For more than a decade, NewWork News has surveyed the world's news having to do with life and work in the revolutionary new world economy. Over all these years, we have not made a significant effort to distinguish between straight reporting and editorial comment.

Written by Gary Johnson, NewWork News each day is more like a newspaper or magazine column than a newspaper's front page. However, nearly every item is linked to at least one original story from somebody else's "front page" so as to enable our readers easily to examine the original story without deliberate interpretation or commentary.

Some NewWork News items are highly analytical. Several of these have been gathered together for presentation below. All have been written by Gary Johnson.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Worst Predictions and Outrageous Ones (Tuesday, 12/30/08)
The worst turned out to be, well, the worst for 2008. The outrageous ones are for 2009, and we won't know until about this time next year whether they will have turned out to be accurate or not. But haven't several things happened this year that would have been regarded by most people as totally outrageous a year ago?

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: General Motors (Sunday, 12/28/08)
The General Motors corporate Web site boast that GM has been the world's largest manufacturer of vehicles for 76 years. It remains to be seen whether that record will be extended to 77 years. Toyota was poised to surpass GM as the world's largest auto manufacturer until it started having trouble too, losing money for the first time since a lot of Americans who are on Social Security were born. At any rate, General Motors has been in the news a lot lately, and their site tells what they have to say about themselves.

Tough times in Cuba? (Saturday, 12/27/08)
When the old Soviet Union came apart, it was very hard on Cuba, because that near-to-the-U.S. island nation got a lot of economic support from the Soviets. As Will Weissert reports from Havana, this has been a rough year for Cuba too. But, the country GNP grew by 4.3 percent, while many of the world's major economies have been getting smaller.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: AMSER (Saturday, 12/27/08)
AMSER stands for "Applied Math and Science Education Repository." It comes from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and is intended for free use by community and technical colleges. However, it can be used by anybody, and probably should be used by nearly everybody.

Incidentally, you can also access AMSER from the University of Wisconsin's Internet Scout Project. As we have pointed out a number of times, we have first identified many of our NewWork News Web Tips from Scout, even though we frequently first do analysis on the topic before pointing readers in the direction of a site dealing with it.

UAW forced into concessions (Monday, 12/22/08)
The Detroit-based automakers received a big "bridge loan" from American taxpayers, and members of the United Auto Workers will have to share in the sacrifices in order to help keep their employers in business. But, as the Washington Post reports, some are thinking more in terms of "surrender" than "sacrifice."

It isn't just American auto companies that are hurting, though. Car companies based elsewhere in the world are hurting too. For instance, Toyota is anticipating its first loss in seven decades. That's about when the world was beginning to get hammered by the Second World War, incidentally.

Top Detroit auto executives may have to try to get around in cars their companies build from now on, but... (Sunday, 12/21/08)
...Well, I suppose we could say that Wall Street executives don't head companies that build cars, but, for whatever reason, the fact that some have had to beg for government money doesn't mean they don't travel in corporate jets. Stevenson Jacobs has more from New York.

Meanwhile, Frank Bass and Rita Beamish executives of bailed-out banks have made out personally to the tune of $1.6 billion. Huh?

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Changing the Game (Sunday, 12/21/08)
Many American schools and many American school districts really need work, but we can hope that whomever does manage to implement a plan of change in American public education won't, in the process, wreck those schools that have a deserved reputation for academic excellence.

Here's Changing the Game, a 73-page report from the Brookings Institution on the federal role in educational innovation.

Bush hands off to Obama, and the car companies stay in business--for now (Saturday, 12/20/08)
Deb Riechmann writes about the Bush administration's $17.4 billion in loans to the American automotive industry, and what may lie ahead after Obama takes office. According to the Bush plan, the automobile companies have a lot ahead of them between now and March, although the Obama administration will be free to change the rules once the new President takes office on January 20. Also, the Canadian government follows suit with emergency loans totaling $3.29 billion.

Meanwhile, Japan announces that it is pledging the equivalent of very big U. S. bucks to stimulate a worldwide economy that is in danger of slipping further into recession.

Is California going to lead the nation AGAIN? (Saturday, 12/20/08)
Marcus Wohlsen reports from San Francisco that California's unemployment rate was 8.4 percent in November.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Introduction to Geology from MIT (Saturday, 12/20/08)
If you believe that the two kinds of rock are ignominious and sedentary, it may be time for you to consult OpenCourseWare's Introduction to Geology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Also, you may be showing your age-related attitudes toward popular music more than your knowledge of geology.

