Timesizing® Associates

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Good News, Nov. 1-15, 1999
[Commentary] ©1998,1999 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

11/14-15/99  Glimmers of hope -

1. [At last, Dunlap brought to literary justice.]
   11/14 Nicks in the Chainsaw - Biography recounts casualties left by ex-Sunbeam chief - "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap was ousted by the Sunbeam board in 1998, by Diane Lewis, Boston Globe, E4.
   For a time, Albert J. Dunlap...was the darling of Wall Street...in a world where mere mention of a restructuring or a downsizing could trigger higher stock prices..\.. "Chainsaw Al" [made] a fitting moniker for a man who, it turns out, was neither a compassionate employer nor an astute businessman....
   John A. Byrne, a senior writer at Business Week, was among a handful of journalists and analysts who saw through the facade. Byrne's new unauthorized biography, "Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-at-Any-Price" (HarperCollins...1999) paints a troubling portrait of how big egos and greed can destroy a company and the people it employs.... But his legacy lives on. One reason, the book suggests, is the pressure institutional shareholders began placing on corporate managements in the early 1990s, a shift that led to a significant change in the way public corporations are governed. In the past, a public company's goal was to manage a firm for employees and customers as well as for shareholders, suppliers, community residents and the firm's own financial interests. By the 1990s, such companies had shifted their focus, making the creation of shareholder value their primary goal.
   [In short, sheer laziness. From a constellation of goals to one single simple-minded goal. How possible? We argue that huge global labor surplus made it possible, labor glut constantly increased by waves of labor-saving technology, and constantly denied, because few pollsters asked anybody but employers and employers were only too happy to forget about wage raises and training costs. To cut down the floods of resumes, all they had to do was gradually raise job qualifications and if they happened to raise them too high, hell, they could actually complain about "labor shortage," despite a spreading underclass and massive prison construction programs all over the country.]
   By appeasing shareholders' yen for profits through downsizing, some [we'd say "many"] US firms not only realized short-term gains but were able to make a balance sheet look a lot healthier than it was. Apply that formula to today's go-go economy, and it is easy to see why thousands of workers are still losing jobs. When Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas looked at layoffs in 1999, it found that more than 575,000 jobs have been cut thus far, 11% higher than in all of 1998.
   Analysts say the best way to improve and grow a company is to increase staff and assets, develop products, or venture into viable new markets.
   [But by now there are few viable markets, let alone viable new markets, because the ongoing intimidation of the workforce by downsizing and the threat thereof has left the workforce far behind in sharing the waves of productivity profits from technology, and the resulting concentration of spending power among relatively few people has simply not resulted in the time or need to actually spend it. Outcome? Consumer markets are a fraction of what they should be, and CEOs are driven to acquire market share in takeovers rather than build it the traditional way.]
   Unfortunately, Dunlap chose the slash-and-burn route, cutting 12,000 jobs at Sunbeam. And his impact on Sunbeam didn't end there. "In one year," says Byrne, "Sunbeam's losses totaled $898 million, a sum that wiped out all the net income the company had made under" both of its previous chief executives "for five years."
   The book [also] examines the man behind the [business decisions], including the elderly parents Dunlap abandoned, the son he ignored, the ex-wife he abused, and the dogs he adored.... Dunlap's first wife, Gwyn...married [him] in 1961. By 1963 [she] had had enough. Barred from using the family car and fearful of her husband's temper, she packed her bags a year later and left with..\..her toddler son.... Dunlap [had] shoved his wife so hard that she fell over a coffee table and onto the living room floor," Byrne writes. "I will kill you, and step all over you and take that baby," Dunlap is quoted as saying.
   ...Working with Dunlap was a lot like going to war.... "The pressure was brutal, the hours exhausting, and the casualties high. ...At Sunbeam, Dunlap created a culture of misery, an environment of moral ambiguity, indifferent to everything except the stock price. "He would throw papers or furniture, bang his hands on his desk, knock glasses of water off a table, and shout so ferociously that a manager's hair could lift from his head by the stream of air that rushed from Dunlap's screaming mouth....
   [Genau wie Hitler. Just like Hitler, who would get so worked up he would throw himself down and actually tear at the rug with his teeth.]
   Where is he now? ...relaxing in his multimillion-dollar home in a gated community in Boca Raton [which translates as Mouth of Rat], Fla.

2. [New hope for population moderation.]
   11/15 Patents - Reversible sterilization for women..., by Sabra Chartrand, NYT, C8.
   Every year, several thousand women in the U.S. choose tubal litigation as a form of birth control...in which the fallopian tubes are [tied off] so a woman's eggs cannot pass from her ovaries to her uterus [where] sperm [could] reach the eggs.... Tubal litigation is considered permanent....
   Randall Loy...who lives in Longwood, Fla., has patented [#5,979,446] a fallopian tube plug that can be inserted in an out-patient procedure and...removed at any time [in another out-patient procedure, both without anesthesia]. The plug [is] made of a rigid, rod-shaped material [such as] stainless steel or any material that can be picked up by X-ray or ultrasound [for external monitoring].... The plug is also coated with...a biocompatible material. The shaft of the plug is about the size of a fallopian tube and has...protrusions arrayed around one end [which are] flat against the surface [during insertion but then] extended outward [to] grip the sides of the fallopian tube [and inward to block] passage through the tube. The plug has a knob on one end [for easy insertion and removal]....
   [This is reminiscent of a surgically reversible gold tap featured in the Miscellany photograph at the end of a Life Magazine in the late 1950s. Hopefully it can be developed into a serviceable method with minimal side effects.]

