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.

Dr. Raynor wonders if you remember this (Monday 3/30/09)
Dr. William Raynor is a regular BNWW columnist whose latest piece always is accessible from our front page. He's also a professor of finance at the State University of New York.

He may also wonder about our memories. This article appeared in the New York Times ten years ago, in 1999.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Arabic Script: Mightier than the Sword (Monday 3/30/09)
According to the latest data, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, as well as in the United States. Moreover, there's probably not a better time for Americans and others in the West to learn as much as possible about Islamic cultures in which Arabic script plays a more significant role than script in the West.

The famed British Museum, treasure-trove of the world, offers an online exhibition that has its highly interactive elements: Arabic Script: Mightier than the Sword.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Coping with a Disaster or Traumatic Event (Saturday 3/28/09)
Coping with a Disaster or Traumatic Event comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so the kind of traumatic event that is occurring in Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota is not what the scholars who put this web site together had in mind. Nonetheless, their timing is good.

Also, because it focuses on coping processes and mental health issues, it's perfectly relevant to the flooding that is going on at the moment in a state that has been an exception to the economic recession. Most of the people directly affected might readily trade recession for flooding, though, if given the opportunity.

Incidentally, it's "CENTERS for Disease Control and Prevention," not "center." Another common misconception is "Johns Hopkins University" in Baltimore, which was not named after somebody named "John Hopkins."

More glimmers of hope (Thursday 3/26/09)
A number of economists have indicated that they expect the current recession to end by year's end. According to experts at the University of California at Los Angeles, the economy should recover by next year, but, as Martin Crutsinger reports, it's not out of the woods yet.

Incidentally, news items such as these can assist the recovery, because the problems are mostly psychological in the first place. Under these circumstances, descriptions from major politicians, such as the President, or news reports, can be self-fulfilling. Notice that President Obama has stopped talking about how bad the economy is, and, instead, seems to be emphasizing hope again. Remember the relative impact of President Carter's "malaise" remarks vs. President Reagan's "shining city on a hill" speech?

Still, unemployment continues to increase in the United States, but that's expected, despite the still small-scale good news.

Somebody in China has been reading Thomas Friedman's books (Thursday 3/26/09)
When New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman uses the term "ET," he's not talking about "extraterrestrials." Instead, he's referring to "energy technology," more specifically the new technologies that can be exploited in order to achieve energy independence in the U. S. and also to tap inexhaustible sources that won't wreck the atmosphere and oceans. He would like to see America lead in this area, but this report from Wall Street Journal writer Shara Tibken in New York suggests that the U. S. may be slipping behind.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Poynter Online: Reporting, Writing & Editing (Thursday 3/26/09)
Even before the Great Recession, the Internet seemed to be bringing traditional print and electronic journalism to its knees. Unfortunately for newspapers, broadcast news organizations, etc., the Internet quickly is becoming the most efficient and least costly way of distributing information of all kinds, and we can expect this to continue.

The big economic downturn has come at a particularly unfortunate time for newspapers, radio and television stations, as well as other companies that depend on revenue from other businesses. Business operations have wound down considerably, bringing advertising revenues to historic lows. Some media companies already have gone out of business, and there are likely to be more.

The ":" could be moved to make Poynter Online: Reporting, Writing & Editing into Poynter: Online Reporting, Writing & Editing, because many people already are getting their news from online sources, and there will be more over the years ahead. For instance, who on Earth would have expected Yahoo! to become a major news source a few years ago?

As a consequence, though, it's particularly important that people who intend to inform the public online study what Poynter and other journalistic organizations have to say.

EU President probably would remind us what the road to hell is paved with (Wednesday 3/25/09)
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek is current European Union president as well, and isn't enthusiastic about U. S. President Barack Obama's efforts to spend America's way out of the Great Recession.

Speaking of Europe, Norway's central bank has cut its interest rate to 2 percent.

Some of the more recent job cuts (Wednesday 3/25/09)
Arbitron intends to reduce its full-time workforce by about 10 percent. Arbitron measures radio audiences, but since the traditional electronic media have been having about as much difficulty as the print media, business has been down. Commercial radio and television have other businesses for customers, and business activity in the U. S. has been down considerably during the toughest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that another money management firm is having trouble. Western Asset intends to cut about 10 percent of its workforce as well.

Also, it's probably not a great time to be in the payroll management business. In fact, Automatic Data Processing is cutting its sales forecast as their client companies shrink their payrolls.

