December 2007

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Five Keys to Safer Food Manual (Sunday, 12/30/07)
We've pointed out numerous times that, until very recently, Earth has never seen a time when there have been so many human beings on it. It took from the beginning of the planet's history until roughly 1840 or so to reach a point where there were a billion persons on Earth. Now, there are an estimated 6.7 billion people trying to live on our planet. This is to say that we have accumulated nearly six times as many living human beings on Earth during the past 170 years or so as it took to accumulate over billions of years of Earth history and tens of thousands of years of the history of modern humans.

Moreover, as a consequence of this population growth, which largely has been a consequence of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath, Earth's climate is changing in ways and with consequences that no one yet understands.

It all means that the conditions of life are changing rapidly and in fundamental ways, and we certainly have no reason to expect familiar outcomes under unfamiliar circumstances.

Among many other things, such as disease and so on, there are new reasons for being concerned about the human food supply. The World Health Organization offers its 30-page Five Keys to Safer Food Manual.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 - 2006 (Saturday, 12/29/07)
George Washington's presidential salary was $25,000 per year. How does that compare to what the current President of the United States is paid? If you think that the question has a simple answer, think again. There is no single "right" way to compute what dollar amounts during earlier periods of history are "worth" in current dollars. Here are six ways to compute the relative value of a U.S. Dollar amount from 1790 through 2006, and the George Washington salary issue is presented as one of several examples.

G7 ministers will meet in Tokyo in February (Friday, 12/28/07)
Yoko Nishikawa reports that finance ministers from the G7 will meet in Tokyo, Japan on February 9. Traditionally, the "G7" has been regarded as the richest industrial nations in the world, but this was before China's major economic growth surge. Despite its enormous population and the fact that it has multitudes of the poorest people on Earth, China also has one of the world's largest economies now. Still, the G7 goes on as before and includes United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Sustainability (Thursday, 12/27/07)
Sustainability is a special version of "pay as you go." It refers to procedures that satisfy current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their needs. It doesn't borrow from the future in order to deal with the present.

American Public Media originated out of the network of stations formed to distribute Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and is is an alternative to National Public Radio. Here's APM's online contribution to the public debate on sustainability. Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Crisis Guide: The Korean Peninsula (Wednesday, 12/26/07)
The Korean Peninsula might still be seen as the most dangerous place on Earth if there were not so much competition. Still, the Korean War didn't end in 1953--there was only a cease-fire. Technically, a state of war still exists, and about the only source of hard currency that North Korea presently has is selling missiles to unsavory countries and non-state organizations.

Moreover, over the years since, the contrast between the economies of North and South Korea could hardly be greater. North Korea's economy is catastrophic, while South Korea's is one of the strongest industrial economies in the world

If you promise to swallow quite a lot of aspirin, we'll encourage you to consult the Council on Foreign Relations' Crisis Guide: The Korean Peninsula.

The second big economic bubble in less than a decade? (Sunday, 12/23/07)
That "giant sucking sound" that Ross Perot talked about in 1992 may really have been the rapid escape of air from the dot.com bubble a few years ago, and it may be air swooshing from a real estate bubble now. Here's more from Peter Goodman in the New York Times.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: More or Less (Sunday, 12/23/07)
Most empirical issues in modern life requiring starting with an honest question. We should formulate a question as though we don't know, because, unless or until we have done with it takes to know, we really DON'T know. Moreover, questions should be formulated so that answering them is possible, and this usually means formulating them in quantitative terms. "How many?" "How much?" "In what ratio or proportion?"

Many people in the world have great difficulty thinking in quantitative terms, and the More or Less site from the British Broadcasting Corporation and the UK's Open University can help.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Medical Myths (Saturday, 12/22/07)
Robert Roy Britt, in his LiveScience article, points out that the popular culture is filled with myths and half truths. This may be an understatement, given that most of the beliefs that most people have about most things they regard as important are unjustified by evidence.

The British Medical Journal tells about seven medical myths that even some physicians believe. There's good reason to be surprised by this, but it would not be so surprising to find physicians who believe many of the other myths and half-truths in the popular culture. The education of physicians tends to be long and very deep, but fairly narrow.

Here's at least one top executive who believes the next recession already has started (Thursday, 12/20/07)
Officially, there's no way to tell if the American economy has been in recession until the gross domestic product has been shrinking for at least two consecutive quarters. When that happens, of course, there will have been an early time when the economy is already in recession, even though it has not yet reached common definitional criteria. Bill Gross believes that the latest recession began this month.

