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Good News, Apr-Jun, 2002
[Commentary] ©2002 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

6/29/2002  headlines from heaven, alias glimmers of vaguer-than-timesizing hope -

• India: Economic growth, by Saritha Rai, NYT, B4.
  
  • ...India's GDP grew 5.4% in the fiscal year ended March 2002, compared with a 4% growth in the previous year.
  • In the Jan-to-Mar quarter, the economy grew 6.4%, compared with 1.5% in the period a year earlier, according to data released by the government's Central Statistical Organization.
  • The economy was led by growth of 5.7% in the farm sector, and a spike in demand for cement and steel set off by tax breaks that led to a housing boom.
  [Well and good, but India's good 5% growthrate in the 1920s was drowned by population explosion. Have they designed out that possibility today?]

1. 2 leave brokerage Ellis to start Newquist Ault, by Catherine Reagor-Burrough, Arizona Republic, D6.
   Dave Newquist and Ron Ault have left [real estate] brokerage CB Richard Ellis and started their own commercial retail firm. The pair launched Newquist Ault Commercial Properties [in Phoenix]. Carrie Keller, formerly of CB Richard Ellis, has joined them.
   [Three new jobs so far.]

2. Hearst to start magazine tied to Lifetime channel, AP via NYT, C6.
   ...a women's magazine based on programming from the Lifetime cable channel, which it co-owns with the Walt Disney Co. The new magazine, to be called Lifetime, is to be introduced next March as a bimonthly with a circulation of 500,000....
   [And just how do they plan to guarantee that?]
   Lifetime is now the top-rated cable channel in prime time, and will be used to promote the new magazine..\..
   [Good luck.]
   It will go to a monthly schedule by Sept. 2003....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. Mercedes dealership to open in Chandler, Arizona Republic, D6.
   The third Mercedes-Benz dealership in metropolitan Phoenix is set to open in mid-July in Chandler. [Located] in the former AutoNation dealership at Interstate 10 and Ray Rd, [it] will be one of the biggest US dealerships for the German brand.... [It] is owned by Sigma Motors Inc., a dealership group based in Calif., and headed by General Manager Larry Heiserman, who began working 30 years ago in the parts unit of a Mercedes dealership.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. Microsoft adds to sales force, Bloomberg via NYT, C10.
   ...the largest addition to its sales force in a decade, hiring 450 people as revenue growth slows. The company is rearranging its sales force into teams to cover 12 industries, including telecoms, education and healthcare.
   [Oh no, Mr Bill, not "teams" again!]
   Another 115 current workers will join sales....

2. Compass Bank to add banks, jobs in Valley, by Jane Larson, Arizona Republic, D5.
   ...15 retail banks and 3 business banking centers in the Phoenix metro area over the next 18 months, adding about 100 jobs....

1. Two agencies open in Seattle and Zurich, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C11.
   ...Executives who most recently worked at Advico Young & Rubicam in Zurich, part of Young & Rubicam Advertising, are joining with Leo Burnett Worldwide, part of the Bcom3 Group, to open an agency in Zurich. The agency, Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett, will be minority-owned by Burnett, and will open with 15 employees. It will be led by Martin Spillmann...chief creative officer, and Peter Felser...chief executive....

2. Two agencies open in Seattle and Zurich, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C11.
   ...Two creative directors from Strawberry Frog in Amsterdam...Jim Haven, a copywriter, and Matt Peterson, an art director..\..have opened an agency in Seattle named Creature....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. SkyWest Airlines maintenance facility opens in Tucson, Arizona Republic, D3.
   ...Regional service..\..plans to begin maintenance operations July 1 at a new base next to Tucson International Airport. The 31,000-sq-ft facility will service the airline's fleet of regional jets and will employ 55 aviation workers, the company said. SkyWest, based in St. George, Utah...operates about 10 daily flights out of Tucson under the United Express and Delta Connection names.
   [55 new jobs]

2. 99 Cents Only opening its 9th store in Arizona, by Glen Creno, Arizona Republic, D3.
   ...Thursday in Chandler...19,800-sq-ft...at the corner of Alma School and Warner Roads....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. Albertsons/Osco format introduced in Chandler AZ, by Glen Creno, Arizona Republic, D3.
   ...60,000-sq-ft...this week...at 4060 W. Ray Rd....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

4. Lowe's plans to launch new store in Goodyear, by Glen Creno, Arizona Republic, D3.
   ...in the middle of July. The home improvement warehouse chain said the store, at 13191 W. McDowell Rd, will total 150,000 sq ft, including a garden center.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  Etc...Poggenpohl, Boston Globe, D2.
  ...A firm that specializes in European luxury kitchen and bath design plans to open its first Boston showroom this week on Newbury Street.
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

