can achieve goal of building a friendly democracy - we'll get hostile theocracy instead & probably radicalize Saudi Arabia & Egypt - only question is how high a price we're going to pay as Iraq looks ever uglier - staying will further isolate USA & strain the props of 'America's inadvertent empire': World Bank, IMF, NATO (t.A1>4)
full-page ad: 'bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.' - Bush received this warning 5 wks before 9/11 & did nothing - Geo.Bush, a failure of leadership: *MoveOn.org (t.A5)
full-page ad: open letter to Bush concerning America's clean air - Christian to Christian, we ask you to protect God's gift of clean air: *National Council of Churches

+ clouded hope = makework: 2 PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):

built for speed, Halliburton unit runs into big obstacles in Iraq - how Kellogg Brown & Root wound up in over its head in Iraq - wartime demands surprised KBR - & its contract gave it incentive to spend - lost shipments, split orders (j.A1>14)
WTO cotton ruling may help subsidy opponents (j.A15) - those illegal farm subsidies - we should use momentum of WTO's slamming our cotton subsidies to drop $3B/yr of taxpayers' money in welfare to powerful ag interests: editorial (t.A22) - the cotton club - Environmental Working Group website lists top 20 gobblers of cotton pork topping $10B/yr: Miss. 8, Calif. 7, Ariz. 2 - Tyler Farms of Ark. 1st with $24m: editorial (j.A16)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

UPsizing executive pay, perks & pensions, to economy-strangling levels:

Computer Assocs. - interim CEO Kenneth Cron gets $1½m in restricted stock & 80k ops (j.D9)
other shoe drops in deal for Aventis - takeover victor Sanofi-Synthelabo now has to pay out high severance to CEO Igor Landau, CFO Patrick Langlois, COO Richard Markham & four others: 3 or more years of full salary plus pension & life insurance whether they stay or go - Landau could leave with up to E24m ($28.5m)

CEOs wind up DOWNsizing their own consumer markets - overviews (archives):

consumers saying jobs 'plentiful' up from 14.7 to 15.8% in April (j.A2) - 1-2-3 organized cheer
outsourcing & its discontents - send jobs to India? US companies say it's not always as effective as advertised (t.C1>A1)

DOWNsizing results = workplace deaths - lack of work-life balance kills (archives):

for 15 yrs, Dems in Congress have sought strong criminal penalties for violations that kill workers - wilful violations leave 100 workers dead each year (t.A15)

headlines from hell (archives):

tax fear & loathing challenge payroll managers who have to cope with rising number of workers insisting no law requires them to pay income tax & falsifying W4 forms to cut withholdings - egged on by Internet 'tax deniers' (t.C3) - Bush's example undermines gov't despite a tax-collection system being an ingredient for constitutional democracy (j.A4)
2 execs leave Air America Radio, new liberal talk network - CEO Mark Walsh & exec.VP of programming Dave Logan, over struggle just to be heard in Chicago & L.A. (t.C1>6)
Bush issues directive to bolster defense against bioterrorism but $5B in antiterror aid is reported stuck in pipeline (t.A18) - more cheap talk - compare: Bush-Cheney interview by 9/11 panel won't be formally recorded (t.A19) - more unaccountability & coverup
Brett Kavanaugh, Bush aide on appeals court nominees, faces fire as nominee himself (t.A16) - more conflict-of-interest denial

4/27/2004 tuesday - “hope is not a plan” – but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing 'take' on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/26/mon: 935 excluding spiders (4/28/2003/mon: 910 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

WSJ fields another exposition of the new overtime rules & Timesizing fields another exposition of its much more advanced overtime design

the Bush gov't grows yet bigger - Labor Dept. creates new overtime enforcement task force

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in today's (j) Wall St.Journal or (t) NY Times (archives):

1 industrywide, & 4 specific UPsizings with 1270 new jobs
- 150 US airlines are hiring pilots, including America West, AirTran, Atlantic Coast, Mesa - good news for economy, bad news for pilots cuz pay is up to 60% lower than pre-9/11 (j.B1)
- 660 new pilots (220 this year + 440 next year) at JetBlue Airways - got 9,000 qualified applications & pilots are entering their training with twice their minimum flight hours or more - pay starts at $52k (j.page B6)
- 400 new pilots at Southwest - got 'thousands' of resumes (j.B6)
- 120 new pilots at regional SkyWest in Utah (j.B6)
- 90 new pilots at Chautauqua unit of Republic Airways - pay starts at $19,400 (j.B1)
WTO rules against US cotton agrobiz subsidies (j.A2)
British ex-diplomats assail Blair's Middle East policies (t.A10) - the dazed gradually awake

+ clouded hope = makework: 1 PUFFsizing, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):

Bush creates office on health info-tech system within Dept. of Health & Human Services - to promote nationwide computerization of US medical records over next decade (j.D6) - useful?, or just another chunk of Bush Big Gov't like new overtime enforcement taskforce (above)?, or yet another Bush control tactic & invasion of privacy?

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

CEOs implement UPsizing by fake growth thru takeovers (archives) on diversity-choking scale:

UnitedHealth Group agrees to $4.7B deal for Oxford Health Plans (t.C1)
in overhaul, TXU sells TXU Australia to Singapore Power for $3.7B (t.C4)

DOWNsizing everyone else’s jobs - today's total, 1,965 jobcuts that made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):

1300 jobcuts as Pilgrim's Pride poultry to shed turkey plant in Hinton VA (t.C4)
665 jobs up in the air (70%) as Citgo Petroleum Corp. moves its HQ from Tulsa to Huston (t.C4)

DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):

Medco to pay $29.3m to settle complaints of drug switching (t.C1) - so even Social Security & Medicare survive till we retire, we still have to watch that pharma CEOs aren't switching us to costlier drugs without telling us

DOWNsizing results = 1 political bankruptcy (archives):

DOWNsizing results = 1 homelessness story in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):

yes, some students live in the library (but not like this one) - homeless at NYU, sophomore Steve Stanzak lived for months in Bobst Library subbasement, showering in the gym = creative-writing major's creative take on campus housing (t.A1>23)

DOWNsizing results = workplace deaths reported in (g) Boston Globe (archives):

Ma. work deaths rose by 65% to 81 cases in '03, up from 49 in '02, biggest jump since '99 (g.C1)

headlines from hell (archives):

psst! is Colin Powell bound for World Bank? (t.W1) - he has the right hypocrisy qualifications
US hotels, again profitable, are adding more surcharges - notice is uneven, appeals overruled - among recent tactics: adding fees to bills itemized as taxes (t.C1>8) - with CEOs hammering wages, benefits & pensions for everyone but themselves & suctioning spending power out of their consumer base, all big companies are having trouble expanding markets, so...they squeeze their existing markets tighter
vision of unaccountable power - why is Dick Cheney stonewalling on energy taskforce disclosure? - to defend a doctrine that makes the USA into an elected dictatorship, where the President/CEO, once in power, can do whatever he likes & isn't obliged to consult or inform either Congress or the public: Krugman (t.A25) - isn't this basically what happened to the Roman Republic 2,030 years ago when Caesar crossed the Rubicon? - & soon we got the likes of Caligula & Nero (alias Mr. 666) - 'learn from history or be doomed to repeat it'

4/24-26/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
- keep hope-vs-doom comin' with $5/mon. check to Timesizing.com, Box 622, Cambridge Ma 02140 -
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TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

