Average annual return on surplus (assets minus liabilities) fell from 13.7 percent in the 1970s to 10.3 percent in the 1980s to only 8.7 percent in the 1990s, according to Coyne. "In the first three years of this decade, the industry's rate of return has averaged just 2.8 percent." In the current business environment, achieving strong returns is harder than it used to be, said Coyne. "Consider that with a first-half 2003 combined ratio of 99.8 percent, the industry's annualized rate of return was 9.7 percent — well short of the 15 percent rate of return equity investors look for," he said. (Combined ratio measures losses and other underwriting expenses per dollar of premium).

Coyne cited increasing evidence of an end to the hard market. … "If the next soft market is not already upon us, the hard market certainly is coming to a close," said Coyne.

Citing examples of underwriting cycles over the past 40 years, Coyne warned insurers "each improvement in insurers' results brings us closer to the next round of hyper-competition for market share." … "Insurers have paid dearly for failing to adhere to disciplined underwriting and cost-based pricing," continued Coyne. Commercial policyholders, he said, "have increasingly turned to alternative mechanisms such as captives, risk retention groups and the like." [Customers have sought cheaper alternatives, apparently while insurers have set their sights on serving investors.] Another serious consequence of competitive excesses has been an increase in insolvencies. Coyne noted insolvencies among property/casualty companies increased to an average of 33 per year this decade, compared with 12 per year in the 1970s and 27 per year in the 1980s and 1990s. "And despite the strongest pricing environment in more than a decade, property/casualty insurer insolvencies jumped from 30 in 2001 to 38 in 2002," he said.

Insurers faced with competitive pressure and other uncertainties, including rising healthcare costs, natural and man-made catastrophes, terrorism, asbestos claims and fraud, among others, should heed an old lesson, according to Coyne. "Sustainable profitability can only be achieved through sound risk assessment — cost-based pricing, solid underwriting and strong loss adjudication — not slavish devotion to growth and naïve reliance on investment gain from fickle financial markets."

"The U.S. government granted Vinnell Corporation a 48 million dollar contract last July to train what should be the new Iraqi army," Merchet told IPS. Vinnell, a private military company (PMC) located close to the Pentagon is among several such companies that have found a new gold mine in the Iraqi and Afghan wars. "Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) which has more high ranking military officers per square metre than the Pentagon itself is also active in Iraq and Afghanistan," Brechet added. … French military analyst George Malbrunot says Kellog, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the Texan oil giant Halliburton has billed the U.S. government more than 1.2 billion dollars for logistical and other military support activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

… A recent study by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) says at least 90 PMCs are providing "services normally performed by national armies" in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. These companies usually provide services such as military training, logistical support for military operations, and removal of mines, the report says. But they have also engaged in active combat, the ICIJ report says. The report 'Making a Killing - The Business of War' published in March this year says PMCs are the "new world order's mercenaries".

The package includes tax breaks and policy incentives aimed at increasing domestic oil and gas production; tax credits for renewable-energy producers; incentives for utilities to invest in improvements to the nation's electricity grid; and a tax credit for buyers of hybrid cars that run on gasoline and electricity. The bill's tax breaks, which are tilted largely toward coal, oil and gas, would add $23.5 billion to the budget deficit over the next 10 years, according to figures announced yesterday by Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. About $8 billion of the total has been set aside for incentives for conservation and energy efficiency in buildings, cars and appliances. The tax breaks add up to roughly triple the amount originally recommended by the White House.

The support of farm-state Democrats appeared to vindicate the GOP strategy of countering opposition to the environmental provisions in the bill by offering a rich trove of subsidies to farmers. To win over wavering lawmakers, Republican negotiators added dozens of other provisions, such as a $1.1 billion coastline restoration project primarily benefiting Louisiana, which has two Democratic senators.

But last week, in a speech at a Mexico City university, Aguilar Zinser asserted that U.S. officials often treated Mexico as little more than an inconsequential "back yard" and that the Mexican government was always forced to "hold its tongue" before its powerful neighbor. The comments, on the eve of annual U.S.-Mexico meetings in Washington, drew immediate denials from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Fox, who said the remarks "did not reflect reality." Aguilar Zinser was recalled to Mexico on Monday and fired.

