CORPORATE LAYOFFS, BUDGET CUTS, FRAUDULENT ACTIVITIES & SCANDALS 2000 TO 2005 Volume II

Research Compiled By Dr. Robin Loxley

Not For Sale And Used For Informational Purposes Only

ZEPHANIAH 1:18 SAYS NEITHER THEIR SILVER NOR THEIR GOLD WILL BE ABLE TO SAVE THEM ON THE DAY OF THE LORDS WRATH. IN THE FIRE OF HIS JEALOUSY THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE CONSUMED, FOR HE WILL MAKE A SUDDEN END OF ALL WHO LIVE ON EARTH.

Interdependent Bankruptcy
Open up your latest financial journal and the economic crisis pours out of every corner of the globe. Read your favorite business newspaper and the headlines scream out that the financial markets are in free fall. Then open your last brokerage statement and sit down, have a stiff drink. This is the reality of the interdependent world, that the Globalists have given us with their not so "Free Trade" system. The United States was once a self sufficient society where essential goods and products were produced domestically. Now we are a society that imports our ever necessity from China, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and every sweat shop that can be found to sell below real costs. Those prices seldom reflect the real costs if made in the U.S.A. So why complain, we are saving money when we buy our Nikes, RIGHT? Simply put the party is over . . . The United States trade deficit is the ultimate test of reality. It is real money! Its outflow drains national wealth. Forbes magazine reports: "Although final figures are not yet in, analysts believe the United States imported some $425 billion more in goods and services in 2002 than it exported, which would mark a record." Goldman Sachs, in a recent report, anticipated a larger trade deficit in 2003, saying that would trim about one-quarter of one percent from U.S. economic growth. Now Forbes points to: "The gap in the current account, the widest measure of trade because it includes investment income flows, has been a nagging worry for Federal Reserve officials and private economists alike. They fret that the roughly $500 billion current account deficit is unsustainable over the long run, leaving the currency vulnerable to heavy selling in the event of an abrupt correction in the balance." You should already know this background and appreciate its significance. But what may have escaped your observations is that the twin terror of a deflating domestic economy can be accompanied with the horror of rising prices. Here is why you should be concerned. When your federal reserve notes slide in relative value against foreign currencies, you have been told that exports will improve, and over time will help restore the imbalance. But what happens to exports when our domestic economy no longer manufactures any meaningful consumer product for overseas consumption? The United States now exports high tech systems, military armaments and sophisticated technology that allows foreign

competitors to lower the costs of their own production, while the short term cash inflow disguises the root causes of the trade deficit. Couple this course with the lowering of the purchasing power on the US Dollar, and you experience higher prices at the consumer level. Since domestic jobs are non existent to produce our own home-made supplies, we are unable to escape this disastrous cycle. The fruits of "Free Trade" have brought us the closing of native factories. National corporate icons still trade on the exchanges under their familiar names, while their plants employ "Third World" labors, working on foreign soil, in mills financed by Wall Street capital. The personal wealth of the American public has taken a severe hit with the declines in equities. But the relative safety of bonds and fixed instruments are also under assault because the there is no immunity from a contrived contraction of the American economy. Protection based upon the ability to work your way out of a recession is not an option, when the indigenous economy consists of pseudo professions, superfluous services, government toadies, and insatiable public parasites - demanding a higher calorie intake for their Free Lunch. These conditions are not temporary, they are the result of an intended and permanent policy to reduce the independence of America and to integrate it into an international economy - A "Cirque de Flamb" show - with entertainment provided by jesters as the audience is required to walk among the lions to find their assigned seats. "The Clowns", out of this ersatz Fellinis film knock off, leads the choir to the tune of that Johnny Cash's hit, "I fell into a burning ring of fire". We have listened to the barker and have been lead into a sideshow. Our economy is walking the high wire and the net that is supposed to save us is rotten - being a foreign import.

Our trade deficits are integral to trading away our future. Four steps proposed by the Economic Policy Institute that could reverse this trend are: First, the U.S. should enter into no new trade agreements, including China's proposed entry into the WTO, unless and until those agreements are revised to include enforceable labor rights and environmental standards as core elements. This will require, at a minimum, agreements to achieve internationally agreed upon standards, international performance reviews, and enforcement of these standards through trade sanctions.

Second, measures must be taken to reduce chronic U.S. trade deficits with certain key countries, and in a few critical industries such as motor vehicles and commercial aircraft. These include China, Japan, the NAFTA countries, and Europe. The reasons for these deficits differ in each case. Part of Europe's problem is simply slow growth. The Chinese situation is more complex, involving exchange rate manipulation and systematic discrimination against U.S. imports, as well as advanced industrial policies that pilfer critical jobs and technologies from U.S. firms doing business there.

Third, the U.S. must reduce steadily reduce the value of the U.S. dollar, in coordination with other major advanced industrial nations. Similar steps were taken between 1985 and 1987 period, the last major period of dollarovervaluation and exploding trade deficits. The over-valued dollar is having a particularly damaging impact on U.S. agriculture (Scott 1999b).

Finally, we must develop new incentives to interest developing countries in joining the developed world in raising labor and environmental standards. Developing countries also need an alternative to the model of export-led growth that has become the core of the commonly accepted Washington consensus growth package. That model has become exhausted because too many countries are competing for access to the only open market in the world, and the U.S. can no longer afford to be the market of last resort. We can see merit in points one, two and four; but reject that lowing the purchasing power of our own currency will bring back prosperity to America. The systemic problem is the interdependent NWO Global economy. The traditional method to preserve and protect our domestic industries and work force is to reestablish tariffs. Our country can no longer sip the hemlock of international elites and survive as an independent nation. Money, Trade and Commerce THE LIFE BLOOD OF SOCIETY - needs to be genuine. Our money must be a true store of value, our trade must become FAIR and our commerce must be conducted with mutual benefits to all concerns. Today the global economy is in chapter 11 on its way to liquidation. The prospect of domestic depression accompanied with rising prices would be a new experience. If the U.S. stops buying, the rest of the world wont be able to sell their goods. At that point the interdependent cabal will get their wish. A world held hostage to the whims of the central banks, the political hacks and the Trilateral International Mattoids . . . SARTRE - January 29, 2003

The Extinction of the Middle Class

Brenda Buttner - "There is no inflation!"