Will "cold fusion" provide unlimited safe energy? (Tuesday 3/24/09)
There's no shortage of energy. Albert Einstein pointed out that the matter we see all around us is sort of a "frozen" energy, and that enormous amounts of it are tied up in the smallest bit of matter. That's what the famous E = MC2 formula is all about.

However, releasing that energy is the hard part. For instance, while nuclear fission can be made to occur, it's a very dangerous process, and the people of Hiroshima, for instance, didn't find it to be particularly helpful. But, fusion is something else, and can be made to occur too, but at very high temperatures.

Fusion at low temperatures would be nice, and U. S. Navy researchers may have made a breakthrough. However, remember that philosopher Santayana remarked that "skepticism is the chastity of the intellect," and many scientists believe that there is still much to be skeptical about.

That lowest rung can be hard to stand on too (Sunday 3/22/09)
Julia Preston is in Morristown, Tennessee tells how immigrants are finding how insecure the American workplace can be.

Immigrants also are worrying that their English language classes could fall victim to the economic crunch and reduced budgets.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Transforming Agricultural Education (Sunday 3/22/09)
Generations of American farmers have farmed essentially the way previous generations have farmed. It's how "culture" provides solutions for individuals, given their extremely brief life spans. If each generation had to reinvent everything from A to Z, they'd hardly ever have time enough to get beyond B or C.

However, modern agriculture must be research-based, which means that farmers can no longer learn most of what they need to know simply by growing up on a farm. It also means that agricultural education must be retooled now and then in order to keep up too. Here's Transforming Agricultural Education from the National Research Council. Retailing companies offer alternatives to card check (Saturday 3/21/09)
One of the hottest arguments in the labor field lately relates to union organization and "card check." Several major retailers say they are offering alternatives that can help avoid a deadlock.

AIG has become a dangerous place to work (Friday 3/20/09)
Don't show off your AIG badge, even if you work for a division that hasn't been in the news lately. AIG employees have been receiving a warning from their bosses. Also, some AIG executives are feeling particularly threatened.

Incidentally, are the general public and Members of Congress using the word "bonus" in the same way as people at AIG? Are they all referring to the same things?

We don't know either, but it's a common problem. As psycholinguists like to say, "Words don't have meanings; people have meanings for words." When I use a word, I use it according to the meanings I have for it. When you hear me use a word, you interpret it according to the meanings you have for it.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: National Institute on Aging (Thursday 3/19/09)
One of the avantages of being old is that one doesn't have to worry about dying young anymore. In fact, the great majority of people DO grow old, so, sooner or later, most individuals become convinced that they were mistaken years earlier: that the most INTERESTING problems are not those of youth, but of old age.

The National Institutes of Health have a web site that concentrates on research on the aging process. Here is the National Institute on Aging.

Why there is less fear of deflation now (Wednesday 3/18/09)
Of course, runaway inflation can be devastating to an economy, but the opposite can be rough too. During recent months, prices on many things have been falling, causing many economists to fear that America has been beginning a deflationary spiral.

However, Martin Crutsinger in Washington reports that new Labor Department data indicate that consumer prices rose more in February than they have in almost twenty years. Rather than striking fear into the hearts of most expert observers, though, these price increases are reassuring instead.

The "down payment" probably is just that, so get used to it (Tuesday 3/17/09)
The estimated cost of reforming health care in the United States so as to make coverage universal could be enough to make you sick. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar report that it could amount to as much as $1.5 trillion during the next decade.

Why spending isn't necessarily easy (Tuesday 3/17/09)
When Bill Gates decided to switch from making lots of money to giving lots of it away, he remarked that the latter can be about as difficult as the former. It isn't necessarily easy to spend more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars either. Here's more from Matt Apuzzo and Brett Blackledge in Washington.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Presidents in Waiting (Tuesday 3/17/09)
First, a vice president should be somebody who is capable of doing the job. Not everybody is qualified, just as not everybody is capable of running Coca Cola, but far fewer people are capable of being President of the United States. This is not about ideology, but competence.

Despite the fact that many presidents apparently feel that they are invulnerable, or, at least, highly unlikely to die in office, a considerable number of vice presidents have become presidents. Still, many have not, and few Americans are likely to be able to list all of the vice presidents in American history. In fact, many Americans may not be able to recognize all of their names.

However, you might be interested in seeing their pictures. The National Portrait Gallery's Presidents in Waiting, which is made up of portraits of and interviews with vice presidents.