Trade negotiators for Central and South American countries, they said, should bargain for more gradual tariff reductions on corn, rice and beans — the staples of subsistence farming — to give peasants time to adjust to tough competition from large, highly efficient and heavily subsidized American farmers.

Carnegie's researchers also say developing countries should push international donors and rich countries to finance transitional assistance for the retraining of workers and farmers displaced by global competition.

Developing countries should also seek greater leeway to promote the use of domestic suppliers in manufacturing over imported components — a step that would increase job creation, the authors say.

… "We have 12 months between now and when our elected officials go and face the people," said Auggie Tantillo, Washington coordinator for the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition. "If we are going to get relief, we're going to have to get it in the next 12 months."

Under pressure from lawmakers in both parties, and alarmed by the loss of manufacturing jobs from steel states like Pennsylvania to textile states like North Carolina — both political battlegrounds — administration officials have become increasingly strident in demanding that China play "by the rules." … The administration did not contend that Chinese producers had broken any rules. Rather, it invoked protective provisions that China agreed to as a condition for admission to the World Trade Organization in 2001. They allow the United States to limit the growth of Chinese textile imports to 7.5 percent a year if they are deemed "disruptive" to American producers. The categories of goods the administration is seeking to curb have been growing at rates that are well into the double digits.

… In steel as well as in textiles, President Bush has been willing to compromise his often-stated goal of promoting global free trade with the more immediate political goal of stemming the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Administration officials maintained that the decision did not contravene the president's free-trade principles because it was based on a legal understanding with Beijing giving the United States the right to impose "safeguard" restrictions on Chinese textile and apparel imports that are surging. The understanding was reached during the Clinton administration as one of the terms of China's entry into the World Trade Organization, to keep the Chinese export machine from wiping out competitors.

[D]octors' judgment [concerning drugs to prescribe] is influenced by the companies that sell the drugs. Most medical practitioners nowadays learn which drugs to use, and how to use them, mainly from teachers and educational programs paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. To renew their licenses, doctors in almost all states are required to enroll in continuing medical education programs, and these are now largely subsidized, directly or indirectly, by the pharmaceutical industry. … Most of these educational programs are presented by industry-friendly experts who are selected and paid by the companies selling the drugs being discussed, and most of their talks emphasize the medical benefits of those drugs. Some of this information is useful, but much of it is simply marketing disguised as education.

… Medical schools, professional associations and hospitals that offer continuing education programs accept grants from the pharmaceutical industry and frequently allow the industry to suggest topics and speakers and help with preparation of the programs. They are reluctant to do anything that would jeopardize the industry's support. [D]octors attending these industry-sponsored educational programs … like the slick presentations, … the low or nonexistent fees, the free food, and the numerous small gifts given out at the commercial exhibits that often accompany big education events. And naturally they are confident that their own independence is wholly unaffected by all of this — although surveys reveal that they are less sanguine about other doctors' ability to resist industry's blandishments.

… In this way, doctors are led to believe that new and expensive drugs are much better than older and less costly generic drugs. … Until they insist that the pharmaceutical industry stick to its own business (which can include advertising but not education), we are unlikely to get the help we need from our doctors in controlling runaway drug expenditures.

The Bush administration says that harnessing hydrogen will free the U.S. from dependence on Mideast oil and provide a non-polluting source of energy for electricity and transport. In reality, the White House plan calls for massive subsidies to the coal and nuclear industries to extract hydrogen—a black hydrogen agenda. While Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham claims that the Bush administration is equally committed to research and development of renewable sources of energy to extract hydrogen—a green hydrogen agenda—the current energy bill tells a different story. The bill contains subsidies of more than $8 billion to the fossil fuels and nuclear industries and less than $4 billion to the renewable energy industries in its current draft.

Moreover, despite continued public pronouncements by the Department of Energy that it is equally committed to promoting renewable sources of energy, the White House and their Congressional allies have systematically blocked efforts in Congress to establish benchmarks and target dates for the phasing in of renewable sources of energy in the generation of electricity and for transport. The European Union, by contrast, has made a commitment to produce 22 percent of its electricity and 12 percent of its overall energy from renewable sources of energy by 2010.