French are getting fed up with center-right's attempts to 'reform' 35-hour workweek

gov't of Ontario is undoing previous govt's attempt to relengthen workweek to 60 hours

bad overtime design is fragging EU's worktime directive, as little Malta now follows UK's lead in opting out of 48-hour workweek ceiling "to safeguard employee's choice" - ha!

a lot of people who stay part-time get marginalized in pay & promotion - so better to adjust 'full time' downward than go Dutch route of beefing up benefits for part time

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope indexing (j) Wall St.Journal, (t) NYTimes or (g) Bos.Globe (archives):

1 general, & 3 specific UPsizings yielding 920 new jobs -
- optimism grows in hiring - especially in healthcare & construction (4/25 g.page J2)
- 800 new jobs as Infineon Technologies invests $1B to expand Richmond VA plant (4/26 j.C5)
- 100 Indiana jobs as Coachmen Industries buys new factory site (4/24 t.B3)
- 20 jobs as CA ad agency Colby & Partners opens NY office (4/26 t.C12)
March durable-goods orders for factores top forecast, rising 3.4% (4/24 t.B3) - too bad no corelation to new job in automation age
hundreds of thousands of pro-choice supporters vow to fight another Bush term (4/26 t.A1)
‘it's good he's saying we should go to the U.N...but by asking for more troops he's basically validating Bush's occupation’: Nader, speaking of Kerry (4/24 g.A13) - at least Kerry wasn't a military no-show like Bush...
files show Kerry earned medals for wounds from shrapnel - that's still in his leg (4/26 t.A8)

+ clouded hope = makework – 5 PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):

Halliburton, in Iraq for the long haul [or the big take], recruits employees (4/24 t.B1)
Army seeks ways to bolster force in Iraq - plan calls for growing reliance on National Guard & retraining troops in critical areas (4/26 j.A4)
security sizzles - as threats like worms infiltrate networks, computer security firms see rise in hiring as rest of the industry struggles (4/25 j.A1) - computer-security threat generates jobs - industry niche sees rise in hiring as awareness grows (4/25 j.A6) - and who's to say it's not the security firms producing the security threats?
students learn a hard lesson, as many graduate into debt - between student loans & credit cards, average graduate owes $22,000 (4/25 g.E3) - ‘16 tons & whaddaya get, another day older & deeper in debt, St.Peter doncha call me cuz I cain't go, I owe my soul to the company store’ - millions of young Americans become debt-slaves to maintain wasteful option of unlimited personal $concentration for mere tens of thousands of the 'entitled' in top income brackets
Greenwich CT officials ponder the prospect of a winter wonderland without the sleds - losing a damage suit over a sled accident causes some rethinking of winter fun in a picturesque Connecticut town (4/26 t.A18) - another example of American litigiousness, makework realm #3

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & g (Boston Globe):

1 DOWNsizing, totaling 5000 lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):

training

DOWNsizing overviews noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT or (g) Boston Globe (archives):

transitions - Ethan Becker found being laid off painful, and a 'huge wake-up call' (4/25 g.J1>11) - as if anything but widespread implemention of worksharing is going to provide livelihoods in age of robotics - unless you can fall back on a family business like Ethan
supply & command - the Pentagon has been embracing just-in-time delivery, outsourcing & other business 'best practices' for years - but does bottomline thinking belong on the battlefield (4/25 g.D1) - especially when you could be outsourcing to enemies posing as friends

DOWNsizing appetizers = 1 mega & 1 banking takeover (archives):

Aventis to be acquired by rival French drug maker Sanofi for $65B (4/26 j.A1)
Central Pacific Financial Corp. to acquire CB Bancshares Inc. for $420m, said it will keep Dec. promise to forgo any involuntary layoffs (4/26 j.C5, 4/24 t.B4)

DOWNsizing results = 6 dysfunctional-executive-pay item:

ahead of tape - the issue about CEO pay isn't simply that it's too much, but that it isn't effectively linked to performance, despite cos' claims that they're trying to link it - little evidence of improvement over past several years despite pay experts' claims - Mercer HR data from 350 big cos. shows little corelation between CEOs' pay & co. performance - during last 10 years, median pay of top US CEOs has steadily risen from $2.5m in '94 to $6.2m, up 146%, while co. revenue, profit & median shareholder return has not - median revenue was up 0.02% $6.26B from '02 to '03, both down from $7B in '00... (4/26 j.C1)
Interpublic Group of Cos. ad agency in NY paid executives $41m in bonuses, called by some?many? analysts 'modest', in 2003, a year in which it lost $451.7m, laid off employees, took large charges to earnings & cut [evidently other] costs - CEO David A. Bell got $1.3m (4/26 t.C1>12, j.B5) - note that exec pay is seldom seen as 'costs' at cutting time & that execs seem to have a cheering section among stock analysts, never mind stock holders
Bank of America paid $38m to CEO Kenneth Lewis in 2003 (4/26 j.C3)
Fannie increased '03 pay for CEO Franklin Raines by .9m to $5.4m (4/26 j.C3) & his long-term incentive plan payouts by 4.4m (60%) to $11.6m (4/29! j.C3) - after all its troubles?
Omnicom Group paid CEO John D. Wren $1m salary in '03, up from $875k in '02 - also got $1.1m bonus + $10k in 'other' for total of $2.1m (4/26 j.B5)
Delta stockholders approve plan on executive pensions - would restrict bankruptcy-proof pensions that contributed to Delta's larger exec-compensation debate last year (4/26 j.B2) - 'heads we win, tails you lose'

DOWNsizing results = 3 eroding-retirement stories noted in (j) WSJ or (t) NYT (archives):

Social Democrat Heinz Fischer wins Austria's presidency - 'Freedom' Party opponent Benita Ferrero-Waldner was linked to social spending cuts & pension 'reforms' (4/26 t.A12) - everywhere the 'extremist' 'radical' 'left' wants to conserve the good stuff we've got while the 'conservatives' want to 'fix' something that works
total assets increase in retirement plans ... after 3 difficult years (4/26 j.C3) - what a miracle!
cuts for retirees: shame of a nation (4/26 t.A22) -
- Vegas' Susan Savarise: with EEOC wanting to let employers cut or quit retiree health benefits at 65, when will we rescue healthcare from politics & the insurance industry?
- Ann Arbor's Charles Cowley: like crew of sinking lifeboat, firms & organizations begin to cast things overboard - stage is set for retirees to join the jettisoned

DOWNsizing results = 1 homelessness story (archives):

duty, loss & hardship: soldiers' stories - US Army commissary vet Nicole Goodwin is home from Iraq & homeless - enters NYC's shelter system with her 1-year-old daughter, Shylah (4/24 t.A1)

headlines from hell (tm) from (j) Wall Street Journal or (t) NY Times or (g) Boston Globe (archives):

American empire & its grim wages - American military is beginning to drift out of democratic control - book reviews of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy & the End of the Republic," and Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" (4/25 g.D8)
Pentagon to review photo ban over images of US coffins (4/24 g.A1) - photo bans? US = born-again USSR
Latin America's fragile democracies: editorial (4/26 t.A22) - don't they mean "America's fragile democracy"?! - & then there's Flori-duh again...
Florida legislators take on a voter right - bills would place limits on citizens' ability to amend constitution (4/26 t.A14)
Northwest Airlines says must cut labor costs by $1B annually - pilots union offers to invest $200m to stave off wage & benefit cuts (4/26 j.B8, 4/24 t.B4) - things are gettin' weird

weekend roll-up -
5 issues/wk - wk's avg homepage hits/issue: 73
hope of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
• 20 TIMEsizing items • 3 UPsizings (920+ new jobs) + bogus hope: • 7 makework items
vs. doom of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
• 4 DOWNsizings, over 5502 jobcuts • 3 bankruptcies
• 7 eroding-retirement stories • 2 homelessness stories • 2 prison stories
{{ ytd: 294 timsizngs (636+ new or sav'd jobs) + 49 upsizngs (79976+ new jobs) + 132 makwrk (36803+ 'jobs') =
total: 117415 = 57% of cuts, VS. 180 dnsz (206472+ cuts) + 72 bnkrp ($350m+) +17 homlss +29 jail +10 suic }}