But that was then; this is now (Sunday 3/15/09)
The Obama White House is saying that the American economy is fundamentally sound, which is what the President's opponent said--unsuccessfully, as it turned out--during the campaign. For people who don't think politically, let's point out something about how things work. Previously, it was about VOTES. Now, it's about POLICY. Success in both campaigning and office-holding depends greatly upon public perceptions, but--well, you know.

Action pledges from the G-20 (Saturday 3/14/09)
What on Earth is the "G-20," you might ask? The G-7 is made up of the world's richest industrial nations, or, at least, it used to be. China may have the third-largest economy in the world now, so that could change things a bit. Perhaps you've also heard about the G-8, which is supposed to be the seven richest industrial nations on the planet, plus Russia, whom everybody has learned not to ignore during the past century or so. As a consequence, the big Russian bear has been given a seat at lots of tables.

The G-20 is made up of what may be the richest industrial nations plus several developing countries. Finance ministers from these countries have been meeting in England, and Jane Wardell reports that they have pledged to do what they can to cope with the international financial crisis.

Here's a transcript of U. S. Treasury Secretary Geithner's talk to the group.

Here's a state that Bernie would love (Saturday 3/14/09)
Even before he "Madoff" with $50 billion or more. Is Florida really one huge Ponzi scheme? Neil Macdonald seems to think so, and explains his reasons.

Where do the world's billionaires live? (Saturday 3/14/09)
We aren't telling, but, of course, most of their houses are hidden from us as well. However, according to this report, Warren Buffett's residence isn't typical of those most of the world's richest individuals call home.

Speaking of housing, mere mortals might be more interested in what a mortgage regulator has to say about Fannie and Freddie's "affordable-housing goals."

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: World Bank: Biodiversity (Saturday 3/14/09)
The World Bank is engaged in WHAT? Well, it makes sense, because a major part of the Bank's work is economic development. As a consequence of its mission, it provides more financing for biodiversity than any other organization.

The meaning of "Swiss bank" will be different from now on (Friday 3/13/09)
Bank secrecy in Europe is giving way under pressure. Here's more from Andrew Willis of BusinessWeek magazine.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Freedom of the Press (Friday 3/13/09)
What will "freedom of the press" mean once there's no longer a press? American newspapers are laying off employees at a furious rate, and even famous papers are going out of business. Given the increasing prominence of the Internet, there has been considerable argument in the United States during recent years over the definition of "journalist." If the public has a right to know, who will tell them? Bloggers?

Freedom House has been monitoring freedom of the press around the world for years. The organization was established in 1941.

Another auto industry crisis could bring down the so-called "Big Three" anyway (Thursday 3/12/09)
General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler maintain automobile ASSEMBLY plants. But, the parts that they assemble have to come from someplace. David Kiley and David Welch report that, despite what Washington does to "bail out" the U.S.-based auto companies, there could be a devastating "cascade" of parts supplier failures which could bring down the American automotive companies anyway.

Suddenly, the President is in conflict with the teachers unions (Wednesday 3/11/09)
Of course, these are the same unions that are thought to help elect Democratic candidates, including the new President. It may be that the Obama team believes that most teachers won't feel that they have anyplace else to go in the next presidential election, so this is a good time to take actions that could make President Obama relatively unpopular with them.

At any rate, Libby Quaid reports from Washington that the new President favors merit pay and charter schools.

Incidentally, Erika Lovley reports that Obama might be O'Bama afterall, or, at least, sort of.

According to the Sacramento Business Journal, Citigroup and GM are in danger of losing their slots on the Dow Jones industrial average and could be replaced by Cisco and Google. After yesterday's profit report and stock surge, though, it's possible that Citigroup could be a bit more secure than it has been recently.

Incidentally, the Dow has been long accused of being unrepresentative of publicly traded stocks, even though it's typically the one observers watch most closely.

Deflation in China (Tuesday 3/10/09)
Li Yanping and Nipa Piboontanasawat report for Bloomberg News that consumer prices in China have declined for the first time in seven years.

Incidentally, the authors indicate that China has the world's third-largest economy. For years, Germany has been regarded as having the third-largest, after the U. S. and Japan, respectively, while China, with its breathtaking recent economic growth rates, has attained the number four position.

However, Li Yanping and Nipa Piboontanasawat may be correct, considering that Germany's economy has been shrinking during the recession, while China's apparently has continued to grow, although not as spectacularly as it has during recent years.