1. Big increases in productivity by workers - 4-year gains may help forestall rise in rates, by Louis Uchitelle, NYT, B1.
   The most debated economics issue in America today is whether workers are becoming ever more efficient, thanks to computers and the Internet.
   [Because if they are, we have another big question. Why aren't wages automatically going up with productivity, as CEOs like to tell us? And if they aren't, how do we avoid high production and low consumption, alias big supply and small demand, alias depression?]
   And the Labor Dept., in the most comprehensive review of the data to date, says there has indeed been an improvement in this decade, mainly in the last 4 years....
   [So productivity can definitely go up without taking wages with it. So we can again slide into depression, because Say's Law is Say's Fallacy - markets do not automatically clear - and the Lump of Labor Fallacy is really the Lump of Employment Law - we need to dynamically share the amount of market-demanded employment by taking it as fixed or "freeze-framed" day by day in the short term. And in the long term, "infinite"? No, shrinking actually.]

2. [UPsizing #1]
   College announces plans for new building - Emerson [in Boston] to link 11-story project to Majestic Theater, by Richard Kindleberger, Boston Globe, C1.

3. [UPsizing #2]
   Law firm opens Belgian office, by Steven Wilmsen, Bos Globe, C1.
   ...The law firm of Brown Rudnick Freed & Gesmer has opened an office in Ieper, Belgium....

4. [ANTI-takeover #1]
   Datum board rejects Frequency Electronics [$58m] bid, Reuters via NYT, B3.

5. [ANTI-takeover #2]
   Acquisition faces inquiry, by Andrew Sorkin, NYT, B2.
   British regulators are investigating NTL Inc.'s planned acquisition of the cable, television and Internet businesses of Cable and Wireless Communications for...$13.2b. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Stephen Byers, said the acquisition raises "sufficient concerns" about the delivery of pay-TV services to warrant a competition investigation. Regulators will issue a report by Feb. 25. NTL, Britain's largeste cable company, competes with the satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting Group....

6. [ANTI-takeover #3]
   Regulators seen rejecting MCI Worldcom-Sprint deal, by Peter Goodman, Washington Post via Bos Globe, C1.
   ...the nation's 2nd and 3rd largest long-distance telephone carriers, viewing the arrangement as a severe blow to competition....

1. [Seattle-based UPsizing #1]
   Boeing Co., NYT, C3.
   ...Seattle, said it was investing $250m to build a launching complex at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., for rockets capable of sending commercial satellites with expanded payloads into orbit.

2. [Seattle-based UPsizing #2]
   Starbucks Corp., NYT, C3.
   ...Seattle, the largest coffee retailer, signed a licensing agreement with Albertson's Inc., Boise, Idaho, the nation's No. 2 supermarket chain, to open more than 100 coffee bars in Albertson's stores across the country....

3. [1 ANTI-takeover]
   Mannesmann arms itself against any offer by Vodafone - The European rumor mills have whispered urgently of a hostile bid for weeks now, by Edmund Andrews, NYT, C3.
   FRANKFURT - Mannesmann A.G. is shoring up its defenses as it prepares for what could be a takeover battle on a huge scale with Vodafone Airtouch P.L.C. of Britain...the leading mobile phone operator, [which] is still wavering about whether it will initiate a $100B hostile bid for the German company....
   [Unfortunately, this is not just a Jerries vs. Limeys rematch with Jerries as goodguys this time, because - ]
   The discussions within Vodafone began after Mannesmann offered $33B to acquire Orange P.L.C., the 3rd-largest mobile phone operator in Britain, setting itself up as a rival in Vodafone's territory....
   [Anyway - ]
   Mannesmann...has hired Deutsche Bank...to advise it on a defense strategy, adding the bank to a team that already includes Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. And it has lined up a PR firm to help dissuade stockholders from accepting an unsolicited offer....
   [Which is all very sad because - ]
   Mannesmann and Vodafone had been partners for years....
   [The ongoing story - Vodafone offers $76.9B for Mannesmann and on 11/15, "Mannesman rebuffs Vodafone - Calls unsolicited offer 'wholly inadequate'," story by Bruce Stanley, AP via Boston Globe, E2.]

1. [This blind Muslim guy in Indonesia is a wonder!]
   Indonesia offers Aceh a separation referendum, by Jonathan Thatcher, Reuters via NYT, A43.
   BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - With separatists sensing victory in their fight for an independent Aceh [i.e., west Indonesia, in the wake of the regained freedom for east Indonesia (East Timor)], President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia said yesterday he was willing to allow the oil-rich region to hold a referendum.... "If we can hold a referendum in East Timor, why not in Aceh?" he asked at a news conference in Manila. "The consequences of a referendum, whatever the outcome, we will accept."...
   [A real democrat! See also our second 11/05 story below. Then (Thursday?) there was a march of 50,000. Four days later (Monday) there's been a march of 10 times that number.]
   ...Monday [there was] the biggest separatist rally in Indonesia's history, when at least 500,000 people swept into the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, to demand the right to vote on whether to break from Jakarta....
   [Again, a real boost for democracy based on issue-oriented referendums.]

