Economic News 2003 March

2003-03-01

2003-03-01
Sam Zuckerman _SF Chronicle_
State squares job loss numbers with reality: SF area mis-counted by 150%, San Jose by 54%
"At the end of 2002, the San Jose and San Francisco metropolitan areas had a combined 1.87M jobs, 113,700 fewer than previously reported, according to revised data released Friday by the California Employment Development Department.   In the 2 years ending in 2002 December, the San Jose area lost 149,200 jobs, 54% more than previously thought.   The San Francisco area shed 92,900 jobs during that period, a stunning 150% more than previous estimates...   The Employment Development Department also changed its calculation of the state's unemployment rate.   The rate was 6.5% in January, down from 6.9% in December.   That December figure - the highest jobless rate in the state during the current economic cycle -- was revised from 6.6% originally reported...   The previously uncounted losses in the San Jose and San Francisco areas represented most of the statewide revision made by Employment Development that showed 143,900 fewer California jobs in December than official data had originally showed...   The job loss under-counts were particularly big in San Jose and San Francisco because official statistics don't do a good job measuring employment in the technology sector, analysts said.   The tech sector includes hundreds of young, volatile companies that come and go before the survey tracks them down...   [Michael] Bazdarich [of UC Riverside] calculates that Santa Clara County lost 18.4% of its jobs in the last two years.   Or from another perspective, half of the state's total job losses occurred in the San Jose region.   'Data for Santa Clara do look really horrible.', he said.   An area representing about 8% of the state's economy, it suffered 50% of the state's job losses in the last 2 years."

2003-03-01
Alex Berenson _NY Times_
Tight US Job Market Adds to Jitters among Consumers
"Americans are now more worried about their job prospects than at any time since 1993, raising the risk that consumer spending, the cornerstone of the economy, will slow even if the United States quickly resolves its standoff with Iraq.   Concern about the job market is only partly reflected in the unemployment rate, which fell to 5.7% in January from 6% in December.   Each month, the Conference Board, a private research group, asks people whether they view jobs as plentiful, not plentiful or hard to get.   In February, 11% of people said jobs were plentiful, while 59% said they were not plentiful and 30% said they were hard to get, the group announced this week...   Those estimates probably reflect the reality of the job market as well as or better than the unemployment rate does, said Stephen S. Roach, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley.   Respondents may not know the inflation rate or the size of the federal budget deficit, but most people intuitively sense whether jobs in their field and their city or state are hard to come by, Mr. Roach said.   The United States has lost more than 2M jobs since 2001 March, the worst slump in the last 2 decades, according to statistics from the Labor Department...   Yesterday, the University of Michigan said that its consumer sentiment index had fallen to its lowest level since 1993 September...   Except for the richest Americans, most people spend almost every dollar they make, whether they are feeling confident or not...   Since the technology stock bubble burst in 2000 and business investment plunged, consumer spending, which accounts for almost 70% of all economic activity, has largely carried the economy...   Anxiety about the job market may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, economists say...   Smaller businesses are also cutting back on hiring.   In a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, only 8% of small businesses said they were planning to expand in January, down from 12% a year earlier and 16% in 2001 January.   Just 19% said they had one or more jobs open, the same level as a year earlier but down from 31% in 2001 January.   Michael P. Niemira, a vice president of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, was slightly more optimistic.   Hiring tends to trail the business cycle, because companies do not want to take on new workers until they are sure the economy is expanding."

2003-03-01
Michael Massing _NY Times_
Does Democracy Avert Famine?
"Just as Adam Smith is associated with the phrase 'invisible hand' and Joseph Schumpeter with 'creative destruction', Mr. Sen is famous for his assertion that famines do not occur in democracies.   'No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.', he wrote in _Democracy as Freedom_ (Anchor, 1999).   This, he explained, is because democratic governments 'have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes'.   This proposition, advanced in a host of books and articles, has shaped the thinking of a generation of policy makers, scholars and relief workers who deal with famine.   Now, however, in India, the main focus of Mr. Sen's research, there are growing reports of starvation.   In drought-ravaged states like Rajasthan in the west and Orissa in the east, many families have been reduced to eating bark and grass to stay alive.   Already thousands may have died.   This is occurring against a back-drop of endemic hunger and malnutrition.   About 350M of India's 1G people go to bed hungry every night, and half of all Indian children are malnourished.   Meanwhile, the country is awash in grain, with the government sitting on a surplus of more than 50M tons.   Such want amid such plenty has generated public protests, critical editorials and an appeal to India's Supreme Court to force the government to use its surpluses to feed the hungry."

2003-03-01
Robert F. Worth _NY Times_ On-line Library Wants It All
"The legendary library of Alexandria boasted that it had a copy of virtually every known manuscript in the ancient world.   This bibliophile's fantasy in Egypt's largest port city vanished, probably in a fire, more than a thousand years ago.   But the dream of collecting every one of the world's books has been revived in a new arena: on-line."

2003-03-01
" Stephanie Overby _CIO_
Bringing IT Back
"It's no secret that IT out-sourcing has a high failure rate.   A whopping 78% of executives who have out-sourced an IT function have had to terminate that agreement early, according to a 2002 November study from DiamondCluster International, a Chicago management consultancy.   The top reasons for CIO dissatisfaction: poor service, a change in strategic direction and costs...   CIOs are finding that if they want something done right -- or at a lower cost or in a more strategic fashion -- they've got to do it themselves."
 

2003-03-02

2003-03-02 08:16PST (11:16EST) (16:16GMT)
_Yahoo!_
Fire Mars Egypt's New Alexandria Library
"A fire broke out Sunday in the sleek, new Alexandria library, sending thick smoke swirling through the building that opened to international fanfare in October...   The fire was confined to the administrative area and no books were destroyed, said Khaled Azab, a library spokesman.   The Bibliotheca Alexandrina reopened later Sunday.   Egypt built the $230M library, on Alexandria's renovated seaside promenade, with financial and other assistance from around the world.   The ancient library, founded in about 295BC by Ptolemy I Soter, burned in the 4th century.   It had been an international intellectual center where scholars are thought to have produced the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament and edited Homer's works.   The new library contains about 240K books, a planetarium, conference hall, 5 research institutes, 6 galleries and 3 museums."

2003-03-02
_LA Times_
The working class takes it on the chin
"during a long period of American economic hegemony, the real income of the average worker has remained essentially stagnant...   It took an overheated economy to produce serious economic gains for the average worker."

2003-03-02
Chuck Murphy & Sydney P. Freedberg _St. Petersburg Times_
Fort Florida
"Since 1994, Florida law enforcement agencies have received approval for 1,941 rifles and grenade launchers from military surplus stocks.   To get them, sheriff's offices and police departments have at times inflated crime statistics or misled authorities about the need for the weapons or the way the weapons would be stored...   [The Leon county state attorney's office] executive director says the agency does not include its four M-14 rifles in its annual inventory because they cost less than $1K [each], the threshold at which tax-payer property must be regularly counted.   The rifles were issued to investigators, but they received no special training and have never used them.   Leon is the only prosecutor's office in the state to seek military weapons."

2003-03-02
Andrew Bernstein _Knight Ridder Tribune_/_Tallahassee Democrat_
Cow-boy president brings Old West to international stage
"These smears imply that the heyday of the cow-boy in the Old West was a lawless period when trigger-happy gunmen shot it out with reckless abandon and brute force reigned.   But to most Americans, the cow-boy is not a villain but a hero.   What we honor about the cow-boy of the Old West is his willingness to stand up to evil and to do it alone, if necessary.   The cow-boy is a symbol of the crucial virtues of courage and independence.   The original cow-boys were hard-working ranchers and settlers who tamed a vast wilderness.   In the process, they had to contend with violent outlaws as well as war-like Indian tribes.   The honest men on the frontier did not wring their hands in fear, uncertainty and moral paralysis; they stood up to evil men and defeated them.   The Texas Rangers - a small band of law-men who patrolled a vast frontier - best exemplified the cow-boy code.   Whether they fought American out-laws, Mexican bandits or marauding Comanches, they were generally outnumbered, sometimes by as much as 50 to 1...   In describing their independence and courage, Ranger captain Bob Crowder said: 'A Ranger is an officer who is able to handle any situation without definite instructions from his commanding officer or higher authority.'   The real-life courage of such heroes has been properly memorialized and glorified in countless fictional works...   Today the terrorists responsible for blowing up our cities are far more evil than the bandits and gunmen faced by the heroes of the Old West.   To defeat them, we will require all the more the cow-boy's virtues of independence and moral courage.   Even as our European critics use the 'cow-boy' image as a symbol of reckless irresponsibility, they implicitly reveal the real virtues they are attacking.   European leaders assail Americans because our 'language is far too blunt' and because we see the struggle between Western civilization and Islamic fanaticism in 'black-and-white certainties'...   Texas Ranger captain Bill McDonald reputedly stated: 'No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that is in the right and keeps on a-comin'.'   If America fully embraces this cow-boy wisdom and courage, then the Islamic terrorists and the regimes that support them had better run for cover.   They stand no chance in the resulting show-down."

2003-03-02
Red Hills Horse Trials FAQ

2003-03-02
Timothy Egan _NY Times_
New Economy Recedes in Pacific Northwest
"When President Bill Clinton came to Seattle 10 years ago as the host of a Pacific Rim economic summit, this city was his stage and his symbol.   Looking to the next century, he held Seattle up as a New Economy role model for the rest of the country.   After all, coffee, music, apples, wine, software, airplanes, even potential cancer cures, were sailing out of the Puget Sound area -- the most trade-dependent part of the country, with particularly close ties to Asia.   M$, the home-town company, was minting fresh millionaires by the month, and the entire region was pulsing with creative energy from technology spin-offs...   But now the very attributes that made the Pacific Northwest look like the vanguard of the new-century economy have come back to haunt this region.   A staggering Asian economy, the worldwide down-turn in the air-line industry and the dot-com bust dealt a triple blow to the area...   Over the last year, no place in the country has had higher unemployment than this region.   Washington, Oregon and Alaska have all posted unemployment rates of about 7%...   M$, is still hiring new employees while sitting on nearly $40G in cash at its global headquarters just across Lake Washington.   And the air-plane company born in a barn along the Duwamish River, Boeing, is still turning out planes, although its world dominance is gone...   The first warning sign of ripples from Asia hit the shores of Puget Sound in 1998 at a moment when money seemed to come out of thin air...   For farmers, it meant markets that were supposed to be their salvation turned cold.   By 2000, Washington apple growers, once proudly independent, were accepting government hand-outs and subsidies, like so many other American farmers.   For fisher-men in Alaska, who had flourished with global sales while the fishing industry all but disappeared elsewhere in the country, it was the same story.   Japan still wanted wild Alaskan king salmon.   But once trade barriers fell, the Japanese market was flooded with Alaskan salmon and prices plunged...   The prolonged down-turn may be causing lasting damage, especially at Boeing, which is still the region's largest single employer, with about 60K workers.   The concern is that so many jobs have been lost that the skills needed to make air-planes are disappearing.   'The average Boeing machinist is 47 years old.', said Connie Kelliher, a spokes-woman for the International Association of Machinists...   The machinists' local here has gone from a high of 39K members in 1999 to 17K now [a loss of 22K], said Ms.   Kelliher.   The average wage is $26.50 an hour.   Increasingly, Boeing contracts out large portions of its airplane assembly jobs to cheaper sources over-seas.   At the same time, the company that once called itself "plane maker to the world" has suffered a steep loss in market share to its European rival, Airbus, and now books barely 50% of new air-plane orders...   Boeing moved its corporate head-quarters out of Seattle to Chicago in 2001...   In 1971, for example, after Boeing laid off nearly 70K workers...   Idaho, with 1.3M people, is a similar story.   The state went from a resource-based market to one built around high tech and processed agricultural products, all tied to the new global economy.   The population grew by 20% in the 1990s, as companies and workers fled Southern California for the cheaper business environment around Boise.   Still, even though Idaho unemployment was the worst in a decade last year, just under 6%, and job creation lagged behind the rest of the nation, state officials say there is no turning back to the old economy."

