Non-Science Notes with Only Fifteen Shopping Days Left (Hurry, Hurry)

When All That's Left is Blogging:

Fifteen shopping days left in a holiday season that hasn't been exactly cheerful. October unemployment rates came in at 6.7% nationwide. Not included in that number are hundreds of thousands of people per month who stopped looking for work or took part time positions but needed full-time jobs. In some states the situation is worse. Michigan and Rhode Island have 9.3% unemployment, California has 8.2%, South Carolina has 8.0%.

While grabbing coffee yesterday, I noticed once-were-businessmen arriving, full of hustle bustle habits, who then sat and read the paper from end to end, no better place to go. One man began by pouring over the obituaries, which I guess is upbeat than a 7AM perusal of the business section.

Fortunately, just in time for media business sections to be all about "severe recession", economists have now OK'ed the use of the term "recession". The soon to be bygone business section, that is. The Chicago Tribune recently reported layoffs at Citigroup, United, Wyeth, Allergen, 3M, Sony, at the NFL, in the travel industry, in the real estate and service sectors. The Red Cross even laid off people.

Of course then the Chicago Tribune announced its own bankruptcy. Not altogether unforeseen, Sam Zell's highly leveraged takeover never did bode well for the news. I, for one, am disheartened by the financially plagued New York Times, the now bankrupt Los Angeles Times, the Tribune, and many others. Will we have to depend on "blogs"? I'm not sure I could get all my news online, even if investigative journalism in media hadn't significantly slipped recently.

Ariana Huffington told Jon Stewart: that blogging is a "first draft". "First thoughts, best thoughts." She tried to get Stewart to blog (for her). "Why should I give you...?" -- Stewart started. Then he got a hold of himself to politely demure that whatever was left in his brain after TV was "dreck". Not a blogger, or won't dilute his brand? Arianna's also recruiting unemployed bankers to "blog the recession."

Huffington's blog definition reminded me of those written by Andrew Sullivan, who explained the appeal of blogs in the The Atlantic magazine recently: "For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud."

Meanwhile, In the Land of Too Big to Fail:

Lawmakers publicly chided the automakers for their arrogance and forced them to drive to Washington in their own vehicles, albeit "concept cars". Congress is now rewarding such good behavior by unfolding their hands from behind their backs to reveal a $15 billion dollar gold star and a "car czar".

Usually the media labels the manager of a state's auto fleet a "car czar", or they dub Lee Iaccoco, or some Nascar race car driver a "car czar". But back in 1992 Automotive News actually clamored for President Clinton to hire a "car czar" to oversee "clear policies", and to "coordinate regulations". To sum it up, the magazine wrote: "Like it or not, we always have an industrial policy; right now, it is chaotic, to the great harm of the industry and of the economy." Of course that idea didn't fly, as one reader wrote in "Depend on market, not a car czar":

"...you'll never hear Washington intellectuals admit the marketplace is superior to federal meddling because that would mean admitting their own superfluousness (Nov. 30, 1992)

We're all real clear about superfluousness 15 years later. Or are we? In the current deal, automakers and Republicans have insisted on removing one important measure the Democrats tried write into the law. The measure would have barred automakers accepting federal loans from suing states seeking to impose tougher auto-emission standards.

California and more than a dozen other states tried to pass stricter emissions rules this year, and were rebuffed by the EPA, auto and oil industries. It was too tough they said, the technology was unavailable. Now, two of those auto manufacturers claim in their business plans that they could surpass the California standard ASAP.

Since Barack Obama would probably allow California its waiver, the automakers aren't quite as technically challenged as they were earlier this year when they fought tooth and nail against CAFE standards.

Thomas Friedman tells us that electric cars will upend this nonsense.

Recession Proof Banks:

While many business sink in the economy, some still do fine. Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, find themselves the belles of the talk show TV circuit. The Financial Times still publishes its glossy magazine "How To Spend It" for all the princesses and dukes in its audience, just as if it were 2005. The Financial Times hasn't declared bankruptcy.

Still other institutions pull out all the stops for lavish holiday parties. First Republic Bank, owned by Merrill Lynch, which was bought in a fire sale by Bank of America, apparently threw a lavish holiday spread over three floors of the San Francisco Symphony last weekend. The blow out party has been the talk of the west coast. Sushi stations, prime rib and lamb stations, tuxedoed violin players on spiral staircases, a cookie making station and "7 or 8 bar stations with a wonderful high end selection of wines and champagne". Hearing it all described so gushingly, it was hard not to think -- Titanic.

Hard to believe that Bank of America, one of the "too big to fail" financial institutions, is now strapped for equity and analysts have now downgraded the stock to "underweight".

Of course institutions who squander taxpayers money once, will do it again. We're reminded of A.I.G., who once their bailout was assured, sponsored a lavish hunt in England. (As in animals running hither and thither, and guns) As Maureen Dowd noted:

"In an astonishing let-them-eat-cake moment, the A.I.G. big shot Sebastian Preil held court at the bar and told an undercover reporter, "The recession will go on until about 2011, but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine."

Perhaps it's a disease.

Reminiscing About The 60's?:

Quite a few commentators look at the future Obama presidency and ask us to harken back to the sixties of our imaginations if not our memories. During his campaign they compared Obama to the Kennedy brothers, saying he orated like John or Robert. Bill Moyers and Charlie Rose commented during that there hadn't been a leader who so inspired up and coming politicians since Kennedy. Lately people comment on Obama's leadership picks, saying he's chosen people who were brainy or savvy, often educated at Harvard. The "best and the brightest", they say.

But other commentators, including Frank Rich in the New York Times, point out that David Halberstam's use of the phrase as the title of his book "The Best and The Brightest", was ironic. Even though he chose the smartest from business and academia, the Vietnam War proved disastrous.

The shortcomings of the Kennedy team were especially pronounced in Halberstam's depiction of Robert McNamara, whose flawed hindsight was also illustrated in the excellent movie The Fog of War. Halberstam describes McNamara's approach to leading Ford, all numbers and predictions. Of course this characteristic outlook -- educated but somehow all cold calculation, was also evident in some of the Bush picks too. We hope the comparison is paranoid.

Speaking of the 1960's, the Economist also reminds us of that era with its series of recent covers. In quick succession the magazine published covers asking "Where Have all The Savings Gone?", and "All We Need is Loans". I bet you don't have an endless and getting annoying loop of another generation's anti-war hippie dippie songs like Pete Seeger's "Where Have all The Flowers Gone", and The Beatles "All We Need is Love" running through your head now -- right?