For those who retain the capacity of understanding the past, fond memories of a society that once had a vibrant middle class, conveys pride and nostalgia. Today, the harsh reality is that the United States has been transformed into an unyielding authoritarian command and control gulag. A mere gap OK watch Fox, just don't believe what you hear from NeoCons between the ruled and the rulers has turned into a gulf of nationwide width. The internment camp that relocates undesirables has been built large enough to process your friends and family. Most simply ignore or deny their plight. They are bent on living an illusion because they are enjoying the good life. Its only the malcontent that risks the wrath of the central planners. For the vast majority - the system - still has relevance. Four year after 911, another calamity brings turmoil to the country. Katrina might be a natural disaster, but it presented itself as another opportunity to demonstrate the muscle of the central government. The Parkinsons disease response from FEMA cannot be blamed solely on bureaucratic incompetence. No, the nerves themselves suffer from chronic degeneration. The paralysis that immobilized an organized rescue response has a design fracture. The real ailment resides in the bone structure. States Rights vs. Federal omniscience is the diagnosis. The continuous conflict between the Hamiltonian Federalist dominance and the Jeffersonian limited government vision has seldom been more vividly played out in recent years. Louisiana state government certainly has a long record of corrupt administrations. Yet, under the stated power sharing structure under the original Federalism model, the Baton Rogue statehouse has the final authority over whether Federal agencies are invited into their jurisdiction. Since we live in an age of pervasive political propaganda, the average cretin has been infected with a serious case of mental deterioration. The condition can be described as a national case of Myxedema. The basal metabolic rate of the communal culture is measured while the public exists in a persistent coma. Folks have lost the ability to express healthy outrage. Intellectual arguments that demonstrate the tyrannical nature of the perverted constitutional miscarriage, embodied in DC despotism, fall upon deaf ears. As

long as the personal debt machine keeps expanding the ATM account just grows a little bigger. Dependence upon Federalist benign generosity has become the norm. Total abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal restraint has Washington engulfed in a sea of endless red ink. The latest addition of Pontchartrain slug passed Congress with the ease of the recent highway bill. Pork is the meat of choice, since both guns and butter have become sustainable as monetary reality is denied. Empirical judgment is sacrilege with the suspension of rational behavior. For the typical American, their compliance to the dictates of a national government is natural, while their identity with state and regional roots fades into obscurity. So what limits can be expected coming out of the twiddle-dee and twilled-dumb political beltway culture? Answer, absolutely none! Common sense has become a rare commodity. Self-interest is even in less supply. And all the time, the divide between the privileged and the ordinary widens. Wealth is no long a sufficient insulator from destructive policies and structural defects. Hence, the haves and have-nots equation is misleading. The proper gauge lays between the select few who directly make up the rules, deem them to be legitimate and solely benefit from the manipulation they impose on the rest of us. The middle is rapidly becoming extinct . . . Do you really need a litany of all the factors that have gone into the demise of the middle class, or does your state religion ban the memory of financial independence, social identity and an optimistic future? Just in the event you forget, add up the consequences of the following patterns. If inflation was dead, what is causing the dramatic rise in expense for necessities food, energy and clothing? Tract the cost and increases in insurance, property tax, litigation, health services, prescription drugs and school tuition. Vehicle prices explode as housing values jump to levels beyond the means of medium incomes. Add to this circumstance the wholesale export of American jobs for the advancement of the global corporate economy and you end up with a predicament that your meager income is at even more risk. Then couple the influx from illegal immigrations into the work force and you get even lower pay and prospects of living wage employment. Since macro statistics bore the public, what is the excuse to ignore the micro dire dilemma of your own personal finances? The cost of living is only bearable as long as interest rates stay artificially low. Until now, a dike of monetary arbitrage has held the stock market from an implosion. The dam that holds back the flood is based upon a scheme of insider protection, fraternal cronyism and pure unadulterated fraud. Banking has become laughable. The disparity between interest earned on capital verses the rate paid for borrowing has been at historic highs for years. The impact clearly means that the middle class is hard pressed to stay afloat. As a society the bulk

of the population is losing significant ground. Falling behind a curve that never allows for catching up is hazardous. Representative Bernie Sanders, a rabid collectivist and government redistribution advocate states: Since March, 2001, we have lost over 2.7 million jobs in the private sector, including two million decent-paying manufacturing jobs - ten percent of our manufacturing sector. Frighteningly, the hemorrhaging of decent paying jobs is now moving into the white-collar sector. Forrester Research Inc. predicts that at least 3.3 million information technology jobs will be lost to low-wage countries by 2015 with the expansion of digitization, the internet and high-speed data networks. But understanding the pain and anxiety of the middle class requires going beyond the unemployment numbers. There are tens of millions of fully employed Americans who today earn, in inflation adjusted-dollars, less money than they received 30 years ago. In 1973, private-sector workers in the United States were paid on average $9.08 an hour. Today, in real wages, they are paid $8.33 per hour - more than 8 percent lower. Manufacturing jobs that once paid a living wage are now being done in China, Mexico and other low-wage countries as corporate America ships its plants abroad. While a Sanders solution would be a socialistic State imposed debacle, his assessment of the overwhelming assault on the middle class is correct. When will genuine conservatives face the facts that free enterprise no longer exists in the corporate capitalistic controlled economy? Central government partners with prevailing monopolies, this unholy alliance drives the economy for an expressed goal other than profit. Making money is the means of achieving the ultimate objective. The ambition is to create a corporotomy prosthesis for society from a top down mock-up. The technique inserts a penile insert of dominance into personal rear parts of a docile multitude. The shaft is the reward for their unrequited love. The middle class suffers a societal rape. Since 911 the pace for total control advances with every Patriot Act, each foreign adventure and added expansion of the federal government. During feudal times, the serf paid a much smaller portion of their revenue to the lord. Debt was unknown to the villein. Today the plan is to eliminate the few remaining freemen, and to clear the land from undesired slaves. The legacy of the last four years culminates in the expulsion from the Louisiana bottom land all those urban tenant farmers. The Trumps of construction convert the government paid for redevelopment. Only an omniscient federal despot can make an entire city disappear and eye a crop ripe for the pickings. The middle class will be stuck

with the bill. The nobility will feast upon the remains of the dead while the severely impaired demand their relief checks and back door fruits party at the Oz bar on Bourbon Street. What a disaster! The federal tempest is far worse than any hurricane, foreign foes or imaginary bogymen. If the middle class ever gathers together their individual dignity, their focus should be to re-establish the supremacy of local governance. Meaningful solutions start with local initiative based upon individual inventiveness. The unmistakable lesson of the last several years is that a dominant federal government is lethal. This same conclusion has been true for over two centuries, but today the extent and reach of the propaganda, destructive technology and widespread apathy allows the DC monster to trash any community. For the middle class to save itself urgent action is needed to renounce the heresy that Washington authoritarianism is a government for and by the people. America is doomed without national resistance. Without the middle class the country becomes a universal plantation. The carpetbaggers from the Potomac are hell bent on federalizing the noble heritage of Confederacy secession. The rightful basis for self-determination is not a lost cause. If the middle class refuses to rebel, their progeny will curse their predecessors. Too many generations have betrayed the principles of the original Republic. If the middle class continues to accept the overseers whip, they deserve the fate of a slave. A Civilization gone with the wind... is a society unwilling to slay the beast that places them in captivity. In this sacred quest we all need to band together and revolt against a Federal invader eager to raze local authority. SARTRE September 11, 2005

Record low for home affordability in California

By Jim Christie1 hour, 26 minutes ago Soaring prices in California's housing market have shut out a record 86 percent of households from buying a typical home with a traditional down-payment, according to a study released on Thursday. Home prices across California have more than doubled since late 2001, increasing pressure on home buyers, who needed a minimum household income of $133,800 to buy a home at the August median price of $568,890, the California Association of Realtors said in its report.