2003-03-02
Julia Lawlor _NY Times_
ReBuilding the Paths to Work When a Nest Egg Is Lost
"Unemployment in New York has climbed to 8.4% from 5.3% in less than 2 years, while the national jobless rate fell to 5.7% in January, from 6% the previous month.   And of course, Wall Street is reeling and the city is planning extensive budget cuts.   Ms. B quickly discovered that all her old contacts on Wall Street had been laid off.   She sent rÈsumÈs to online job postings without success.   To hedge her bets while she pursued a full-time job, she is also working toward a real estate license, and says she is thinking about starting a home-based business selling health and wellness products."

2003-03-02
George Packer _NY Times_
Dreaming of Democracy
"In 1989, under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil, M published a book called _Republic of Fear_, which relentlessly dissected the totalitarian nature of Saddam's regime.   The pseudonym wasn't a whim; in those years Iraq's overseas dissidents were frequently bumped off...   [His] ideas cut deeply against the grain of Arab intellectual life and won him both powerful admirers and powerful enemies...   The history of the Iraqi opposition's relationship with the United States government is a tangled and unhappy one, leaving deep suspicions between and within them...   Faisal I, son of Hussein of Mecca, with his party and advisers at the Versailles peace conference in 1919, 2 years before being made king of the new country of Iraq.   His British backer, T.E. Lawrence, is third from the right...   The report proposes, among other radical ideas, a representative 'transitional authority' chosen by Iraq's opposition exiles and ready to operate inside the country as the regime crumbles; the postwar demilitarization of Iraq; the dismantling of the Baath Party along the lines of German de-Nazification; war crimes trials and a truth commission; thoroughgoing secularism; a constitution in which individual and minority-group rights would be guaranteed in advance of local and then national elections, so that democracy does not lead to tyranny of the majority; a decentralized federal government in which the regions would be drawn along geographic rather than ethnic lines; and an end to ethnic identity as a basis for the state...   A recent report compiled by the International Crisis Group, a policy organization based in Brussels, from secret interviews held in three Iraqi cities last Fall...   With unexpected homogeneity, Iraqis voiced an acceptance of the inevitability of war and a change of government...   Questions about successor regimes and federal democracy met with indifference.   OTOH, according to the report, the opposition in exile 'is viewed with considerable suspicion' -- far more than a foreign occupier would be -- 'and the desire for a long-term U.S. involvement is higher than anticipated.'...   When the seal on Iraq is broken, the surge will be just as intense, and the smell of decades of repression just as rank...   Today, Iraqi Kurdistan, under the protection of an allied no-fly zone, has a flourishing civil society and the beginnings of democratic self-government...   In the Pentagon version, Iraqi exiles would form a provisional government prepared to take power under American protection.   The State Department, which intensely dislikes the Iraqi National Congress and its chairman, Ahmad Chalabi, has done everything possible to block this possibility and either encourage a coup or plan for the American military to run Iraq for months or years until it would gradually hand over power to Iraqis...   In Arabic, 'Iraq' means 'well-rooted country', which suggests the kind of promotional thinking that makes urban planners christen a concrete housing project 'Metropolitan Gardens'.   The country was assembled at Versailles after World War I out of 3 former Ottoman provinces and handed over by the League of Nations in 1920 to be a British mandate, breaking the promise of postwar independence that T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, had made to Britain's Arab allies.   But the British found this unruly concoction of peoples more trouble to govern than it was worth, even with Lawrence's friend King Faisal I on the throne, and in 1932 Iraq became an independent constitutional monarchy, though the imperial power didn't leave without securing favorable oil concessions.   Within 4 years Iraq gave the Arab world its first modern coup.   After that, the violence never really stopped, with coups, ethnic pogroms and massacres among political parties.   (The Arab Baath movement emerged in World War II as a pro-Nazi group.)   But the most turbulent decade followed the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy in 1958.   One military regime was toppled by the next.   In 1968 the Arab Baath Socialist Party finally consolidated power, destroying its opponents among the Communists and the other Arab nationalists.   Saddam, the head of internal security, quickly acquired de facto power but assumed the presidency only in 1979 amid a bloody purge.   Chaos gave way to dictatorship, two ruinous foreign wars and the Kurdish genocide."

2003-03-02
Adam Cohen _NY Times_
Too Old to Work?
"Allstate recruited new insurance agents in the 1980s with a brochure aimed at the dreams of time-clock punchers everywhere...   And 'job security'?...   And once he got past the preliminaries, he was told, he could be terminated only for dishonesty...   Then, in 1998, Allstate reduced the commissions it paid its neighborhood agents...   In 1999 November... agents were handed a box of documents -- the 'job in a box', they would come to call it -- radically redefining their relationship with Allstate.   Harper and the others would now be independent contractors.   Their benefits, pensions included, would end...   The box also contained what Harper now calls the 'damnable release', which guaranteed that the agents would not sue.   They didn't have to sign, but if they refused, their days selling for Allstate were over...   The company, which had more than 15K agents of various kinds, was offering all of its 6,400 employee agents -- the longest-serving agents, and those with the best benefits -- the same unrelenting terms.   They could keep their jobs by forfeiting benefits that were, in some cases, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.   Or they could give up their benefits and their jobs...   Allstate's reneging on its promise...   In the end, he did what all but a handful of the employee agents did -- he signed the release.   Then he sued for age discrimination...   According to the federal government, age-discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are up more than 24% over the past 2 years...   In many elite job markets -- investment banking, computer programming, publishing -- youth is celebrated, and regardless of how young older workers may feel, they only have to look around to realize that they represent the old school, not the new wave.   Hollywood has been rocked by a recent round of law-suits charging television networks, production companies, studios and agencies with 'gray listing' -- refusing to hire older talent.   (In the case of some television writing jobs, 'old' actually refers to the early 30's.)   Last September, Doris Roberts, the septuagenarian actress who plays Ray Romano's mother on 'Everybody Loves Raymond', told the Senate Special Committee on Aging that society views people her age as discardable...   It's a typical pattern: when hard times hit, the ax falls disproportionately on older workers, who may be the most highly paid and who are often stereotyped as being less efficient.   In a bad economy, with few other jobs available and retirement holdings taking a hit, fired workers are also more willing to sue...   At the heart of their lawsuit is the claim that Allstate executives singled out one category of workers -- employee agents -- because more than 90% of them were over 40...   Thousands -- maybe millions -- of older workers are discriminated against on the job every year, but many have no idea what their rights are...   Ed Liddy... marveling to _C.F.O. Magazine_, 'It's amazing how quickly you can dismantle a business that took a hundred years to build.'...   American workers are invariably surprised when they first learn, often when they have just been fired, about the concept of 'employment at will'.   The general rule in American law is that employees hold their jobs at the whim of their bosses.   Employers are free to fire workers, as the Tennessee Supreme Court explained in 1884, for 'good cause, for no cause or even for cause morally wrong, without being thereby guilty of legal wrong'."

2003-03-02
Daniel Altman _NY Times_
Red China: Partner, Rival, Individual Rights Violater
"For Mattel, the toy maker, all production is now done overseas, said Thomas A. Debrowski, its executive vice president for operations.   His options for production include Red China and other developing countries, not the United States, he said...   Some white-collar jobs that would traditionally have resided in the United States are moving to Red China.   Five years ago, both Intel and M$ announced the opening of major research centers there.   In 1999, Motorola decided to make Beijing its global center for research and development, with a target work force of 5K within 5 years.   Motorola also has large manufacturing plants in Tianjin and Hangzhou...   Not everyone agrees, though, on the benefits to Americans.   'I don't think very much of it is passed on to the consumer.', Mr. Chastain said.   He warned that companies might use low labor costs in Red China to subsidize higher costs elsewhere, with little change in the price of their products."

2003-03-02
Robert Matthews _London Daily Telegraph_
Being fat makes you more stupid - but only if you're a man
"Now researchers in America have shown that obesity by itself is able to cause a significant decline in mental ability.   The finding has emerged from the renowned Framingham Heart Study, begun in 1950 and involving thousands of people from Framingham in Massachusetts, who undergo regular health and mental checks every 2 years.   By studying the records of more than 1,400 men and women in the study, Professor Merrill Elias and colleagues at the University of Boston found that men classified as clinically obese appear to have significantly reduced mental agility.   Curiously, fat women did not suffer the same fall in intelligence."

2003-03-02
Robert Matthews _Chicago Sun Times_
Does obesity turn men into dummies?   Over-weight men lose brain power
"Given a battery of cognitive function tests involving logic, verbal fluency and recall, men with a body mass index of more than 30 -- equivalent to a 5-foot-8-inch person weighing more than 196 pounds -- achieved scores as much as 23% below those of non-obese men, even after taking into account factors such as educational level, occupation and blood pressure.   Body mass index is calculated by dividing a person's weight in pounds by the square of their height in inches, and multiplying the result by 703."
 

2003-03-03

2003-03-02 21:01PST (2003-03-03 00:01EST) (2003-03-03 05:01GMT)
Mike Tarsala _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
America's innovation cut-backs: In reversal, tech giants shave R&D budgets
"Research and development spending among the largest U.S.-based technology companies declined in 2002 for the first time in at least 15 years, reversing a trend that has helped maintain American economic leadership.   The 100 technology companies that spent the most on research and development in 2002 cut their R&D budgets by an average of 6.8% vs. the year before, according to data compiled by CBS.MarketWatch.com.   According to the National Science Foundation, that would mark the first time since 1987 that the largest U.S. tech companies spent less on R&D than they did the previous year...   Cut-backs on R&D are of particular concern to share-holders, since many consider it to be the one 'good' corporate expense.   R&D has long been equated to a company's commitment to future products and services.   It takes R&D resources -- time money and people -- to build new and innovative products that are expected to spur business when the economy improves.   And in a stagnant or declining economy, introducing better, faster and cheaper products is the only legal way for companies to increase revenue."

2003-03-03 08:19PST (11:10EST) (16:10GMT)
Michael Baron _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Factory data trump calm on war front
"The factory sector grew in February but slower than most were expecting.   The Institute for Supply Management's index for last month registered at 50.5.   Economists expected a reading at 52.3 after 53.9 in January.   A reading above 50 indicates growth, while a reading below that mark shows contraction...   For the second time in the past 14 months, U.S. consumers reduced their spending in January, cutting real expenditures by 0.3%, the Commerce Department estimated Monday.   Meanwhile, incomes rose 0.3%.   Real disposable incomes grew 0.2%.   The consensus estimate was for a gain of 0.4% in incomes and a 0.1% rise in consumer spending.   The personal savings rate rose to 4.3% from 3.9%.   Inflation remained subdued.   The personal consumption expenditure price index rose 0.1% in January.   Spending on durable goods fell 5.7%, the biggest drop in 13 years.   Wages and salaries in the private sector fell slightly."