4/23/2004 friday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing 'take' on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/22/thu: 829 excluding spiders (4/24/2003/thu: 800 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

hysterical pro-Bush-overtime NAM accuses anti-Bush-overtime AFL-CIO of hysteria

impact of overtime changes in Fond du Lac, Wisc.

ditto in Jackson, Miss.

success of timesizing Nucor under steel tariffs

failure of employee-owned but non-timesizing Weirton under ditto

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope (archives) in today's j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NYTimes):

Washington wire - money pours into anti-Bush groups - 2 large ones collect $34m in 1st quarter, dwarfing GOP counterparts (j.page A4) - Kerry is no TR or Lincoln, but at least we get the neo-con vampires off our throats, tho we still have Dem leeches on our ankles
all the presidential polls - well-known incumbent's numbers (44%, Investor's Daily) are a ceiling, while lesser-known challenger's (40%) are a floor - 'country on wrong track' up from 46% last April to 57% now - margin of error 3½% (t.A23)
EPA won't ease restrictions on sulfur content of gasoline to ease high gas prices after all (j.A6) = another Bush reversal
EU explains big Microsoft fine (chickenfeed to Gates) with internal Micosoft memos (j.A10) - compare below: Microsoft posts 39% profit drop (j.A10)
a singular voice from DC - Mary McGrory won a Pulitzer & 20th place on Nixon's enemies list - from Jane Austen she learnt that civility & kindness are moral imperatives (t.A22)

+ clouded hope = makework rampant: 3 PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’ (archives):

Air Amtrak - the battle over more federal airline subsidies: editorial (j.A14)
science group AAAS says U.S. budget plan would harm research - cuts in funding could hit 21 of 24 federal agencies that engage in research - only ones likely to escape cuts are military, domestic security & space exploration (t.A16) - but then, why is a supposedly capitalist gov't funding research-industry jobs in anything else?
Iraq reconstruction - work restarts on projects hurt by strife - more violence feared, further hindering Iraq 'rebuilding' (t.A9) - we'd be able to safely cut a lot of the super-inflated military & domestic-security budgets if we quit going around starting frivolous wars to humor oil barons - compare Krugman: what went wrong? why Bush made a mess of Iraq - he & his officials believed what they wanted, ignored awkward facts & have learned nothing since (t.A23)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t) -

UPside-down data, carefully cooked (eg: unemployment):

growth is main topic on G-7 agenda - researcher Michael Mussa of Inst. for Int'l Economics: 'the reality is, the world economy is doing quite well' (j.A13) - never mind low-est. 14m deactivated US consumers: ? unemployed, 4m welfare, 6m disabled, 2m homeless, 2m incarcerated, 30k/yr suicides, plus unspecified cramped consumers in forced early or interrupted retirement & in forced single or multiple part-time job holders
durable recovery - April shower of powerful March data has turned around almost every last bear on the economy (j.C1) - a nation of shallow bears, tunnel-visioned on productivity regardless of marketability or marginal efficiency of hyper concentrations of global capital = shouting the first hint of tiny good news, continuing to ignore the huge ongoing bad news

DOWNsizing executives’ own consumer markets - overviews (archives):

job data is still soft

DOWNsizing everyone else’s jobs - today's total, 2 VP +?? jobs that made it into j (WSJ) or t (NYT):

2 divisional presidents cut as Time Inc. removes layer of management (t.C4)
unspecified jobs cut as Corning Inc. closes a plant in latest quarter (j.A11)

DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):

Bush's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to allow insurance cuts on the retired - employers support - ex-employees could lose health coverage at 65, as Medicare begins (t.A1) - but then, Bush is cutting Medicare too...
White House wields drug-discount cards to blunt Democratic Medicare attacks (j.A4) - we've already had stories about the impotence of these cards
Maine takes conservative investment path to fund pensions, aiming low but guaranteed = a strategy some say could have prevented several pension fund collapses - many others, burned by risk, turn to even riskier investments such as hedge funds & venture capital (t.C1>A1>C2)

DOWNsizing results = 1 bankruptcy (archives):

DOWNsizing results = 2 prison items (archives):

Calif: freed white man, Thomas Lee Goldstein, files $2m claim vs. Long Beach & L.A. County - released after serving 24 years on murder charge that was dismissed cuz key witness recanted on deathbed last year - prosecutors now have insufficient evidence for retrial (t.A14)
Georgia: class-action in Atlanta vs. Sheriff Jacquelyn Barrett on behalf of county jail inmates who said they were regularly held for day or weeks beyond their release dates due to bureaucratic delay, & strip-searched after charges dismissed or bond granted (t.A14)

headlines from hell (archives):

Yaser Hamdi & Habeas Corpus - can US citizen be deprived of all access to lawyer & family & imprisoned for as long as a president insists? can a president in effect override the ancient writ of Habeas Corpus by calling Hamdi 'enemy combatant' & not charging him with a crime? (j.A14) - this is even worse than the 'spectral evidence' allowed at Salem in 1692 - no one is safe
Kerry defends Dem turf by matching Bush's pro-Israel stance (j.A4) - don't they mean ‘pro-Sharon, anti-Israel’?
the real war - Tami Salico, American employee of Iraq military contractor, was fired this week when Seattle Times printed a photo she had taken of a cargo plane full of coffins draped in American flags (t.A22) - Americans talk the talk of 'reality' but...
Washington wire - Bush taxcuts keep on giving ... $25B more deficit than previous est. $375B by, e.g., yielding only $100B revenues by 5/15/04 well short of 03's $115B, but also more consumer spending (j.A4) - but NA if mainly for rich who are already spending all they care to
Fed transcripts provide peek into '98 bailout of LTCM hedge fund - despite which, Greenspan later opposed efforts to regulate hedge funds & still does, & has opposed SEC's Wm. Donaldson in his efforts to register them (j.B8) - Greenspan never learns
½-page ad for Phoenix Investment Partners features wealthy mother & ballerina daughter who ‘loves having trust fund, hates feeling guilty about it...wants a better relationship with money’ (j.A8) - Timesizing spreads work, eases daughter's combining $earning & ballet school
Canada's ‘free’ healthcare has hidden costs (j.A15) - but also hidden benefits, & a primitive developed nation such as USA with 43m uninsured as of 11/20/2000, by now 50m, cannot be compared with standard developed nations with universal healthcare = advantage: Canada - consider relative vulnerability to bioterrorism with one in six citizens (50m/290m) uncovered
HCA Inc. - net declines 26% on accounts in doubt, uninsured patients - uninsured ER visits up 18% from last year & uninsured admissions up 14% (j.A10) = advantage: Canada
charities surprise donor foundations with bluntness when polled anonymously - there's usually no feedback loop: Lorna Lathram, foundation consultant (t.A12)

4/22/2004 thursday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing 'take' on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/21/wed: 872 excluding spiders (4/23/2003/wed: 1068 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