Starting with FY2003, which just ended, the Pentagon and nuclear weapons programs in the Department of Energy received $382.2 billion in regular FY2003 appropriations. The Pentagon received another $62.4 billion (of $79 billion) in the FY2003 supplemental, bringing the total for defense activities to $444.6 billion. The supplemental allocated another $2.5 billion for the "Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund" while Afghanistan received $167 million in economic aid and another $170 million in military aid (training).

… Some in Congress find very troublesome that at the beginning of FY2004 the U.S. is set to spend at least $486 billion on the military in the next twelve months. This is more than the administration's combined request for discretionary spending for all other government departments and agencies. In fact, the cumulative cost of defense activities at the start of FY2004 accounts for 56% of projected federal discretionary spending. A further supplemental with a significant sum for military activities is almost assured, given that other countries are reluctant to send military forces to Iraq.

… Then there is the continuing hemorrhaging in the U.S. health care system. The Census Bureau reported September 30th that 43.6 million people in the U.S. were without health insurance, an increase of 2.4 million, the largest jump in ten years. The total would have been higher except that 4 million were able to participate in either Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (Los Angeles Times, September 30). That's the "good" news. The bad news is that this increase in enrollment in the government-sponsored plans occurred because the number of people living below the official poverty level increased from 32.9 million in 2001 to 34.6 million in 2002. (The Census Bureau reported that the poverty level for a family of four was $18,392 and for two people $11,756.)

… Beyond the incalculable toll of lives lost and disrupted, the contrast between the financial costs of war and peace could not be more stark. Ongoing military operations just in Afghanistan and Iraq are costing nearly $5 billion a month. In contrast, the administration asked for only $550 million for peacekeeping in its FY2004 budget and another $50 million in the FY2004 supplemental. With a population (2002) of 288.4 million, that $600 million for peacekeeping comes to a little more than $2 per person in the U.S. Estimating the 2004 U.S. population at 290 million, the $486 billion (minimum) to be spent for defense activities in FY2004 represents $1,676 per U.S. resident.

… The UN has noted that world military expenditures have been on the rise since 1998. Most of these expenditures--43%--now fall to the United States. Moreover, the administration seems intent on exporting the American Way of War; of the $29.2 billion in 2002 in worldwide arms sales, the U.S. share was 45.5%.

The majority of the uninsured are neither poor by official standards nor unemployed. They are accountants like Mr. Thornton [the person whose situation was described at the start of the article], employees of small businesses, civil servants, single working mothers and those working part time or on contract. "Now it's hitting people who look like you and me, dress like you and me, drive nice cars and live in nice houses but can't afford $1,000 a month for health insurance for their families," said R. King Hillier, director of legislative relations for Harris County, which includes Houston.

Paying for health insurance is becoming a middle-class problem, and not just here. "After paying for health insurance, you take home less than minimum wage," says a poster in New York City subways sponsored by Working Today, a nonprofit agency that offers health insurance to independent contractors in New York. "Welcome to middle-class poverty." In Southern California, 70,000 supermarket workers have been on strike for five weeks over plans to cut their health benefits.

… Experts warn that allowing health problems to fester is only going to increase the costs of health care for the uninsured. "As Americans, when are we going to realize it's cheaper to save them on the front end than when they get cancer and show up in the emergency room?" said Sandra B. Thurman, executive director of PediPlace, a nonprofit health clinic in Lewisville, Tex. Many hospitals and neighborhood clinics here say that the well-heeled are now joining the poor in seeking their care.

In numerous instances, top executives are accused of trading rapidly in and out of their own funds to reap profits at a cost to other fund investors. Many brokers failed to give appropriate discounts to customers. And a large percentage of funds appear to have provided confidential and potentially lucrative portfolio information to large customers, possibly in exchange for their business.

… Critics and former officials also say the industry's trade organization, the Investment Company Institute, exerted enormous influence — both at the commission and in Congress — in shaping what critics believe has been a lax set of policies that have further hampered enforcement efforts. … "The I.C.I. has done an absolutely brilliant, almost flawless job in representing the interests of the industry. It has fallen flat on its face in representing the interests of shareholders," Mr. Bogle [founder of the Vanguard Group, one of the nation's largest mutual fund companies and a former chairman of the institute in the 1960's] said.