2. Longtime IMF director resigns in midterm, by David Sanger, NYT, C1.
   WASHINGTON - Michel Camdessus resigned [yesterday] two years before the end of his term \after\ nearly 13 years [and] a succession of economic crises, [for] "entirely personal reasons".... Colleagues said constant travel and [the] succession of international crises had exhausted him. \His resignation set\ off a behind-the-scenes struggle [between Clinton and Europe] over who will head the agency that is in effect dictating national economic policy from Russia to Indonesia and Africa.
   [Real democratic world we've got here - not. Maybe this premature departure will weaken the IMF and open a chink for people power.]
   ...Conservatives in the U.S. Congress...had accused him of wasting billions in bailing out Russia..\..
   [Well, insofar as Russia is still deeply underwater, guess the billions were wasted. Of course, "shock therapist" Jeff Sachs of Harvard would say that not enough billions were injected, so guess he wanted much more wasted....]
   Camdessus [argued] that his much-attacked prescriptions saved Asia from a far worse economic fate....
   [Oh we dunno about that. It's not over yet.]
   ...In discussing the fund's growing political impact throughout the world, he acknowledged for the first time that its actions in Indonesia served as a catalyst in [creating] "the conditions that obliged [Indonesian] President Suharto to leave his job [although] that was not our intention."
   [Well how can we give him points for an unintended consequence, beneficial though that may have been?!]

3. Fewer jobless Germans [but...], by Edmund Andrews, NYT, C4.
   ...in October [by 11,000 to stay at 10.5%], but the gap between western and eastern Germany continued to widen.... The rate increased slightly, to 18.3%, in the east and declined slightly, to 8.6%, in the west.
   [Plus check out our first 11/05 story below.]

4. Former Xerox officer gets top Avis job - Chairman's post fulfills a long[-held] aim, by Claudia Deutsch, NYT, C8.
   ...Addison Barry Rand...who was Xerox's highest-ranking black executive [when] he left Xerox \as\ executive VP for worldwide operations...was quite clear about why he left...: He wanted to [be CEO, but] when Xerox hired [in an heir apparent from outside,] he knew he would have to go elsewhere....
   Mr. Rand's former colleague's at Xerox are pretty sure he can pull it off \even though he's\ a copier guy running a car-rental company.... "Barry was one of the most loved and respected leaders here, and not just because he succeeded against the odds as an African-American," said Anne Mulcahy, a Xerox executive VP. [She recalls how he] showed up at one internal conference in a Superman costume and hired a stunt double to do fancy acrobatics at another.... "He had a way of getting people to their feet with excitement and spontaneous shouting and applause and engagement that I've never seen happen anywhere else in corporate America."...
   [Good going, brother Rand! We suspect that you are the only African American CEO in the Fortune 500, otherwise they'd be listing the others as they did a few days ago when a fourth woman made it to the top. See our third 11/05 story below, on Avon Products. Hmm, Avon and Avis. Nice when fate gets mnemonic.]

5. Poll finds greater confidence in Democrats [or less mistrust?!] - Voters have less faith in House Republicans over Social Security, by Clymer and Elder, NYT, front page.
   [...and over practically everything else now they wasted $40m harassing the schlickmeister, blocked the testban treaty, blocked patients' rights, blocked states' rights in the matter of Oregon's right to die law, and that's only off the top of our head....]

6. Pataki outlines plan to halt emptying of mental centers, by Raymond Hernandez, NYT, front page.
   [About time somebody did.]

7. Trump proposes tax on rich Americans, by Ron Fournier, AP via Boston Globe, A19.
   PICKENS, S.C. - Donald Trump wants to soak the rich, including himself. Seeking attention and credibility for his potential presidential campaign, the billionaire real estate tycoon proposed a 14.25% tax yesterday on the net worth of wealthy Americans. He said the one-time tax package would:
   • Raise $5.7 trillion to erase the nation's debt and save $200 billion in annual interest payments....
   • Use the savings to save Social Security and slash taxes for the middle class.
   • Increase his personal tax bill by at least $725 million.
   "It's a big hit for me, but I think it's worth it," the potential Reform Party candidate said in a telephone interview from his New York offices. People and trusts valued at more than $10 million would be subject to the new tax. Trump...estimates his net worth at $5 billion. The original plan called for collection in a single year but, in a last-minute change, Trump said he would allow more time for people having trouble liquifying their assets. "Let's say 10 years," he said.
   [Who said the rich never suggest things "against" their own interest? - though this would greatly ingratiate them to the general public. We at Timesizing.com would gradually work up through work sharing and income sharing to a sharing of wealth, maybe taking a century for each, but Trump wants to jump the gun and just DO IT (though only as a one-time thing, rather than on a healthier continuous and systemic basis). Hey, it's provoked more creative thinking on Wall Street than has been done since the 1930s, if only to rassle up arguments against it - ]
   ...such a dramatic tax increase could be an economic disaster...
   [or an economic bonanza]
   ...a slew of technical and political hurdles..\..to surmount...
   [hey, every proposal has those]
   ...a sure way to prick \this\ bubble in the stock market...
   [the sooner the better, says the conservative Economist magazine out of London]
   ...even talking about it would risk capital flight out of the country...
   [and maybe spur us to design some sensible capital flight controls]
   ...it is pretty confiscatory in terms of property rights... (Andrew Hodge, sr. VP of WEFA group)
   [oh, but it's OK when you guys work people 50-60 hours a week on a 40-hour salary, right?]
   Trump dismissed the doom-and-gloom scenarios. "It would not be a shock to the system," he said, predicting a 35% boost in economic activity after he eliminates the debt, cuts income taxes [for the rich?] and erases the inheritance tax....
   [Well folks, there's the catch. It's a cheap one-time bribe to erase the inheritance tax. Nice and imaginative, Donald, but we're going to 'duck' this one.]

8. [A little action on exorbitant executive pay - ]
   $558 million ordered repaid in stock grants, by David Johnston, NYT, C1.
   ...A Delaware judge ruled yesterday that the three top executives of Computer Assocs. must return company stock worth more than half a billion dollars, part of an enormous stock grant that infuriated shareholders last year. The judge found that the executives' pay contract lacked a provision authorizing adjustments in the number of shares awarded in the event of stock splits..\..
   For want of a clause, a fortune was lost....
   [Thank God!]