• Effort to repeal estate tax ends in Senate defeat - GOP fails by six votes - Republicans vow to campaign on the plan, but Democrats call it too expensive, by Carl Hulse, NYT, front page.
  [Republicans' braindead attempt to kill off the American economy by pouring it all into their own pockets ("the more concentration, the less circulation") got a setback - and one of the biggest stupids was fuming -]
  "This will be a campaign issue," vowed Sen. Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who sponsored the repeal measure that fell on a 54-to-44 vote, six votes short of the 60 needed for approval under an agreement for bringing the issue to the floor....
  [Oh yeah, like your average American taxpayer is going to vote for bearing even more of the burden out of her modest resources while the top 1% already owns 95% of the economy. How come the 2nd-biggest state breeds so many of the biggest dopes?]
  [Followup -]
  Unfair tax break, editorial, 6/14/2002 Boston Globe, A26.
  The estate tax, now assessed on inheritances of more than $1 million, has been part of the US tax code since 1916, and it has not stifled initiative or the ability to amass stunning amounts of wealth.... The numbers tell the story of how lopsided the [wealth distribution] has become. According to IRS figures, just 2% of all Americans left estates big enough to be hit by the tax in 1999, the last year for which figures are available. And yet these fortunate few provided $23 billion in [tax] revenues that year, proof of how concentrated wealth has become at the very top of the nation's income scale. An even tinier fraction - just 3,000 estates - accounted for more than half of all th[ose] tax revenues....
  Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, and other millionaires supported the inheritance tax when it was first proposed in the Gilded Age. They knew the importance of the social compact to the success of the American experiment.
  [not to mention the importance of centrifuged spending power to the stability of their investments.]
  It is even more important now.
  [now that the top 1% owns as much as the 'bottom' 95%.]
  [Followup #2, and a brownie point for Bill Gates -]
  Battle on estate tax: How two well-organized lobbies sprang into action - Daschle's schedule for a Senate vote set off frantic last-minute efforts, by Carl Hulse, 6/14/2002 NYT, A27.
  As the U.S. Senate moved toward a risky vote on repealing the estate tax, William H. Gates Jr...father of the Microsoft mogul..\..sat a continent away [in Seattle] on Wednesday, trying to [affect] the proceedings. One of a group of wealthy Americans who have campaigned to keep the inheritance tax, Mr. Gates...called pivotal senators, [laying] out his case for withstanding the Republican-led election-year effort to eliminate the tax or put Democrats on record as opposing repeal.
  "It is a very legitimate claim of society on an accumulation of wealth which would not have occurred without an orderly market, free education and incredible dollars spent on research," said Mr. Gates [the elder].... On [his] side were...some of the most successful makers of profit in America, millionaires and billionaires with a deep-seated philosophical resistance to lifting the tax, who formed a group called Responsible Wealth. Besides Mr. Gates, the group included Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Ted Turner, among other figures as familiar on Wall Street as on Pennsylvania Avenue....

• Europe OK's plan to raise duties on US products, Reuters via Boston Globe, C4.
  LUXEMBOURG - EU ministers backed plans yesterday to slap trade sanctions worth $300m on the U.S. in a row over steel tariffs, but gave Washington more time to reach a compromise.
  Foreign ministers from the 15-nation bloc agreed to support a European Commission plan to raise tariffs on sensitive US goods including steel, textiles and orange juice in retaliation for US duties on steel imports.
  [Hey, this doesn't mean it's "retaliation." It's just healthy ol' "keeping things mutual."]
  The sanctions will kick in if pResident Bush fails to adequately compensate the EU through exemptions for European exports and lower tariffs on other products.... [So much for American "do as I say and not as I do."]

1. 6/10   North Dakotans to vote on bank privacy rules - First statewide referendum on data sharing - On one side, liberals and conservatives; on the other side, banks and credit unions, by Adam Clymer, NYT, A19.
   [For starters, this is a boost to direct democracy and a move toward electronic referendums, right in line with Phase One of the Timesizing program. But look at this power split - the old left and right against the radically near-sighted interests of big business.]

2. [a reversal for technological unemployment -]
   6/09   Court reporters still flourish - Many go to work providing lawyers with transcripts, AP via BG, A17.
   NEWARK - Once threatened by tape recorders and video cameras, court reporters are making a comeback. Even as court officials started using high-tech means to record testimony, lawyers began hiring stenographers to produce near-immediate transcripts for cross-examination.
   "In a time when the state courts have reverted to machines, true court reporters provide such a remarkable benefit if you want to be sure you can confront a witness with his prior testimony," Bruce Goldstein from Saiber Schlesinger Satz & Goldstein told The Star-Ledger of Newark.... Lawyers say human court reporters are faster and more accurate than machines, which sometimes produce garbled copy or miss testimony from soft-spoken witnesses altogether....
   There are more than 1,300 court reporters in New Jersey, according to state figures. But they cannot keep up with the demand..\.. StenTech Career Institute in Fairfield has about 60 students enrolled this year, twice as many as two years ago...