To judge by the current arrangement in corporate America, one might suppose capital creates wealth — which is odd, because a pile of capital sitting there creates nothing. Yet capital-providers (stockholders) lay claim to most wealth corporations generate. Corporations are believed to exist to maximize returns to shareholders. This is the law of the land — much as the divine right of kings was once the law of the land. In the dominant paradigm of business, it is not in the least controversial. Though it should be. [Ideologies rebutted. E.g., buying stock in a company does not actually send money to the company (except for IPOs or very rare offerings) - instead it is buying the right to siphon off profits from the company.] We need not a new revolution but an evolution. We need an evolving awareness that corporations must serve the many rather than the few –– and this includes recognizing that stockholders are the few. Of all financial wealth held by households, the 10 percent wealthiest hold 90 percent. This wealth concentration is a direct result of the system design. We can change that design, democratizing economic institutions as we once democratized political institutions. This may involve new forms of citizenship in corporate governance, broadened fiduciary duties that reach beyond shareholders, and supplemental financial statements focusing on stakeholder impact rather than stockholder gain.

This September, Catholic bishops from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile met to discuss the "ethical and moral" implications of the FTAA. In the end, they placed themselves squarely on the side of those in the streets. In their official statement, the bishops warned that the FTAA "will foment the concentration of economic power in a few hands" and that it will curtail democratic sovereignty, "especially in the weakest countries in the Americas." … In their recent analysis of the FTAA, the South American bishops draw on the work of secular economists and sociologists. Such experts point to the fact that NAFTA, the agreement that trade boosters hope to expand through the hemisphere, led to the loss of 766,030 actual and potential U.S. jobs between 1994 and 2000. Yet the flight of companies abroad hardly helped manufacturing workers in Mexico, who saw their real wages decline 21 percent in the same period, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute.

What makes religious voices unique, however, is the ethical view they bring to trade debates. Liberation theologians insist that the economy should be at the service of the humanity and respect the fundamental rights of peoples. They accuse those who place economic concerns above all else of practicing idolatry—of turning the market into a God—often with disastrous results for poor.

Pope John Paul II, who is far from a consistent ally of progressives on issues like abortion, has backed these economic criticisms. In his 1999 statement, Ecclesia in America, he warned that "more and more, in many countries of the Americas, a system known as 'neo-liberalism' prevails; based on a purely economic conception of man, this system considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters." John Paul II elsewhere argued that "the inalienable value of the human person must always be an end and not a means, a subject, not an object, not a commodity of trade," and that globalization "must not be a new version of colonialism—It must respect the diversity of cultures which are life's interpretive keys."

… For an administration loath to concede it has made mistakes, redirecting U.S. policy is an open admission that the situation has reached a crisis point. Under mounting pressures, the White House had little choice but to effectively jettison the seven-point plan outlined by its own governor in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, just two months ago. … As part of the new strategy, the United States is prepared to endorse some form of elections before a new constitution is written -- reversing the order outlined in Bremer's seven-point plan -- to ensure that a new governing body would have the legitimacy that the current 24-member council, handpicked by the United States, lacks. … The two greatest U.S. fears are that Iraq will end up with a new autocrat or will become a theocracy rather than a democracy. Some U.S. officials fear that a transfer of authority before Iraq gets a new constitution could pose the danger that an interim leader becomes president for life.

… "The goal of the enemy is to break the will of the United States of America," [US Commander for Iraq John Abizaid] said. "It's clear, it's simple, it's straightforward. Break our will, make us leave before Iraq is ready to come out and be a member of the responsible community of nations."

All too often, it now appears, mutual fund managers viewed fund investors as chickens to be plucked. The current scandals involve market timing and late trading, but there are other practices - still legal and still practiced by many funds - that are dubious. One is the shifting of expenses for such things as quotation terminals to the fund shareholders, rather than assuming that the millions paid for investment advice might finance such equipment. Another is the way funds make existing shareholders compensate brokers for selling the funds to new investors.