That meant that only 14 percent of households could afford the typical home, down from 18 percent a year earlier, and the lowest level since records began in 1989, the report said. The group's calculation was based on a mortgage interest rate of 5.87 percent and assumed a 20 percent down payment. The national minimum household income needed to buy a median-priced home at $220,000 last month was $51,740, the group said. "It certainly is a concern when we reach a record low for affordability," said association economist Robert Kleinhenz. August's affordability reading matched a record low 14 percent recorded in early 1989, shortly before a downturn in property prices that began in mid-1991. "Households in California want to buy homes and can find loan products to do so, but they have to stretch," Kleinhenz added. "Large numbers of households are dedicating 40 percent and in some case 50 percent of their income to housing costs ... The norm nationally is 30 percent." Fast-rising prices in California have forced home buyers to opt increasingly for interestonly and adjustable-rate mortgages over 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to lower their monthly mortgage payments, a trend concerning many analysts. They argue that mortgage payments when the loans readjust will be too large for many borrowers if interest rates rise and hold at high levels -- driving more homeowners to sell under distress if they can not refinance loans. "Our concern is that because it's been so easy to refinance, people assume it always will be," said Beth Haiken, a spokeswoman for PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., a unit of PMI Group Inc.. "They may be able to refinance, but not on the loan terms they want." Just under a third of mortgages initiated or refinanced in California this year have interest-only components, compared with 1.4 percent in 2000, according to LoanPerformance, a unit of data provider First American Corp. Another way home buyers in California are coping with high home prices is by increasingly moving from pricey urban coastal areas to inland areas where homes are more affordable. California's coastal Santa Barbara region, where just 6 percent of state households could afford a median-priced home, was the state's least affordable market in August, the realestate trade group said. California's most affordable area in August was the High Desert region north and east of Los Angeles, followed by the Sacramento region in the central part of the state.

Twenty-eight percent of households could afford to buy homes in the High Desert region and 19 percent could afford homes in and around Sacramento, the state capital. Home-price appreciation next year will be stronger in inland areas than in coastal areas, Kleinhenz said, adding that the overall pace of home-price appreciation in California was expected to slow next year. "For 2006, we're saying California's median home price will go up by 10 percent, compared with a projected increase of 16 percent for 2005," Kleinhenz said. (Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles) Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ALCOA, INC.: A Shreveport manufacturer of bottle and jar caps for the food and beverage industry will close, eliminating 98 jobs. The recent announcement by Alcoa Closure Systems International Southern Plastics Division comes as Louisiana tries to cope with the loss of more than 181,000 jobs a number expected to grow to 300,000 in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That's about 15 times the usual monthly jobless claims for the state. Alcoa said the consolidation with Kilgore, TX will allow the company to better serve customers, improve manufacturing efficiencies and compete globally. 11/7 MAYTAG CORPORATION: A Maytag washing machine plant laid off 60 to 70 workers at a plant because of market conditions. The Iowabased company laid off 75 workers in April and 24 employees last year. The corporation's primary brands are Maytag, Hoover, Jenn-Air, Amana, Dixie-Narco and Jade. The company bought the Florence plant from Amana four years ago. 11/7 DELTA AIR LINES: Comair, the regional airline unit of bankrupt Delta Air Lines Inc., said recently it would cut as many as 650 jobs as part of its plan to shave $70 million in annual costs. Cincinnati-based Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta, said that it intends to remove at least 11 of the 174 planes in its fleet, with an additional reduction of about two dozen aircraft possible. The job cuts, which will be subject to the final fleet cut number, follow the 350 cuts announced last month when Atlanta-based Delta first filed for protection at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. Delta has lowered the amount it is willing to pay Comair to operate small-jet service under the Delta Connection brand, making it necessary for the subsidiary to cut its own costs. 11/7 INTERNATIONAL TRUCK & ENGINE CORPORATION: International Truck

& Engine Corp. plans to lay off about 230 hourly workers because of declining sales. About 1,350 workers are employed at the plant, which makes medium-duty commercial trucks. The Chicago-based company plans to begin building two new lines of medium-duty trucks, but they won't be built in Springfield even though the plant has the capacity and enough workers. He said the cost of labor and other expenses at the plant make other plants more attractive for producing the trucks. 11/7 GEORGIA-PACIFIC CORPORATION: Cuts announced recently by Georgia-Pacific Corp. will hit the Broadway mill in Green Bay the hardest, with 318 positions to be eliminated by year's end. The Atlanta-based company said recently it was cutting 1,100 jobs worldwide and 850 in North America, with more than half in Green Bay in a broad restructuring that aims to save $100 million a year. The Broadway mill, the largest tissue mill in the world, is taking the brunt of the reductions because it had some of the oldest equipment in the company. 11/7 TOWER AUTOMOTIVE INC.: Auto parts supplier Tower Automotive Inc., which declared bankruptcy earlier this year, said it plans to close its plant in Granite City, IL, eliminating about 325 jobs. Tower also plans to close its Milan, Tenn. plant, affecting about 290 jobs. Novi, Mich.based Tower filed for bankruptcy protection in February, citing lower auto production volume and high steel prices. It since has laid off hundreds of employees. Tower, which makes auto body structures and suspension components for every major automaker and is a major supplier to Ford Motor Co., had more than 12,000 employees when it filed for bankruptcy. 11/7 RAYTECH CORPORATION: A paper plant plans to reduce its work force by a third, putting 200 employees out of work, officials said. Raytech Corporation plans to get out of the steel-stamping business and relocate its heavy-duty paper assembly plant, which made a third of its 600 workers no longer needed. Raytech Corporation is a worldwide manufacturer of wet and dry clutch, power transmission and brake systems. Its customers include some of the world's biggest car companies. 10/31 CIGNA HEALTHCARE: Cigna HealthCare recently said it will eliminate 250 jobs at its center at 1000 Polaris Parkway. The cuts will come in claims-processing and customer service. The medical-benefits provider also said 75 more positions will become work-at-home jobs re-porting to other service centers, while 100 sales, contracting and employer-