2003-03-03
Tina Rosenberg _NY Times_
Why Mexico's Small Corn Farmers Go Hungry
"Macario Hernandez's grand-father grew corn in the hills of Puebla, Mexico.   His father does the same.   Mr. Hernandez grows corn, too, but not for much longer.   Around his village of Guadalupe Victoria, people farm the way they have for centuries, on tiny plots of land watered only by rain, their plows pulled by burros.   Mr. Hernandez, a thoughtful man of 30, is battling to bring his family and neighbors out of the Middle Ages.   But these days modernity is less his goal than his enemy.   This is because he, like other small farmers in Mexico, competes with American products raised on megafarms that use satellite imagery to mete out fertilizer.   These products are so heavily subsidized by the government that many are exported for less than it costs to grow them.   According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, American corn sells in Mexico for 25% less than its cost...   European farmers get 35% of their income in government subsidies, American farmers 20%.   American subsidies are at record levels, and last year, Washington passed a farm bill that included a $40G increase in subsidies to large grain and cotton farmers...   [Mexican] Corn growers get about $30 an acre [in government subsidies]."

2003-03-03
"Peace is retained by free persons willing to help the tyrant discover the after-life.   Slaves and subjects have no peace." --- Mac McMasters

2003-03-03
War fears contribute to lower UN forecast for US, European economies

2003-03-03
Jane M. von Bergen _Philadelphia Inquirer_
As bills pile up, jobless wear down: Coping with collectors can crush spirits.
"Of course, people must pay their bills, but that doesn't mean they need to be subjected to humiliating harassment in the process, he said. Federal and state credit-collection laws limit the number of times collectors may call, and forbid most contacts with relatives and friends. M lost his job in November, but many of the 50 people gathered in St. Joseph's parish hall had been out of work for more than a year. And once creditors learn about the unemployment, some can become even more fierce, Woodruff said. 'They love to hear someone who is very upset, then they love to come along and push the buttons.', he said. Collectors reason that a stressed-out debtor will be more likely to pay up just to end the aggravation."

2003-03-03
_New Mexico Business Journal_
Aerospace employment hits 50-year low
"U.S. aerospace employment has reached its lowest level since 1953, according to the Arlington, VA-based Aerospace Industries Association, which is basing its figures on data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.   At the end of 2002, there were 689K people employed in the industry...   Aerospace employment has dropped 106K since 2001 September 11, and it has fallen by nearly half, or 642K, since 1989 December, a period that marks the end of the Cold War, AIA officials say."
 

2003-03-04

2003-03-03 21:43PST (2003-03-04 00:43EST) (2003-03-04 05:43GMT)
Mike Tarsala _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Innovating through the down-turn: Tech players stretch R&D dollars to make advancements
"Corporate spending on research and development among the largest U.S. technology companies fell in 2002 for the first time in 15 years, as many companies focused on saving the present at the possible expense of the future...   But 30 of the top 100 tech companies that spent the most on R&D boosted their R&D budgets by at least 5%, according to a study by CBS.MarketWatch.com...   More than 40 of the companies MarketWatch studied in the software, computer, chip, and networking markets increased R&D spending as a percentage of total sales in 2002, helping the top 100 R&D companies increase their average spending to 12% of revenue, up from 11.7% in 2001...   More than any other technology industry, software companies were able to increase R&D spending in 2002...   Oracle cut its R&D spending by 5.5% in fiscal 2002...   'The dollars were down about 5% -- that's a fact.', Henley said.   'But the reality is that our head-count in development rose 12%.'...   Oracle spends the bulk of its R&D on 'sustaining' engineering -- new releases of existing products...   The telecom sector's down-turn has led to more than 500K job cuts, $1T in corporate debt, and nearly $2T in stock losses since 2000, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association."

2003-03-04 05:48PST (08:48EST) (13:48GMT)
Bill Snyder _The Street_
Survey Sees No Big Lift in IT Spending
"Two months into the first quarter of 2003, there's still no sign of a substantial rebound in IT spending.   The latest indication: a survey by market researcher Forrester forecasting spending growth of 1.9% this year, not even enough to keep up with inflation as measured by either the producer or consumer price index.   This year's forecast compares with growth of 2.3% in 2002, a terrible year for technology companies.   The survey of 877 IT 'decision-makers' found that just 35% of the companies surveyed will spend more on hardware, software and services in 2003, and only 26% are planning to increase spending on desk-top [micro-computers] or work-stations...   60% of the companies surveyed will buy disaster recovery products.   45% will deploy business intelligence software.   26% of the $1G-plus companies will spend $500K or more on data storage, servers or networking."

2003-03-04 06:39PST (09:39EST) (14:39GMT)
Scott McNealy recruiting Indian developers, still belligerently opposed to privacy
"The head of Sun Microsystems will visit India for the first time to woo software developers in its battle with rival M$.   CEO Scott McNealy will spend 1 day each in New Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, the tech capital, during his visit starting March 20.   Sun and M$ are pushing rival technologies -- called SunOne and .Net, respectively -- in their battle to dominate web services, which involves connecting different computer systems to do business over the Internet...   The number of Indian developers, with their high skills and low costs, is expected to grow to 1.3M in 4 years from about 400K to 500K at present.   Sun has 650 employees in India."

2003-03-04 07:00PST (10:00EST) (15:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Announced lay-offs rise 5% in February
"The nation's job-cutting pace quickened in February, with announced job reductions rising about 5% to 138,177, according to a monthly tally compiled by out-placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.   The job-cut scythe has mowed through the telecommunications, computer, auto, financial, aerospace, transportation and retail sectors, and it's now falling heavily on workers in government and non-profits, the Challenger data show.   In February, the government and non-profit sector cut 41,559 jobs, more than any other sector...   Telecommunications, which ranked at the top of job-cutting industries for most of 2002, fell to 10th in February, with just 6,169 cuts.   Retailers have cut 51,063 jobs so far in 2003, the most of any sector and almost twice the number cut during all of 2002...   Employers have announced 3.45M job cuts since the recession [of] 2001 March.   Lay-offs peaked at 248K in 2001 September, gradually declined to about 70K in 2002 September before rising again as the economy hit a soft patch and geopolitical fears intensified...   'It is doubtful that a turnaround in hiring can be expected before fall, if then.', Challenger said."

2003-03-04 08:25PST (11:25EST) (16:25GMT)
_CNN_/_Reuters_
Lay-off plans still haunt job market: Companies cut 138,177 jobs in February, up 5% from January's level.
"In a fresh indication that U.S. companies are still firing workers, corporate managers announced 138,177 job cuts in February, up 5% from January's 132,222, employment research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report.   'It is doubtful a turn-around in hiring can be expected before Fall, if then.', John Challenger, the research group's chief executive officer, said in a statement."

2003-03-04
Geraldine Fabrikant _NY Times_
Liberty's Malone and Comcast Set to Weigh Fugure of QVC
"That is because Liberty Media, which [John C.] Malone controls and which owns 42.5% of QVC, said yesterday that it would exercise the buy-or-sell option in its contract with Comcast, which is QVC's majority owner...   Comcast is suing to reduce the prices it pays to carry Liberty's Starz Encore cable programming on some of its systems -- a move that Liberty has opposed with its own law-suit...   Should Liberty and Comcast fail to reach agreement, a third party would be asked to set the value.   Comcast would then have the right to buy out Liberty's stake, which analysts value at $5G to $6G.   Should Comcast pass up the deal, Liberty can buy out Comcast's 57.5% portion, valued at $7G.   If neither party wants the other's share of the service, which reaches 70M subscribers, QVC would be put up for auction, with Comcast and Liberty both eligible to bid...   Comcast inherited a 25-year Starz Encore contract in its purchase of AT&T broad-band that has unusually rich prices for the service, Mr. Harrigan said.   In court, Comcast is battling to have the terms reduced to the level of its own existing Starz Encore deal...   Another motivation for shedding its stake in QVC would be the interest Liberty has already expressed in making a bid for DirecTV, the home satellite service, or making a run at Vivendi Universal's entertainment assets...   As for Comcast, Mr. Harrigan said it would be tough right now for it to buy Liberty's QVC stake...   Ms. Reif Cohen said that when AOL Time Warner takes its cable television business public this year, that sale could generate as much as $6G for Comcast, which owns 21% of those operations.   But Mr. Harrigan counters that selling a large amount of Time Warner cable stock could be difficult in the current market.   In addition, Ms. Reif Cohen said, Comcast will get roughly $3.6G in cash and stock in the revamping of Time Warner Entertainment, the unit of AOL Time Warner that owns cable systems, Warner Brothers and Home Box Office.   Comcast owns a stake of Time Warner Entertainment, which it acquired as part of the AT&T broad-band deal."

2003-03-04
Sidney M. Wolfe _NY Times_
A Free Ride for Bad Doctors
"The fact is, only a small percentage of doctors account for most of the money paid out in malpractice cases.   From 1990 to 2002, just 5% of doctors were involved in 54% of the pay-outs -- including jury awards and out-of-court settlements -- according to the National Practitioner Data Bank of the Department of Health and Human Services.   (The data bank allows hospitals and medical boards to see the records of individual doctors but, thanks to pressure from the American Medical Association, Congress forbids it to release information to doctors or the public.)   Of the 35K doctors with 2 or more pay-outs during that period, only 8% were disciplined by state medical boards.   Among the 2,774 doctors who had made payments in 5 or more cases, only 463 -- 1 out of 6 -- had been disciplined...   Pennsylvania...has disciplined only 5% of the 512 doctors who had made payments in malpractice suits five or more times, the lowest percentage of any state.   (Arizona, for example, has disciplined nearly half of the doctors in this category.)   And while Pennsylvania has 5.3% of the doctors in the United States, they make up 18.5% of American doctors with five or more malpractice payments.   One doctor there paid 24 claims between 1993 and 2001 totaling more than $8M (1 was for operating on the wrong part of the body; another was for leaving a 'foreign body' in the patient) yet was never disciplined by Pennsylvania authorities.   The state with the next highest overrepresentation of doctors with 5 or more payouts is West Virginia, where doctors went on strike last month.   It has 0.57% of the country's physicians, but they make up 1.69% of American doctors who have had made malpractice payments five or more times.   Only one-quarter of the state's doctors with 5 or more pay-outs has been disciplined by the medical board.   In NY... only 15% of these 698 doctors [wh ohad 5 or more malpractice pay-outs] have been disciplined by the state board...   What patient would not like to discover the malpractice history of a potential doctor, especially if he is among the 2,774 in the United States who have had 5 or more pay0outs?"

2003-03-04
_abc News_/_Reuters_
Report: Lay-off Plans Grew in February
"Lay-off plans at U.S. firms rose for the second straight month, suggesting that a rebound in the nation's wobbly labor market is unlikely before the end of the year.   In a fresh indication that U.S. companies are still firing workers, corporate managers announced 138,177 job cuts in February, up 5% from January's 132,222, employment research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report...   The U.S. Labor Department is due to issue its February jobs survey on Friday at 08:30EST (13:30 GMT).   Economists polled by Reuters expect the unemployment rate to jump to 5.9% in February from 5.7% in January."

2003-03-04
Amy Schurr _Network World Careers_
Severance period getting shorter
"Out-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reports that the average severance period lasted just 10.5 weeks in 2002, the shortest severance period since the last recession when the firm began tracking severance data.   The average length of severance has fallen by nearly 12 weeks since 1999's high of 21.8 weeks. 'This is undoubtedly troubling news for jobless managers and executives who took an average of 16 weeks to find new employment in 2002.', says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. 'This means that the average job seeker is unemployed for six weeks after his or her severance is exhausted.'   Challenger points out that layoff victims' slashed consumer spending doesn't bode well for economic recovery, nor does corporate hesitation to increase capital spending."