But Bernie Madoff with $50 billion (Friday, 12/19/08)
Are Ponzi schemes encouraged by bailouts? We don't know either, but Utpal Bhattacharya thinks they may be.

New rules should make it less likely that you'll be feeling like you've been mugged by a credit card company (Thursday, 12/18/08)
Marcy Gordon writes from Washington that new federal regulations affecting the credit card industry should make life a bit easier for people who buy things with plastic. However, the companies will be trying to make up the lost revenue somehow, so the best protection still will be to pay off your debt as soon as possible and cut up your cards.

Similarities between the U.S. and China, and where they stop (Wednesday, 12/17/08)
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times and has developed an international reputation as a respected and creative expert on geopolitics and geoeconomics. He writes one of his latest columns from Hong Kong, and explains American and Chinese similarities, and how their trajectories differ.

Is troublesome, crushing deflation beginning to set in? (Tuesday, 12/16/08)
Consumer prices declined more than anticipated last month. Here's more from Washington, D. C. Bob Willis and Courtney Schlisserman write for Bloomberg News that housing starts had a very bad month too.

While severe deflation may make you feel better in the short-run, if you have money and want to buy something, in the long-run, it's no more fun for the overall economy than severe inflation.

The Treasury Department may appoint car czar with bankruptcy powers (Tuesday, 12/16/08)
While the Administration is likely to help the Detroit-based automotive companies still in business for a while, their plan may include a "car czar" with the power to force them into bankruptcy if they can't demonstrate viability by the end of March. However, by that time, there will be a new President and new Secretary of the Treasury, in all likelihood, so...? Incidentally, "car czar" is NOT the president of Afghanistan.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Investigating Atheism (Tuesday, 12/16/08)
The United States is an extremely religious country, in at least one sense. Most Americans say they believe in God, but when pushed a bit further, they tend to indicate wildly different meanings for the concept of "God." The old psycholinguistics mantra seems correct in this case: "Words don't have meanings; instead, people have meanings for words."

However, fundamentalist Christians often chafe at the idea that "God" is a concept at all. "Not the CONCEPT of 'God,' but GOD," some will say.

Of course, the notion that "God" is not a concept flies in the face of what we now know about how the human brain works. Whenever we think about something, we have no alternative but to think with concepts.

For example, there is a great deal of difference between the concept of "cat," say, and the creature that is purring and curled up on your lap. (We almost used "dog," in this example, instead of "cat," but thought that might seem excessively cute, because "dog" is "god" spelled backwards, and might imply things that we do not intend.)

However, it's all about the ease with which we can identify "empirical referents" for our concepts. In the case of the concept of "cat," it's very easy. We just point and say, "THAT critter. He's the kind of thing I'm talking about."

The concept of "God" is more problematic, because it's harder to explain just what we're referring to, particularly considering that many religious may not think that "empirical" even applies in this case.

Even that great intellectual fountain, protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, is said to have remarked that God doesn't "exist" in any normal sense, but, nonetheless, is the most important concept in history.

Incidentally, we claim advisedly that Niebuhr was an "intellectual fountain." He seemed to be one of those individuals who simply could not NOT be creative or productive. In fact, he THOUGHT that he may have written the famous "serenity prayer" used by Alcoholics Anonymous, but he wasn't sure. He dreamed up wonderful aphorisms like that all the time, so it wasn't necessary to claim any particular one in order to demonstrate his prowess.

Incidentally, what is the "serenity prayer?" "God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Author and artist Sarah Boxer has remarked that we permit others the "essence of power" when we allow them to choose or define our concepts for us. Psycholinguists would say that a concept such as "atheism" is one for which people have multiple meaning as well.

Here's Investigating Atheism from the University of Cambridge.

The Fed may change your life by changing credit card rules (Sunday, 12/14/08)
As we've suggested, borrowing money from a credit card company differs from borrowing it from a loan shark mostly in that the former probably won't break your knees if you don't pay up. However, significant credit card debt is capable of taking over your life, and your credit card company may do all it can to make that happen. The Federal Reserve may help a bit by changing the regulations.

The U. S. is in its most serious economic recession in decades, except North Dakota, that is (Sunday, 12/14/08)
If you think of Jed Clampett freezing nearly to death as he struggles to push his Model A through huge piles of snow each time you think of North Dakota, you're many decades out of date. Yes, they're having bad weather out there today, but New England had it a few days ago too.