UK Tories support reduction of junior doctors' hours to levels consistent with patients' safety but think this could be better done without EU Worktime Directive specifying 58-hrs/wk max - sure, then nothing would be done

Bush's overtime changes only good on paper

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope (archives) in today's j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NYTimes) & g (Boston Globe):

U.S., European cotton subsidies face challenges (j.A17)
dire warning elicits skepticism - Steve Ropa of Englewood CO has hard time believing Western Growers CEO Tom Nassif's repeated implication that we'll all starve if Calif. farmers have to pay their fair share for water instead of getting subsidized by everyone else (j.A19)
U.N. to Bush's rescue, never mind he considers it feckless? - 6 more months like the last in Iraq & Geo.W. will be toast in Nov. (j.A19)
Navy records detail Kerry Vietnam duty - under pressure, Kerry camp releases records from his Navy service 1966-70, for starters including his evaluations as an outstanding, aggressive, top notch, intelligent, polished, brilliant officer (g.A1,8) - & waddawegot in the White House? a no-show whose daddy covered up for him & who's too dumb not to leave Kerry's records private
hybrid vehicles gain popularity among Americans (j.D4)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

UPsizing executive pay, perks & pensions, to economy-strangling levels:

total $8.36m, plus

UPside-down indexes:

IMF increases global-output forecast to 4.6% in '04 & 4.4% in '05 (j.A4) - never mind marketability or marginal efficiency of 'black hole' concentrations of global capital

UPsizing companies by fast ‘growth’ thru takeovers (archives) on a diversity-stifling scale:

VW & 2 investors (Olayan of Greece & Mubadala of UAE) to buy ABN Amro's Dutch fleet-mgmt LeasePlan unit for E2B = $2.38B (j.A14)

headlines from hell (tm) noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) & g Boston Globe:

Saudi Prince Bandar denied any "quid pro quo" in promising Bush to try to curb oil prices, saying it wasn't a bid to influence the U.S. elections (j.A1) - then what was it, l'il buddy? - at least you didn't deny promising, tho you're apparently trying to fudge the timing
Bush was sent an Earth Day letter by the National Council of Churches saying his "Clear Skies" plan shows his poor environmental stewardship (j.A1) - didn't stop him from making Earth Day speeches about how great he's been
Archbishop of Canterbury said the political health of Britain has been damaged by Bush-buddy Blair's claims about Iraq that events proved false (j.A1)

4/21/2004 wednesday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
- want the Timesizing 'take' on some issue or event? email us -
- we have 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/20/tue: 959 excluding spiders (4/22/2003/tue: 1102 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

Bush had short workdays & short workweeks

new rules on overtime are established

Labor Dept. revises plans to cut overtime eligibility

Labor Dept.'s plan to change overtime pay gets a going-over

family first? firms say yes - 'new concept' shift is boon to moms, other part-timers

no yearlong crews for space station

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope (archives) in today's j (Wall St.Journal), t (NY Times):

nearly 1,000 Prudential Financial agents join NY-based Office & Professional Employees Int'l Union, Local 153 (t.C4)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

UPsizing companies by fast ‘growth’ thru takeovers (archives) on a diversity-damping scale:

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to buy PanAmSat from DirecTV Grp & investors for $3½B (t.C4, j.B10)

DOWNsizing executives’ own consumer markets - overviews noted in j (WSJ) & t (NYT):

bosses often sugarcoat their worst news, but staffers don't bite - whenever boss began with 'today is a good day for change,' something bad was afoot - he'd briefly disclose they'd lost a client, had to have layoffs, or had to fire someone, then dilate at length upon how good this bad news was (j.B1)
the problem with outsourcing - who gets the increased wealth, & what does everyone do for a living? (g.A19) - & who's left to buy all the stuff?
government gives Nissan an exemption from fuel economy rule cuz concerned that enforcement could lead to job losses in U.S. (t.C4) - whenever CEOs want to go backwards, they threaten job losses - & deliver them either way - Timesizing defangs their threats

DOWNsizing everyone else’s retirement (archives):

Europe pensions are attracted to hedge funds - strategy gains in use, following the practice now established in U.S. (j.B4B) - a double disaster, a feast of risk

DOWNsizing results = 2 bankruptcies in (j) WSJ and (t) NYT (click for archives):

CoreComm New York Inc. in Chapter 11 (j.B5)
The St. Francis Entities in liquidation in Orphans' Court Division - St. Francis Health System, Medical Center, Hospital of New Castle, Hospital Cranberry, Health Care Services, Plaza, Foundation, Sisters of Millvale PA, Millvale Franciscans (j.B5)

headlines from hell (tm) noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) & g Boston Globe:

Sen. Robert Byrd, senior Democrat on Appropriations Committee, questions legality of Iraq funds, says Bush may have violated law by failing to inform Congressional leaders in mid-2002 of diversion of antiterror dollars to preparations for Iraq invasion (t.A11)
Interpublic Group of Cos. pays $93m to end contract to promote British Grand Prix (t.C4) - right on par with the million$ paid to rejected president of Boston University
ex-secretary guilty of embezzling $7m - Joyti De-Laurey bought 8 properties, $100,000s in clothing & jewellery, cars & boat - arrested while awaiting delivery of Aston Martin (t.C4) - a demonstration of economy-dynamizing consumption when money breaks out of top brackets

4/20/2004 tuesday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
we have 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/19/mon: 907 excluding spiders (4/21/2003/mon: 810 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

Wall Street Journal offers balanced assessment of Bush's overtime stretch

Reuters weighs in on same issue

American Airlines mgmt is cruisin' for a bruisin' by undermining flight attendants with poor scheduling & public criticism

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope (archives) in today's j (Wall St.Journal), t (NY Times):

1 UNtakeover - Yukos tries to unwind its failed merger with rival Sibneft (t.W1)
index of leading indicators rose last month (j.A2) - but takeovers did too & so will downsizing
Powell may help Kerry - Woodward book "Plan of Attack" shows Powell as Iraq-policy outsider (j.A4) - Kerry accuses Bush of 'secret deal' with Saudis for them to cut oil prices in time for Nov. election (t.A16) - Kerry push, unlike Gore's, will attack on environment - tough task for Dems 4 years ago looks a lot easier this time (t.A16)
Nader asks for antiwar vote & urges Iraq pullout date (t.A16)
one banker fights for half-million American Indians - Elouise Cobell's class-action suit says federal gov't owes them $billions of haphazard payments for farming, grazing & lumber rights (t.A15) - compare: Supreme Court upholds tribal power to prosecute crimes committed on reservation by members of other tribes (t.A10)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

1 DOWNsizing, totaling 500 lost jobs reported in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (NY Times):

training

DOWNsizing appetizers = 1 takeover story, alias 'M&As' (archives):

MG Technologies sells 4 of its Dynamit Nobel chemical businesses for $2.7B to consortium led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & CSFB Private Equity (t.C4) - getting a Nobel Prize? you're taking arms (dynamite) profits

DOWNsizing results = 1 story of dysfunctional-executive-pay:

Cendant chief Henry Silverman, recipient of one of richest executive compensation packages in U.S., bows to shareholder pressure & takes bit of a pay cut, but some say it's hard to determine exactly how much - CEO's contract also is shortened in bid to settle lawsuit (t.C1>8, j.A3)

DOWNsizing results = 1 homelessness story from (g) Boston Globe (click for archives):

wrong

wrong'

4/17-19/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
#visitors to any of our 703 files, F Sa Su: 688,460,559 - wk's daily avg: 730
6 TIMEsizing items = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