The relative market for optimism vs. pessimism (Tuesday 3/10/09)
The World Bank says that we are facing the worst economic mess since the Great Depression, and the President of the United States has been talking quite a bit about how bad things are too.

It all brings to mind the relative effectiveness of President Carter's "malaise" speech vs. President Reagan's "city on a hill" remarks. The first seemed to make the public mood even darker, while the second seemed to help turn things around, even though Carter's comments may have more accurately reflected the realities of the time than Reagan's.

Presidents and other high public officials aren't able to describe social conditions without influencing them. We'll say that again. No, once is enough, but we believe that research shows that it's true.

Ben Stein made similar remarks in his CBS Sunday Morning commentary the other day. Ben was trained as a lawyer and economist, once worked as a White House speach writer, and is a successful actor, television game show host, and comedian. He's also the son of Herb Stein, a former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. Incidentally, here's an article by Ben on college graduation during tough economic times.

Along related lines, some companies are still out searching for the right workers. If you're a nurse, engineer, or pharmacist, you're probably among the people many companies would like to employ.

Another Ben--Bernanke, in this case--says that the recession could end this year, but with a caveat.

The current bear hasn't been stomping through all sectors with the same violence (Monday 3/9/09)
The bear market is nearly two years old, but some sectors have been hit harder than others. Here's more from Murray Coleman.

Speaking of stocks---and this may require that you swallow more aspirin--here's an interpretation of Berkshire Hathaway's price. Even after its recent decline, you might have some difficulty buying a single share.

Not just a mathematical concept (Monday 3/9/09)
The concept of "inflection point" comes from differential calculus, but probably has been given most public prominence by former Intel CEO Andy Grove who has talked about it a lot on television and in his books. When the concept is applied to the "real world," it can be either encouraging or alarming, depending. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman thinks that America may be nearing an inflection point. You can decide how scary his ideas are.

Budget director says U. S. economy is "weak" (Sunday 3/8/09)
No kidding. Look at all the empty storefronts in American strip malls and you can get an impression of how much unused capacity there is in the U. S. economy right now. Nonetheless, we would be foolish not to pay attention to nearly anything that a president's budget director has to say. Here are some of the remarks made by Peter Orszag.

If you're a nurse, you're in danger of being trampled by employers wanting to hire you (Sunday 3/8/09)
To say that there is more nursing need than nurses in the United States is to risk historic understatement. There has been a national shortage of professionals trained to care for the sick or injured for many years. Will Dunham in Washington discusses how this shortage is affecting the U. S. healthcare system as a whole.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Cornell Modern Indonesia Collection (Sunday 3/8/09)
Indonesia was the home of the current President of the United States for four years during his childhood. It is a country made up of approximately 17,500 islands, has the fourth largest population in the world, and has more Muslims than any other nation. According to some research, a volcanic eruption in that part of the world may have initiated the so-called "Dark Ages" in the West.

If you like to know more about this very important country, Cornell University makes it possible--even quite easy--with its Cornell Modern Indonesia Collection.

Call it the Great Recession, if you like, but, so far, at least, it has no resemblance to the Great Depression (Saturday 3/7/09)
Yes, the U. S. unemployment rate has hit 8.1 percent, its highest level in a quarter century. On the other hand, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment hit 25 percent, and there were no safety nets--no unemployment insurance, nothing.

Still, something historic is going on, and the American economy that comes out of these troubling economic times is likely to have little resemblance to the economy that went in. Here's some analysis from Peter Goodman and Jack Healy, as well as from Liz Wolgemuth.

Americans start spending and stop saving so much. Is it high time? (Friday 3/6/09)
Americans haven't been spending lately in what John Maynard Keynes might have called "false frugality," but which most consumers would call "perfectly reasonable," under the circumstances. Still, given that consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product, it's a serious thing when Americans stop spending. However, that may be over, or, t least, we may be seeing the beginning of the end.

Meanwhile, things might be beginning to improve in China too. Here's more from Joe Mcdonald in Beijing.

Britain is short of, ah, CLOWNS? (Friday 3/6/09)
Yes, but it's because of stringent new immigration policies. William Lee Adams explains from London.

The doctor is in, er, on, that is (Friday 3/6/09)
Elizabeth Holmes describes how some professionals have decided to take advantage of the Internet's ability to make geography irrelevant.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures (Friday 3/6/09)
Are you interested in long-term global trends? If not, why not? They have to do with humanity's future, after all. The Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures is a computer simulation system for educators and researchers.