• ["good, but..." -]
  Japanese economy grows 1.4% in first, AP, BG, D2.
  [First, the quick tour of this story via the AP account in the Boston Globe -]
  Japan's economy...grew 1.4% in the first quarter, springing back from three straight quarters of contraction, the government said....
  [But this kind of "false positive" has happened sooo many times in the last 12 years. This is probably just an uptick in a persistently low index of vital signs - until Japan really catches on to the power and priority of work-sharing and shows the world how it should be done in real kick-ass fashion.]
  Japan had been stagnating in a slowdown for more than 10 years..\..
  [Here called "a slowdown"; in the NYT, called "a series of slumps."]
  The Cabinet Office said GDP, which measures the total output of goods and services produced in the nation, grew at an annual rate of 5.7% in the three months through March.
  [Well, you ask, how come we don't put this on our timesizing newspage, when the Japanese have been implementing so many work-sharing schemes at the corporate, local and prefectural levels?]
  A big push came from exports, which climbed 6.4%, on the recovery in the United States and the rest of Asia....
  [If Japan's work-sharing schemes were extensive enough to be playing a role yet, the "big push" would come from domestic demand, not from exports. And if this packet of goodnews depends on the "recovery" in the US and elsewhere which even the happytalkers are calling "weak," we may not want, yet, to break out the champagne. Here's additional info from the NY Times' longer version -]
  Japan reports 1.4% growth, signaling end to recession, by James Brooke, NYT, C1.
  ...a recession that had dragged on for a year.... The numbers confirm the widely held view that Japan is emerging, if only perhaps temporarily, from an 18-month recession, its worst in a series of slumps since 1990..\..
  [We've heard this counted as the third slump. We heard it counted as the fifth. We'll take the fifth.]
  Corporate capital spending dropped 3.2% compared with the last quarter of 2001. \However,\ a 6.4% growth in exports and a 1.6% growth in consumer spending - which together account for more than half the economy - helped to revive Japan's economy, the second largest in the world after the United States.
  [Our understanding is that consumer spending by itself in Japan and every other industrialized economy "accounts for more than half the economy." We usually hear "two thirds" in the U.S. economy, 60% in the Japanese economy. This is the first red light in this reporter's (James Brooke's) reliability. Here's the second -]
  But today's growth numbers do little to ease doubts about the sustainability of Japan's recovery, which is still largely driven by exports rather than domestic spending. Production has picked up - particularly of cars, electronics and semiconductors - but most of these products are being shipped overseas rather than used in Japan.
  [Sounds right in line with what we've been told about Japan being the most export-dependent developed economy in the world. But then the rocker -]
  Exports account for only about 10% of Japan's total economic output.
  [Whaaat? Even the USA is at least 12% dependent! And France, often mentioned as one of the EU's least export-dependent economies, is down at the 10% level. Brooke is also talking out of both sides of his mouth at once because he immediately follows the statement that "exports account for only about 10%" with this statement -]
  Should economic growth slow in the US, traditionally Japan's biggest export market, Japan would probably fall back into recession.
  [That's more in line with Japan's being more like 15-20% export dependent, not "only about 10%." Brooke's story is so messed up we're not going to waste any more time on it. But before we leave the subject entirely, some speculation: Maybe these figures hide the fact that the real driver of this uptick in Japan's GDP is actually domestic spending, not exports. Because the 1.8% domestic-demand growth in 60% of the Japanese economy may well surpass 6.4% export growth in "10%," or even 20%. Let's see. 1.8% of 60% is 1.08%, while 6.4% of 10% is 0.64% - yep - and of 20% is 1.28% - nope. So only if Brooke's low figure on Japan's export dependency is false is his spin that Japan's uptick is export-driven true. So if, as Brooke states, Japan is only a measly 10% export-dependent, then this uptick is not driven by the large percentage rise in a small sector but a small rise in a large sector, domestic demand, and we would indeed be justified in moving this story to our timesizing newspage because of all the below-economywide worksharing Japan is currently experimenting with.]

• [courageous Anita Hill lays it on for two other gutsy gals -]
  Insider women with outsider values - In the FBI and at Enron, a new kind of whistle-blower, op ed by Law Prof. Anita Hill of Brandeis University, NYT, A31.
  [Go, girl!]
  WALTHAM, Mass. - It's hard to imagine a less likely fictional plot than the true story of Coleen Rowley. A memo from a Minneapolis suburban mother of four calls into question the accountability of one of the country's most impenetrable government agencies, the FBI. And by sending this memo, 30 years after the Bureau hired its first woman agent, a woman becomes a key player in the overhaul of an institution whose structure and priorities have largely gone unquestioned since the time of J. Edgar Hoover....
  The magnitude of Ms. Rowley's role in exposing the mishandling of vital intelligence...can be likened, in the private sector, to the central role that Sherron Watkins played in exposing the extent of corporate culpability in the Enron scandal. In August 2001...weeks before the company's collapse, Ms. Watkins warned Kenneth Lay, Enron's chairman, of improper accounting and management practices. And in January she testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the explicit warnings she had written into her memo to him. When the dust settles from all the investigations into the Enron debacle, not only are criminal indictments likely, but so are accounting and corporate governance reforms.
  [But don't hold your breath.]
  Ms. Rowley and Ms. Watkins are two women why rose through the ranks of male-dominated institutions to become insiders. Yet the not-[yet]-distant history of male exclusivity in their institutions meant both were outsiders as well....
  [Again, the creativity of the juxtaposition of extreme opposites and the burgeoning borderline between them.]

• Swiss voters lift restrictions on abortions, by Elizabeth Olson, NYT, A4.
  GENEVA...- Swiss voters agreed today to ease the country's abortion laws, among Europe's strictest, and bring them closer to much of the rest of the continent's laws and [to] actual practice in Switzerland [itself]. About 72% of voters approved a measure permitting abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, provided the woman requests the procedure in writing and agrees to counseling and medical advice. After 12 weeks, a woman may obtain an abortion only if she can show a physician that her physical health is endangered or that she faces "profound distress."
  ...The existing Swiss law, dating from 1942, had allowed pregnancies to be terminated only if the mother's health was at risk or in cases of rape. Medical doctors who terminated a pregnancy faced five years in prison...while the woman could be jailed for up to three years.
  But the last conviction under the law was in 1988, and an estimated 12,000 to 13,000 abortions are performed annually. Three previous attempts to change the law, in the 1970's and 80's, had failed.
  [The Swiss lead the world in direct democracy, with easier and more frequent binding nationwide referendums than anywhere else on our still primitive globe. It may take longer to legislate - Swiss women only got the vote in 1971 - but when it comes, it sticks. None of this jerking back and forth you get in the the top-down, lobbyist-coated, PAC-subverted "representative" (haha) "democracy" of the Land of the Free.]
  Abortion opponents had gathered enough signatures to place an alternative proposal on the ballot which would have further tightened the law, prohibiting abortion even in cases of rape. But that plan was rejected, by 82% of voters..\..
  The Swiss vote leaves Ireland, Poland and Portugal with Europe's most restrictive abortion lawss, according to Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that researches reproductive health....