China's long hours, big population & basic technology add up to employee powerlessness & maiming work conditions

long hours & multiple jobs become new costs of living in Boston for young people loaded with college loans

bus drivers in Worcester MA object to a recent layoff & resulting forced overtime - federal judge tries to bankrupt their union

long hours feed into layoffs, layoffs feed into long hours = vicious circle

the arrogance of 'conservatives' in attacking the popular 35-hour workweek is assuring the French will learn the lesson of over-fractionating the progressive vote

U.A.E. is encouraging job sharing to gain fuller employment & lighten up on female employees with family responsibilities

• Phil Hyde to speak at *shorter-hours conference, Jun.10-13, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope, indexing j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NY Times):

new PM Zapatero orders Spain's 1400 soldiers home from Iraq = setback for Bush effort (4/19 t.A1>j.A19)
latest book on Iraq war, Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, raises political pressure on White House (4/19 j.A4)
White House on defensive from criticism it was obsessed with Iraq since Bush took office (4/19 j.A1) - lack of resolution in Iraq finds conservatives divided - neo-cons who supported invasion are on defensive (4/19 t.A17) - but Kerry too backs off...on 1970s statements about Vietnam War 'atrocities' (4/19 t.A15) = divided against himself? but did attack Bush officials who received draft deferrals, e.g., Cheney & Rove (4/17 t.A10) & call Bush 'stunningly ineffective' at foreign affairs, citing Iraq & abrupt shift on Israel (4/19 j.A1>4)
Schwarzenegger won a legislative push Friday to overhaul Calif.'s costly worker comp program (4/19 j.A1)

+ clouded hope = makework rampant: 2 PUFFsizings, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’:

private security firms: unexpected & rising shadow force in Iraq (4/19 t.A1>11)
Northrop Grumman covered up major accounting irregularities during the late 1980s to stay in the Pentagon's good graces, internal documents indicate (4/19 j.A1)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & adding g (Boston Globe):

1 DOWNsizing, totaling unspecified lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):

Albertsons supermarkets to close all of its stores in New Orleans (4/17 t.B4)

DOWNsizing overviews noted in WSJ (j.), NYT (t.) or Boston Globe (g.):

Wal-Mart, a nation unto itself - GM's above-average wages & benefits set corporate trends in mid-20th-century America - Wal-Mart's low ones are doing so now, scholars say (4/17 t.A17) - & it's all because CEOs downsize after introducing technology, instead of timesizing
the law of outsourcing - claiming unconstitutionality, WSJ fights anti-outsourcing 'buy American' laws that 33 states are trying to pass (4/19 j.A20)
shifting the outsourcing battle to books from TV - CNN's Lou Dobbs has signed with Warner Business Books to rush out by Aug. "Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas" (4/19 t.C9)

DOWNsizing results = 1 dysfunctional-executive-pay item:

MGM Mirage - chairman & CEO realized $7.2m from exercising 350k options in '03 (4/19 j.A16)

DOWNsizing results = 1 bankruptcy in WSJ (j) and/or NYT (t):

2 prison items (click for archives):

51 foreigners, Mexicans, on death row in U.S. were denied access to officials of their own gov't when first arrested - International Court of Justice says they are owed a review of their cases - NYT agrees for sake of Americans arrested overseas (4/19 t.A24)
study of 328 criminal cases over last 15 years indicates thousands of false convictions (4/19 t.A14)

headlines from hell (tm) from Wall Street Journal (j.) & NY Times (t.) & Boston Globe (g.):

home building shows sharp rise, but other indicators fall - production at factories, mines & utilities is down, as is consumer confidence (4/17 t.B4)
a passion for poetry (& profits) - charting a literary course with $100m gifted to Poetry Foundation in Chicago by pharma heiress Ruth Lilly (4/19 t.B1) - postergirl for dysfunctionality of skimming&charity system + uncapped funnelling of work, income & wealth
G-8 protest organizer finds hurdles on path to a permit - Brunswick GA says organizers must put up refundable deposits equal to city's estimated cost for cleanup & police protection, protests may last only 2½ hours, no signs & banners on sticks & none larger than 2'x3' (4/19 t.A20) - 'Land of Free Speech'??
reinventing wheel - companies are feverishly embarked on 'design-arounds' to cash in on competitors' patents without quite violating them (4/19 j.A1>B1) - if this is what innovation & mgmt skills have descended to in America = pathetic
Britain: wages in fiscal quarter ending 2/29 rose 4.9%, their fastest in almost 3 years propelled by bankers' bonuses (4/17 t.B3) - bankers' bonuses sound like bogus way to pretty up wage stats

weekend roll-up -
5 issues/wk - wk's avg homepage hits/issue: 61
hope of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
• 12 TIMEsizing items • 7 UPsizings (3595+ new jobs) + bogus hope: • 12 makework items
vs. doom of the weektm from the WSJ & the NYT:
• 6 DOWNsizings, over 4,650 jobcuts • 9 bankruptcies
• 4 eroding-retirement stories • 1 homelessness story • 5 prison stories
{{ ytd: 274 timsizngs (636+ new or sav'd jobs) + 46 upsizngs (79056+ new jobs) + 125 makwrk (36803+ 'jobs') =
total: 116495 = 58% of cuts, VS. 176 dnsz (200970+ cuts) + 69 bnkrp ($350m+) +15 homlss +27 jail +10 suic }}

4/16/2004 friday - happy birthday, colleague Kate!
all 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/15/thu: 845 excluding spiders (4/17/2003/thu: 860 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

shorter-workweek Pres. Roh gets partly exonerated by mid-term elections in South Korea

Pres. Lula of Brazil, besieged on all sides, sounds like he could use some Timesizing ideas

Chirac's party in France escalates media campaign against popular 35-hour workweek

US healthcare industry enters the 21st century with 19th-century workweeks & shift-change management

• *shorter-hours conference, F-Su, Jun.11-13, Loyola College, Chicago: all welcome

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

2 DOWNsizings, totaling 690 lost jobs reported in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (NY Times):

600 jobs up in the air as Visteon autoparts relocates some plant operations from Bedford IN to unspecified new site (t.C3)
8% of workforce cut (90 jobs up in the air) as Diageo beverages closes the Guinness-brewery part of a London facility, instead of just trimming 8% of the workweek (38 minutes a day for the whole facility, including top executives), re-investing overtime savings in overtime-targeted training&hiring and keeping everyone together working, earning, confident & buying at least 92% as many beverages as before (t.W1)

DOWNsizing overviews noted in j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NYTimes) & g (BostonGlobe):

filings increase by 30,000 to 360,000 for jobless benefits last week, the biggest rise in more than a year (t.C5) - so much for March's 308,000 new jobs, 80% part-time: CNN's Wm. Schneider @ Harvard Alumni Day, 4/17
states' efforts to curb outsourcing stymied - business groups take the lead in weakening attempts to limit work from moving abroad (j.A4) - thereby guaranteeing declining domestic markets in the not-so-longer term

DOWNsizing appetizers = 1 takeover story, alias 'M&As' (archives):

EnCana Corp. of Calgary is buying Tom Brown Inc. of Denver for $2.3B (j.A1>3, W1)

3 PUFFsizing items = makework, unspecified new 'jobs':

Iraq 'reconstruction' work picks up pace again [our quotes] - foreign contractors are being targeted in the violence (j.A2)
pork, sweet & sour - Rep. Don Young (R, Alaska) wants 2 bridges to nowhere, gets $2.2B for them into national highway bill recently approved by Transportation & Infrastructure Committee led by himself = dipping into public trough for projects that benefit only a single legislator (t.A20)
Asia's ill-advised umbrella - by pushing ahead with missile defense there, Bush would unnecessarily isolate & antagonize China (t.A20)