2003-03-04
Christopher Hitchens _Slate_
An ally we're better off without Why President Bush should turn his back on Turkey

2003-03-04
_Business Week_
Red China: Where It Pays to Stay Nimble
"On the face of things, [Red China] might look like a country that U.S. computer makers would want to avoid right now.   Revenue for PC makers in [Red China], which grew by double digits annually during the Internet craze, fell by 5% in 2002, estimates market researcher IDC.   What's more, the competition for sales is stiff in a business dominated by two local players, Legend Computers, with 26.5% of the market, and a company called Founder, with 8.4%.   By comparison, Dell has 6% of PC sales in [Red China], IBM even less...   Though [Red China] has moved away from a planned economy, Beijing policy is driving growth in its tech markets.   For instance, a government plan to get 90% of [Red China's] schools online by 2010 helped make the educational sector the fastest-growing one for PCs in 2002 -- it rose 27.4%.   PCs sold to schools now account for 14.6% of the country's 9.29M unit PC market, according to Gartner.   By comparison, demand for business PCs, which account for 38.7% of the market, grew an anemic 2.7% last year.   So far, however, foreign companies aren't getting much of the education market, because schools go for cheaper local brands."
 

2003-03-05

2003-03-04 21:22PST (2003-03-05 00:22EST) (2003-03-05 05:22GMT)
Mike Tarsala _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Haunted by over-seas R&D challengers: Foreign firms with competitive advantage nip at U.S.
"Richard Chang, a graduate of Southern Methodist University and a long-time research and development executive at Texas Instruments, is the kind of guy who puts both the Pentagon and top U.S. research executives on edge...   Borrowing techniques Chang and others at SMIC learned in Taiwan and the U.S., the [Red Chinese] company is expected to be one of the world's largest low-cost producers of high-end semiconductors in just a few more years.   Already, SMIC is rivaling advanced plants in Taiwan -- and under-cutting their production prices.   So much for the Defense Department's hopes that the [Red Chinese] would stay 2 generations behind the U.S. in its advanced manufacturing processes.   Gone, too, are hopes of the Taiwanese that they could stay years ahead of mainland China's high-end manufacturing capabilities...   'There is a real issue about America's ability to continue to stay dominant -- to continue to invest in the future and not to unravel the present.', says Bernstein, whose labs are a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox.   'I see more D and less R in the U.S.   And that's going to be a big problem.'...   He says R&D spending was often wasteful and repetitive in the late 1990s, so a pull-back should be expected in the post-bubble years.   It is possible, however, that any long-term lull in American R&D commitments will give companies in [Red China] and elsewhere a chance to cut into the market position of U.S. companies.   That's true in tech manufacturing, as well as specialized software and services sectors where foreign competition barely exists today, says Matt Ocko, managing director of Archimedes Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture firm that invests in U.S. companies with manufacturing and engineering centers in [Red China] and India.   'Technology executives and venture capitalists who are more focused on their golf games than understanding capacity for innovation and the size and growth of the IT markets in [Red China] and India are making the same mistake that Detroit executives made regarding the Japanese in the late 1970s.', Ocko says...   Ocko says that some of those projects are being brought back to life over-seas by former holders of special U.S.-issued visas who had been working on them until they were laid off in today's leaner climate.   Now, when they return home, he says their knowledge is sought by start-ups in [Red China], India and elsewhere.   'We're grossly underestimating what smart people abroad with substantial government support and a growing home market will do to U.S. companies, where employees are spending more time fighting turf battles over who gets an office or who gets a cube.', Ocko says."

2003-03-04 21:25PST (2003-03-05 00:25EST) (2003-03-05 05:25GMT)
Mike Tarsala _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
America's R&D wake-up call: Foreign tech rivals evoke Detroit's doom

2003-03-05 14:45PST (17:45EST) (22:45GMT)
Eric Hellweg _CNN_/_Money_
Centuries of failed business with Red China
"As technology businesses around the world struggle with market saturation (Palm), murky sales forecasts (Hewlett-Packard), and painfully slow recoveries (Intel), one bright light shines on the horizon, drawing these and scores of other companies to it like curious, hungry moths... The open-source operating system has made serious inroads with governments around the globe, including those of Peru and Germany. M$ leaped into [Red China] when it realized that Beijing, too, was eyeing Linux. As the world economy worsens, more foreign governments grappling with budgets will view Linux's low cost and open-door nature as an attractive option."

2003-03-05
Mike Tarsala _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
America's R&D wake-up call: Foreign tech rivals evoke Detroit's doom
"Instead of sending future tech wealth abroad, we need to open our doors to more top foreign scientists.   We're sending H-1B visa holders home with pink slips and a basket of skills they learned from U.S. companies.   We should be giving the brightest of them research fellowships working for the Department Homeland Security.   Above all, America needs to train the next great generation.   The nation's educators need to make math and science top education priorities.   U.S. elementary and secondary students continue to test below their international peers.   Most don't even meet national proficiency standards, as schools are teaching advanced math concepts later than in other industrialized nations.   The threats to American tech dominance are real."

2003-03-05
Eric Lichtblau & William Glaberson _NY Times_
Millions Raised for Qaeda in Brooklyn, US Says: Attorney General John Ashcroft, left, joined Tom Ridge, Homeland Security secretary, and Robert Mueller, F.B.I. director, at a hearing yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Ridge said millions of dollars were sent from the Al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn to al Qaeda.
"A prominent Yemeni cleric apprehended in Germany on charges of financing terrorism used a Brooklyn mosque to help funnel millions of dollars to Al Qaeda and boasted that he had personally delivered $20M to Osama bin Laden, federal officials said today.   The cleric, Sheik Muhammad Ali Hassan al-Mouyad, told an F.B.I. informant that he was a spiritual adviser to Mr. bin Laden and had worked for years to provide money and weapons for a terrorist "jihad," according to two affidavits that were unsealed today in Brooklyn and that charge him and a Yemeni assistant with financing terrorism...   In New York, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Qaeda operatives "did their fund-raising right here in our own backyard in Brooklyn'.   The name of the mosque is spelled 'Al Farouq' in the court papers...   The case has threatened to create an international rift because officials in Yemen, which has been increasingly helpful in fighting terrorism, say they are skeptical of the charges against Sheik Mouyad, the imam at a prominent mosque in the capital, Sana.   He runs a large charity that provides food and clothing to the poor, works in the government ministry that oversees mosques and is active in the Isla political party...   Mohammed Nagi, spokesman for the imam, Abdul Rahman, of Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, said officials there were 'very, very, very surprised to hear of the allegations' that money collected at the mosque went to Al Qaeda.   He said the mosque had always sought to comply with all American financial regulations governing tax-exempt organizations.   'This is just a place of worship.', he said.   Al Farooq Mosque is where Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman -- convicted in the bombing in 1993 of the World Trade Center -- served as imam for 2 months in 1990."

2003-03-05
Sarah Mahoney _NY Times_
Lap-Tops Win Over the Skeptics, Even in Maine
"Lap-tops will follow their users to eighth grade next year, while seventh graders will get new iBooks, for a total of 33K.   When students leave the eighth grade, they will turn them in.   The cost of the 4-year program is $37.5M, which includes leasing the laptops, installing wireless ports throughout schools so students are always connected to the Internet and training teachers.   It translates to about $300 per user a year, said Tony Sprague, project manager of the laptop program, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative.   To bolster the program, Mr. King sought support from beyond the state government.   The author Stephen King (who is not related to Angus King) toured the Freeport school and offered to teach an online writing course.   The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $1M for more teacher training.   The technology giant EDS pledged $400M in software for Maine schools, the biggest gift the state has ever received."

2003-03-05
Eric Pfanner _NY Times_
Dollar Hits 4-Year Low After Treasury Chief Rattles Market
"The dollar dropped to its lowest level in 4 years against the euro today, with the European currency touching the key level of $1.10, after Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said he was 'not particularly concerned' about the dollar's recent slide. The dollar has fallen about 4.5% against the euro since January 1..."

2003-03-05
Gail Kinsey Hill _The Oregonian_
As state fights deficit Oregon's jobless ask for benefits extension
"Many have used up 65 weeks of jobless insurance -- the maximum available -- and have yet to find work...   The committee considered and unanimously passed Senate Bill 2, which would give laid-off workers another 13 weeks of benefits, with weekly payments ranging from $94 to $405.   The bill goes to the full Senate, where passage is expected.   An estimated 18K workers would qualify for the extra checks.   Benefits would be retroactive to December 29 for unemployed workers who have exhausted all other available resources...   Oregon has such a high unemployment rate -- standing at 7.5 in January..."

2003-03-05
Tom Costello _CNBC_
German economy in shambles
"Once Europe's engine of growth, Germany is now a dead-weight economy that is pulling down the rest of the region.   U.S.-German relations are at a post-war low, 4.5M Germans are out of work, and the economy is all but dead in the water...   Germany is the world's third largest economy, but it has barely grown over the past 10 years.   Unemployment is running at 11% nation-wide, 18% in the east.   Taxes have soared, consumer spending has stalled and bankruptcies are rising.   Labor costs -- second only to Belgium -- are forcing German corporations to flee as labor laws make it virtually impossible for companies to restructure or lay off employees."

2003-03-05
Stephen Roach _Morgan Stanley_
Global Capital Spending Myths
"These executives don't forget for a moment how badly they were burned by the open-ended capex [capital investment] surge in the late 1990s.   Until the supply-demand balance turns more favorable, the business-people I have spoken with tell me this post-bubble caution is unlikely to fade -- irrespective of war-related gyrations in the US economy.   The only capacity expansion programs they are contemplating are in low-cost out-sourcing platforms such as [Red China]...   Unfortunately, with the manufacturing capacity utilization rate having fallen to 73.6% in the final period of 2002-- well below the 80% threshold that normally triggers increased investment -- the accelerator construct offers little encouragement to the capital spending out-look...   In 4Q02, IT hardware and software amounted to 47% of total spending by US businesses on capital equipment -- well in excess of the 31% share that prevailed in 1980.   To the extent that this transformation reflects a dramatic shortening of the capacity replacement cycle due to the rapid obsolescence of IT capital, then it may simply be time for an up-turn.   After all, corporate IT budgets were slashed by 15% over the 5-quarter period from 20003Q to 20014Q.   As a result of this down-turn and in the aftermath of the anemic recovery that has since followed, current-dollar corporate IT budgets in 20024Q were essentially no higher than they were 3 and a half years ago in mid-1999...   Putting it all together, I see little reason to bank on business capital spending as the sector that will spark the next cyclical recovery in the United States."

2003-03-05
Buck Wargo _Inland Valley Voice_/_LA Times_
Region out-performs state, nation in job creation
"The Inland Empire's economy continues to do better than that of the state and the rest of the nation despite losing 14,400 jobs in January.   Between 2002 January and 2003 January, the region added 26,500 jobs for a total of 1.06M, an increase of 2.6%.   That's less than the 5% growth rate in recent years, but the region did have the second largest job-growth rate in the state behind a 3.3% spike in Fresno County...   San Diego added only 9K.   Orange County lost 10K jobs and Los Angeles County, 40K."
 

2003-03-06

2003-03-05 16:04PST (19:04EST) (2003-03-06 00:04GMT)
Leigh Strope _AP_/_Yahoo!_
House Panel OKs Tax-Free Job-Search Funds
"Unemployed workers having trouble finding jobs would get up to $3K tax free to pay for child care, transportation and training to help with their job searches under an administration proposal that passed a House committee Wednesday.   The Education and Work-force Committee voted 23-22 mostly along party lines to approve the 'Back to Work Incentive Act'.   The proposal goes to the full House, where Republicans have a 24-seat majority to help ensure passage...   The Bush administration has said it will request a total of $3.6G in new supplemental spending for this budget year and in 2004 to fund the job-search accounts."