1. Joe Kennedy’s rival founds nation’s 1st ‘dot-com’ political party - Phil Hyde now targeting Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat under Timesizing.com banner to shorten the workweek, press release from this website.
   [We kept working on this press release as we faxed it out all day to Massachusetts newspapers and national wireservices, plus the NY Times, WS Journal, and USA Today. We got our biggest inspiration just before faxing it to the National Enquirer (or Inspirer?) for some reason. Probably the need to really make it simple and dramatic. So we overhauled yesterday's version considerably, did the Enquirer and refaxed the biggies. Basically we're going to have our cake and eat it too. We're going to be the first dot-com political party in the nation and probably the world, but use our long 'formal' name on the ballot so we don't lose computer-unclued voters.]
   BOSTON, Mass. - Philip Hyde III, twice the GOP nominee against Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II for the historic 8th MA Congressional seat (Kennedy resigned halfway through the second race in ’98) and dubbed the UNkennedy since his 1996 race, yesterday founded the nation’s first ‘dot-com’ political party, the Timesizing.com Party. Hyde's committee feared excluding the still numerous computer-illiterate voters in the state so the full official name was registered as Timesizing Not Downsizing on the filing of required signature papers with the Secretary of State's office, thus establishing the state’s newest political designation. A designation officially becomes a party when it wins 3% of a statewide vote.
   Hyde also announced plans to run under the Timesizing.com banner against the biggest name in American politics next year for Senate. This time it will be Senator Ted Kennedy, rather than his nephew, Joe Jr. Said Hyde, "I just couldn't let this opportunity slide. It's a 'triple witching hour' - a new century, a new millennium...and an old Kennedy up for re-election. People's minds are going to be more open for a deeper glimpse into the future. They’ll be asking whether our current economics of narrowly funnelled boom, of over-worked and under-employed, of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, is the best we can do at the dawn of a new millennium. Timesizing.com's message of converting overtime into training and cutting hours, not jobs to keep everyone working and maintain domestic spending, is welcomed by nervous investors, sleep-deprived techies and harassed parents alike, especially in one-parent families and homes touched by layoffs."
   The full name, Timesizing Not Downsizing, presents a clear message like California's United We Stand and Massachusetts' We The People, Rainbow Coalition & Greens. Said Hyde, "Giving ordinary people more time and money will move forward all other good causes more than focussing on any one of them, especially in the context of our current split between people with money and no time, and people with time and no money. It will give us more family time for stronger family values. And I personally could not accept the intellectual insult of beginning the Third Millennium without a political party in the biggest world economy focused on this strategic all-in-one issue. However, we’ll also be pushing for more electrononic democracy and issue-oriented referendums in order to bypass a lethargic Congress and re-verse voter apathy. The fact is, our computer technology today is way ahead of our political technology."
   National shorter-hours spokesperson Barbara Brandt kicked off the second page of Hyde’s Somerville signatures. Ms. Brandt lives near Davis Square, and Hyde lives only 12 blocks away near Porter Square. On the way back from the Secretary of State's Office, Hyde dropped in at the Beacon Hill home of the chairman of his political campaign last year, the Grand Old Man of progressive Massachu-setts Republicanism, John Sears, whom Hyde had not seen since prior to his leaving the GOP last spring. Sears proffered a mug of java and his ‘good luck’ wishes for the new party and Hyde’s Senatorial race.
   Voters can get more information or volunteer by phoning the Timesizing.com Party at (617) 623-8080 or surfing to www.timesizing.com on the Web.

2. [1 UPsizing]
   Dell Computer Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...Round Rock, Tex., announced plans to build a second manufacturing operation in the Nashville area, adding about 650 jobs.
   [And maybe these will be good high-wage jobs too, since they're in manufacturing and not services.]

1. 11/08 Beyond 2000 - 100 questions for the new century - the first in our VISIONS series. This issue: Your health, our planet, Time magazine, cover.
   [Time Mag is doing their bit to crack Americans' attention off the immediate day-to-day "noise" for the turn of the millennium - without urging them to camp on a mountaintop and chant. Sample stories - ]
   
   • Can I live to be 125?, by Jonathan Weiner, 74.
   • Will Malthus be right?, by Niles Eldredge, 102.
   • What would a green future look like?, by Charles Alexander, 114.

2. 11/08 Debt dispute threatens US role in the UN - America could lose key voting rights, companies may be barred on contracts, by John Donnelly, Boston Globe, front page.
   [At last the UN gets smart - and tough. But as colleague Kate Jurow says, it's those lost contracts that are going to make the difference. Those companies are going to have their lobbyists swarming over the drooling idiots in Congress, threatening their campaign funding, and suddenly the GOP will quietly start ponying up US dues for the UN.]

3. 11/08 Late budget solution: pay delay - 'Pay raises [in Mass. we've done] immediately. State budgets [have taken] a few months longer.' (Barbara Anderson, Citizens for Limited Government and Taxation) - [So] withhold their salaries?, by Michael Crowley, Bos Globe, B1.
   Massachusetts is already the nation's last state without an annual budget. And as of yesterday, the state budget is later than it has been since 1965, when the Legislature passed its spending plan on Dec. 31. But if you think [Mass.] has trouble getting things done, consider New York's Legislature, which last delivered an on-time budget in 1984.
   Last year, NY Gov. George Pataki decided he had seen enough.... So when lawmakers sought a pay raise, Pataki insisted on one condition: When budgets are late, legislators don't get their paychecks. The law simply withholds paychecks, and legislators are paid in full once a budget passes.
   ...Several NY lawmakers, fretting about mortgage payments and school tuition, mounted a legal challenge to the law, calling it unconstitutional coercion. Last month, the state's highest court rejected those arguments and upheld the law 6-1....
   [This story and the one above give examples of intuitively linked laws, laws that set up a problem to solve itself. Our 2 favorite examples are (1) the environmentalist idea of curing river pollution from cities by requiring them to draw their drinking water downstream of their sewage outlets, and (2) after World War II in Italy when Prime Minister Luigi Einaudi required that no government spending program would pass without an accompanying or prior bill to finance it.]