DOWNsizing results = 3 stories of dysfunctional-executive-pay:

ahead of tape - if revolution in CEO pay hasn't happened by now, fear for it - median realized pay for CEOs at 350 of largest companies was $3.6m in '03 = 16.4% higher than '02 = faster pace than 02's 15%: Mercer HR Consulting (j.C1)
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. - CEO H. Lee Scott's salary, bonus increased to $5.4m in fiscal year ending 1/31/04, including $1.2m in salary & $4.2m bonus, from $4.3m including $1.1m salary & $3.2m bonus - he got 630,413 options & restricted stock valued at $6.7m applying to FY ending 1/31/05 - previous year's granted included 2 restricted-stock awards, 1 valued at $6.5m - also $82.5k for personal use of company plane & various benefits valued at $269.6k (j.A15)
Vivendi Universal SA - CEO Jean-Rene Fourtou got a E2.26m ($2.7m) pay package last year, including E1m in fixed pay in '03 & rest in performance-related bonuses - ex-exec Edgar Bronfman last year got $416,667 in pay (j.A7)

DOWNsizing results = 3 bankruptcies in (j) WSJ and (t) NYT (click for archives):

Avado Brands Inc. et al. in Chapter 11 jointly (j.A13)
Medical Wind Down Holdings I, Inc. f/k/a/ Maxxim Medical Group Inc. et al. ditto ditto (j.A12)
The IT Group Inc. et al. ditto ditto (j.A12)

DOWNsizing results = 3 prison items from (g) Boston Globe (click for archives):

time eases tough Rockefeller-era drug laws in NY state (1973), but fight goes on - of 16,564 drug offenders imprisoned as of April 3, fewer than 3% (481) were in for 'A-1 felonies', down from 724 in '95 - plus, Gov. Pataki granted clemency to 26 & releases non-violent offenders early (t.A1)
Calif. reinvents the wheel - spends nearly as much on prisons as public 4-year colleges in context of mandatory sentencing laws which have filled prisons with inmates costing up to $30k/person/year - so now is going back to prison education programs discarded in 1990s to curb high recidivism (t.A20)
a year after DNA evidence, La. deathrow inmate Ryan Matthews finally gets new trial (t.A17)

headlines from hell (tm) noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) & g Boston Globe:

the Vietnam analogy - Iraq has small fraction of Nam's deathtoll & current US force much smaller...so far, but same fraction of now-smaller military tied down & worse stress cuz Nam was short-term draftees while Iraq is long-term volunteers including reservists who never expected to be called up for extended missions overseas - LBJ raised taxes & cut spending to pay for Nam, Bush cuts taxes & raises spending: Krugman (t.A21) compare: extended tours in Iraq dash hopes & raise fears among troops' families (t.A12) - compare: a Bush ad will question Kerry's commitment to troops (t.A15) - look who's talking!
NRA opens all-out drive for Bush & its views (t.A14) - if Americans get enough guns, they will become a self-solving problem, like Jonestown, for the rest of the world - compare: will Bush & Cheney break their promise to America's police? = full-page ad by StopThe NRA.com (t.A11)
expert kept from speaking at anti-depressant meeting - FDA dismisses accusations of cover-up (t.A16) - 'methinks the lady doth dismiss too much'

4/15/2004 thursday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
and 703 textfiles: # visitors 4/14/wed: 889 excluding spiders (4/16/2003/wed: 947 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

Jamaican cops have been calling for a shorter workweek (5-day) workweek for the last 25 years & finally maybe the police commissioner is listening

• *shorter-hours conference, F-Su, Jun.11-13, Loyola College, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in j (Wall St.Journal), t (NYTimes) & g (Boston Globe):

1 UPsizing, with 30 new jobs as Amazon.com revs up A9, its own search engine (j.A8)
economic scene - Alan Greenspan notwithstanding, a new book insists that gov't social spending does not economic stunt growth = Growing Public (Cambridge U.) by Peter Lindert (t.C2) - big news only to rightist wingnuts as the Fed chief has become
Bush backers concerned - Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty (Repub.) says Iraq is a 'mess,' voters are rattled & he & they want to see the end game - he attended 2 servicemen's funerals this week, eg: Corp. Tyler Fey's, whose brother, Ryan, told 100s of mourners, "I have so much anger for the politicians in Washington. [They] sent my brother on a 2nd tour of Iraq after I thought he'd done his part in the initial invasion." (g.A17)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

1 DOWNsizing, totaling 160 lost jobs reported in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (NY Times):

160 jobs cut as Goodyear Tire closes warehouse & distribution center in Lincoln NB (t.C4)

DOWNsizing overviews noted in j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NYTimes) & g (BostonGlobe):

hardly a model for free enterprise - Wal-Mart's twisted business model means job loss in one community, job gain in another, making barely a dent in job market: Charles Lerable of Salinas CA (j.A15) = zero-sum game
cross-border battle of unions - competition between US states & Canadian provinces for auto jobs is raising discord between UAW & CAW (t.C1>W1)
jobless Brazilians needing fast action call on St. Expeditus - Church doubts he lived, but not his mass appeal in last year's brutal economic downturn - jobless exec leaves resume at altar (j.A1)

DOWNsizing appetizers = 1 takeover story, alias 'M&As' (archives):

with '80s hostile-takeover tactics, US fund shakes Japan's cozy capitalism - Steel Partners Japan Strategic Fund LP makes bids for 2 small companies but Japanese news-mag headline screams 'US fund on wild rampage' (j.A1) - US spreads its toxins

DOWNsizing results = 1 eroding-retirement story: post-election Medicare cuts feared (t.C1>10)

DOWNsizing results = 3 stories of dysfunctional-executive-pay:

Exxon Mobil Corp. - CEO Lee Rayond realizes $15.9m from exercising 756,608 stock options in 2003 - also granted $17.9m of restricted stock, up from $17.3m in '02, for total holding on 12/31/03 of $88.56m - also paid $3.25m salary same as '02, including long-term incentive plan payout of $2.7m same as '02 (j.A8)
hardly a model for free enterprise - while most Wal-Mart employees get paid below poverty line, CEO last year received $18m in total compensation on profits of $8B - those of us with decent salaries involuntarily subsidize Wal-Mart employees with food stamps, childcare & housing vouchers, making Wal-Mart a symbol of the greater problems in our society - we pass the burden from corporate America [ie: CEOs] onto American taxpayers: Beth Shulman of DC (j.A15) - Chomsky's been saying this for years: we privatize profit & socialize risk & cost
to find out the CEO's bonus, look for Form 4 - executives now must file their pay grants regularly, ahead of proxy statements - facilitates shareholder oversight (j.C3)

DOWNsizing results = 1 bankruptcy story in (j) WSJ and (t) NYT (click for archives):

headlines from hell (tm) noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) & g Boston Globe:

IMF, OECD see economic risks in Bush's budget (j.A2) - so even his own puppets are nervous
deadly week ends in tears for the fallen - in Milwaukee suburbs, mourners grieved over death of Specialist Michelle Witmer & some expressed anger at the prolonged sacrifice that had been demanded of her National Guard unit - "at this point, I want to just go over and bring her home myself," an anguished Marie Galonski said of her own daughter, Spec. Juliana Bruening, who trained alongside Witmer (t.A1>2)
Bush enters political quandary as he faces calls for apology - he refused reporters' invitations to acknowledge mistakes in handling terrorism or offer apology to 9/11 victims' families (j.A6)
Bush to unveil air-pollution rule - hoping proposal will polish image, boost him on environment in Nov. (j.A1>6) - dream on - this is just another cynical Bush reversal - speaking of which...
in major shift, Bush endorses Sharon plan & backs keeping some Israeli settlements in Gaza & West Bank (t.A6), i.e., on land stolen from Palestinians = coaxing votes from the worst elements in American Judaism, deplored by the best, such as Chomsky & Zinn
Europe becomes hedge-fund heaven - unlike U.S., smallfry can buy, despite high risks; investors bristle at regulation (j.C1) = Europe sticks out its glass jaw & carries a 'slug me' sign

4/14/2004 wednesday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
and 704 textfiles: # visitors 4/13/tue: 865 excluding spiders (4/15/2003/tue: 946 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

is the German labor movement finally mobilizing to smash arguments favoring longer hours??