Medact, which includes doctors and other health professionals, points to a death and injury toll that is far higher than many people imagined. The group estimates a total of between 13,500 to 45,000 Iraqi military deaths from March 20 to May 1, with about three times as many injured. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths during this period is between 5,708 and 7,356, the report says. In the post-conflict phase, there have been between 2,049 and 2,209 deaths, the report says.

… One direct consequence of the war is the masses of unexploded ordnance lying around. Cluster weapons, landmines and depleted uranium weapons "remain a potential health hazard for local populations years after the conflict," the report says. … The condition of a country's environment and physical infrastructure also has a significant and direct impact on its people's health, the report says. It points to the dangers from destruction of water and sanitation systems. "Smoke from oil well fires and burning trenches caused air pollution and soil contamination," the report says. "Heavy bombing and troop movements degraded natural and agricultural ecosystems." The study finds that "malnutrition, which results from low food intake or an unbalanced diet or both is a major determinant of poor health in Iraq." … The study finds that shortages of clean water, adequate food and power lead to an increase in certain diseases that is likely to result in more deaths than caused directly by the conflict. The short and long-term physical health effects feared include disability, infectious diseases, stillbirths, underweight newborns, diseases of malnutrition, and possibly more cancers. The mental consequences include post-traumatic stress reaction, psychiatric illness, behavioural disturbance and developmental delays in children. "With unemployment above 60 percent, the vicious circle of ill health and poverty is reinforced," the report adds.

Sebastian Mallaby, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Bush and his trade representative, Robert B. Zoellick, had committed the classic mistake of free traders who thought they could "buy the allegiance of protectionists, whether they are big farmers or the steel industry, to make some advance in their long-term trade policy and not become captives of the protectionists." "It was naïve of them to think there wouldn't be a price for all of this," Mr. Mallaby said. "Now, they've disillusioned people in their own free trade camp." The immediate issue is the steel tariffs, and the White House remains divided over them.

Assumptions that the government considers inadequate contributed to the demise of almost all of the roughly 150 pension plans that failed in the last year. … The painful lesson for employees comes as companies press Congress for permanent relaxation of some provisions of the pension funding law. … "There are ways companies can kind of game the system, to contribute a lot less money than is realistic," said Jeremy I. Bulow, the Richard Stepp professor of economics at Stanford University's graduate school of business. Essentially, he said, they are trying to get a loan from the government agency that insures pensions, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or from their employees. "That's what they're trying to do, and it's very bad news," he said.

Are greenhouse gases increasing?

Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. ….

Is the climate warming?

Yes. Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data). …

Is the climate becoming more variable or extreme?

On a global scale there is little evidence of sustained trends in climate variability or extremes. This perhaps reflects inadequate data and a dearth of analyses. However, on regional scales, there is clear evidence of changes in variability or extremes. … [As noted in a scientific paper linked here: "Exponentially increasing economic losses, coupled with an increase in deaths due to these events, have focused attention on the possibility that these events are increasing in frequency." If for no other reason than this, there is obviously a moral dimension here.]

How important are these changes in a longer-term context?

… For the Northern Hemisphere summer temperature, recent decades appear to be the warmest since at least about 1000AD, and the warming since the late 19th century is unprecedented over the last 1000 years. … Based on the incomplete evidence available, the projected change of 3 to 7°F (1.5 - 4°C) over the next century would be unprecedented in comparison with the best available records from the last several thousand years. [A linked image shows this course of temperatures over the last millenium:]

Is sea level rising?

Global mean sea level has been rising at an average rate of 1 to 2 mm/year over the past 100 years, which is significantly larger than the rate averaged over the last several thousand years. Projected increase from 1990-2100 is anywhere from 0.09-0.88 meters, depending on which greenhouse gas scenario is used and many physical uncertainties in contributions to sea-level rise from a variety of frozen and unfrozen water sources.

What about the future?