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Panera Bread Co., NYT, B4.
   ...St. Louis, a provider of fresh-baked bread, muffins and pastries, plans to enter the California market next year by opening 14 bakery-cafes in northwest Los Angeles County in conjunction with Mariposa Bread, a franchise group. Panera will supply fresh dough to the bakery-cafes from a new plant in Los Angeles.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. [UPsizing #2]
   Saks Inc., NYT, B4.
   ...Birmingham, Ala., the retailer, said it planned to open Penhaligon's luxury goods boutiques in its Saks Fifth Avenue stores beginning in a few months. Penhaligon's, which is based in London, is a unit of Cradle Holdings Inc....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. [UPsizing #3 - deadly-boring global homogenization proceeds apace - soon, no escape]
   An American coffeehouse (or 4) in Vienna, by Steven Erlanger, NYT, B4.
   VIENNA - It takes some hubris to bring an American coffee shop to Vienna, the city of cafes, and then to ban smoking in it. But no one has ever considered Starbucks humble. And the move, a keystone of Starbucks' rapid expansion in Europe, appears to have paid off. Since the Kaerntner Strasse [Starbucks] coffeehouse opened in December in the smoky, beating heart of Vienna, near the opera house, it has been a resounding success.
   [Like the spread of the Borg, "resistence is futile." The Viennese themselves are their own worst enemy, betraying their own special uniqueness, just like Africans sold (and still sell) one another into slavery and American Indians betrayed their own by acting as guides to Euro-Americans.]
   Now there are three others in Vienna....
   [Unspecified new jobs. Compare also 4/11 below.]

1. [At last, a 'headline from heaven' we've all been waiting for -]
   Yuk! No more stomach for whales - An industry that's dying because of world disfavor, and loss of appetite, by James Brooke, NYT, A4.
   [Whales are the smartest order of creatures (cetaceans) on this planet next to us and our fellow great apes. We should be learning from them and teaching them about us, not bloody eating them!]
   ...In April, two of Japan's last whaling ships steamed into harbor here, fresh from their latest "scientific" whale-hunting trip to Antarctica. To promote whaling, the ships were opened for tours by reporters and junior highschool students. After touring freezers and hefting 90-pound explosive harpoons, one group of teenagers was asked by a Kyodo News Agency reporter if anyone had ever eaten whale meat. No hands went up.
   Japan, home to the world's largest remaining whale hunt, is losing the younger generation.... Among people in their 20's, almost 60% opposed a resumption of commercial whaling, though resumption is a cause dear to the hearts of Japanese officials....
   [Compare -]
   A safe haven for whales, by Henry Fountain, NYT, D2.
   The International Whaling Commission's annual meeting, which ended last week in Japan, foundered in a sea of acrimony over Japan's desire to resume commercial whaling.
   But there was one small bright spot, courtesy of Mexico, which announced the creation of a whale sanctuary covering all the waters within its jurisdiction, about a million square miles. All whale species within the sanctuary, and about 40 species call Mexican waters home at least some of the time, would be protected.
   The sanctuary is the largest national one ever created. There are two international sanctuaries, in the Southern and Indian Oceans, but efforts last week to create two more, in the South Pacific and South Atlantic, were unsuccessful.

2. [motion toward setting limits on 'too much of a good thing' -]
   France, Germany seek curbs on immigrants, Reuters via Boston Globe, A6.
   [Speaking of the big background problem (over-population) that's looming ever larger as we begin to hit water shortages, and nursing shortages in the fast-growing "geriatric states" of Nevada, Florida and Texas, here's some leadership from Europe despite the liberal media's constant attempt to smear even discussion of any limits as "anti-immigrant" and "racist" -]
   PARIS - France and Germany yesterday made a joint appeal for a tightening of European immigration in an effort to prevent the continent's extreme right from cashing in on the issue at the ballot box.
   [Pretty twisted reason, but hey, whatever works. We'd prefer they were doing it 'cause the people they're supposedly democratically representing want it, e.g., for ecological reasons, not just because they're scurrying to hang onto their power, but as we said, "whatever works."]
   Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Pres. Jacques Chirac said after talks in Paris that harmonizing national immigration and asylum laws would be among proposals to be examined at next month's EU sumit. "We agree both countries must take their humanitarian duties seriously, but say just as clearly that it is also a question of controlling and limiting immigration," said the Social Democrat Schroeder. "This must not become an issue of the extreme right, but must be seriously and responsibly dealt with."...
   [So the voices of Le Pen in France, Hayder in Austria, Fortuyn in Holland and Pia Kyaersgaard in Denmark have been heard, and with them the millions of people who sense that no one land mass, however rich or large, can absorb without limit the population carelessness and political&economic mismanagement of all the rest of the world. The only economic design that has population variables intuitively plugged in to quality-of-life factors is Timesizing ( Phase Five). Where's the virtue in taking in so many people for whom life has become not worth living where they were that your life becomes not worth living? Far better than "move everyone here" - since there's so much wrong here, like 2 million Americans in prison, most for victimless crimes - is to implement a comprehensive solution that includes connected and democratic population policies. The trouble with just wanting to be a generous person is that the resulting population policies are neither democratic (ie: you're "doing good with other people's money") nor connected to anything - such as environmental constraints like water shortages that are already impacting quality of life.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  A.I.G. operations in China, Bloomberg via NYT, B14.
  The American International Group [AIG]...based in NYC..\..the world's biggest insurer, said yesterday that its American International Assurance unit...was the first foreign insurance company to be licensed..\..to sell life insurance.... At the end of 2001, AIG was granted approval to set up wholly owned life insurance operations in Beijing and Suzhou, and 2 sub-branches in Dongguan and Jiangmen in Guangdong Province.
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  Ethan Allen Interiors Inc., NYT, C3.
  ...Danbury, Conn., the nation's largest furniture retailer, [will] open a store today in Kingston upon Thames, England. The outlet, similar in design to its showrooms in America, is the company's first in Europe, where four more are planned.
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Kohl's plans to increase number of stores by 27%, Bloomberg via nYT, C4.
   The Kohl's Corp. plans to open 112 department stores from Q3 through next year...to enter new markets. Kohl's, which has opened 38 stores already this year, plans to add 32 in Q3 and another 80 next year.... The expansion allows Kohl's to enter markets in Boston, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Nashville, Providence RI and Southern Calif.
   [Unspecified new low-wage retail jobs.]