At the very least, Jeannine Aversa reports from Washington that the U. S. economy isn't expected to continue the pace it established during the past summer.

Your money or your life (Tuesday, 12/18/07)
That's what the thief in an alley said to Jack Benny's radio character years ago. After a long pause, Jack said, "I'm thinking it over." A new survey suggests that many Americans have been doing quite a lot of thinking about it too. Countrywide Bank says that new research they've conducted indicate that Americans are more concerned about getting their finances in shape than themselves.

As economic growth winds down and many experts worry about inflation, some parts of the economy are deflating instead, and that ain't good (Sunday, 12/16/07)
He doesn't drive one of those stagecoaches in their TV ads. Instead, he heads the company, and Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf says that the housing crunch in the United States is reminding him of the Great Depression. Housing prices have been declining in the United States, and the housing and credit problems will persist for quite a while, he thinks.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has a plan for helping some borrowers to avoid foreclosure, but the Federal Reserve intends to target abusive lending practices and try to help even the riskiest borrowers.

Also, we asked the other day if you remember "stagflation." Here's a person who certainly remembers. The Federal Reserve's former Chairman, Alan Greenspan, is seeing early signs of it, in fact.

Letterman's company gets some good news (Sunday, 12/16/07)
Even persons making $35 million per year can go broke, if they're out of work long enough while huge expenses continue. David Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, Inc., owns his program as well as the one that follows, so he and other company officials have special reasons for being concerned about stalled negotiations in the writer's strike.

Letterman wants to get back to work, as do most of the people who work for him, and the independent negotiations that are being proposed mean that new productions of the CBS night shows may be back very soon after the first of the year.

According to reports, Worldwide Pants, Inc. has been sending paychecks to many staffers as the strike has continued, while Mr. Letterman has been paying others out of his own pocket. Of course, as ratings plummet and reruns re-run and re-run and re-run, everybody involved in these shows worry that, if they're off the air too long, many former audience members will change their habits and find something else to do once the shows finally return to the air.

At any rate, here's more from John Rogers in Los Angeles on that proposal for independent negotiations.

Another contest between Russia and China that is shaking the globe (Saturday, 12/15/07)
This time, it's not a political or military struggle between two communist behemoths. The old Soviet Union underwent "smithereening" and became 15 sovereign countries, although Russia still dominates much of the region as, well, whatever it is now--certainly not a capitalist-democracy, despite apparent trends some years ago. Contemporary China is governed by what is still called its "Communist Party," but it's certainly not Mao's China anymore either.

Douglas Birch and Mansur Mirovalev are in Khorgos, Kazakhstan and report on the current contest between Russia and China to dominate central Asia's economic resources. And, oh yes, the United States has a stake too.

Speaking of China, while economic investment in a surging economy is a good thing, in the world's most populous nation, it may be what the old saying refers to as "too much of a good thing." The Chinese government has been trying to hold back runaway spending, but with only mixed success.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Oxford Internet Institute (Friday, 12/14/07)
Oxford University is a product of the "high Middle ages." No one knows exactly when the great university was founded, but probably sometime in the 11th century. It's still one of the leading research and instructional institutions in the world, and, all along, it has adapted to the times. The 21st century is no exception. The Oxford Internet Institute was founded in 2001 and has become one of the leading organizations in the world for studying how the Internet is reshaping human life on the planet.

Remember "stagflation?" (Thursday, 12/13/07)
It appears that the term was invented in the UK during the mid-1960s, but it's probably much on the minds of officials at the Federal Reserve at the moment. The Fed has cut interest rates three times in three months with the hope of preventing a recession.

Many people have felt that, by cutting interest rates in order to head off a recession, the Fed risks stimulating inflation. However, history has demonstrated that it is possible to have inflation and no growth at the same time. Martin Crutsinger in Washington reports that the latest data from the Labor Department indicates that wholesale prices rose 3.2 percent last month.

Things don't look quite so grim when energy and food prices are removed, even though, so-called "core inflation" increased twice as much as expected as well. Here's more from Sue Kirchhoff and Jayne O'Donnell of USA Today.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Writers Guild of America (Monday, 12/10/07)
As a consumer of Hollywood's entertainment products, you may not be much interested in the credits that roll by at the end of a feature film or television show. However, for the most part, those credits aren't there for you. Instead, they're there for the people who have worked on the production. It's how many of them get additional jobs. If somebody says, "I worked as an editor on 'Karate Kid 2," producers can check up by looking at the credits at the end of the movie.