2003-03-06 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Rachel Koning _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Unemployment Compensation Insurance Claims Average at 9-Week High
"The closely watched 4-week moving average of initial jobless benefits requests rose 8,750 in the latest period, to 408,750, the US Labor Department said Thursday.   It's the highest level since the week ended December 28.   The increase brings the level above the key 400K mark that analysts say divides an improving or worsening layoff situation.   For just the week ended March 1, seasonally adjusted jobless claims rose 12K to 430K.   The level is at its highest since the week ended December 14, Labor officials confirmed.   Meanwhile, the number of unemployed individuals who continue to collect unemployment insurance jumped 180K to 3.52M - the highest level since the middle of November."

2002-03-06 06:31PST (09:31EST) (14:31GMT)
_USA Today_
University Socialist Insecurity numbers stolen on-line
"Hackers have stolen names, Social Security numbers and e-mail addresses of some 59K current and former students, faculty members and staff at The University of Texas at Austin, school officials said in published reports Thursday.   The theft was discovered Sunday evening when computer systems personnel discovered a computer malfunction, Dan Updegrove, the university's vice president for information technology, told the _Austin American-Statesman_ and _Houston Chronicle_...   Updegrove said the hackers used a computer program to query the UT database with 3M potential Social Security numbers, resulting in about 59K successful matches."

2003-03-06 07:00PST (10:00EST) (15:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
US January factory orders up 2.1%: highest in 20 months
"Orders for new factory-made goods rose 2.1% in January to the highest level in 20 months, the Commerce Department said Thursday.   The figure beat the consensus estimate of a 1.8% gain.   It was the biggest gain in factory orders in six months.   New orders for core capital goods - which exclude aircraft and defense goods -- rose 4.5%.   Shipments of factory goods rose 2.2% in January, also to the highest level since 2001 May.   Unfilled orders - a key gauge of future output - fell 0.2% to the lowest level since 1996 September.   Inventories were unchanged.   Core capital goods orders rose 4.5%."

2003-03-06 07:15PST (10:15EST) (15:15GMT)
Leigh Strope _AP_/_Yahoo!
Unemployment in sluggish economy finally spurs politicians to act
"In Congress, President Bush's plan to create 're-employment accounts' to help long-term unemployed workers find jobs is starting to move forward.   He wants to spend $3.6G over 2 years on the program.   The 'Back to Work Incentive Act', which would provide up to $3K tax free to pay for child care, transportation and training, was approved Wednesday by the House Education and Work-force Committee.   The proposal goes to the full House, where Republicans have a 24-seat majority to help ensure passage.   But the legislation could face obstacles in the closely divided Senate...   Representative Rob Andrews, D-NJ said it was 'callous' to suggest 'that the reason people aren't going back to work is because they don't want to'.   They said jobless workers are being misled about getting $3K because the money per person probably would be much less...   Jobless workers who accept the money would be barred from receiving job training and education provided by local one-stop employment centers for 1 year."

2003-03-06 07:16PST (10:16EST) (15:16GMT)
Jeannine Aversa _AP_/_San Francisco Chronicle_
Unemployment compensation insurance claims rise sharply last week, partly reflecting toll of bad weather
"The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial applications for unemployment insurance went up last week by a seasonally adjusted 12K to 430K.   It marked the third week in a row that lay-offs increased and represented a weaker work climate than analysts were expecting.   They were predicting claims would go down...   Productivity -- the amount of output per hour of work -- rose at an annual rate of 0.8% in the fourth quarter, according to revised figures.   That marked a turnaround from the 0.2% rate of decline reported a month ago and was a stronger showing than analysts were predicting...   For all of 2002, productivity grew by 4.8%, the strongest showing since 1950."

2003-03-06 08:19PST (11:19EST) (16:19GMT)
_UPI_
Hackers strike at University of Texas
"Authorities Thursday sought computer hackers who stole the names and Social Security numbers of 59K current and former students, faculty and staff last week at the University of Texas at Austin."

2003-03-06 11:17PST (14:17EST) (19:17GMT)
Jeanne Sahadi _CNN_/_Money_
Rx for the newly unemployed: Paying bills just got harder.   Here's how to minimize debt and credit problems.
"In the fourth quarter of 2002 -- the most recent period for which data is available -- the median search time for a job was 3.87 months, up from 3.4 months at the beginning of that year, according to out-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.   For workers over 50, the news was worse -- their median search time was 4.93 months.   Medians, of course, reflect the middle point in a range.   So for half of the people seeking work their job-search time is actually longer."

2003-03-06 11:42PST (14:42EST) (19:42GMT)
Mark Gongloff _CNN_/_Money_
Brother, can you spare a job?: Private-sector employment is in its worst slump since WWII and unlikely to get better soon. (with table of labor-market slump durations)

2003-03-06
William Glanz _Washington Times_
NASA faces brain drain as retirements approach
"The number of scientists and engineers at the agency 60 years and older out-numbers those 30 years and younger by a 3-1 ratio.   About 15% of the science and engineering work force at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is eligible to retire now, and within 5 years nearly a quarter of them will be eligible...   The average age of NASA's 20K employees is 46.3 years, up from 43.4 years in 1993, according to the Office of Personnel Management...   The space agency will spend an estimated $6.1G to fund the shuttle program, the International Space Station and spaceflights in fiscal 2003, according to agency documents.   That's nearly 41% of its estimated $15G budget...   'Even though we do have a large number of people who can retire, I don't think they will.', NASA Deputy Administrator Frederick Gregory said.   NASA is pressing for a series of small changes to attract more workers and pre-empt a labor shortage.   One proposal includes making more new employees eligible for relocation allowances...   Both proposals are included in a bill introduced in January by Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican and chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee holding today's hearing.   Mr. Boehlert introduced a separate bill yesterday giving NASA authority to offer more incentives to retain and recruit workers.   NASA is not the only organization affected by an aging engineering work force.   The Aerospace Industries Association released a study this week that concludes the number of industry workers has fallen to its lowest levels since 1953 because of industry mergers and acquisitions and because of lower revenue among air carriers.   An estimated 689K people worked in the industry at the end of 2002, down 106K since 2001 September 11."

2003-03-06
Tracie Rozhon _NY Times_
King of Sneakers

2003-03-06 12:58PST (15:58EST) (19:58GMT)
Mark Gongloff _CNN_/_Money_
Private-sector employment is in its worst slump since WWII and unlikely to get better soon (graph, table)
"According to the latest consumer confidence survey by the Conference Board, a private research group, the percentage of consumers saying jobs are 'hard to get' rose in February to a 9-year high.   Recent data reinforce that belief.   Private-sector unemployment is at 7% -- far worse than 2002's average rate of 6.2% -- and the 12-month net change in private payrolls has been negative ever since 2001 July and will likely stay negative in February, adding to the longest such stretch of pain since 1944-1946."

2003-03-06
Matt Hayes _Fox News_
Costly Immigrant Labor Certificates
"[A] quick review indicated that many should not have been filed in the first place.   Many of the applicants sought certification for work that any employer could quickly find an American to do, and most applications had been denied without the client ever having been informed...   When we broke the news that his application for a labor certification would almost certainly be denied and could not be rehabilitated, he asked, 'Alright, but can you sue my employer to get back the $10K I paid him to go along with this?'...   At the end of last year, well-known immigration lawyer Samuel Kooritzky was convicted on 57 counts of fraud in connection with two years of applications for labor certifications for which he collected $10M in fees.   He filed 230 separate applications for only 2 Chili's restaurants, 184 for a diner, and 173 for a single Shoney's restaurant.   Immigrants were reportedly charged between $8K and $20K per application.   Managers of the restaurants insisted that they were unaware that they had been used as sponsors in a labor certification application...   The H-1B visa, which exists to insure that American companies have enough skilled workers, is similarly abused, and is the chief culprit in the current glut of computer programmers.   As disturbing as it may be to recent college graduates, most U.S. employers are not first required to hire American applicants before they seek foreign workers to fill jobs.   At the end of 2002 America had 900K foreign workers on H-1B visas, the vast majority of which are computer programmers.   If there were a critical need for H-1B computer programmers, then starting salaries for new graduates should reflect that fact.   Data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers for 2000 indicate that average starting salary offers for computer science bachelor's graduates rose from $44,649 to $49,055 (9.9%).   That compared with an increase for math graduates of 12.1% ($37,253-41,761) and humanities graduates by 18.9% ($37,253-41,761).   With the bottom falling out of high-tech, salaries for computer science graduates have dropped over the past 2 years and were at $44,429 in 2003 January.   If there is a shortage of computer programmers, then the market would show that.   But it shows the opposite -- there are too many of them."
 

2003-03-07

2003-03-06 21:01PST (2003-03-07 00:01EST) (2003-03-07 05:01GMT)
Charles Carlson _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
DRIPs are hip again: Tax plan & broker scorn lead to DRIP revival
See also the DRIP Investor
"In 1999, for example, dividend-paying stocks lagged non-payers by nearly 90 percentage points, according to Standard & Poor's.   However, since the tech sector began imploding in 2000, dividend payers have beaten the rest of the market by a huge margin...   DRIP investing provides an attractive way for investors to deal directly with companies, avoiding Wall Street and its middlemen."

2003-03-06 21:02PST (2003-03-07 00:02EST) (2003-03-07 05:02GMT)
Andrea Coombes _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Paying a premium: Why Americans shell out for favored products
"61% of Americans said they cut back on high-priced items last year, down from 91% in 1975, according to an annual survey by market research firm RoperASW, consisting of 2K in-person interviews...   Along with a unique experience, consumers want a product that embodies value before they'll shell out more money for it."

2003-03-07 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Rachel Koning _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Pay-rolls tumble 308K: seasonally adjusted jobless 5.8%
"The government reported 308K jobs outside the farm sector were cut in February.   The unemployment rate rose to 5.8% from 5.7% in January.   Economists had expected a small pay-rolls gain and a rise in the unemployment rate to 5.9%...   Construction pay-rolls fell by 48K last month, factories shed 53K jobs.   Retail positions were down 92K and services fell 86K.   The average workweek fell to 34.1 hours, with the manufacturing workweek unchanged at 40.8 hours.   The January pay-rolls gain was revised down slightly."

2003-03-07 09:14PST (12:14EST) (17:14GMT)
Bambi Francisco _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Consumers keep schizophrenia alive: Net stocks seen facing high consumer exposure
"With the approach of the third anniversary of Internet stocks' zenith-turned-meltdown, we're reminded of fleeting realities, dreams and wealth.   But one thing lives on: schizophrenia.   That distinct pattern of trading that's become common-place in the market, was again apparent Friday as many stocks mounted gains even in the face of fresh news of job losses, sinking revenue, and war tensions...   Milunovich highlighted five companies with 90% of their revenue exposed to the consumer market.   Among them are AOL Time Warner, Amazon.com, EBay, Electronic Arts and Yahoo.   Those stocks weaved in and out of the plus column in midday trading Friday, but EBay managed to hit a new 52-week high, at $79.41.   Sony is also at risk for having more than 60% of its operating profits generated from its gaming business, according to Milunovich.   Hand-set makers such as Nokia and Motorola, have high exposure to the consumer as well, the analyst wrote.   Nokia has 77% exposure to consumers while 75% of Motorola's business is exposed to the consumer.   Apple Computer has 50% exposure to the consumer."