services jobs will remain. Workers will be offered severance pay and outplacement assistance. They also will be able to apply for Cigna jobs elsewhere. 10/31 DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORP.: DaimlerChrysler Corp. plans to temporarily lay off its workforce at the Warren truck plant and its Newark Assembly plant in New Jersey to re-shuffle its inventory of light trucks, though some said they were told it is due to lagging sales and higher gasoline prices. DaimlerChrysler's Newark plant, which exclusively builds the Dodge Durango SUV on two shifts, will be idle for two weeks. The plant's 2,100 employees will be affected. 10/31 R.H. DONNELLEY CORP.: R.H. Donnelley Corp.'s $4.2-billion purchase of Arapahoe County-based Dex Media, announced recently, will create the third-largest phone directory company in the U.S. and a stronger competitor to Google, Yahoo and other Internet search engines. But it will also likely result in reductions to the 450-person workforce at Dex's glassy eight-floor office tower near the Park Meadows mall, analysts say. Dex headquarters houses administration and information technology workers, the main areas of overlap with Donnelley. The merger combines Donnelley's respected management with Dex Media's recent successes with Internet-based advertising, including relationships with the Yahoo and Google search engines. 10/31 TOMMY HILFIGER CORP.: Apparel maker Tommy Hilfiger Corp. said it is cutting about 135 jobs in the U.S., blaming a "challenged" environment in the U.S. wholesale business. Tommy Hilfiger, which has about 6,000 employees worldwide, last month was reported to have put itself up for sale. The Hong Kong-based company is also subject to speculation that it could be bought by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 10/31 CUNA MUTUAL GROUP: Madison insurer CUNA Mutual Group said recently it had moved to sell off a mortgage business, end 160 local jobs and launch a three-year restructuring plan that promises even more job cuts and changes at one of the city's largest employers. CUNA Mutual Mortgage Corp. will be sold for an undisclosed sum to PHH Corp. of Mount Laurel, N.J., as early as the end of this year under a letter of intent. CUNA Mutual, which has had a hiring freeze in effect since August, will try to offer its open jobs to qualified employees from the mortgage division. Employees losing their jobs will also get career training and counseling, a job fair and a severance package that varies according to their time with the company. CUNA Mutual is reviewing other "backroom" departments for restructuring and acknowledged

these reviews might look at jobs like janitors, cafeteria and human resources workers. 10/31 OMNICARE INC.: Omnicare Inc, the nursing-home pharmacy company, announces plans to cut 730 jobs as part of its acquisition of NeighborCare Inc, and take a pretax charge of $20 million. 10/31 PANASONIC HOME APPLIANCES CO.: Panasonic Home Appliances Co. in Danville will lay off 290 full-time workers and 80 temporary employees as it moves production to Mexico. The reduction will leave 125 workers at the Lebanon Road plant, which at one time employed more than any other factory in Danville. Panasonic makes canister vacuum cleaners. Panasonic will work with local and state governments to find other jobs for employees. 10/31 CANCERVAX CORPORATION: CancerVax Corporation (NASDAQ:CNVX) announced a corporate restructuring plan recently, realigning its resources in light of its decision to discontinue the Phase 3 clinical trial of Canvaxin(TM) in patients with Stage III melanoma. The immediate impact of this restructuring will reduce CancerVax's workforce from 183 to approximately 80 employees. 10/31 DOANE PET CARE COMPANY: Doane Pet Care Company recently announced several cost savings initiatives to reduce its cost structure and to increase operating efficiencies. The Company said that these initiatives include the closure of its 95,000 square foot Hillburn, NY biscuit plant and its 55,000 square foot Delavan, WI semi-moist plant, as well as the permanent shutdown of its dry dog and cat food production lines at its Portland, IN plant. Biscuit production will still continue at the Portland, IN plant. These initiatives were based upon a number of factors including manufacturing and supply chain costs, as well as the Company's ongoing efforts to optimize operating efficiencies. The Company expects these initiatives to be completed during the fiscal 2005 fourth quarter. These actions will result in a workforce reduction of 91 manufacturing employees. The Company also reported that it will reduce its U.S. corporate salaried workforce by approximately 7%. 10/24 S. ROSENTHAL & CO.: TV Guide's move from a digest-style publication to a full-size magazine will mean job cuts at the suburban Cincinnati company that has printed millions of copies of the magazine over the past 50 years. The company then will begin cutting the 124 employees at its Blue Ash plant and move all printing operations to its other plant in Portland, Tenn. The changes set to go into effect are intended to

help the magazine stay relevant at a time when many people check their TV listings on the Internet or from programming guides on satellite and cable television. 10/24 GARRETT AVIATION SERVICES INC.: After nearly four decades, Garrett Aviation is shuttering its local jet maintenance facility and cutting 118 jobs. Unlike commercial airline carriers, business aviation is growing, albeit moderately. It experienced single-digit growth in the last year or so, though business hasn't returned to the numbers seen before 2001. 10/24 CALLAWAY GOLF CO.: Callaway Golf Co. said recently that it would cut 500 jobs as it consolidates manufacturing, trims its sales force and squeezes costs from other parts of its operations. The restructuring, expected to stretch into 2007, aims to reduce annual operating costs by $70 million. Fifty employees were let go at the company's headquarters in Carlsbad in San Diego County. About 150 additional jobs in Carlsbad are to be eliminated by the end of the year as Callaway consolidates golf ball manufacturing at two plants in Massachusetts and New York. Callaway, which began the year with 3,000 employees, will cut 300 jobs at other locations. 10/24 FORD MOTOR CO.: More Ford Motor Co. employees will get pink slips recently as the company moves forward with the consolidation of its sales and marketing divisions, according to people familiar with the situation. The consolidation is reducing the number of sales and marketing field offices by two-thirds nationwide. Analysts have said Ford likely would cut at least 15 percent of 3,500 employees in its marketing and sales units. Many of those cuts, however, could come through retirements and normal attrition. The automaker is combining its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury marketing divisions to cut costs and streamline operations. 10/24 FLYi INC.: Flyi Inc., parent of financially ailing low-cost carrier Independence Air, said it will lay off 600 of its 3,400 full-time and part-time employees as the Dulles-based company cuts flights to five airports and discontinues all service to the West Coast. Most of the cuts will be at Dulles Airport and at the company's headquarters nearby. The carrier has about 2,900 workers in the Dulles area. Independence Air will pull out of New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Louisville and Stewart International Airport in New York's Hudson Valley. 10/24 AMERICAN UNITED MUTUAL INSURANCE HOLDING COMPANY:

OneAmerica Financial Partners Inc. will cut about 55 jobs as it starts a contract with a Maine company to manage its group disability insurance. OneAmerica made the move to boost a money-losing business line. OneAmerica employs 1,700 people in Indianapolis. Claims, underwriting, actuarial and compliance areas are among those that will see job losses. 10/18 FUJICOLOR PROCESSING INC.: Fujicolor Processing Inc. announced plans to close its processing facility and leave 70 workers jobless. As is often the case with manufacturing and service job losses, new technology has eliminated the need for services at the Fujicolor plant. This has been brought about by the rapidly increasing customer migration from traditional photography, taking pictures on film, to digital imaging. 10/18 NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY: The New York Times Co. said recently it would cut about 500 jobs across its company, representing 4 percent of its work force. The cuts come as the newspaper industry faces serious problems including slow advertising growth, long-term declines in circulation and a widespread shift by readers, especially younger ones, to online news sources. At the Times, the cuts will come mainly from the business side of the company, but newsroom staff will also be affected, including about 45 jobs in the Times newsroom The Times said it expected 250 jobs at its main newspaper group to be affected, which includes the Times, the International Herald Tribune and the online operation of the Times. Another 160 jobs will be cut from the Times' New England operation, which includes The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Boston.com. 10/18 DELTA AIR LINES, INC.: One week into bankruptcy court proceedings, Delta Air Lines said it is moving to become a "smaller, more formidable" airline with more international reach but fewer seats in the air over the United States, and with fewer employees. Delta said it will shed another 7,000 to 9,000 jobs as part of a new plan to cut $3 billion in annual costs and up to 20 percent of its domestic capacity by the end of 2007. The airline also is imposing pay cuts of 7 to 10 percent on most workers and paring benefits. The job cuts will come over the next two years, and up to a quarter could hit Delta's Atlanta headquarters and hub. 10/18 PIEDMONT HAWTHORNE HOLDINGS, INC.: The company that runs Garrett Aviation Services announced it will eliminate the aircraft engine repair operation at its Springfield location. The move affects 70 of the 323 employees at the local site, which is on the grounds of

Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport. The decision is part of a companywide consolidation of its aircraft engine, maintenance, repair and overhaul operation. The restructuring also includes the closure of aircraft engine facilities in Long Island, N.Y., and Columbus, Ohio. Aircraft engine jobs will be added to existing company locations in Augusta, Ga., Houston and Los Angeles. A total of 200 current positions are affected. 10/18 FLUOR HANFORD INC.: Fluor Hanford gave layoff notices to about 300 workers recently, making it the company's largest single layoff during its current five-year contract. More layoffs are expected, although the Department of Energy contractor is not ready to say when or how many people will lose their jobs. After the layoffs, 3,469 workers remain at Fluor to help with the cleanup at Hanford, where plutonium was produced for the nation's nuclear weapons program. As Fluor has finished projects covered in its contract, it needs to change the mix of skills in its work force. 10/18 CENTRIX FINANCIAL Llc: Centrix Financial, based in Englewood, recently laid off 150 people, 10 percent of its workforce of 1,500. The company cited lower loan volumes after regulatory guidelines released in June caused credit unions to pull back from making auto loans to borrowers with subprime credit ratings. But credit union administration noted a big jump in loans being made to less-creditworthy borrowers since September 2004. It wanted tighter controls to ensure that credit unions weren't taking too much risk. 10/18 SWAGELOK COMPANY: An Ohio technology manufacturer is closing its North Tonawanda plant, laying off 116 workers as it seeks to cut costs and operate more efficiently. Swagelok Biopharm Services Co. is relocating the facility's operations to its parent company's headquarters in Solon, outside Cleveland, by the second quarter of next year. Swagelok Biopharm Services, which caters to pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, food, beverage, and dairy product makers, is a subsidiary of Swagelok Co. The parent makes fluid system component technologies for research, instrumentation, pharmaceutical, oil and gas, power, petrochemical and semiconductor industries. Founded in 1947 in Cleveland as a maker of tube fittings, Swagelok today employs 3,000 in 25 manufacturing, research, technical support and distribution facilities in North America, Europe and Asia. It also has 200 sales and service centers in 54 countries on six continents. 10/18 FEDERATED DEPARTMENT STORES, INC.: The marriage of retailing behemoths Federated and May is official, and the recently combined

company announced its integration strategy, along with job cuts and business sales designed to save $175 million in 2006 and $450 million in 2007 and beyond. Approximately 6,200 jobs will be eliminated. About 4,500 of the job losses are expected at the May chains in Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and Arlington, Va. About 1,700 people will be cut when May's headquarters in St. Louis is "phased out." Not included in the job-cut totals are the employees of May's Philadelphiabased Bridal Group, now up for sale. The group includes 245 David's Bridal budget-gown stores, 11 Priscilla of Boston high-end gown shops and 454 tuxedo-rental stores operated as After Hours Formalwear, an Atlanta-born chain sold to May in 2001. 10/18 NORTHWEST AIRLINES CORPORATION: On its first day in bankruptcy recently, Northwest Airlines management told the pilots union that it will cut 400 pilot jobs. The company also briefed union leaders about deeper concessions that management will seek. The Eagan-based carrier, which operates one of the oldest fleets in the industry, filed a motion to reject or abandon 13 airplanes that have been parked for an extended period or which it can no longer operate economically, including six Boeing 757-200s and four DC-9-30s. Northwest had warned that job cuts would come before the end of the year as it reduced operations by 5 to 6 percent. It took the carrier less than 24 hours to act on that statement. The pilot layoffs do not require approval from a New York bankruptcy judge. Even before Northwest sought bankruptcy protection, it planned to reduce its flight capacity, especially in domestic markets where it faces intense competition from low-fare carriers. Also, Northwest Airlines plans to cut 900 flight attendant positions now and about 500 more in January. 10/18 BOMBARDIER AEROSPACE CORPORATION: Bombardier Aerospace is looking toward China, India and Mexico, countries with emerging economies, as places to outsource work as it studies ways to reduce operating costs. Bombardier is moving some of its technical publication functions to India and cutting 79 jobs. 11/7 BLUEWATER CENTRE FOR OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH: Cuts at Bluewater Health means layoffs of more than 100 health-care professionals, including nurses and medical technicians, and a reduction in services. The cuts are a result of the Health Minister's plan to have all hospitals balance their budgets by the end of March. The hospital has projected a deficit this year of $13.6 million, and the health ministry has approved a plan to reduce the deficit by $11.6 million. 11/7 INCO LIMITED: Inco Ltd. agreed to pay nearly $11 billion in cash and