British lords condescend to favor the 'right' for the working classes to exceed the EU's 48-hour workweek ceiling

• *shorter-hours conference, F-Su, Jun.11-13, Loyola College, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in j (Wall St.Journal), t (NYTimes) & g (Boston Globe):

3 UPsizings, with 65 +?? new jobs:
- 65 new US jobs [whoopeedoo] as Northrop Grumman plans military plant in Miss. (t.page C4)
- ?? new Japanese jobs as Toshiba invests in new chip plant $2½B with Calif's SanDisk (j.C15)
- unspecified new jobs as Giorgio Armani SpA plans 30 stores in China by end of 2006 (j.C15)
SEC may impose stricter rules on behavior of shell companies (j.C3)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

3 PUFFsizing items = makework, unspecified new 'jobs':

US workers, lured by money and idealism, face Iraqi reality (t.A1) - don't they mean 'lured by desperation, grab for Iraqi makework'?! - compare...
victims of kidnapping - why were Chinese in Iraq? like many neighbors, they needed work (t.A9)
at center of Halliburton uproar, little-known Kuwaiti company - Altanmia represents West to Mideast and vice versa - now, its role is questioned (j.A1) - ie: really necessary??

DOWNsizing overviews noted in j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NYTimes) & g (BostonGlobe):

one solution[?] to illegal workers takes form: H-2B - visa admits foreigners to do jobs Americans won't [how stupid a myth is THAT?!]; worries of exploitation (j.A1) - no kidding!
Bombay-based Infosys Technologies' revenue surges 41% on outsourcing boom (j.B1) - race to bottom = Mexico deflates US living standards, India deflates Mexico, next Bangladesh or Africa deflates India
union to allow theater to use virtual music (t.C15) - downward spiral = unions lose power cuz of labor surplus cuz of technological displacement of workers, unions then forced to allow more technological displacement

1 DOWNsizing, totaling 300 lost jobs reported in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (NY Times):

training

DOWNsizing results = 2 bankruptcies in (j) WSJ and (t) NYT (click for archives):

S.W.A.K. Inc. and G.A.S.C.O. Sportswear Ltd. in Chapter 11 jointly (t.C8)
Kingscroft Insurance, Walbrook Ins., El Paso Ins., Lime Street Ins., Mutual Reinsurance in Section 304 foreign liquidation (UK) jointly (t.C8)

headlines from hell (tm) noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) & g Boston Globe:

most U.S. companies would forgo moves that could help long-term growth in order to meet quarterly targets, a survey found (j.A1) - corner office thinks short-term - managers' focus is to hit targets, smooth[?] earnings, sacrificing future growth: survey of fin execs at 401 firms late last year & interviews with 20 senior execs by Campbell Harvey & John Graham of Duke's Fuqua BSchool & Shiva Rajgopal of UWash. (j.C3) -here we have the critical problem of capitalism, indeed of the Economic Age, and the reason it's being replaced by the Ecological Age - economists have mistaken money for their key variable instead of time
war reports from civilians stir up Iraqis against U.S. (t.A8)
the failed FBI: editorial (t.A24) - FBI is assailed for its handling of terror risks: 9/11 panel's early report - Ashcroft & ex-officials say counterterrorism was major priority (j.A1) - sure, sure
rule to bar criminal investigators from over-using the intelligence act gradually created 'the wall' against sharing intelligence (t.A17) - way to hell is paved with good intentions
9/11 commission clears handling by U.S. [ie: Bushies] of Bin Laden kin - Saudis were permitted to fly out when others, eg: Clinton, Gore & heart transplant, were grounded (t.A16) = a little whitewash in the laundry?
Bush, in shift, may support some settlers in West Bank (t.A1>7) - another Bush reversal

4/13/2004 tuesday - “hope is not a plan”—but we do have a plan
and 704 textfiles: # visitors 4/12/mon: 807 excluding spiders (4/14/2003/mon: 833 including spiders)
TIMEsizing awareness = strategic glimmers of hope in yesterday's GoogleNews:

Israeli journalist argues himself, lamely, out of a shorter workweek, but at least he's focused on the right economic variable - he just has its effects backwards

• *shorter-hours conference, F-Su, Jun.11-13, Loyola College, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope in j (Wall St.Journal), t (NYTimes) & g (Boston Globe):

3 UPsizings, with 3500 +?? new jobs:
- 3500 new Slovakian jobs as Peugeot Citroen builds plant in Trnava [t.page C14]
- unspecified new Slovakian jobs as Kia Motors Europe ditto ditto [t.C1>14]
- unspecified new Thai jobs as San Miguel Corp. breaks ground for mfg complex (j.B7)
9/11 panel is said to offer harsh review of Ashcroft - draft report suggests an FBI horrified by attorney general's lack of interest (t.A21)
record $4m expected for Kerry from Boston dinner today - dinner changed to reception to handle increase from expected 1000 attendees to 3000 - campaign official: 'energy & enthusiasm like nothing we've seen in 26 years' (g.A1>7) - the need is much greater
let immigrants vote? - this is one of the most absurd political ideas I have heard: Seth Schlusberg of Brooklyn (t.A26)
1 UNtakeover - Abbott Labs unveils its terms for spinoff of Hospira later this month (j.B7)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing - in WSJ (j) and NYT (t):

4 PUFFsizing items = makework, unspecified new 'jobs':

military seeks more troops for Iraq (j.A3)
6-7 missing workers point up Halliburton danger - kidnapped as US [ie: Bush regime] battles uprisings (t.A12, j.A3)
broken pledges may hit euro zone - EU members struggle to keep within limits for deficits, fueling economic concerns (j.A2) - pretty hard when your only employment program is makework, not sharework
Japan tries growing crop of new lawyers as demand soars - slew of law schools opens up, as deregulation spurs litigation (j.A18>19) = the American disease: litigiousness (#3) - sounds more like Chesterton flaw than free-market efficiency

1 DOWNsizing, totaling 3500 lost jobs reported in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (NY Times):

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)

DOWNsizing results = 3 eroding-retirement stories:

tough issues waiting their turn - Republicans try new tactics on long-held Democratic turf - campaigns lay plans to tap voter anxiety - Dems warn retirees; Repubs warn workers (E1>11)
on their own, in the same boat - divorce & interrupted careers leave single women of the baby boom facing a steep financial climb as retirement nears - 'I help my grandchildren with my money, so I can't save on my own' (E1>13)
Grandma finds a paid job, looking after Junior - needed: energy, patience... (E2)