2003-03-07 10:50PST (13:50EST) (18:50GMT)
Jeordan Legon _CNN_
Scientists: Internet speed record smashed
"Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center used fiber-optic cables to transfer 6.7GB of data -- the equivalent of 2 DVD movies -- across 6,800 miles in less than a minute...   The team was able to transfer uncompressed data at 923 megabits per second for 58 seconds from Sunnyvale, California, to Amsterdam, Netherlands.   That's about 3,500 times faster than a typical Internet broad-band connection...   Scientists were able to get 93% efficiency out of their record-setting connection because they didn't have to share bandwidth, they received donated equipment in excess of $1M and they changed the setting of Internet protocols to allow faster data transfers, Newman said."

2003-03-07 12:50PST (15:50EST) (20:50GMT)
Justin Lahart _CNN_/_Money_
3 Years of Pain: Sorting through the wreckage: On 3rd anniversary of Nasdaq's record high perhaps the biggest question is how things got so bad. (with graphs)
"When the Nasdaq composite index closed at its record high of 5,048.62 on 2000 March 10 it had in the space of just 1 year more than doubled.   The unemployment rate had just come in at 4.1% and the latest read on gross domestic product showed the economy growing at a 6.9% annual rate.   Weeks before, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress 'beneficent fundamentals will provide the framework for continued economic progress well into the new millennium'...   The Nasdaq, down 75% from its peak, doesn't lead the evening news anymore, but for many observers the malaise both the market and the economy have fallen into have everything to do with the Nasdaq's rise and fall...   The worry now is that, hard as the past 3 years have been, the bitter draught isn't finished."

2003-03-07
Kenneth N. Gilpin _NY Times_
US Pay-Rolls Fall Sharply as Jobless Rate Rises to 5.8%
"The nation's pay-rolls outside the farming sector fell by 308K in February, erasing gains recorded in January, which the Labor Department said today were bigger than originally estimated.   The nation's unemployment rate ticked up to 5.8%, from 5.7% in January...   Over all, employment in the service sector declined by 86K jobs last month, the biggest decline since the Fall of 2001...   Economists say there is no question the economy remains mired in a jobless recovery.   Since employment peaked in 2001 March, nearly 2M jobs have been lost.   In February, 8.5M people were unemployed.   About 1.9M of those, or 22% of the total, have been out of work for 27 weeks or more."

2003-03-07
Tom Brokaw _NY Times_
The Arab World Tunes In
"Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, is by far the most powerful, with some 35M viewers.   It still reflects an Arab point of view, but it is far more independent than the old government-controlled broadcasters that dominated the Middle East until a few years ago.   In addition, CNN has expanded its own reach.   The network estimates it now has viewers in 10M households in the region.   As a result of this widespread dissemination of information, the fundamental structure of Middle East politics has been altered, if not over-hauled...   Even in Qatar, where the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, has made a big bet on his friendship with the United States, the leadership is not immune to the effects of Al Jazeera ó which the emir himself started...   Communications experts in the Bush administration are aware of the power of Al Jazeera, and that their point of view is under-represented...   One senior war planner said, bluntly, 'We've done a terrible job out here explaining why we're going after Saddam Hussein.'. The absence of that persuasive explanation is even more conspicuous against the desert-brown and olive-green backdrop of American military machines and uniformed forces pouring into the area.   The overwhelming image of America on Persian Gulf television screens these days is a soldier's face framed by a camouflaged helmet...   Americans have no doubt about their military superiority or their preparedness for the hard tasks of desert warfare against a desperate enemy.   But waging and then winning the communications war is a different proposition.   As a battle-field commander put it, 'If we don't get this right, we'll be here another 10 years.'."

2003-03-07
David E. Rosenbaum _NY Times_
Troop Movement Could Cost $25G CBO Speculates
"Last week, a senior Defense Department official suggested that a war might cost $60G or more [and GWBush mentioned a figure of $90G]...   The [CBO] staff calculated that the initial cost of deploying troops and equipment in the region of the war would be about $14G, that the cost of the first month of combat would be $10G and that the cost would then fall slightly to about $8G a month.   After the war, the budget office figured it would cost about $9G to return the troops and equipment to home bases.   American occupation of Iraq, the staff said, could vary from $1G to $4G a month."

2003-03-07
Pat Choate _USA Daily_
Out-Sourcing Your Job
"If your job requires a specialized skill or a college education, a foreign worker may soon replace you.   If this happens, you may get a few extra months of work so you can train your replacement.   In most instances, your job will moved to some penny-wage nation, such as Mexico, India, or [Red China].   Already, millions of blue-collar U.S. manufacturing jobs have been exported.   Now, in what is called the ìthird waveî of globalization, high knowledge and skilled jobs are also being relocated to lower wage countries...   India and [Red China], for instance, are each producing more than 350K new engineers per year.   In combination, that is twice the number being produced in the United States annually.   These foreign engineers will work six days a week for $10K per year, roughly one-sixth that of their U.S. counterparts.   And equally important, U.S. employers sending work to India and [Red China] are not required to pay for Social Security, medical programs, retirement, or disability expenses...   Equally important for most U.S. employers, these foreign workers are docile.   They are not going to form a union, and they are not going to confront their bosses with demands.   Criticism is discouraged with firing and by a black ball system operated by employers and the government.   And in 'no-dissent' nations such as [Red China], critics may lose their freedom, if not their lives."

2003-03-07
Paul J. Lim _US News & World Report_
An exodus of jobs
"In Washington, the Labor Department reported that the economy shed a higher-than-expected 308K jobs in February, the biggest monthly cut in non-farm pay-rolls since 2001/09/11.   That led the unemployment rate to creep from 5.7% in January to 5.8% last month.   'While it is a shock that the monthly February job loss was so high, it is no surprise since announced job cuts averaged more than 139K since last October.', said John Challenger, CEO of the out-placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas."
 

2003-03-08

2003-03-07 16:47PST (19:47EST) (2003-03-08 00:47GMT)
Kevin Bohn _CNN_
Nephew of Pakistani president arrested: Tourist visa expired in 1994
"The nephew, Amir Javed Musharraf, registered with immigration authorities February 19 as part of a Justice Department program requiring men from 25 countries, including Pakistan, to be interviewed and finger-printed.   Musharraf, who was living in Memphis, Tennessee, had been in the United States since 1994, the spokesman said...   The registration program, called The National Security Entry Exit System..."

2003-03-07 17:31PST (20:31EST) (2003-03-08 01:31GMT)
Matt Andrejczak _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Facing the share-owners: Amid record proxy volume, annual meetings kick off
"Now, however, state pension funds, labor unions and other groups that for years have been snubbed by corporate boards are licking their chops.   Outrage over the nation's bankruptcies and accounting scandals has delivered powerful ammunition, and this year marks the first full annual meeting season in which advocates have been able to meet corporate deadlines to submit share-holder proposals...   As of early February, at least 870 proposals were filed vs.   802 in all of 2002, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a nonprofit proxy-advisory group based in Washington.   The bulk of the resolutions are tied to corporate governance issues, with the tally at 625, compared to 529 in all of 2002.   Some companies, scrambling to appease agitated investors in the wake of the business scandals, are even bowing to share-holder demands before annual meetings, making concessions to keep certain proposals from ever coming to vote...   At the top of the agenda this year are issues related to egregious abuses of executive salaries and other perks of the job -- a new thrust for activists seeking to put caps on pay, golden-parachutes packages and stock option grants...   Post-bubble pay packages have outraged investors whose stock portfolios got crushed in the collapse of the technology sector and the crisis of confidence spawned by several accounting scandals.   In 2001 and 2002, departing chief executives reaped an average severance package worth $16.5M, according to recent Corporate Library research that examined so-called golden parachutes offered by S&P 500 companies...   In a movement gaining visibility at share-holder meetings this year, some proposals are taking on the practice of U.S.-headquartered companies that incorporate in off-shore tax havens like Bermuda...   In an effort to dilute the power of top executives, there is also mounting pressure for companies to separate the positions of chairman and CEO.   It would result in splitting board oversight duties between the chairman and the CEO...   As a rule, share-holder proposals are nonbinding; even if a resolution receives a majority vote, the board isn't obligated to enact the change."

2003-03-08 01:00PST (04:00EST) (09:00GMT)
Steve Gelsi _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Marking 3 years from Nasdaq peak: Stocks face menacing week on anniversary of mile-stone
"The Nasdaq hit its loftiest height on 2000 March 10, with a record close of 5,048...   Investors finished out 2000 with the Dow's first losing year in a decade.   The Nasdaq wrapped up the year with a 39% loss, the most devastating drop in its 30-year history.   The pain was just starting as a 3-year stock slide continues to this day.   The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week at 7,740, down 151 points, or 1.9%, from its week-ago close of 7,891.   The index is won about 7.1% for the year.   The Nasdaq finished Friday at 1,305, down 32 points, or 2.4% from its week-ago close of 1,337.   It's off about 2.2% so far this year.   The index will head into 2003 March 10, down a whopping 3,743 points, or 74%, from its heady all-time close three years ago.   The S&P 500 wrapped up the first week of March, 2003 at 828, down 12 points, or 1.4% from its level of 840 seven days ago.   The index of blue chips is down about 5.8% so far this year."

2003-03-08
Daniel Altman _NY Times_
Net of 308K Jobs Lost in February
"the unemployment rate nudged up to 5.8% from 5.7% in January...   The Bush administration... said they showed the need for quick action on the president's plan to cut taxes...   Pay-rolls shrank in virtually every goods-producing industry and edged down or remained flat across the service sector.   Only government pay-rolls managed a broad-based increase."

2003-03-08
Jonathan Fuerbringer _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Interest Rates Keep Sliding Toward 1950s
"Interest rates are nearing their lowest levels in decades, surprising economists who predicted that rates would start rising this year."

2003-03-08
Fred O. Willians _Buffalo New York News_
Body shop from India to open Buffalo office
"Tata Consultancy Services, an Indian technology giant, plans to open an office in Buffalo to recruit clients and workers in Western New York.   TCS will hold an opening ceremony on Monday, representatives said, drawing senator Hillary Rodham Clinton from Washington, DC, and Subramaniam Ramadorai, the company's chief executive, from Mumbai, India.   The event will be at the Hyatt in downtown Buffalo.   Asia's largest technology services company and its biggest software exporter, TCS uses professionals in the U.S. and India to develop software for corporations and governments.   Its 50 offices around the U.S. and Canada have about 5K employees.   'Their model is off-shore -- on-shore.', spokes-woman Leanne Scott Brown said, combining the work of developers in the U.S. and abroad...   TCS recently announced the delivery of a computerized unemployment claims system for New Mexico, an example of its focus on government projects."

2003-03-08
_AP_/_Fox News_
Iranian Women Rally to Demand Equal Rights
"The women, wearing the head-scarves and long coats required by law, and a small group of men held a rally in a central Tehran park.   Watching them was a large contingent of police -- including some 400 women who in January became the first females to undergo training to be officers since 1979...   In the crowd, some women held up signs against violence by men -- and against a war on Iraq."

2003-03-08
_Ohio News Network_
Engineer Wins Age-Discrimination Law-Suit
"A jury in Cuyahoga County has ordered Philips Medical Systems to pay a former electrical engineer $7.8M in an age-discrimination law-suit.   56-year-old TS of Mentor worked for the medical equipment manufacturer for 23 years before he and 30 others were laid off in August.   His lawywer Christopher Thorman says Sadowski was 1 of 3 workers cut in his department, all 54 or older.   TS had gotten a raise and a merit promotion not long before.   TS asked to be rehired after he learned the company had openings.   Despite a company policy of trasferring laid-off workers into openings, it refused to consider him when he applied...   The jury ruled unanimously that Philips discriminated."