4. 11/08 Gore/Bradley health plans: one problem, two solutions, by Aaron Zitner, Bos Globe, front page.
   [Whatever. As long as they're focused on getting something that's been blackmailing many people into working longer hours than they want detached from the "full-time job" as defined, for all future time, at 40 (or more) hours a week!]

5. 11/07 A push for worldwide labor standards - WTO enforces property rights but not human rights, by Robert Kuttner, Bos Globe op ed, D7.
   ...Heading the Clinton adminstration's agenda for the talks are further reductions in (already low) tariffs on manufactured goods as well as easier access for US investors in such services as banking, insurance, and telecommunications.
   However, a second agenda was forced upon the administration by its allies in the labor movement - linkage of trade privileges to what are called "core labor standards." These include bans on child labor and forced prison labor as well as the right to freely organize trade unions....

6. 11/07 Australia votes [55%] to keep queen - Republic rejected as monarchists celebrate their victory, by Rohan Sullivan, AP via Bos Globe, A20.
   [Great. Now Canucks & Kiwis (Canadians & New Zealanders) don't have to go it alone. After all, we don't have to pay for her - just our relatively inexpensive Governors General. And look at all the pomp & circumstance we tap into - the 1033-year-plus succession of monarchs. Not even the Brits really have to pay for the royal family because Queen Victoria turned over the huge rents from the Duchy of Lancaster - a crown property - to Parliament to defray her expenses. So even Brits can stop bellyaching. They're getting much more in terms of tourist dollars and the rudder of a long and well-documented historical tradition than they're shelling out, not to mention the rents from a large portion of Lancashire. Considering that we're on the cusp of a millennium & that for every 1 year you look ahead, you should look 10 years behind, a 1000-year-old monarchy may be thought of as a tool that helps you forecast at least the next century. To do the whole of the next millennium, we'd have to get real familiar with the history and prehistory of agriculture, since the agricultural revolution has long been dated in the vicinity of 10,000 years ago (even better if that has that been pushed further back recently), and with the calendar myths and 'beat/step/count mouthings' that made it all possible.]

1. U.S. judge declares Microsoft is a market-stifling monopoly; Gates retains defiant stance - Not a final ruling - Court says arguments offered by company are 'specious', by Joel Brinkley, NYT, front page.
   [And colleague Kate Jurow says that Microsoft's lawyer was sloppy and over-confident.]
   ...The judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson of Federal District Court, said the company had used its monopoly power to stifle innovation, reduce competition and hurt consumers...in his 207-page findings of fact....
   [Let's see if the U.S. Government is still bigger than the $100-billion man who alone is bigger than most countries' budgets - the "one of us" nerd who gradually became the biggest "one of them."]
   The Court's findings
   • Monopoly - Microsoft enjoys so much monopoly power that "it could charge a price for Windows substantially above that which could be charged in a competitive market."
   • Unnecessarily linking products - "The preferences of consumers and the responsive behavior of software firms demonstrate that Web browsers and operating systems are separate products."
   • Anticompetitive practices - "Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm" that challenges it.
   • Consumer impact - "The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest."
   [Aaron Zitner in today's Boston Globe ("Gates defends his firm as friend to consumers," C1) quotes Gates as declaring last night that his company is guided by the "most basic American values: innovation, integrity, serving customers." Our view of the "innovation" that Gates claims he's promoted? CP/M was better than Gates' MS-DOS. The MAC was better than Gates' Windows, probably still is, not that we really now have the option of switching. Netscape Navigator is better than Gates' Explorer. And we'd sure like to hear more about Linux, but will we get the chance?]

2. [WTO members starting to see through the snowjob? Hey, whatever it takes to frag the simplistic "free trade" fad!]
   World trade group's leader says discord threatens talks, by Elizabeth Olson, NYT, B3.
   GENEVA - Frustrated by the World Trade Organization's [WTO's] apparent inability to agree on an agenda for its meeting barely 3 weeks away, the leader of the group has warned the 134 member countries that the meeting could end in failure.
   ["Ooooh noooo, Mr. Bill." Pray God the meeting does bomb. "Free trade" in a world of tightening environmental constraints and supremely naive and arrogant bioengineering tinkerers is an express ticket to human extinction.]
   In a surprisingly blunt letter released today, Mike Moore, [New Zealandese] director general of the organization, said the preparations for the meeting in Seattle were caught in a "vicious circle."...
   [Ordinarily, New Zealanders are smarter than to take on a job this simplistic, faddish and cheerleadery, but maybe it's lonely way down under on a couple of islands off by yourself, and maybe you don't have many environmental problems when you can pollute the air and water to your heart's content and have no close neighbors to squawk about it.]