2. UPsizing #2]
   Marks & Spencer [M&S] to open home furnishings stores, by Suzanne Kapner, NYT, W1.
   LONDON -...The British retailer that until recently was struggling to turn around its operations cemented its improved position [yester]day by announcing plans to open a chain of home furnishings stores and quadruple the number of its small food stores.... M&S [plans] to open 2 large stand-alone home furnishings stores by the end of March 2004, as a trial for a broader rollout.... M&S [will] also open 20 small food stores this year..\..
   [Unspecified new jobs. But who do they think is going to buy?]
   Despite a slowdown in the general economy, British consumers have continued to spend, helping to fuel a boom in new homes....
   [Eat, drink & be merrye, for tomorrow we crash.]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   5/20 Optical networks - Software solutions, by Peter Howe & staff, BG, C3.
   Polychromix, a year-old Woburn MA optical telecomms start-up, has collected another $7m in venture capital to develop software simplifying the creation of services on optical networks....
   [Unmentioned by NYT or BG last year so we count it now. Unspecified new jobs.]
   Stephen Senturia, an ee prof at MIT, cofounded Polychromix and serves as president. Senturia and colleagues originally began work under the defense grant on technology for chemical sensor systems at MIT and Sandia Labs....

2. [UPsizing #2]
   5/20 Website hosting - New Terra Lycos unit, by Peter Howe & staff, BG, C3.
   Terra Lycos is set to announce today a new Waltham MA-based US business unit, Lycos Enterprise Services, that will market services to midsized and large companies for hosting, navigating and extending the functions of their Web sites.... Lycos Enterprise services will be marketed by internal sales people in Waltham and around the country and some outside hires from the Web hosting industry.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

3. [nationwide upsizing?]
   5/19 Economy - Firms plan to add workers in 3d quarter, by Hilary Waterous, BG, G2.
   A new survey of employers suggests that the nation's hiring picture is showing a few signs of brightening.
   [But then, employers are cheerleaders who will almost always say that. Note they didn't ask employees or jobseekers.]
   US companies will increase their hiring in 3Q02, according to a survey released this month by staffing services giant Manpower Inc.
   [Another cheerleader.]
   27% of the nearly 16,000 firms interviewed by Manpower said they plan to add employees in Q3, compared with only 21% in 2Q02.
   [All this fanfare for only 27% of companies? Pathetic!]
   Additionally, only 8% or employers expect to reduce their current workforce, compared to 10% in the previous period.
   [These are the brave and the few who are willing to 'fess up.]
   A full 59% of companies plan to maintain current staffing
   [Thank God for small mercies.]
   and 6% are uncertain....
   [i.e., not brave enough to 'fess up.]
   "Overall, the hiring strength is at its most positive level in 5 quarters," said Jeffrey Joerres, chairman and CEO of Manpower.
   [which isn't saying much, especially in the light of two neighboring articles -]
   Priorities shift among graduates - Work force entrants view job security as necessary perk, by Eileen Ambrose, BG, G1.
   [but where they gonna find it? becaaause -]
   Trends - Study finds jobless switching industries, by Hilary Waterous, BG, G2.
   Job seekers are transferring into new industries to find jobs, according to a study by DMB (formerly Drake Beam Morin), an HR consulting and outplacement firm.
   [My, aren't there a lot of employment firms trying to copy Challenger Gray & Christmas' periodic PR-culling revelations these days!]
   The global study of 14,000 people from 35 countries shows that 3 in 4 unemployed business people changed industries to find new jobs and 1 in 6 started their own business....
   [In other words, 1 in 6 gave up looking.]
   The global study reveals that more than 44% of respondents said they changed function and 72% transferred into different industries to find employment.
   [Oh poo-poo, that must be in the dark uncivilized lands in all the rest of the world, not in our own dear enlighted United States. Ooops -]
   In the nation [i.e., us/US], 49% of those surveyed said they changed function and 74% switched industries.
   Self-employment returned to its 1997 level of 16% (11% in the U.S.) after hitting a low of 7% in 1999.
   Women were less willing to strike out on their own: Just 11% chose to start a business, buy a franchise, or consult compared to 18% of men, according to the survey.
   [But then, a (tiny) glimmer of hope -]
   Graduates - Experience in field improves job chances, by Hilary Waterous, BG, G2.
   New grads with some work experience in their chosen field will have the edge with employers in this spring's tighter job market, suggests a recent report from CareerBuilder. ...Said Barry Lawrence, a senior career adviser at the online recruiter, "A diploma is great, but a degree with experience enables you to stand out in a crowd."...College graduates with...more than a year of experience will have 15 times more job opportunities than peers without only college degrees..\..
   [In short, Catch 22 - you can't get a job without experience, and you can't get experience without a job. Or maybe we're all going to become volunteers (i.e., happy, willing slaves, just as in the antebellum South) - which should further depress wages. Then there's the necessary irrelevance of a college degree, which pretty well puts it in the category of makework (see esp. #17) -]
   From March to April, the number of CareerBuilder job postings requiring a college degree increased by 55%....