stock for Falconbridge Ltd. recently in a deal between two of Canada's top mining companies that would create the world's largest nickel producer and a significant copper producer. Inco's buyout of Falconbridge is expected to be completed by early next year. The company will be based in Toronto and will be called Inco Ltd. The acquisition will result in job cuts at the companies' Sudbury operations and at their head office. One hundred to 150 people would be cut in Sudbury. Inco, a 103-year-old company, employs over 11,000 people and has a 20 percent market share of global nickel sales, making it the second largest nickel producer. Nickel is used to make stainless steel and batteries. 11/7 ONTARIO NORTHLAND RAILWAY: The layoff of 33 seasonal employees is being accelerated. In addition, reductions equivalent to 46 full-time, non-seasonal positions are being made to the Company's total payroll. This saving is being achieved through a combination of reduced work hours and layoffs. As well, capital and non essential spending, training and hiring have been deferred. Ontario Northland President and CEO released information regarding temporary cost saving measures being implemented as a result of the Kidd Creek Mine strike. Kidd Creek is one of Ontario Northland's key rail freight clients and as such, the current labor disruption and the associated reduction in freight traffic are having a significant effect on the Company's revenues and cash flow. 11/7 ARCHWAY MOTHERS COOKIES LLC: The Archway & Mother's cookie manufacturing plant, among the 20 largest employers in Plant City, will close and eliminate some 200 jobs. The work they are doing will be transferred to plants in Oakland, Calif.; Ashland, Ohio; and Kitchener, Ontario. 11/7 SANCTUARY GROUP PLC: International entertainment company Sanctuary Group PLC said it will cut its work force by a quarter after a series of profit warnings. Sanctuary, which represents artists including Elton John, The Manic Street Preachers, James Blunt and Iron Maiden, said it plans to cut 175 positions world-wide to cut costs. The company has offices in London, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Berlin. 11/7 ADC TELECOMMUNICATIONS, INC.: ADC said it expected lower sales of fiber-optic equipment to Verizon Communications, its largest fiberoptic product customer, in the current quarter. To respond to the shortfall, ADC is laying off 400 workers at a manufacturing plant in Mexico. 11/7

GEORGIA-PACIFIC CORPORATION: Georgia-Pacific is slicing 1,100 jobs in North America and Europe as it restructures its tissue paper business, citing the need for better productivity along with slowing demand for paper used by restaurants and other businesses. Most of the North American cuts will come in Green Bay, Wis., where the Atlanta-based consumer products and building materials giant has a commercial tissue plant. Georgia-Pacific said it will idle up to four tissue machines and reduce its work force by 850 in North America. The majority of the cuts come in the company's commercial tissue paper business, which sells paper goods to restaurants, hotels and companies. Other tissue plants in Muskogee, Okla., and Savannah will also be affected, although the company expects no job losses in Savannah. The cutbacks won't affect the company's Atlanta headquarters. 10/31 PARAMOUNT CARDS, INC.: Add Pawtucket-based Paramount Cards to the list of companies upended by globalization. A Rhode Island institution, the greeting-card company announced last month that it would be laying off 250 Ocean State workers as it shifts production and distribution jobs to Canada. Some work will move to China, as well. Paramount plans to retain its headquarters in Rhode Island, keeping roughly 100 people at work here. But the company envisions selling a large four-story building on Pine Street, and shutting down production in the state by March. Rhode Island workers who lose their jobs will most likely have to change employers. Paramount has pledged to offer job counseling, but the laid-off workers could find it difficult to do as well elsewhere. 10/31 SEARS CANADA INC.: Sears Canada, which sold its credit card unit in August, said recently it planned to lay off 1,200 workers. The company is cutting 3 percent of its 40,000 workers to trim costs to the same levels as other retailers in Canada. Two-thirds of the job cuts will be administrative, with the rest divided among in-store management and support staff. 10/31 WEYERHAEUSER CO.: Weyerhaeuser Co. plans to close a pulp and paper mill in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada, early next year, eliminating 690 jobs, the U.S.-based forest products company said recently. It blamed "poor market conditions." Paper operations will cease production soon. The pulp mill will continue operating until spring. 10/31 NEILSEN MANUFACTURING INC.: Neilsen Manufacturing Inc. said that

it will cut its work force from 175 to 50 because of competition from Southeast Asia. 10/31 MDS INC.: Lincoln will bear fewer than 20 of the 500 or so job cuts MDS Inc. has planned worldwide. MDS declined to talk specifically about severance and benefits extended to employees let go in the cost-saving move. They also declined to say what job classifications the impacted employees were in or what kind of salaries those workers made. 10/31 MOTOROLA, INC.: As part of an ongoing effort to improve the performance of its supply chain, Motorola Inc. said recently it will shed 1,900 jobs. Most of the global job cuts formally announced recently, however, had been disclosed in recent months. Many of the cuts are part of Motorola's attempt, outlined over the summer, to improve profit margins. The 1,900 job cuts are spread across 29 facilities in more than 20 countries. The biggest single reduction is at the Elgin plant, which employs about 700. Motorola said that its is selling the facility to Pennsylvania-based Communications Test Design Inc. Motorola will keep about 150 of its Elgin employees. The other 550 are included in the 1,900 job reductions, though not all of those workers will actually lose their jobs. CTDI will retain about 280 of those positions. Another 270 workers will be laid off, or may be able to get jobs at other CTDI plants. 10/31 DAIMLERCHRYSLER AG: Mercedes-Benzs CEO, after four weeks in the post, intends to eliminate at least 5,000 jobs to help revive profit at the DaimlerChrysler AG luxury car division. 10/24 ITT INDUSTRIES: More than 100 employees of ITT Industries' HydroAir facility in Brea learned recently that they will lose their jobs because the company is moving its manufacturing to Mexico. ITT said it is closing the Brea plant, with 108 hourly and nine salary employees being laid off in a five-month period beginning soon. About 25 salaried employees will be transferred to an ITT facility in Foot-hill Ranch. ITT's HydroAir makes parts for pools, spas, showers and whirlpool baths. 10/24 CELESTICA INC.: Mount Pleasant's hope for saving about 350 factory jobs faded when a Michigan company said that it was no longer interested in buying an electronics plant. Sparton Corp. said in a release recently that the company lacked the time needed to "retain the existing work force and to secure commitments for a sufficient level of new business." The Iowa plant is slated to close by year-end.