… Projections of future climate change therefore depend on how well the computer climate model simulates the climate and on our understanding of how forcing functions will change in the future. … According to the range of possible forcing scenarios, and taking into account uncertainty in climate model performance, the IPCC projects a global temperature increase of anywhere from 1.4 - 5.8°C from 1990-2100. However, this global average will integrate widely varying regional responses, such as the likelihood that land areas will warm much faster than ocean temperatures, particularly those land areas in northern high latitudes (and mostly in the cold season). Precipitation is also expected to increase over the 21st century, particularly at northern mid-high latitudes, though the trends may be more variable in the tropics. Snow extent and sea-ice are also projected to decrease further in the northern hemisphere, and glaciers and ice-caps are expected to continue to retreat.

Numerous nonprofit organizations that promote the interests of Medicare beneficiaries and older people—U.S. Action, Consumers Union, Medicare Rights Center—say that the proposed plan will increase costs to beneficiaries. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, a bill created to relieve seniors of the expense of prescription drugs will actually result in higher costs in other areas in order to offset the prescription drug coverage. … In exchange for being able to say "I passed a prescription drug coverage bill," politicians are willing to overlook the fact that their plan simply shifts beneficiaries’ expenses from one type of health care (medicine) to another (increased fees for doctor visits, lab services, home health care). In this shell game, the only victory belongs to the politician and the pharmaceutical and insurance industries bankrolling him or her.

"This case is about the most powerful and richest company in the world taking obscene advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world," said a lawyer filing the suit yesterday, James L. Linsey. … In an unrelated case, a judge in Superior Court in Alameda County, Calif., granted class certification on Friday to more than 100,000 Wal-Mart workers in California after lawyers said the company did not give them their full rest and meal breaks and did not pay them when they worked off the clock.

Using conservative numbers issued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, criminologist Jeffrey Reiman, a professor at American University, estimated that the total cost of white-collar crime in 1997 was $338 billion. The actual cost is probably much greater. For instance, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimates that health-care fraud alone costs up to $100 billion each year. Another estimate (by University of Cincinnati Criminal Justice Professor Francis T. Cullen) suggests that the annual cost of antitrust or trade violations is at least $250 billion. By comparison, the FBI estimated that in 2002, the nation's total loss from robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson was less than $18 billion - less than a third of the estimated $60 billion Enron alone cost investors, pensioners and employees.

But corporate crime isn't just about the money. It's also about people's lives. The national murder rate has hovered around 16,000 per year in recent years (In 2002, the FBI reported 16,204 murders). But statistics from a respected group of occupational health and safety investigators, led by Professor J. Paul Leigh, have estimated that in 1992 alone there were 66,971 total job-related injury and occupational disease deaths. These numbers do not include the thousands of annual deaths caused by cancers linked to corporate pollution, deaths from defective products, tainted foods, and other corporate-related causes. Though we can begin to estimate, it is hard to know how many deaths are caused by corporate crime, since again, we have no official numbers or annual reports.

… Critics argue that the same tax dollars produce a greater return when they are channeled into education and public transportation, for example, rather than corporate ventures. They also say that subsidies distort markets: United, for example, might not have walked away so quickly if the $320 million had been its money, not the city's and state's.

And then there is the view, shared by Gov. Joseph E. Kernan of Indiana, that the subsidies are unnecessary, a bonus to companies that would set up shop anyway, at their own expense, without any subsidy. The national economy would benefit, if not a particular city's or state's. [Yet Indiana will not "unilaterally disarm" in this contest; instead, it will emphasize tax credits rather than upfront money.]

… Until the 1970's, the federal government financed most job-creation incentives. The emphasis was on regional development, the goal being to subsidize job creation in regions with high unemployment. But as the federal role withered and states and cities filled the void, the focus on high unemployment faded. "There is no pattern at all anymore in the distribution of subsidies," Mr. Peters said.

[E]arlier last week, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. noted that employers announced plans to eliminate 171,874 jobs in October, the largest monthly job cuts in a year. So far this year, announced job cuts exceed 1 million, a rate close to that for the last two years, the international outplacement firm finds.