4. 5/20 Independence for East Timor, pointer photo blowout (to A6), NYT, front page.
   After almost 500 years of foreign domination [Portuguese and Indonesian], East Timor celebrated its independence early today, and its first president [José Alexandre Gusmão] was sworn in.

• [1 UPsizing, 50 new jobs]
  Red Hat opens office in Westford MA, by Peter Howe, Boston Globe, C3.
  ...The leading provider of Linux open-source software for businesses, [based in Raleigh, NC,] has opened an engineering and R&D office in Westford, tapping into New England's technology corridor. The new Red Hat operation will employ about 50 workers....

1. [UPsizing #1, 1000 new jobs]
   A new kind of hub - Greater Boston becoming center for drug giants, by Naomi Aoki & Jeffrey Krasner, Boston Globe, C1.
   Faced with a dearth of drugs in development, big pharmaceutical companies are rushing to establish and expand research centers in Greater Boston to mine the region's universities, hospitals and biotech firms for discoveries to fill their pipelines.
   Novartis AG joined the pack Monday with the biggest announcement to date: a plan to shift its worldwide research HQ from Basel, Switzerland, to Cambridge MA.... [These] six of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies have opened research or manufacturing facilities in the state in recent years, ...[shown with] number of employees...includ[ing] planned expansions -
   1. Wyeth   3,100
   2. AstraZeneca PLC   1,425
   3. Novartis AG   1,000
   4. Abbott Laboratories   420
   5. Merck & Co.   400
   6. Pfizer Inc.   150
   [So, focusing on the current announcement, we'll have 1,000 new jobs at Novartis in Cambridge, Mass.   Yesterday's announcement in the NY Times, which we missed in the record flood of timesizing stories, was "Novartis plans big new lab near Boston," Reuters via 5/07/2002 NYT, C2.]

2. [UPsizing #2]
   China: New chip plant, by Craig Smith, NYT, W1.
   Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, which makes computer chips to order, plans a new semiconductor plant in China to serve the growing mainland market....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

• [at the risk of totally freaking out our business readers, we hilite a rare mention of one of our great heroes, the most courageous living American in terms of facing the horrible things this country has done/is doing -]
  Think tank - Surprise best seller blames U.S., by Michael Massing, NYT, A17.
  In the weeks after 9/11, Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist and political provocateur, was constantly on the telephone, giving interviews to news organizations.... During the next few weeks..\..Greg Ruggiero, a senior editor of Seven Stories Press, a NY publisher...edited several of the interviews Prof. Chomsky had given, and supplemented them with his own questions. On Oct. 15, just as the war in Afghanistan was beginning, the resulting 125-page pocket-size paperback went to the printer.
  "9-11," as the volume is titled, analyzes the attacks from the distinctive perspective that Prof. Chomsky has honed in more than a dozen books.
  While the attacks were "horrifying atrocities," he writes, "we can think of the U.S. as an innocent victim only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies." The United States, he asserts, is "a leading terrorist state," basing his opinion of actions like its interventions in Central America, its imposition of sanctions on Iraq, its support for Gen. Suharto in Indonesia and its backing of what he calls "Israeli atocities" in the occupied territories.
  [And check out our pull-out of yet another international treaty this coming Monday, 5/06/2002.]
  As for Afghanistan, Prof. Chomsky argued against military action, maintaining that an attack by the U.S. would probably kill "enormous numbers" of "innocent civilians."
  [Which it did, but you'd spend a lot of time trying to document that from U.S. media.]
  At a time when American flags were popping up on T-shirts and car antennas, publishing such an analysis hardly seemed propitious. "People said it would have no success whatsoever," said Daniel Simon, the publisher of Seven Stories, "because most Americans were lock-step behind the war."
  As soon as the volume hit bookstores, however, it began selling briskly, and it hasn't stopped.
  More than 115,000 copies have been shipped to stores, said Kim Wylie, senior VP of Publishers Group West, which distributes the book and has had a hard time keeping up with the demand. The paperback has also been published in 22 countries and has been a best seller in 5 of them. In the U.S., it has made the best-seller lists of The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Village Voice and Amazon.com.
  The book is swift seller at independent bookstores. Labyrinth Books, near Columbia University, has sold more than 380 copies of "9-11," making it the best-selling nonfiction book (aside from those required for courses) in the store's 5-year history. The St. Mark's Bookshop in the East Village has sold 870 copies. At Kramerbooks in Washington, "9-11" has far outsold all other books about Sept. 11....
  Such a performance - considered extraordinary in the publishing world for a quick political book - has come despite limited promotion and few reviews. Aside from a plaudit in The San Francisco Chronicle and a pan in The Philadelphia Inquirer, "9-11" has received little attention in the mainstream press. (This is true of most of Prof. Chomsky's books, which editors commonly regard as too extreme to merit comment.)...
  [In short, they're cowards. And here is the first mention in the NYT, buried in a low-circulation Saturday issue and on a deep inside page and cushioned by a neighboring photo of pResident Bush dressed in a Chinese jacket and shaking hands with the president of Communist China. This is exactly what happened to Michael Moore's latest book, "Stupid White Men."]
  Mr. Chomsky sees the success of "9-11" as part of a more general phenomenon. "Sept. 11 was a wake-up call," he said. "It raised questions in people's minds they had never really thought about before...."
  [Chomsky is not only the only source to go for an American view of all America's worst mistakes and major self-destructive and self-contradicting stupidities, and also for a Jewish view of ditto ditto for Israel, but he's probably the most authoritative such source, because of his steel-trap mind and his enormous research abilities. Phil Hyde once witnessed Chomsky debating Vietnam and the poor opponent was utterly and completely submerged in the volume and speed of Chomsky's data in support of his argument, delivered in a rapid machine-gun voice. It was impressive.]
  These sentiments come from far beyond the usual core of Chomsky readers. "I've gotten hundreds, maybe thousands, of letters from people saying they had never before heard anything like what I'm saying," Prof. Chomsky said....
  A survey of more than 80 reader comments posted on Amazon's website showed sharply divided views.
  • "Chomsky's a truth-seeker in a world full of lies," one reader stated. "His arguments cut through all the rubbish and nonsense we're all exposed to here in the United States every day and present an alternative, informed perspective."
  • Nearly as many reviews were dismissive.... Wrote a reader from Boston, "Can't he find the dustbin of history and take up residence there?" Others accused Mr. Chomsky of trying to cash in on 9/11.
  Hate the book or love it, readers keep buying it. As Mr. Ruggiero of Seven Stories observed: "People want alternatives. In times of war, that's when people trust the media the least."