Toronto, Ontario-based Celestica, the current owner, is transferring the radio components work to a plant in Mexico. Already, about 100 of 350 workers have lost their jobs. 10/24 GENERAL MOTORS CORP.: The Canadian Auto Workers union and General Motors Corp. reached a last-minute tentative agreement on a new 3-year contract recently. The union's pact with GM, covering more than 17,000 workers, will result in the loss of about 1,000 jobs over the next three years in Canada, but most could be achieved through attrition rather than forced layoffs. Most of GM's job cuts will be at its three vehicle assembly plants in Oshawa, Ontario, where the automaker hopes to increase efficiency by 3% to 5% a year, or by 250 to 300 fewer jobs annually during the life of the contract. GM will also cut jobs at its St. Catharines, Ontario, engine plant. 10/24 DAIMLERCHRYSLER CANADA INC.: Reflecting the struggling state of North American automakers, the Canadian Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement with DaimlerChrysler Canada that eliminates about 1,600 jobs and offers only limited wage and benefit gains. The Canadian arm of the Chrysler Group avoided a strike scheduled to start recently by abandoning a plan to contract out several services, including trucking, as well as closing a casting plant in Toronto. Those moves, the union said, would have eliminated 2,500 jobs. In exchange for DaimlerChrysler keeping the Toronto foundry open and not outsourcing the trucking, security and janitorial work in Windsor, Ontario, the union agreed to allow 1,600 positions throughout the company to disappear through attrition and early retirement over the contract's three-year term. 10/18 H.J. HEINZ COMPANY, LP: H.J. Heinz Co. said recently it is trimming European operations and will sell off a host of brands for about $1 billion in a move that will allow the company to focus on its ketchup and other core products. The restructuring will cut about 10,000 jobs from the company's worldwide employment of about 41,000 and will reduce the number of plants from 101 to about 80. The Pittsburghbased condiment and food maker said the businesses that it will sell account for about $1.4 billion in yearly sales and include its seafood, vegetable and frozen-food businesses in Europe and its Tegel poultry unit in New Zealand. Following the restructuring, the company will focus on three areas: ketchup, condiments and sauces; meals and snacks; and infant nutrition. 10/18 AMERIWOOD INDUSTRIES: All 300 of the Wright City plant's employees will be out of jobs. Ameriwood Industries says it no longer

needs the plant's production. Ameriwood Industries, which makes ready-to-assemble furniture, announced that it was closing its Wright City plant, the town's largest employer. The company has been hurt by competition from manufacturers in China, pressure from Wal-Mart, a prime Ameriwood customer, to cut prices and even the effect of Hurricane Katrina. Ameriwood will move the work done in Wright City to company plants in Tiffin, Ohio; Dowagiac, Mich., and, perhaps, Cornwall, Ontario. The Wright City factory produces ready-to-assemble entertainment centers, cabinets and computer desks. 10/18 YORK INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION: York International Corp. said after the closing bell recently that it has planned a restructuring program to save the company $35 million a year starting in 2007. The restructuring program entails consolidating operations within Europe, the Middle East and Africa. York plans to divest non-core operations, close one manufacturing facility and significantly downsize another factory. The company said the actions are expected to reduce the EMEA workforce by 1,300 employees, or 20%. 10/18 BALLARD POWER SYSTEMS, INC.: Ballard Power Systems Inc., a maker of fuel cells, said it will cut about 100 jobs in Canada and the United States as it moves to trim operating expenses by about 12 percent. The job cuts affect Ballard facilities in Vancouver; Lowell, Massachusetts; and Dearborn, Michigan. This 12% reduction in operating expenses is in addition to the cost savings realized through the recently completed sale of Ballard's fuel cell support systems business to its partners DaimlerChrysler AG and Ford Motor Company. Ballard Power Systems is recognized as the world leader in the design, development and manufacture of zero-emission proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Ballard's mission is to develop fuel cell power as a practical alternative to internal combustion engines through technology leadership. 10/18 NORAMPAC INC.: Norampac announces the permanent closure of paper machine no. 1 at its linerboard mill located in Red Rock, Ontario. This mill currently has two paper machines. Machine no. 1 was used to manufacture Kraft linerboard and was producing approximately 150,000 short tons yearly. The stronger Canadian dollar as well as an increase in energy and wood fibre costs in Northern Ontario leave the Company no choice but to take this very difficult decision. There are currently 435 employees at the Red Rock mill. 10/18 QUICKSILVER INC.: Rossignol and Dynastar, two ski brands that helped put the Burlington area on the map as a center for the North American ski industry, are

moving to Utah and eliminating 70 local jobs, parent company Quiksilver Inc. announced recently. Quiksilver is a sports apparel company with its roots in surfing and annual sales in excess of $1 billion. Quiksilver bought Rossignol Group, which included Dynastar and several other ski and snowboard-related brands, in late July. Rossignol and Dynastar will join Quiksilver's other winter sports brands in a new center in Park City. Those include snowboard brands Lib Technologies, GNU and Bent Metal, and snowboard bootmaker DC Shoes. In addition, Roxy, a women's surf apparel line, will locate its new women's ski and ski apparel line there. Rossignol and Dynastar's human resources, legal and treasury departments will be consolidated with Quicksilver's California operations. Sales, marketing and customer service will relocate in Park City. The change is part of an effort to help transform the former Rossignol Group's long-in-the-tooth brands into youthful action-sport brands. Both Rossignol and Dynastar plan to launch into apparel more aggressively. 10/10 L-3 COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION: BT Fuze will lay off 125 of its 180 employees, because its fuze production will shift to a sister company in Cincinnati. BT Fuzes owner, L-3 Communications, has chosen to consolidate fuze-making there because of dwindling demand, a reflection of how modern warfare has changed. The need for the artillery round has not been eliminated, but its been greatly reduced. 10/10 US AIRWAYS GROUP, INC.: US Airways Group Inc. said recently that it plans to transfer its revenue-accounting operations from Winston-Salem, eliminating 268 jobs. The job functions of those departments ultimately will be handled in Tempe. America West is based in Tempe, Ariz., which is where the merged company will have its headquarters. The conversion is part of a plan to combine two struggling carriers with little territorial overlap to form a stronger airline. The goal is to become a low-fare carrier that can compete better with Southwest Airlines Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp. 10/10 LEAR CORPORATION: Automobile parts maker Lear Corp. said it will close its Covington plant and lay off the 220 workers there. The closing is part of company cutbacks worldwide, the Southfield, Mich. based company said in a statement given to Covington employees recently. Lear will wind down production of injectionmolded door panels and trim for automobile interiors in Covington. 10/3 MERVYNS LLC: Mervyns is closing all of its Houston-area stores and eliminating more than 600 jobs, as the retail chain pares nearly one-quarter of its stores to focus on profitable locations elsewhere. In addition to the eight Houston stores, the company will close another 54 locations around the country and lay off a total of 4,800 workers. The stores are expected to close soon. Mervyns department stores, which compete primarily with chains like J.C. Penney and Kohl's, struggled locally as its rivals opened new locations in recent years. The locations that are closing, which represent 17 percent of the chain's annual sales, have not been profitable in