2003-03-08
Peter T. Kilborn _NY Times_
Texans Divided, Some Ambivalent about War
"Texas produced 364G barrels of oil last year, 250G fewer than in 1992 and 15% of the peak production in 1973.   In 2000, according to the census, the median family income in Andrews County, population 13K, was $37,017, down from $43,756 in 1980.   The median home value dropped to $42,500 from $59,558...   Oil prices have rebounded from as low as $10 a barrel in the 1980s here, to $20 a year ago to nearly $40 now.   By late last month 169 rigs were drilling into the basin, 20 more than in January and 40 more than a year ago, said Morris Burns, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association in Midland."

2003-03-08
Abel Valenzuela _UCLA_
Working Day Labour: Informal & Contingent Employment
"Day labour, the practice of convening in open-air or street-side curbs to seek daily, temporary employment is overwhelmingly portrayed as unstable, illegal, under-paid, and fraught with employer abuses ñ all key characteristics of informal and contingent employment.   Light and Roach (1996) present day labourers as part of the informal employment growth of Los Angeles, with street-corner labour markets as a form of marginal self-employment.   Parker (1994:63) describes day labour as bottom rung among wage earners in pay, receiving no benefits, and inadequate to provide workers with enough income to afford housing thereby concluding that most day labourers are homeless.   In their study of Chicago's temporary employment industry, Peck and Theodore (1998: 658) describe the hiring halls and the day labour contractor as typical of the 'bottom end of the temporary industry'.   Academic accounts of day labour in part reflect the dramatic growth of this market where large concentrations of recent arrivals most who are illegal and predominantly men, reside and partake in this burgeoning labour exchange.   Even though the growth of temporary or contingent occupations paid informally or 'under the table' or with large concentrations of unauthorized immigrants is not adequately captured by the Census and Department of Labour statistics, other evidence suggests that in recent years, paid temporary day labour has increased (GAO 2000; Valenzuela 1999)..."
 

2003-03-09

2003-03-09
Lisa Baertlein _Reuters_
Post-Boom Life in Silicon Valley
"Silicon Valley, which vaulted to astronomical prosperity in the Internet boom, is still tallying the cost of an unrelenting [3]-year down-turn.   For many, the toll is measured in departed friends, grudging acceptance of low-wage part-time jobs, or the loss of little luxuries like hair salon appointments and season tickets.   California's latest revised employment figures showed Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County alone lost 191,500 jobs -- or nearly 1 in 5 positions -- between the employment market peak of 2000 December and 2003 January...   Marc Andreessen, who rode high as a former poster boy for the 20-year-old Internet millionaires minted during the boom, said Silicon Valley's current mood reminds him of the malaise that reigned when he arrived in 1994...   San Francisco's best-known down-turn came after the Gold Rush of 1849, when banking and mining interests pulled up stakes.   Lesser-know upheavals hit Silicon Valley in the 1970s, when microchips supplanted defense; in the 1980s, when the personal computer came to the fore; and in the 1990s, when the industry's focus shifted to software and the web...   Santa Clara County includes such tech-heavy cities as San Jose, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto.   It absorbed about half of the state's post-boom job losses and had a January unemployment rate of 8.6% -- above California's 6.5% and the national average of 5.7%."

2003-03-09 09:53PST (12:53EST) (17:53GMT)
Bambi Francisco _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Tech vulnerable on March 10 anniversary
"Three years after the March 10 market melt-down, tech stocks remain as vulnerable as ever, if investor sentiment is any guide...   Since 2001, there have been four major Nasdaq rallies, each generating peak-to-trough return between 34% and 35%.   Each of these rallies occurred at points - 2001 April, 2001 September, 2002 October -- when the volatility hit extremely high levels...   Today, the tech sector is marked with positive relative performance.   This is different from the periods in 100` April, 2001 September and 2002 October, Berman points out."

2003-03-09
George Packer _NY Times_
Smart-Mobbing the War
"Eli Pariser, 22, tall, bearded, spends long hours every day at his desk hunched over a lap-top, plotting strategy and directing the electronic traffic of an instantaneous movement that was partly assembled in his computer."

2003-03-09
_NY Times_
Pop Went the Bubble
"5,048.62.   That beguilingly pedestrian figure -- most numbers are, once untethered from their context -- marked the point at which one of history's most spectacular financial bubbles popped.   Three years ago tomorrow, it was the closing number for the Nasdaq composite, the market index for all those 'new economy' tech stocks...   2000 March 10 does not seem like a long time ago solely because the Nasdaq is now at 1,305.29."

2003-03-09
Gretchen Morgenson _NY Times_
Economy Can No Longer Count on the Consumer
"Accustomed as they are to ever-bigger bargains, and given how many cars, computers, sweaters and electronics gear they have bought in recent years, consumers may well commence a buying strike.   'As prices came down, that created a bargain effect', Mr. Hastings said, 'and consumers kept spending even though so much wealth was destroyed in the bear market.'.   A strong dollar made imports cheaper as well.   Also worrisome is a shift in the source of the funds available to consumers.   In the 1990's, Mr. Hastings said, consumer spending was fueled by growing wages, a secure job environment and gains in real estate and the stock market.   But since mid-2000, consumer spending has been bolstered by mortgage refinancings, home equity loans and falling retail prices.   None of those sources can be relied upon much longer...   Household wealth is in decline, Mr. Hastings said, and so is the number of people employed.   Consumers are finally figuring out that the only way to save money in such an environment is to stop spending."

2003-03-09
Kimberly Blanton _Boston Globe_ pg C1
Former computer worker tires of drawn-out search yielding few job leads, plenty of frustration
"BC experienced a miracle last week: He e-mailed an application for a job and someone e-mailed back...   At age 38, BC is deep in the heart of a generation of software programmers and other techno-wizards who don't know how to find work in anything but an up job market.   The current high-tech depression is the first time in history that payrolls at software firms have shrunk...   Pounding the pavement, networking, cold-calling employers -- these generally are not among the skill sets of people whose geeky tendencies, once an asset, have turned into a liability in today's horrific job market...   Unemployment among computer scientists nationwide hovers around 5.1%, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] -- triple the rate of just 3 years ago.   In high-tech hot spots such as Boston, Silicon Valley, and Austin, Texas, programming jobs evaporated and may never reappear.   Companies have shifted a lot of this work to other countries, mostly India, where hiring of contract workers to write software and perform other technical jobs is growing 30% a year, says Deborah Besemer, chief executive of Brass Ring Inc. in Waltham...   he finds job hunting to be emotionally draining and has to get away from it...   The specificity of skills required to snare a programming job is impossible for an outsider to grasp..."

2003-03-09
Kimberly Blanton _Boston Globe_
Technical knock-out: Jobless for 16 months, executive seeks 'secret formula'
"He has scoured news-letters and networked for positions before they are advertised.   Fearful someone his age -- 53 -- might be dismissed as too pricey in today's depressed tech industry, he'll accept a pay cut.   He devises tricks to slip phone calls past the barricades constructed by human resources staff at companies that are hiring.   To drum up job leads, he enlists people linked to his [wife's circle of associates]...   GB is one of the walking wounded of the nation's high-technology disaster.   Whether executives or programmers, the industry's unemployed face impossibly long odds in a job market that is still shrinking and is incapable of absorbing the throngs looking for a tech job, any tech job.   About 1 in 3 of the 1.8M people nationwide who have been jobless 6 months or more are in technology or related occupations...   Despite a full-bore job search, GB can't figure out how to stand out from the 29K other technology professionals in Massachusetts laid off in recent years.   He has sent about 100 resumes, almost all of them ignored by prospective employers routinely bombarded daily by talented job applicants...   As vice president of human resources at 24/7 Real Media Inc., [Audrey Blauner] receives 75 to 100 resumes a day when advertising a new position.   Her staff sorts them into piles, by location -- applicants near the firm's Manhattan headquarters -- and salary requirement.   Only the first 200 make the cut.   'Physically, we can't go through all of them.', Blauner says...   GB believes age has something to do with it.   The fast-moving high-tech industry is increasingly for young people who work long hours for lower pay.   No employer would ever tell a job applicant they are too old; that is illegal under federal law.   But he has noticed that veteran job-seekers at the 495 Networking Support Group in Westborough, which meets Wednesday mornings, are the older men and women..."

2003-03-09
David A. Sylvester _San Jose Mercury News_
Help-wanted ads plummet along with jobs
"Help-wanted advertising has plummeted nationally to its lowest level in four decades -- and hasn't budged in the past six months.   The Help Wanted Index, compiled monthly by the Conference Board research group, hit 40 in January, about the same level it has been since October.   To put that in perspective, the index has dropped by more than half since its peak of just over 90, during 2000.   It is also at its lowest point since 1964...   One estimate is that spending on online help-wanted ads totals $800M, while in print that figure has dropped from $8.7G in 2000 to $4.4G in 2002."
 

2003-03-10

2003-03-09 20:34PST (23:34EST) (2003-03-10 04:34GMT)
Del Jones _USA Today_
CEO pay takes another hit
"All the stock and stock options that companies have thrown at CEOs and other corporate leaders over the past 3 decades have done nothing to improve company performance.   That's the conclusion of 4 professors from Indiana University and Texas A&M who say such motivational compensation does not boost the stock price or improve return on assets, equity, price-earnings ratios or other measures of financial success.   The study, published last week in the February-March issue of _Academy of Management Journal_, is yet another slap at corporations that justified high compensation by saying it aligned the goals of executives with those of the shareholders...   a USA TODAY analysis of Fortune 1,000 companies found little correlation to the amount of stock owned by insiders vs. return on equity.   The analysis found dozens of examples of companies under-performing the competition despite their CEOs being laden with stock and options."

2003-03-09 21:01PST (2003-03-10 00:01EST) (2003-03-10 05:01GMT)
Shawn Langlois _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Sleeping tight in Luxembourg: Survey ranks the world's most, least safe cities
"The capital of the tiny sovereign state wedged between Belgium, France and Germany is the world's safest city, according to a survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting....   At the opposite extreme, the crime-plagued city of Bangui in the war-torn Central African Republic ranks as the world's most dangerous at No. 215.   The personal-safety scores factor in crime levels, law enforcement and internal stability, with each city ranked against New York City's base rating of 100.   Under those guidelines, Luxembourg City scored 133.5, while Bangui, marked by a "highly volatile and dangerous" environment, managed just a 21.5 rating.   Of course, Baghdad didn't fare much better, coming in only slightly ahead of Bangui on the list.   Abu Dhabi and Dubai are the Middle East's safest, both scoring 105.5 and ranked 54th...   In the United States, Honolulu, Houston and San Francisco were the safest, tied for 40th place with a score of 106.5.   Not surprisingly, the Washington, DC, score of 85 put our nation's capital at the bottom of the North America list, good for 107th overall.   Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa are the continent's safest, tying for 25th with matching scores of113.5.   Across the pond, Switzerland boasts half of the six safest cities, Bern, Geneva and Zurich, which all tied for second with a score of 126.5.   Zurich also took top honors in Mercer's Quality of Life Rankings.   Europe's most dangerous cities -- Milan, Athens and Rome -- still placed in the top 100, despite relatively high crime levels.   London scored 100 and tied with New York for the 64th slot.   Asian cities populate two-thirds of the top 15, including nine cities in Japan.   Singapore, meanwhile, well-known for its strict approach to law enforcement, tied with Helsinki and the three Swiss cities for second."