For writers, credits can be important for other reasons too. They can help determine who gets paid if the program goes into syndication, for instance. Members of the Writers Guild of America are on strike at the moment, and their web site helps explain who they are. Basically, this is the union representing thousands of writers who dream up most of the content of the films and programs that you watch every day.

Ratification on Broadway (Sunday, 12/9/07)
Broadway's stagehands, whose strikes shut down the big shows of the Great White Way, have voted overwhelmingly to approve their new contract.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, the other big entertainment factory still is shut down. The Hollywood screenwriters strike has been going on for five weeks and affecting thousands of people who are not on strike but who aren't able to work either.

Genaro Molina of the Los Angeles Times reports that many of the people who work in the entertainment industry fear for their livelihoods. These are production people whose earnings are fairly ordinary, certainly nowhere near the breathtaking levels enjoyed by their programs' stars or even near the high salaries of many of the writers.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Human Genome Research Institute (Sunday, 12/9/07)
It may have puzzled some observers that the July 4, 2000 celebration in Philadelphia included an award for Nobel Laureates Watson and Crick, discoverers of the DNA molecule. Why them? Why that particular time and place?

Not long before, Craig Venter and Francis Collins headed separate and independent research groups which worked in parallel in sequencing the human genome. Their historic work was completed shortly before that July celebration in Philadelphia.

Perhaps that special award on the 4th of July in front of Independence Hall had to do with the fact that when one examines a person's DNA, one cannot tell what "race" that individual is. Therefore, when Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that "all men are created equal," he was more right than he possibly could have imagined during the second half of the 18th century.

Here's the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is headed by Francis Collins.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Center for Civic Education (Friday, 12/7/07)
For many years, many experts have feared for the survival of the great American democracy. The percentage of eligible voters who actually vote in the United States is embarrassing to many people who think it should be much higher. A poll conducted some years ago found that only a single-digit percentage of adults surveyed could locate the United States on a world map.

Among people who are concerned and also committed to doing something about it are those affiliated with the Center for Civic Education, centered in California and Washington, D. C.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Reclaiming the Public Realm (Thursday, 12/6/07)
Many experts believe that the generations are being isolated from one another in the United Kingdom. In fact, there have been strong worries about the same tendency in the United States.

With increased segregation of the generations, one might expect a greater tendency for people to think about members of other generations in terms of stereotypes and caricatures. Moreover, it's useful to keep in mind that these are perceptual distortions by definition.

At any rate, here is a report intending to promote rethinking the "built environment. Here is Reclaiming the Public Realm with Children and Young People.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Latin American Pamphlet Digital Collection (Wednesday, 12/5/07)
We all have good reason to hope that America will not make enemies of most of the Muslims in the world. For one thing, there are more of them than there are people living in China, and China has at least four times the population of the United States.

How long have most Americans been essentially unaware of the world's Muslims as well as much of the rest of the world? Probably about as long as there have been Americans, but it's time to change. Each day's news brings additional stories about why the Islamic world is important to people in the United States.

There are vast numbers of people living in Latin America as well who, for years, have been nearly invisible to most people in the United States. Most Americans know about as much about them as they do about Muslims. For reasons that should be obvious, this also needs to change. Interested persons can make a start by examining Harvard's Latin American Pamphlet Digital Collection.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Jimmy Carter Library and Museum (Sunday, 12/2/07)
What have Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover had in common? Both were trained as engineers? Well, yes, that's true, but, in addition to that. Both were presidents of the United States? Well, yes, that's more to the point, but it also might be worth saying that even though both had troubled presidencies, they seem to share the fact that they have been America's most successful FORMER presidents.

To this day, President Hoover's name can be found in many places throughout the Untied States. There is the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and, of course, there is Hoover Dam, as well as dozens of schools named after the great FORMER President.

Jimmy Carter has fewer things named after him, but there is the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, and, if you're unable to get to Atlanta, you can start with its web site.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: I saw Mommy dissing Santa Claus (Saturday, 12/1/07)
If you want to study business, you probably can't find a better place to do it than Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, it may be the best business school of all, at least, according to Donald Trump.

In their publication, Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton marketing experts explain why they think this holiday shopping season may leave a lump of coal in the hearts of many retailers. Here's their article, "I saw Mommy dissing Santa Claus."

It's all very important because about two-thirds of the American economy comes from consumer spending, and a major portion of the spending that consumers do is done during the holiday season. In fact, the day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday" because that's the day that many retailers finally move out of the red and into the black.

Here are nearly 200 other articles from Wharton's marketing whizzes.