A photograph of a commercial street in Fargo or Bismarck, say--both very nice communities overall--will look the same as one taken in nearly any prosperous city in the United States. Same chains, same restaurants, same big-box retailers, same everything, except that life and work in North Dakota is nicer than in a lot of other places.

If you like a big city now and then, you can drive from Fargo to Minneapolis-St. Paul on Interstate 94 in about three and one-half hours. You can be in Chicago after a few hours more.

Moreover, so far, at least, the grinding recession that is afflicting the United States and much of the rest of the world hasn't taken hold in North Dakota. In fact, there are many GOOD jobs that remain unfilled. Here's more from Monica Davey in Fargo for the New York Times.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Digital History (Sunday, 12/14/08)
Our BraveNewWorkWorld site is more than thirteen years old, and its NewWork News feature is nearly thirteen years old, so we probably have a right to list ourselves among the Internet's pioneers. At the very least, the Internet is a very different place now than it was when we started in October 1995 and January 1996, respectively.

However, most of us have been involved with digital technology in one way or another at least as long as the Internet has existed, even in its original limited, largely academic or governmental form, beginning in the late 1960s as ARPANET.

We're not sure whether it is literally true or not, but the old Sun Microsystems corporate slogan, "The Internet Changes Everything," seems fairly accurate. At least, it certainly has changed and continues to change a lot. For example, if you explore the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Digital History site, you will see how the new technologies are contributing to our understanding of the past.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: State of World Population 2008 (Saturday, 12/13/08)
It's likely that most of the world's major problems at the moment can be traced to one grim fact: there are just too damned many people on the Earth.

As we've pointed out numerous times, it took tens of thousands of years for world population to reach a single billion around the year 1840, but, now, less than 170 years later, there are nearly 7 billion people attempting to live on this planet. That is, we've accumulated six times as many people in only 168 years as it took tens of thousands of years to accumulate up until around 1840 or so.

Moreover, most of world's current population seems to want to live like the small minority of people who are fortunate enough to be residents in one of the world's few "islands" of great prosperity.

Problem is, the United States, which has been one of these "islands" for several decades, contains approximately 4 1/2 percent of the world's population but been using about 25 percent of the energy consumed in the world each year.

You can use fourth grade arithmetic to determine that, if the remainder of the globe's population were to consume energy as America has been doing, the world would have entirely insurmountable energy and climate change problems. Earth quickly would run out of fossil fuels and, essentially, the planet would become another Venus in no time.

Still, while the 2008 report from the United Nations on the State of World Population contains plenty of reason for depression, there is reason for hope as well.

Bailout bill fails in the Senate: auto companies move to "Plan B," if they have a "Plan B" (Friday, 12/12/08)
It appears that GM's "Plan B" is to request Chapter 11 protection, which may be the end of the United Auto Workers. General Motors already has hired bankruptcy attorneys, so we may have an opportunity to see if consumers will buy an automobile from a bankrupt company.

Ford says it has enough cash to get it through 2009, which brings up an important question: Why did Ford's CEO come to beg from Congress in the first place?

At any rate, the measure passed the House and was support by the Bush administration, but some Republicans in the Senate placed insurmountable obstacles in the way of the automotive bailout bill.

Among other things, it demonstrates George W. Bush's status as a "lame duck"-- some would say "dead duck." None of the Congressional Republicans fear him anymore, and don't mind opposing him.

Vice President Cheney is quoted as saying that, if Congress doesn't pass the bailout bill and send it to Bush for his signature, it's "Herbert Hoover time." Meanwhile, according to Ken Thomas and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, the Bush administration is reviewing its options now, and considering helping to keep G. M. and Chrysler operating with some of the TARP money, at least into the new year, when there will be a new President and new Congress, perhaps thinking that the failing American auto companies are more likely to be rescued then, along with the millions of jobs that connect to them.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Park Service Centennial Initiative (Wednesday, 12/10/08)
It will be another eight years before the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, but it's probably good for America to be uncharacteristically early.

Anyway, it's almost 137 years since the first National Park was established. It was Yellowstone in 1872, when the American population was nearly 1/10 what it is now. In fact, it was very good that the U. S. got an early start at that time. Otherwise, all those areas set aside as National Parks would be paved parking lots by now.

Here is a description of the National Park Service Centennial Initiative.

Illinois governor's threat is dangerous, according to a former official of the FDIC (Tuesday, 12/9/08)
Governor Rod Blagojevich has threatened that his state will stop doing business with Bank of America because of its involvement in the closing of that Illinois plant where its former workers are engaging in a sit-in. However, the Governor has his own problems, according to this report today by Mike Robinson in Chicago.