2003-03-10 08:43PST (11:43EST) (16:43GMT)
Adam Lashinsky _CNN_/_Money_
3 Years of Pain: Silicon Valley 3 Years Later: with the bubble burst West coast tech heads face dark times
"How much has Silicon Valley changed in the 3 years since the Nasdaq peaked on 2000 March 10?...   Three years ago it wasn't at all uncommon for people at parties here to talk about nothing but business, their stock options and their jobs...   It was a time of inflation.   Salary inflation, title inflation, housing-value inflation.   Everyone was rich and smart...   Jobs were plentiful..."

2003-03-10 13:41PST (16:41EST) (21:41GMT)
Tomi Kilgore _CBS.MarketWatch.com_
Stocks fall on birth-day of Nasdaq high: Weak economic out-look, war fears paint the Street red
"The Dow fell 171.85 points, or 2.2%, to 7,568.18 and the S&P 500 Index shed 21.41 points, or 2.6%, to 807.48.   The Nasdaq Composite, which closed above 5K for the last time 3 years earlier, lost 26.92 points, or 2.1%, to 1,278.37."

2003-03-10
_Business Week_
Visa Loop-Hole as Big as a Main-Frame: More companies are abusing L-1 visas to bring in low-wage foreign IT workers-- and replace Americans
"After all, in 2001, Congress had specifically banned the displacement of U.S. employees by foreigners brought in under the controversial H-1B visa program, which many employers had tapped to fill vacant jobs in the booming 1990s.   Congress also had demanded rules requiring employers to pay H-1B workers prevailing U.S. wages -- and Siemens made no bones about the cost-cutting nature of the lay-offs...   her Siemens supervisors told her he [her L-1 replacement] earns just one-third of her $98K a year...   Siemens spokes-woman Paula Davis says her company isn't responsible for Tata's employment practices.   'They don't work for us; they work for Tata [a body shop founded in India but also operating in the USA].', she says...   just one example of an explosion in the use -- and in some cases, the abuse -- of L-1 visas.   With the travails of the high-tech industry and the jump in IT unemployment, fewer U.S. companies can tap the H-1B program these days by saying qualified Americans aren't available.   At the same time, many employers looking to slash costs have discovered that they can use firms that hire L-1s to dump high-paid Americans in favor of cheaper workers from abroad.   As a result, many companies are subcontracting thousands of jobs to out-sourcing companies...   Bombay-based Tata now uses L-1s to bring in half of the 5K IT workers it has placed at companies in the U.S., says CEO S. Ramadorai.   Nearly one-third of Infosys' 3K U.S.-based workers hold L-1s, the company says, as do 32% of Wipro's 1,500.   Like Tata, Bangalore-based Infosys and Wipro say they follow the letter of the L-1 law.   But they may be violating the spirit of the law.   'Is it O.K. to use L-1s for out-sourcing to other firms?   The answer is no.', says State Department spokes-man Stuart Patt...   At the same time, the Immigration & Naturalization Service is reviewing the L-1 visa program 'to assess whether companies are using the L-1 to circumvent the H-1B program', says an INS official.   And Representative John L. Mica (R-FL) vows he'll try to amend the L-1 statute if Justice doesn't prosecute in the Siemens case.   'It's a back door to cheap labor.', he says.   While many L-1s ease the intra-company transfers they're meant for, out-sourcing has triggered a surge in their numbers.   New L-1s jumped by 50% between 1998 and 2002, to 58K, and climbed an additional 10% in the first 5 months of fiscal 2003, according to State Department data."

2003-03-10
Fatuma Abdekadir, 20, one of 12K Somali Bantu refugees to be relocated from Kenya to the USA (quoted by Rachel L. Swarns _NY Times_)
Somania is not my country; the USA is my country
"I don't think Somalia is my country because we Somali Bantus have seen our people treated like donkeys there.   I think my country is where I am going."

2003-03-10
Ms. Aden (quoted by Rachel L. Swarns _NY Times_)
Africa's Lost Tribe, the Somali Bantu, Discovers America
"We are coming here to be resettled in the United States.   There, we will find peace and freedom."

2003-03-10
Greg Winter & Jennifer Medina _NY Times_
More Students Line Up at Financial Aid Office
"So when her father lost his job as a computer engineer last June, she took a deep breath and stepped up the groveling.   Her financial aid package of $5K did go up, by $1K, but it was not enough.   She dropped out and started working full time... tuition and living costs totals $15K a year, before financial aid...   Dead-lines have not even passed on many campuses, yet financial aid requests have already risen by 50% at Skidmore College, in upstate New York, 39% at the University of Michigan, more than 30% at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me., 30% at Willamette University in Salem, OR, 20% at Occidental College, in Los Angeles, 15% at State University of New York at Albany and 14% at Barnard College, in Manhattan -- all compared with last year, itself a particularly bad one...   Even those who receive aid are coming back at midyear for more because their families' fortunes unexpectedly took a turn for the worse.   Such appeals have doubled at Pomona College, in Claremont, Calif., doubled at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, almost tripled at Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, CA, risen 20% at the University of California at Berkeley, and increased fivefold at Smith College, in Northampton, MA, stretching some financial aid budgets to the breaking point...   at Johns Hopkins University...the average aid package increased to $22K from $20K this year...   College endowments fell an average of 6% in 2002, the steepest drop since 1974, the National Association of College and University Business Officers says.   Beyond that, 26 states cut their higher education budgets for the current fiscal year, and just as many are expected to do the same in the coming one...   Making matters worse, educators add, every state raised tuition and fees for public universities in 2002, some by 20% or more, as noted in a study this month by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.   Now states that had some of the smallest increases last year, like California and New York, are considering bigger jumps.   Over the last 20 years, tuition and fees at private and public universities have more than doubled, even with inflation taken into account.   The average tuition at state-supported colleges is $4,081, while the average at private institutions is $18,273...   From November through January of this year, a smaller percentage of the population worked than at any time since 1994 -- it was 62.4% in February.   Furthermore, the number of people who have been unemployed for 6 months or more is at the highest level in a decade, and nearly 3 times what it was just 2 years ago."

2003-03-10
Floyd Norris _NY Times_
3 Years after Nasdaq Peak Investors Crave Safety
"It was on 2000 March 10 that the Nasdaq composite index hit a peak of 5,048.62.   It had doubled since the previous summer, and those who had warned of a bubble in technology stocks had been so wrong for so long that few listened to them any longer...   Within little more than a month, the Nasdaq had lost a third of its value...   Then, in 2001 March, a recession began.   6 months after that, two planes hit the World Trade Center, and another slammed into the Pentagon.   The recession probably ended in late 2001, but the after-effects of the bubble continue to plague the economy...   At the market's peak, Mr. Hoenig noted, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, was comparing Internet stocks to lottery tickets.   To an economist, lotteries and casinos are interesting because people pay to take risks even though they know that the odds are against them.   It turns out that Mr. Greenspan had something of a point.   Most of the initial offerings near the peak turned into disasters, with the ones that doubled and tripled the first day of trading being among the worst...   Stocks that pay dividends have done better than those that do not, and there is a small trend toward paying dividends...   Japan's market had been depressed for years, but even it put on a rally in the months before the United States market peaked.   Since then the Nikkei 225 is down more than 60%, measured in dollars.   The markets in France and Germany have lost more than half their value, and Britain has done almost as badly."

2003-03-10
Edmund L. Andrews _NY Times_
Measuring Lost Freedom vs. Security in Dollars
"In an unusual twist on cost-benefit analysis, an economic tool that conservatives have often used to attack environmental regulation, top advisers to President Bush want to weigh the benefits of tighter domestic security against the 'costs' of lost privacy and freedom... John Graham, director of regulatory affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget [said,] 'I want to make sure that people can see these intangible burdens.'... 'We already make these kinds of trade-offs all the time.',said Bruce Schneier, a security consultant in Sunnyvale, Calif., who is the author of a book due out in September titled _The Security Puzzle_. 'What you need to know are the agendas of the different players.' "

2003-03-10
John Markoff _NY Times_
Software Pioneer Quits Board of Directors of Groove Networks
"Mitchell D. Kapor, a personal computer industry software pioneer and a civil liberties activist, has resigned from the board of Groove Networks after learning that the company's software was being used by the Pentagon as part of its development of a domestic surveillance system...   Groove Networks' desk-top collaboration software [is] a crucial component of the anti-terrorist surveillance software being tested at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Information Awareness Office, an office directed by vice admiral John M. Poindexter...   The project has been trying to build a prototype computer system that would permit the scanning of hundreds or thousands of data-bases to look for information patterns that might alert the authorities to the activities of potential terrorists."

2003-03-10
Lisa Vaas _eWeek_
Off-Shore Out-Sourcing Battle Heats Up
"The New Jersey State Legislature has reportedly tabled a closely watched bill that would have prevented the over-seas out-sourcing of NJ state government IT projects...   to ensure that government funds be used to employ U.S. workers, rather than workers based in India or other typical outsourcing recipient countries.   The bill was passed unanimously by the New Jersey State Senate and was then sent to the New Jersey State Assembly on December 16...   At least three other states are now considering similar legislation, including Connecticut, Missouri and Wisconsin.   Meanwhile, backlash against domestic IT job loss to over-seas companies has taken a different tack in New York.   The New York Software Industry Association, a high-tech organization in New York City, is organizing a 'Buy NY' campaign to re-establish the city's brand as a strong technology market and to increase the number of high-tech jobs in the area."

2003-03-10
William F. Jasper _New American_
Your Job May Be Next!
"Millions of U.S. jobs, as well as thousands of independent businesses, face extinction under policies that favor importing cheap labor and exporting production...   [Dell] was announcing new personnel 'attrition goals' of 10% per year, about double the normal attrition rate.   These positions would not be filled in the United States, Clarke explained.   They would be filled by new hires in India, [Red China], and other countries where Dell is shifting business...   A steady trickle of Red Chinese engineers, project planners, and managers had been brought to Dell's Austin campus for training, and some U.S. Dell employees had made the trek to [Red China] for 4-to-6-month stints to train [Red Chinese] personnel there.   Around the Dell head-quarters in Austin, employees had begun wryly referring to the 'Chinese invasion' as 'training our replacements'...   eWEEK's Lisa Vaas reported... that the number of L-1 visas granted climbed from 112,124 in 1995 to 294,658 in 2000."
 

2003-03-11

2003-03-10 17:08PST (19:08CST) (20:08EST) (2003-03-11 01:08GMT)
April Castro _AP_/_Houston Chronicle_
Law-makers consider banning Socialist Insecurity numbers as ID
"Less than a week after hackers stole Social Security numbers and other information from more than 55K students and employees at the University of Texas at Austin, the House Higher Education Committee on Monday started looking at legislation to ban colleges from using Social Security numbers as student identification.   The bill would require all Texas colleges and universities to cease the use of Social Security numbers as a primary means of student identification by 2003-09-01...   Last year more than 14K Texans reported to the federal Trade Commission that their identities were stolen...   Luke Metzger, an advocate for the Texas Public Interest Research Group.   'We think we need to get Social Security numbers off student ID cards and off medical ID cards and just remove them from public view.'..   Representative Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas, who authored the legislation..."

2003-03-10 19:27PST (22:27EST) (2003-03-11 03:27GMT)
Michelle Kessler _USA Today_
What rebound?: Tech firms still slashing jobs
"In January and February, tech firms announced 23,327 job cuts, including U.S. company cuts here and abroad and U.S. workers cut by foreign firms, says job placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas...   For tech companies, the impact of lay-offs is 2-fold: Repeated cuts disrupt work flow and hurt morale..   Too deep a cut could jeopardize a turn-around.   For workers, more lay-offs mean job hunting in a tough market.   In