• [a "weighty" morceau of good news on the frontpage, for comparison -]
  Lenders trying an alternative to foreclosure, by David Leonhardt, NYT, front page.
  RICHMOND, Va. - As the recession of the last year caused a sharp increase in the number of people falling behind on their mortgage payments, the nation's lenders decided to take a risk. Adopting an approach that economists say has led to one of the most important changes in the housing market in recent years, mortgage lenders significantly reduced the rate at which they repossessed homes. In place of foreclosure, many altered the schedule of loan payments in the hope that the drop in borrowers' income would turn out to be relatively brief.
  Now, as the economy continues to show signs of recovery, the bet seems to be paying off. Mortgage delinquencies have begun to fall, suggesting that many homeowners are getting back on their feet.... Despite a sharp rise in the number of homeowners who have fallen behind in payments, foreclosures nationwide have barely changed....

• [1 UPsizing, ?? new jobs]
  Eli Lilly, NYT, C4.
  ...Indianapolis, the drug maker, said it would spend...$225m to build a biotech research center in Indianapolis, Ind. by 2005 \and\ $425m to build an insulin plant in Prince William County, Va. by 2007....
  [Unspecified new jobs]

• [3-in-1 UPsizing]
  Raytheon wins share of $2.9B Navy deal - Project likely to create 1,000 jobs in region, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, D1.
  ...Lexington MA-based Raytheon will be a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman Corp. on the 4-year project..\..to design a stealthy new destroyer for the Navy, a deal expected to create more than 1,000 jobs in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine.... The team beat out another proposal by Lockheed Martin Corp. and General Dynamics, though the latter's Bath Iron Works shipyard will likely gain several hundred [say, 300?] engineering jobs from the project....
  [So, let's estimate a total of 1,300 new jobs between the three companies.]

• [1 UPsizing, unspecified new jobs - not counting nationwide story, "Advertising - Survey finds several firms planning to hire," by Diane Lewis, BG, G2 -]
  33-room hotel brings boutique life to Boylston St., by Thomas Palmer, BG, J1.
  BOSTON, Mass... - [For] the recent grand opening of the "new Copley Square boutique hotel"...Mayor Thomas Menino's news release...describe[s it] as "a unique combination of old-world elegance, state-of-the-art amenities," and relatively low rates.... The...Charlesmark [is at] 655 Boylston St. [with a] second-floor lobby...above MotoPhoto across from the Boston Public Library. A five-foot diameter clock face from the south of France hangs over the lobby fireplace, a sign of the compressed, European feel. Call up on the tele, and it's a British accent on the greeting....
  Rooms on floors 2 through 6 of the 13,000-sq-ft building built in 1886 are small but well-equipped.... Paintings and photos by local artists...decorate each floor, on consignment..\.. The Charlesmark building was originally residences, converted to offices in 1922, with a men's clothing store on the bottom 2 floors. Hence the large windows, all the better to view life on Boylston - especially during [Boston] Marathon week. If the 1st-floor photo shop's space becomes available, Hagopian and his partner would like to put in a cafe.... Till mid-May, rooms are $115-145, but that's expected to increase when the tourist business bounces back. ...Since 9/11 it's been mostly business people....
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

• [1 UPsizing, ?? new jobs]
  Kimco Realty rents some of its closed Kmart stores, Bloomberg via NYT, B4.
  ...A leading owner of strip malls...leased 6 of 14 Kmart Corp. locations that Kmart closed after filing for bankruptcy protection from creditors. The stores are being rented to retailers including the Burlington Coat Factory and Home Depot.... Kimco, which is based in New Hyde Park, NY, is renting the stores at rents that are 60-70% of what Kmart was paying....
  [So, probably unspecified new jobs at these new locations of Burlington Coat Factory and Home Depot. But they may be offset by -]
  17 more locations owned by Kimco and leased to Kmart will be closed July 1....

• [1 UPsizing, 1000 new jobs]
  Ireland: Intel resumes expansion, by Brian Lavery, NYT, W1.
  ...resum[ing] construction of its $2B Fab 24 project, a microchip manufacturing plant in Leixlip, outside Dublin, one year after it was postponed. The 1m-sq-ft site, the country's largest construction project, is expected to be completed in 2004. It will be one of Intel's 4 plants where semiconductor components are made on 300-mm wafers, and it will add 1,000 employees to the 3,000 Intel already employs in Ireland.