Incidentally, we're a bit more disoriented than usual today. Richard Daley is Mayor of Chicago, James Hoffa is President of the Teamsters union, and George Bush is President of the United States. WHAT YEAR IS IT?

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Newseum (Tuesday, 12/9/08)
Next to the Canadian Embassy and within sight of both the Capitol Building and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. is an important addition to D. C.'s public buildings and touristy area. It's the Newseum, which every American should visit, although, at the moment, admission is fairly pricey, and you could spend many days there, if you want to read everything.

It's also where ABC News conducts its Sunday morning program, "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." George is about the same age as the President-elect and has a political background himself. Mr. Snuffalopogus--er, sorry, wrong television program--Mr. Stephanopoulos, in addition to his big-time journalistic credentials, also has a political background himself. He served as communications director in the first Clinton administration, but he left early.

It is said that the character played by Rob Lowe on TV's "The West Wing" several years ago was Mr. Lowe's version of George, but who knows?

The underside of the hi-tech revolution (Sunday, 12/7/08)
Not only is the Internet connected to the sewer, it also has generated a big underground economy. The New York Times' John Markoff has important details. As somebody once quipped in a bittersweet way, crime doesn't pay--nice hours, though.

November job losses may have sealed the deal (Saturday, 12/6/08)
The prospect of the millions of workers who depend on the American automotive industry joining the ranks of the unemployed may have scared the daylights out of Congress as the CEOs of what was once called America's "Big 3" testified this week.

Congress wants to keep the car companies in business, at least until their long-term fate is somebody else's responsibility. The help package that may clear the current Congress can keep the companies in business while "kicking the can down the road" until a new president and a new Congress will have to do the "heavy lifting," to mix metaphors and use a couple of cliches which seem popular at the moment.

The current Congress seems poised to provide less than half as much as the automotive CEOs asked for this time. They asked for less when they testified in Congress a couple of weeks ago. My gosh, how much will it be in a couple of months?

Incidentally, get used to the term "car czar," because you're likely to hear it a lot during the next several months. Thomas Ferraro and John Crawley have a good deal more about Congressional strings attached to big loans to the American auto companies.

To keep things in perspective, remember that a "billion" is a THOUSAND million. Congress apparently wants to loan the car companies fifteen THOUSAND million dollars of taxpayer money.

The only thing that can make this seem like less money is to think about the SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLION DOLLARS set aside recently with the intention of holding the financial system together. So far, this great generosity with your money hasn't helped too much, and a major part of the reason is that nobody really understands how the new global system works.

Why has President Bush been displaying a "luke warm" attitude toward a "bailout," seeming to prefer Chapter 11 bankruptcy instead? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the auto companies would be able to throw out their contracts with the UAW, and, perhaps, kill off the union entirely?

A new bridge or dam or highway may be built near you, and you may help build it (Saturday, 12/6/08)
The new president wants to spend--er, make that "invest--the most money in public works since the Eisenhower administration authorized the great Interstate Highway System. The fact that Eisenhower administration authorized the building of the great Interstate Highway System. The fact that Eisenhower was a Republican may have something to do with it this emphasis, rather than saying that it would be the largest public works program since that authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Some economic historians are saying that Roosevelt's fiscal programs didn't end the Great Depression, because he was too timid in his spending. It took World War II to make the Depression go away.

Also, Eisenhower was a national hero during the Second World War, and both major parties wanted him as their candidate for president. It is said that he finally chose to run as a Republican because, given Democratic domination for so long, he was afraid that the United States was in danger of becoming a one-party country.

Hands out, but empty-handed (Friday, 12/5/08)
CEOs from the once "big 3" were back in Washington today asking the federal government to rescue their companies, but they were forced to drive back to Detroit without the loans they sought. General Motors is worst off, expecting that, without a federal loan, they will run out of money before the New Year.

But, as television's Chris Matthews suggests, the federal government is willing to provide tons of money to people who shower before work, but not a small fraction of that amount to people who shower after work. This may be a very bad time to lose all the jobs associated with the American automotive industry. We'll see.

The news today has been filled with stories about job losses, which continue to accumulate, and GM is one of the employers who has been in the news for reasons not directly related to testimony in Congress. General Motors will cut 2,000 jobs in three of its factories.