DOWNsizing results = 6 cases of dysfunctional-executive-pay:

unspecified number of bonuses top $41.4m at troubled Interpublic Group of ad agencies (t.C1)
Gillette CEO James Kilt's salary & bonus rose 45% in '03 from to $3.98m (1.28+2.7), $9m in 1m stock ops; $3.94m in stock appreciation rights; $423k in perks including $200k for personal use of company plane, $117k for housing & $101k for taxes: total, $17.34m (j.C9)
bonus for Mattel CEO Robert Eckert declines from $2.5m in '02 to $634k in '03; salary unchanged at $1.25m; 'all other' $10.96m = mainly $6.74 principal & interest of forgiven 'loan' & $4.09m taxes thereon; 375k stock ops unchgd; long-term incentive from $8m to zero; '03 $total, $11.59m (j.B5)
Amgen Inc. - chairman-CEO Kevin Sharer [ha!] received $3.6m in salary ($1.1m) & bonus ($2.5m), a 29% boost in 2003; $5.4m from stock ops; 450k new stock ops as in '02 & '01; $218k for personal use of company plane, car & driver, up from $16k in '02; $530k in pension contribs: '03 $total, $9.75m - (j.B7)
Northrop Grumman Corp. - bonus of chairman-CEO Ronald Sugar changed from $1.65m in '02 to $2.65m in '03, salary from $790k to $1.04m, long-term incentive plan payout from $2.7m to $2.1m, 'other' from $103k to $74k, stock ops from 55k to 150k: $total from $5.24m to $5.94m, up 13% (j.B7)
Metris Cos. - second subpoena from Comptroller of the Currency requests documents on executive pay (j.B2)

DOWNsizing results = 2 bankruptcies in (j) WSJ and (t) NYT (click for archives):

KB Toys Inc. et al. in Chapter 11 (j.C16)
Dan River Inc., Bibb Co., Dan River Int'l, Dan River Factory Stores jointly ditto (t.C5)

DOWNsizing results = 1 homelessness story from (g) Boston Globe (click for archives):

homeless & neglected - est. 10,000 preschoolers homeless in USA: UMass/Boston McCormack Inst. (g.A14)

headlines from hell (tm) noted in j (Wall St. Journal) & t (New York Times) & g Boston Globe:

Iraq & Vietnam, parallel tracks - neo-con David Brooks' 4/10 column exhorts us to 'take a deep breath...pause...let passions cool' & then uses phrases like 'low-life hoodlum, ruthless, putschist, hotheaded murderer, fascist thug, & enemy of civilization' - columnist, read thyself: Leonard Malkin of Troy MI (t.A26)
August 2001: terror loomed as America [ie: Bush] slept - 'Bush says brief on Qaeda threat was not specific' (4/12 t.A1) - oh yeah? what about brief's 2nd sentence: "bin Laden implied in US TV interviews in '97 & '98 that his followers would follow example of WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef" - can't get more specific than that: Jonathan Sondow of NYC - mark of leadership to act without detailed info - Bush didn't have specifics when revived Star Wars, says Henry Tedeschi of Guilderland NY, or when he sent 130,000 Americans in to invade Iraq, says Brendan Stecchini of Belchertown MA (t.A26) - a passive president, says editorial (g.A14)
faults still plague US electric system as peak summertime use nears (j.A1) - Bush ain't the only one poohpoohing warnings - with Americans like this, who needs terrorists?
action, sports ... famine - videogame aims to teach kids about fighting hunger - project seeks industry help (j.B1) - but hunger is not an actionable focus unless we want to create unsustainable dependency - hunger stems from poverty stems from unemployment, & Timesizing provides optimizes national income & provides full employment, whatever the level of poverty you start with & whatever level you need working hours per person to reduce to - Phil Hyde hereby offers free consulting to anyone wishing to design a Timesizing videogame

4/10-12/2004 sat-mon (re fri biz)
- #visitors to any of our 704 files, Easter F Sa Su: 591,436,433 - wk's daily avg: 707 -
6 TIMEsizing items = strategic glimmers of hope in weekend's GoogleNews:

job sharing spreads in Massachusetts classrooms

Republican candidate for US Senate in Col. vows to fight for overtime pay

average workweek drops below 50 hours for first time in history of S. Korea

UK employers 'cheap out' on giving Easter Monday off with pay

Bavarian PM Stoiber thinks the longer your working hours, the better

first case of more investment causing job losses makes Timesizing more urgent

• *shorter-hours conference, F-Su, Jun.11-13, Loyola College, Chicago: all welcome
+ random glimmers of hope, indexing j (Wall St.Journal) & t (NY Times):

2 specific & 1 general UPsizings, 11 new jobs +??
- 9 new Treasury traders at Countrywide Financial (4/12 j.page C3)
- 2 new interest-rate option traders at Deutsche Bank (4/12 j.C3)
- unspecified new jobs due Wall Street's hiring spree for bond traders - some just from raiding rivals - e.g., Nomura, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns (4/12 j.A1>C1>3)
tiny loans have big impact on poor in India - US venture capitalist Vinod Khosla helps small entrepreneurs - microfinance programs helps people start businesses & educate their children - modeled on Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (4/12 t.C3)

vs. doom du jour tm for lack of timesizing, in j, t, & adding g (Boston Globe):

3 PUFFsizing items = makework rampant, creating unspecified new ‘jobs’:

Afghan route to prosperity: grow poppies (4/10 t.A1)
Pentagon is critical of Air Force jet deal (4/10 t.A1)
built with steel, but greased with pork - 2 Alaska bridges to nowhere @$1.1B (4/10 t.A1)

DOWNsizing appetizers = 1 general takeover story, alias mergers & acquisitions (M&As):

venture-backed firms see thaw as M&A investment increases in first quarter, rising to level not seen in almost 3 years (4/12 j.A1>C6)

DOWNsizing overviews noted in WSJ (j.), NYT (t.) or Boston Globe (g.):

'shortage' of foreign temps feared this summer...by spoiled employers [never mind 10,000s of jobless American youth & minorities] - 66000 limit already reached on H-2B visas, program begun only in 1990 - how twisted is employers' logic? ‘6-700 US jobs are at stake if I can't get the 6 foreign techs I need,’ says Pres. Larry Nelson of Great Northern Sea Products (4/10 t.B1)
geek's fall from grace - software architect finds job offers aren't rolling in like they used to (4/11 g.G9)
presidential politics divide Silicon Valley - outsourcing is one issue splitting who's who of technology - $2K contribs to Bush (pro-outsourcing): Bill Gates & CEOs of HP, Cisco, Dell, Intel, IBM (ergo, boycott!) and to Kerry: CEOs of Google, CNET, Symantec, & partners in Sybase, Kleiner Perkins (4/12 t.C1)
behind outsourcing debate: surprisingly[?] few hard numbers [no surprise when CEOs don't want them broadcast] - counting jobs moving abroad is a complicated task; benefits are less tangible (4/12 j.A1)
another lure of outsourcing: job expertise (4/12 j.B1) = another strained attempt at damage control?

1 DOWNsizing, totaling 1000 lost jobs reported in Wall Street Journal (j) or NY Times (t):

training

DOWNsizing results = 3 dysfunctional-executive-pay items:

entire section on this topic (4/12 j.R1-12) - highlites -
1. here comes politically correct pay [don't they mean economically sustainable pay?] - board members are looking at CEO pay practices thru the eyes of angry shareholders, regulators & employees - that already means some big changes (R1)
2. it's your cho