3. Canadian joblessness falls, by Timothy Pritchard, NYT, B2.
   ...["Socialist," "government-health-insurance burdened"] Canada's unemployment rate fell 0.3% to 7.2% in October, its lowest level since March 1990, Statistics Canada reported....
   [Capitol Republicans just can't understand why our "socialist" neighbor to the north,just doesn't collapse from taxes and bureaucracy. Damn, why does it have any good news at all? It's embarrassing that every single Canadian has health insurance in this little peashooter economy up there in the frozen wastes (and the GOP doesn't want to hear about the even smaller economies in Europe that have everyone insured - and higher taxes - and six-week annual vacations!) And the fact that the Canadian unemployment rate counts more of the problem than the American excuse for an unemployment rate means that if we counted ours the same way they count theirs, ours, now "dropped" 0.1% to 4.1%, would probably rise to match their 7.2%. And we're supposed to rejoice that American wages have risen by a riproaring inflation-menacing 1¢ an hour - during a supposed boom with multiples of incoming techology-borne productivity?! (See item today, "Jobless rate drops to 4.1% as wages rise by 1¢ an hour" by Louis Uchitelle, NYT, C1.)]

4. [Good news, "but" -]
   House OK's bill for hospital aid, by Aaron Zitner, Bos Globe, C1.
   The US House of Representatives approved a bill that would send billions of dollars to hospitals, nursing homes, and others who say that cutbacks approved two years ago have made it difficult to provide health care.... The 388-25 vote makes it likely that Congress and Pres. Clinton will set aside money for health providers as they finish negotiations over the next federal budget. The bill would send $11.8b to health care providers over five years, rescinding a small portion of Medicare cutbacks that Congress and Pres. Clinton approved in 1997. The 1997 cutbacks reduced payments to Mass. hospitals by $1.7b over five years....
   [But - ]
   Under the most optimistic scenario, 90% of those cutbacks will remain in place [as] the bill would send [only] $129m to Mass. hospitals over [the next] three years....
   [And the relief will come too late for many hospitals and health centers, as you can tell from our takeover (e.g., 1/30/99) and bankruptcy (e.g., 11/04, 10/15, 9/14, 2/04/99) pages in past months.]

5. [1 UPsizing]
   Best Buy to open 3 more stores, by Chris Reidy, Bos Globe, C1.
   ...The nation's 2nd-largest consumer-electronics chain plans to open three new stores next week in New England [MA, NH, ME, VT, CT, RI], including stores at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis [MA] and the Greendale Mall in Worcester [MA]. A third store will open in Concord, NH. Based in Minnesota, Best Buy arrived in this market just over a year ago. When the company opens its new stores next week, it will operate 14 stores in Mass., New Hamp. and Rhode Is....

6. [1 UNtakeover]
   Tenneco auto and packaging units become independent, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   Tenneco Inc. separated its final two businesses, as Tenneco Automotive, the maker of Monroe shock absorbers and Walker mufflers, and the Pactiv Corp., a packaging company that makes Hefty bags, became independent companies.... The separation completes a dismantling that began in 1992. Both companies are based in Lake Forest, Ill.
   [But offsetting this favorable factoid, today (NYT, C2) the Tarmac UNtakeover of 4 days ago (11/02 below) got reversed.)

1. [The good news is, the wall's gone.  The bad news is, - ]
   A decade later, mistrust divides [east & west] Germans [alias Ossies & Wessies], by Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe, front page.
   BERLIN - At dusk, Sebastian Pflugbeil sits [in] gathering darkness. Turning on the lights is something of a luxury for an academic who has been out of work for a decade. Pflugbeil, a...physicist, was one of the founders of New Forum, a leader of the intelligentsia that inspired and gave purpose to the popular uprising that brought down the Berlin Wall 10 years ago. But today...in his 3d-floor apartment in east Berlin, he wonders whether the bloodless revolution he helped foster was worth it.
   While it is true that those who live in the former East Germany now have the freedom to go anywhere and say anything...without worrying about the Stasi, the dreaded secret police, many feel like Pflugbeil, "I can't afford to travel anywhere, so the freedom to travel means nothing, and no one in the government cares what I or anybody else here says, so the freedom of speech means nothing"....
   [On the other hand, why didn't this middle-aged, apparently unattached guy pull up stakes, go west and get a job? We know, we know, there are complications. But there's also this consideration - ]
   Irene Runge, a sociologist and founder of the Jewish Cultural Center on Berlin's east side, said the complaints must be taken with a grain of salt....
   [Hey, Jews are survivors.]
   She [does believe] too many [Wessies] have been patronizing and condescending, while too many [Ossies] are oversensitive and...resentful. "We talk different languages even though we speak the same language," she said....
   [Hey, that's probably the most common problem of all of us.]
   "Those who are most disappointed...thought the Stasi would go and be replaced with nothing." It's not just that the Stasi have been replaced by a national secret service that...is not especially tolerant of dissent. The Stasi members themselves have gone mostly unpunished, according to critics who...believe it was simply a case of "Wessies know best" incompetence....
   [Germans, the fount of Efficiency, "incompetent"? Nooooo, impossible, unmöglich!]
   Many [Ossies] are now expressing a nostalgia for the old East Germany, something dubbed "Ostalgie." \However, Runge\ contends that chronic complaining is one of the few things Ossies and Wessies have in common. "Most things are better. The standard of living has improved," she said. "But the moment it gets a little harder, people here start crying, like they are dying."
   [On the other hand, the "squeaking wheel" often does "get the grease." Note that we now have to distinguish between good ol' Aussies (Australians) and newcomer Ossies (east Germans), as humdinger a pair of homonyms as ever "As ever an Ozzie there was, because, becuz, beefuzz, begauze...." (We're having altogether too much fun with this und Deutschen sind ernst - serious!)]