NOT an encouraging word from Google's Schmidt (Thursday 3/5/09)
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says that the American economy's situation if "pretty dire." He made his remarks at a Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in California.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve doesn't expect the U. S. economy to improve anytime soon either.

Why Buffett's "golden years" may not be so golden (Thursday 3/5/09)
Warren Buffett is in the second half of his seventies and his company, Berkshire Hathaway, had its single worst year in 2008. Aaron Task has been thinking about where Buffett went wrong and his "fundamental weakness."

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Inside the Meltdown (Thursday 3/5/09)
The PBS television program Frontline may be able to help you understand America's current economic crisis and how it developed if you watch "Inside the Meltdown" and then examine the companion web site.

The Administration's mortgage unveiling (Wednesday 3/4/09)
If it works as planned, the Obama administrations new program will help 9 million mortgage holders to remain in their homes. In his recent speech to the Congress, the President said that his administration would release the details of his mortgage rescue plan "two weeks from today," and that's today.

More details have been made available today as promised, but additional questions remain--even though, as Maurna Desmond reports for Forbes magazine, it's a "sweeter" package than originally thought.

If you need help with your mortgage, will you find it in the Administration's new program? Here's what Les Christie in New York has to say, and here's a useful Q&A from J.W. Elphinstone.

Incidentally, a new study finds that 20 percent of the homeowners are "upside down" or "under water," depending on what you may want to call the condition of owing more than your house is worth.

We've already explained why we don't think "homeowner" is the appropriate term for somebody who holds a mortgage, particularly if their equity is slight or even nonexistent. Whoever owns the mortgage really owns the house, not whoever happens to be living in it.

Are we already in a "depression?" (Wednesday 3/4/09)
It may not be so much a matter of what it IS, but what we CHOOSE TO CALL IT. Moreover, you may or may not care what somebody chooses to call it. The realities of a lousy economy can be felt by people far and wide, whatever its name.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Children's Rights (Wednesday 3/4/09)
Children have more legal rights in some parts of the world than in others. For example, we all hear frequent horror stories about child combat soldiers in some regions or about international trafficking in children for sexual purposes.

The Law Library of Congress examines and compares Children's Rights in sixteen globally influential nations.

The Great Recession, or a "garden variety" depression? (Monday 3/2/09)
The Great Depression wasn't the only one in American history, but, because of its severity plus the fact that there still are people alive who remember it, it may be the one most of people's minds right now. Here's more from Tom Raum and Daniel Wagner in Washington. Meanwhile, Martin Crutsinger says that new data on spending and manufacturing emphasize that more pain lies ahead.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Mountain West Digital Library (Monday 3/2/09)
Some sites are so large and resource-rich that you might feel that you'll never have time for doing anything else again in your life except to explore one of them. BNWW is large, and we've been told by various people that they spend several hours each time they visit, but it's not THAT large.

However, one site that might possibly qualify is Mountain West Digital Library which has been put together by a large consortium of universities, colleges, museums, and history organizations from an important region of the United States.

Putin's warning (Sunday 3/1/09)
Some years ago, many people in the West managed to convince themselves that Russia was on the road to becoming a democratic capitalist state following decades as a highly centralized country, both with respect to political power and economics.

However, it seems clear now that Russia isn't building an increasingly democratic society; in fact, the opposite seems to be occurring. Former KGB officer Vladimir Putin has been actively consolidating power and making himself look more and more like the latest in a long line of authoritarian Russian Czars.

It does seem clear that Russia has been on the road to becoming far more prosperous than it has ever been, particularly when crude oil prices were so high, because the country is a major oil producer. However, a severe global recession is going on now which has driven both demand and prices down. Putin has warned his political opposition not to take advantage of social discontent because of much lower oil revenues.

Incidentally, democracy certainly has been in its ascendancy during recent years throughout the world, and its has been assumed by many in the West that long-term economic prosperity depends on a democratic political system.

However, this notion doesn't explain Singapore's success. Moreover, China has been undergoing an historic experiment by combining a good deal of individual economic freedom with highly centralized authoritarian politics. Given America's troubled economy and the fact that the world's economic problems appear to have started in the United States, Russia has been taking fairly full advantage of any opportunity to stick a finger in Uncle Sam's eye.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Rules for the New Reality (Sunday 3/1/09)
These rules apply during good times and bad, so they're worth considering at any time. Here are some things that it's reasonable to expect from your financial advisor, as well as some things that are altogether unreasonable to expect, however you're probably more likely to think about them during hard times such as the times we're going through now. Here are Rules for the New Reality