However, job losses have been occurring across most of the American economy. For instance, Worthington Industries will slice another 300 jobs, while hi-tech leader Intel may be getting ready to cut thousands of jobs, as much as 10 percent of its global workforce.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: London School of Economics (Thursday, 12/4/08)
The London School of Economics is part of the University of London. Technically, we should call it the London School of Economics and Political Science, but most people use the shortened version instead, or simply its initials--LSE.

Mick Jagger is better known for being a 65-year-old rocker who still prances around on stages all over the world than for the fact that he once attended LSE, but he did. Sir Michael Philip Jagger has demonstrated that he DOES know something about money--at least, how to make it--but we don't know if it's because he once attended this most prestigious institution or for other reasons.

The London School of Economics is regarded as one of the best higher educational institutions in the world, while the Rolling Stones is regarded as one of the best rock & roll bands in the world, and that's about all we can say about that.

Is what's bad for the automakers THAT bad for the American economy? (Wednesday, 12/3/08)
A top Chrysler executive says that keeping the automakers in business could be what stands between the U. S. economy and a depression

Oh, yes--you may have heard all through school that a second Great Depression couldn't happen, because the government would step in and prevent it next time.

Maybe what they should have told students over all those years was that the depression of the 1930s couldn't happen again because the 1930s won't happen again, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't have another depression for different reasons.

It's a little chilling, though, to recognize that it took World War II to end the Great Depression last time. For those who have forgotten, there's never been anything else quite like the Second World War over the tens of thousands of years that modern humans have lived on this planet. What will it take next time?

When traveling by private jet and lacking business plans, it's $25 billion, but... (Tuesday, 12/2/08)
...Traveling by car with business plans in hand, it's $34 billion. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Tom Krisher report from Washington on the latest appearance of American automotive CEOs in Congress, saying that the amount of money that the auto chiefs say they need to stay in business has increased.

Incidentally, Auto sales in the United States have hit their lowest level in decades. Not only are Americans deciding to get a few more miles out of their betsymobiles when their jobs might be in jeopardy, willing customers haven't been able to get auto loans.

However, the CEOs say they're willing to restructure their companies if they can get the taxpayer loans. For instance, they're willing to fire a lot of people. Er, wait a minute, that's not what those hundreds of "automotive engineers" on Capitol Hill, who may be dictating what the companies build, really had in mind.

Incidentally, most of our older readers will remember how well things turned out when politicians in Moscow were deciding what Soviet industry could build, but, at least, American politicians are elected.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Association of Jewish Libraries (Tuesday, 12/2/08)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, believes that religions have been "black swans." That is, their beginnings have been highly improbable, but they have had broad influence on the history of mankind. Like other highly improbable events, people have been almost contortionistic in making retrospective interpretations about their presumed inevitability.

It seems clear now that modern humans have lived on the Earth for tens of thousands of years and that many religions have been common throughout this period, but we're most familiar with those that have fairly "recent" origins, say, during the past several thousand years. In fact, religions seem to "work" best for people if their origins seem remote and are fairly indistinct, making them more like Rorschach ink blots, giving free reign to retrospective interpretations.

One of our "modern" religions is Judaism, and the Association of Jewish Libraries is responsible for a dynamite web site.

It's now official: The American economy has been receding for a year (Monday, 12/1/08)
According to the experts who decide such things, the American economy has been getting smaller since December 2007, and investors don't like the news one bit.

For years, we've been telling people that stock prices will come back, because they always have. If they don't, it will be the least of our problems. Well, now, maybe they're the least of our problems. Is the American standard of living undergoing a permanent decline? We don't know either.

However, even though a case can be made for the current financial crisis beginning in the United States, it's surely not just an American problem now. It's not quite the case that the rest of the world gets pneumonia whenever the U. S. gets the sniffles, but, for the moment, at least, the American economy continues to drive the global economy. It appears that much of the world is participating in a global economic slump--at least those parts that aren't in what appears to be permanent depression.

Crude oil prices decline again (Monday, 12/1/08)
OPEC ministers have decided not to cut output again in order to increase prices. Why? Lower prices have been occurring because the world economy is in recession, but they also help deter efforts to develop alternative energy sources and energy independence. If about all you have to sell is oil and nobody wants to buy it, it won't be very good for business.

At any rate, oil is now selling for nearly $100 LESS per barrel than it was selling for only a few months ago.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Financial Times: Podcasts (Monday, 12/1/08)
Previous generations listened to the radio, mostly because there were no mass media alternatives other than film. People still listen to the radio, but there are also iPod listeners. We've cited the Financial Times paper edition many times, but the famed print publication now offers Podcasts on the Internet.