2. 50,000 rally for independence in Indonesia, by Slobodan Lekic, Bos Globe, A29.
   SIGLI, Indonesia - More than 50,000 people rallied peacefully yesterday in Aceh, Indonesia's westernmost province, banging drums and chanting "Referendum! Freedom! Independent state!"... In Jakarta yesterday, [Pres. Abdurrahman] Wahid said he was open to a vote on independence in Aceh. "I support a referendum as their right. If we can do that in East Timor, why not in Aceh?"...
   The word "referendum" was written everywhere in and around Sigli, a town of 20,000 people - on whitewashed walls, on stilts holding up traditional wooden houses, on banners hanging from street signs, and in huge white letters on the streets.
   [Great to see so much support for the next step in democracy - issue-oriented referendums.]
   "We have had enough of Javanese colonial rule," said a member of the guerrilla group that helped organize the rally.... Independence activists say Aceh [like East Timor,] has never really been a part of Indonesia.... East Timor residents voted for independence in a UN-sponsored ballot Aug.30.... Aceh residents complain about the government siphoning off most of the proceeds from the province's rich oil and natural gas deposits and of brutally repressing the separatist movement....

3. Opportunity re-knocks at Avon - Passed over before, a woman is named chief executive
   - [foto caption] Andrea Jung, president of Avon Products, has been named chief executive, replacing Charles Perrin, who had been at the company less than 18 months, by Dana Canedy, NYT, C1.
   Slightly more than a month after warning investors to expect disappointing financial results soon, Avon Products said yesterday it was replacing its chief executive with the ultimate Avon lady.
   The promotion of Andrea Jung, Avon's president and COO, comes less than 2 years after a high-profile executive search in which she and 3 other women at the company were passed over in favor of Charles R. Perrin, an outsider with no experience in direct selling or cosmetics.
   Ms. Jung becomes the 4th chief executive of a Fortune 500 company who is a woman, and the 2nd to be named this year. She joins
   • Carleton S. Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard [named on 7/20/99],
   • Jill Barad at Mattel and
   • Marion Sandler at Golden West Financial....
     
   [Well, Kate has a tip for Ms. Jung: Revive the Avon mail catalog. Teammate Kate Jurow had just started ordering cosmetics from the catalog and liking them, when Avon killed the catalog. Kate and many of her colleagues in high tech are NOT going to put up with "Avon calling." Time to cater to 21st-century women who, unlike the lonely suburban housewives of the 1950s, are decidedly not anxious for house visits (as even Encyclopedia Britannica recognized recently in bagging door-to-door in favor of website)].

1. 7 utilities sued by U.S. on charges of polluting air - Coal-fired plants cited - E.P.A. says companies in the South and Midwest fouled atmosphere for years, by David Stout, NYT, front page.
   ...in what federal officials called one of the biggest enforcement actions in the nation's history...accusing the utilities of defying anti-pollution regulations and illegally contaminating the air breathed by millions of Americans.... The government took action against 32 coal-fired plants in 10 states, saying that if the plants reduced pollution as required it would have the same effect as taking 26 million cars off the road.
   [Maybe this will cut acid rain.]
   The government accused the companies of modernizing their generating plants without modernizing their pollution controls as required by the Clean Air Act....

2. [Mass.] House OK's land preservation bill, by Bruce Butterfield, Boston Globe, C17.
   A bill that would provide as much as $50m in state matching funds to promote land preservation by local communities passed the House 134 to 14 last night.... Supporters say the vote was a critical step toward the passage of the long-awaited Community Preservation Act this legislative session....

3. [One city stands up for bank customers.]
   ...S.F. ban on ATM fees, AP via Boston Globe, C2.
   ...Voters [on Tuesday 11/02] overwhelmingly banned surcharges on automated teller machines.... By a ratio of 62 to 38%, San Francisco voters outlawed the fees of $1-2 that banks charge nonaccount holders who use their ATMs.... It was the first time in the nation that voters had the opportunity to act on the issue. The ATM [fee] ban is similar to ones imposed in Connecticut, Iowa, and cities including Santa Monica, except those were imposed by politicians.
   [Hey, they're saving money on human tellers' pay and benefits, aren't they? How long are we supposed to go along with "more technology, less service and more fees"? Look what's happened to telephone Directory Assistance and air travel!]
   ..\..A day after voters banned [the] surcharges...California banks filed suit is federal court...to block the measure from taking effect.... The industry claims the measure is unconstitutional....
   [Well, women's suffrage was once claimed as unconstitutional too.]

4. ["Good news, but..."]
   Blazing hot and highly volatile - Nasdaq composite finishes above 3,000 for first time, by Floyd Norris, NYT, C1.
   [This is where most of the Web stocks are, and as we all know, their P/E ratios are insanely high and Amazon.com has yet to make a profit.]

5. 2 UNtakeovers -
   1. Lonmin bid [for Ashanti Goldfields of Ghana] is rejected, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   2. Fletcher Challenge deal rejected [- FC Canada rejected a plan by its NZ parent to merge it with other international forest-product businesses], by Timothy Pritchard, NYT, C4.
      ...Fletcher Challenge Ltd. [of New Zealand] owns 51% of the Canadian company, but its proposal required approval by most of the minority shareholders. Only 9% voted in favor.

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Nortel expanding fiber-optic capacity, AP via NYT, C4.
   Nortel Networks plans to invest $400m to expand its fiber optic production around the world, creating 5,000 jobs. The plan...includes the construction of a research center in Ottawa to make precision lasers and other optical components, as well as the expansion of plants in Atlanta, Raleigh, Montreal and Britain. Demand for fiber-optic equipment has skyrocketed as telecommunications companies try to outpace the rapid growth of the Internet, building faster, higher-capacity networks.
   [But note the UNupsizing almost right below this upsizing - "Marriott to halt [development of] 35 senior-living communities," Dow Jones via NYT, C4.]