• [1 UPsizing]
  TJX plans 184 store openings this year, Bloomberg via BG, D2.
  Framingham [Mass.] owner of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls clothing stores plans to spend about $151m this year to open 184 stores as it seeks to increase sales of apparel, accessories, and home goods. The company plans to add 75 stores this year to its T.J. Maxx and Marshalls divisions in the U.S. It will add 32 stores to its U.S. HomeGoods division, which has 112 stores, and will expand the 45-store A.J. Wright division by 30, TJX said in its annual 10-K filing with the SEC.
  [Unspecified new jobs. In retail. Which means, lower pay than manufacturing, and severely dependent on the wide diffusion of spending power - which doesn't happen in periods of downsizing, instead of timesizing. And even 2 years ago in Wellington Circle, Medford, Mass., the Super Stop&Shop supermarket was experimenting with cashier-free checkout; in other words, completely employee-less grocery shopping.]

• [2 UPsizings]
  China: retailers expand, Bloomberg via NYT, W1.
  Carrefour [$29m], Europe's largest retailer, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. [$28m], the world's largest...based in Bentonville, Ark..\..will invest a combined $57m to open three outlets each in China's northeastern province of Heilongjiang amid mounting competition for consumer spending in the mainland....
  [Unnspecified new jobs in both cases.]

• [1 UPsizing, by the Macdonalds of coffee houses.]
  Spain: Starbucks opens 2 cafes, by Emma Daly, NYT, W1.
  ...as part of a drive to expand in Europe, where the company hopes to have 650 outlets by the end of 2003.
  [Unspecified new jobs, at the cost of Europe's wonderful diversity of coffee houses. 1-2-3-organized 'aaarrrggh.']
  The Spanish operation, run as a joint venture with Grupo Vips, a leading restaurant and retail group [traitors to Spanish distinctiveness!], and El Moli Vell, a Catalan bakery chain [fifth column!], plans 10-15 more outlets besides the 2 Madrid stores within the next 2 years and is expected to make a profit by 2005. Starbucks does not plan to relax its no-smoking policy, even though at least a third of Spaniards smoke.
  [Hopefully that will kill Starbucks' European beachhead before it gets started. Compare 10/05/2001 #1:2.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  May plans at least 212 new stores, AP via Boston Globe, D2.
  St. Louis-based May Department Stores Co. plans to open 62 new department stores and at least 150 bridal stores by the end of 2006 to counter the popularity of discounters.
  [Unspecified new jobs. But this all sounds like a formula for disaster, judging from the state of retail these days. See "Retail sector could face record job cuts" on our downsizing page, 4/05/2002 #0 and also the background info included in "Train to retain - A corporate culture focused on workers is helping retailer Kohl's flourish while rivals flounder," below on 3/3/2002.]
  The new sites will be in CA, FL, KA, MA, MO, NC, OH and TX. May has about [440] department stores and 400 bridal stores, including Priscilla of Boston and Lord & Taylor.
  ["Priscilla of Boston"?! Yuk. Isn't that the origin of "prissy"?]

• Tax burden shifts to city's wealthiest residents - Most homeowners are willing to pay the price, by Sarah Schweitzer, Boston Globe, B1.
  ...Two years ago, there was just one home in Boston with an assessed value of more than $5 million. Now there are 11. Over the same time, the number of homes assessed at over $1 million has more than doubled, to 1,329....
  Pressed for revenue, Mayor Thomas Menino has quietly imposed a tax increase specifically of Boston's growing class of super-wealthy homeowners. These owners, most of them in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, will pay hundreds or in some cases thousands of dollars more in property taxes this year. In return for their added burdens, most other homeowners - those with houses valued at less than $500,000 - will see reductions in their tax bills.
  The city is shifting more of the tax burden to Boston's gilded residences by raising the residential tax rate while at the same time increasing an exemption designed to help homeowners of more modest means....
  [Generally, we prefer fees for actual service rather than taxes. But that goal can only be realized once employment and income and wealth are considerably more evenly spread than now, starting with Timesizing to spread the vanishing and consolidating employment (and pay). In the meantime, the problem is, how to get all the money that is trapped in the 'black hole' of income and wealth concentration back into circulation, and graduated taxes, preferably income taxes, are the best answer. The more $concentration, the less $circulation - and vice versa.]

• ["good, but"]
  Canada: Jobless rate falls, by Bernard Simon, NYT, B3.
  Canada's unemployment rate fell to 7.7% in March from 7.9% in February, reinforcing signs of an unexpectedly robust economic recovery.
  [But don't count on it, because 7.7% is still a LOT of wasted consumers and Canada is still completely clueless about worktime as the key economic control variable of our time, despite close Quebec-France ties and France's world leadership with a 35-hour nationwide workweek. Canada's current uptick is simply a benefit of the low Canadian dollar and proximity to the U.S., so quality jobs such as movie production can locate easily in "the True North strong and free" -]
  According to Statistics Canada, 88,000 jobs were created in March, the highest number in 25 years [and] J. P. Morgan estimated that Canada's GDP grew 5.5%, after inflation, in the first quarter.

• [1 UPsizing, 2000 new jobs]
  Hyundai picks Ala. for first US plant - Plans to employ 2,000 workers, AP via NYT, C2.
  ..."Our decision to build this facility in Montgomery, Ala., underscores our commitment to the US market," said Mong Koo Chung, chairman of Hyundai Automotive Group....

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Winnebago Industries, NYT, C4.
   ...Forest City, Iowa, the largest maker of motor homes, said it planned to build a $12.5m assembly plant in Charles City, Iowa, to increase its capacity by about 30%.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. [UPsizing #2]
   Biogen to spend $268m on expansions, Dow Jones via BG, D2.
   Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology company..\..will spend about $138m to expand its complex in Research Triangle Park, NC, and plans to build another manufacturing plant in Denmark for about $130m....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]