… [T]he economy must create at least 150,000 net new jobs each month to absorb the new workers joining the labor force as the population grows. … In addition to the 8.8 million officially counted as unemployed, another 1.6 million people have withdrawn from the labor force. … EPI maintains a site on the Web (jobwatch.org) that each month compares the number of new jobs actually created with the number projected by the president's Council of Economic Advisers when it was selling the tax cuts to Congress and the public. Last February, the CEA said the cuts would mean 344,000 new jobs per month starting in mid-2003. Through October, new jobs are 995,000 short of the original CEA projection. Last month, Treasury Secretary John Snow lowered the bar to 2 million new jobs by election time - about 166,000 a month.

… Business, for example, is doing more outsourcing of service jobs to places like China and India. As more sales are made over the Internet, fewer clerks are needed in the stores. With the costs of health insurance and other nonwage costs rising fast, companies are reluctant to hire more workers as business increases. They prefer to work current employees harder and longer. It's cheaper.

… [I]n the last two quarters, business has liquidated inventory rather than, as usual in a recovery, building it up.

Bringing zest to the scene, the value of US corporate stock has gained about $4 trillion since an October 2002 trough. [That increase amounts to over $14,000 per US citizen - where does it go?]

[P]roponents of both bills are using budgetary sleight-of-hand to make the tax cuts and their impact on the burgeoning federal deficit look smaller than they really are. … [S]everal of the biggest tax breaks will not take full effect until eight or nine years from now, which means that the full costs barely begin to show up inside the standard 10-year estimates produced by Congressional scorekeepers. … The issue is not just about shifting costs from one year to the next. It's about pushing the costs out of view by keeping them outside the standard forecasting window. Although the cost estimate looks ahead 10 years, most of the tax cuts go on indefinitely. … These and other time shifts do wonders for the appearance of tax bills at a time when the federal government is facing a $500 billion budget deficit next year. But for those who care to look out over the rainbow, the view is more disquieting.

The growth in employment now appears to have begun in August, as tax rebate checks were being received and cashed by millions of American parents. Those checks were the driving force in a surge in retail sales, which provided the demand that seems to have led some businesses to start hiring. … Both the Federal Reserve, through a sustained campaign to lower interest rates, and the government, through a combination of spending increases and tax cuts, have taken the actions intended to stimulate economic growth.

… By no means are the current job numbers especially impressive. The government says that 130.13 million Americans were employed in October, fewer than the number working in February of this year and down 1.8 percent — or 2.4 million jobs — from the peak of 132.56 million registered in February 2001. [But the trend of numbers of people working and hours worked is rising.] … The latest numbers show that the economy has gained 286,000 jobs since employment hit bottom in July. Of that total, 19 percent have been in the form of temporary employment. … The extent to which the recently created temporary jobs are replaced by full-time jobs in coming months will be one clue to whether the recovery is really gaining speed.

Between 1980 and 2000, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased in the United States and six of the other nine highest-emitting nations. Emissions increased 22.5 percent in the United States, while the largest increase occurred in South Korea (231.4 percent). Emissions decreased in the United Kingdom (10.1 percent), France (19.9 percent), and Germany (22.3 percent). … Between 2001 and 2025, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are expected to increase in all 10 nations. U.S. emissions are projected to rise 43.5 percent, not counting any reductions from the administration’s initiative.

… Though he had previously mentioned the spread of Mideast democracy as a justification for the invasion of Iraq, Bush elevated that rationale to primacy yesterday, making no mention of weapons of mass destruction and only passing reference to national security and terrorism. … In describing Bush's speech, one of his aides even used the words from Reagan's speech. "It's never, in the end, about bombs and rockets; it's about ideas and broadening the struggle and elevating it to a moral cause," the aide said. Reagan, in his speech to the British Parliament, said: "For the ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas -- a trial of spiritual resolve."

It turns out that manufacturing jobs have been disappearing all over the world. Economists at Alliance Capital Management in New York took a close look at employment trends in 20 large economies recently, and found that since 1995 more than 22 million factory jobs have disppeared. … Between 1995 and 2002, we lost about 11 percent of our manufacturing jobs. But over the same period, the Japanese lost 16 percent of theirs. … Many developing nations are losing factory jobs. … Here’s the real surprise. China saw a 15 percent drop. China, which is fast becoming the manufacturing capital of the world, has been losing millions of factory jobs.

The issue we really ought to be talking is what jobs Americans, and everyone else, will be able to find when machines are able to do just about everything.