2. [1 UNtakeover]
   Protection One Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Calif., the 2d-largest U.S. security-alarm company, canceled the $27m sale of its Canadian operations to Voxcom Inc., Edmonton, Alta., because of Voxcom's inability to get financing.

1. 2 cases of people coming to their senses -
   1. Business support declines in Britain for adoption of the Euro - A poll's results are seen as bad news for the Blair government, by Alan Cowell, NYT, C4.
      [Currencies (dba currency markets) are the last thing to unify. National currencies are based on domestic corporate currencies (stocks) which are based on corporate skill (input side) "currency" (avg. value of corporate employee's hour) which are based on avg. service value (output side) dba product value in the case of manufacturing companies. In short, currency markets are based on stock markets are based on skill/job markets are based on services (sometimes incarnate in goods) markets. For a solid unified currency, these markets must be unified "from the bottom up," starting with goods and services and not neglecting the job market level.]

   2. RealNetworks to stop collecting user data - Music software will no longer transmit personal information, by Sara Robinson, NYT, C2.
      Responding to privacy concerns about its RealJukebox software, RealNetworks executives announced yesterday that they had released a patch on their Web site that would prevent the program from relaying personal infomation about users to RealNetworks or to any third party.
      [But it looks like the "default" is still to have your privacy invaded.]

2. 2 UNbankruptcies -
   1. [Good Halloween story - Funeral chain back from the dead - ]
      Improvement at funeral operator, by Timothy Pritchard, NYT, C4.
      Bankruptcy protection enabled Loewen Group, a funeral chain based in Vancouver, BC, to earn $1.9m in the 3rd quarter, compared with a loss of $32.4m a year earlier.
      [Let's see, they're going to have to make $1.9m/qtr for 17 qtrs (4¼ years) to match a year ago's quarterly loss.]
      The results partly reflected a suspension of interest payments.
      [Ah, maybe this isn't yet an UNbankruptcy tale after all. We're not quite back from the dead - we're still stuck in the crypt.]

   2. [Hopefully this one's made it out of the cemetery - ]
      Executive to raise at least $1.2b to aid ICO [Global Communications Ltd] - Phone concern to move out of bankruptcy, by David Barboza, NYT, C3.
      ...The move by Mr..\..Craig O. McCaw, the cellular telephone pioneer...who is expected to gain control of the bankrupt company, is a big vote of confidence in the struggling global satellite telephone business, which had been saddled last summer by two high-profile bankruptcies [the other one was Iridium, both in August] and growing doubts about its viability....
      [Can one man's faith save an industry? "Can the Cheerios Kid save the maiden? We'll soon find out!"]

3. 1 UNtakeover -
   Tarmac talks end, by Andrew Sorkin, NYT, C4.
   The South African mining company Anglo American PLC said negotiations to acquire Tarmac PLC, Britain's largest maker of asphalt, had halted after Tarmac rejected its offer of...$1.85b [£1.13b]....
   [Oops, cancel the goodnews. Four days later Tarmac accepts a sweetened offer of $1.96b [£1.2b] from Anglo American - see item "Tarmac accepts new bid" by Andrew Sorkin, 11/06/99 NYT, B3.]

1. Congress oversteps, letter by Gil Bassak of Ossining NY, NYT, A26.
   "Why are they doing this?" an Oregon resident asks in your Oct. 29 front-page article about the House bill to forbid assisted suicide. The answer is the overreaching and authoritarian hand of organized religion. Apparently, more than a few members of Congress think that the First Amendment separating church and state should protect only the church. They forget that it also protects those of us who reject the dogmas of organized religion.
   [And those of us in other organized religions that practice what we preach about alleviating human suffering.]
   More than ironic, this latest Congressional intrusion into the most personal of issues is perpetrated by the same elected servants who claim to be getting big government off our backs.
   [Hear! Hear! Another argument for issue-oriented public referendums. And here's a second - ]

2. On test ban treaty, reopen the debate, letter by Marvin Bograd of Florham Park NJ, NYT, A26.
   William Safire (column, Oct. 28) crticizes Pres. Clinton for not accepting the test-ban deal [in which] the Senate would have shelved the treaty in exchange for Mr. Clinton's not making it a political issue in the 2000 election. My question to Mr. Safire is, Why should it not be an issue?
   Many Republicans believe that it is...severely flawed. The Democrats believe it is in the best interest of the U.S.... Let us have an open debate. The issue is important enough for the people to decide....
   [Amen to that. And binding public referendums, now we have the computer and electronic technology to bring them to the ATM level of security, is the way to go, as quickly and smoothly as we can get there. But Safire digs himself out in today's op ed - ]

3. Running huge risks - Rolling dice with Gramm-Summers, by William Safire, NYT, A27.
   Americans are unaware that Congress and the President have just...put us all at extraordinary and personal risk [in knocking] down all fire walls between banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses. Global financiers are given the green light for ever-greater concentrations of power.
   [...and wealth, and income, and spending power - and workload, so that those with the money don't have the time or need to spend it, and vice versa. 1929 déja vu. Depression incubation. The more concentration, the less circulation. That's the primary reason for depressions - the imbalance between productivity [high] and the spending activity to absorb it [low]. But Safire brings up a secondary reason, reminiscent of a Titanic with no watertight compartments - ]
   Few remember the reason for those fire walls: to curtail the spread of the sort of panic from one financial [sector] to another that helped lead to the Great Depression. But today's lust for global giantism has swept aside the voices of [sanity.  Plush] financial lobbies have persuaded our leaders that in enormous size there is strength.... Sheer size rules.... Today's result: mergermania, dangerous concentration of financial risk; and the even greater risk to that part of our freedom we call privacy..\.. [But] not everyone has forgotten the adage..."the bigger they come, the harder they fall."...