several years. Aside from the Houston stores, the California retailer will shutter 54 other outlets in Michigan, Oklahoma and parts of Colorado, Louisiana and Texas. It will also close one store each in Southern California, Utah and Oregon, as well as distribution centers. The company will lay off 1,200 full-time and 3,600 part time workers. 10/3 GENECOR INTERNATIONAL: Biotechnology company Genencor International will close its local plant by the end of 2007, eliminating 100 jobs in the city. The company is consolidating its manufacturing plants to cut costs. Production will move from the Beloit plant to other facilities. Genencor develops products and services for the health care, agri-processing, industrial and consumer markets. Its main offices are in Palo Alto, Calif.; Rochester, N.Y., and Leiden, The Netherlands. Its U.S. manufacturing plants are in Beloit, Rochester and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 10/3

U.S. Economy Lost 35,000 Jobs in September

Saturday, October 08, 2005 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171532,00.html

WASHINGTON A smaller-than-expected 35,000 jobs were lost in the United States last month as hiring in some regions was offset by layoffs stemming from the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, according to a Labor Department (search) report on Friday. The national unemployment rate (search) kicked up to 5.1 percent in September the highest rate since May from 4.9 percent in August. Wall Street economists had expected a higher jobloss total of 143,000 but had correctly anticipated the 5.1 percent jobless rate. The department indicated that September payroll growth likely would have been in line with the 194,000 jobs-a-month that have been created on average over the past year if not for the blow delivered by Katrina (search), which struck the Gulf Coast on August 29. Another hurricane, Rita, hit during the third week of September, affecting the collection of the monthly job data, but its impact will not be captured until October's report. September marked the first month in which there were job losses since May 2003, when 26,000 were cut. The department revised up its estimates for job growth in July and August by a combined 77,000. It said there were 211,000 jobs created in August instead 169,000 and 277,000 in July rather than 242,000.

U.S. Treasury debt prices sank after the jobs data was published as investors bet it meant interest rates will keep rising, but the dollar strengthened initially on the signs of a relatively healthy underlying economy. U.S. stock index futures pointed to a stronger market opening. ECONOMY RETAINS MOMENTUM Analysts said the much-anticipated data the first major government report that covers the aftermath of Katrina still depicted an economy that carried hefty momentum. "Take a look also at July and August ... big upward revisions. All of a sudden, if (Federal Reserve (search) Chairman Alan) Greenspan is right and you come out of hurricanes the same way you go in, then we went in a lot stronger than we thought and we'll come out a lot stronger than we thought," said economist Chris Low of FTN Financial in New York. He added that the jobs report likely reinforces the view that the U.S. central bank will extend its rate-rise campaign, something that Fed spokesmen have been strongly hinting at in recent days. The Fed already has raised short-term U.S. interest rates 11 times since mid-2004 and has expressed its intent to keep potential inflation in check. The Labor Department said it had sought a rough idea of Katrina's impact on job markets by eliminating survey results from the areas in which the storm struck hardest. "This exercise showed that total nonfarm employment would have increased by an amount in line with the prior year's average," it said, which it calculated at 194,000 a month. In a measure of Katrina's direct effect on the job market, the department said some 80,000 jobs were lost in leisure and hospitality industries not surprising since hard-hit New Orleans is tourist magnet compared with a 37,000-job gain in August. Retail industries lost 88,000 jobs last month and factories 27,000 a fourth month in a row for layoffs on the factory floor. There were some areas in which jobs were created last month, including 52,000 new jobs in professional and business services, 49,000 in education and health and 31,000 in the government.

Delphi Corp., Biggest Auto Supplier in U.S., Files for Bankruptcy http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171652,00.html
DETROIT Delphi Corp. (search), the largest U.S. auto supplier, filed for bankruptcy Saturday, sending shock waves through a U.S. auto industry already is weakened by high labor costs and falling market share.

The company's bankruptcy, which is expected to result in plant closures and layoffs, is one of the largest in the country's history. Delphi (DPH) filed to reorganize its U.S. operations in federal bankruptcy court in New York, where hearings are scheduled to begin next week. Delphi's non-U.S. operations were not included in the filing. Delphi Chairman and CEO Robert S. Miller (search) said the company hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 in early to mid-2007. "We will make every effort to make this as quick as possible," Miller told The Associated Press on Saturday. Miller, a restructuring expert who was hired in July, had threatened to take the company into bankruptcy if he failed to reach a restructuring agreement with Delphi's former parent, General Motors Corp., and its largest union, the United Auto Workers (search). Miller set a deadline of Oct. 17, when U.S. bankruptcy laws are scheduled to change. Miller said Delphi will continue negotiating with GM and the UAW to lower its labor costs. Miller said the three parties agreed to continue their discussions after a bankruptcy filing. "We mutually concluded there was still too much of the complex work yet to be done," Miller said. "It was not going to be efficient to work right up to the midnight deadline to the change in the law." Miller said nothing will change immediately. Delphi will continue to pay its 50,000 U.S. employees and suppliers and will ship its products on schedule. Delphi has 31 plants in 13 states, including Michigan, Ohio, Alabama and California. The company has 185,000 employees worldwide. "We are not going to adversely affect our customers," he said. "Our people will get their pay checks and will still have their health benefits. Retirees will continue to get their checks. Any changes to that will be dealt with in an orderly way." Delphi will finance its operations with $4.5 billion in loans, including up to $2 billion in debtor-inpossession financing from a group of lenders led by JPMorgan Chase Bank (search) and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Delphi, based in the Detroit suburb of Troy, has struggled to make a profit since GM spun it off in 1999. It lost $4.8 billion in 2004 and nearly $750 million in the first half of this year. Delphi had $16.5 billion in total assets as of June 30, the most recent figure available, and has total debt of $6 billion, Standard & Poor's said Thursday. The company had $4.3 billion in unfunded pension liabilities at the end of 2004, according to a company filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The largest corporate bankruptcy in the U.S. was WorldCom Inc., which had $103.9 billion in prebankruptcy assets.

ECRI: Inflation Gauge at Highest in Over 5 Years http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171564,00.html

NEW YORK Inflation pressures climbed in September to their highest in over five years, according to a report on Friday that suggested the Federal Reserve (search) was right to remain vigilant over price increases. The Economic Cycle Research Institute (search) said its Future Inflation Gauge (search) rose to 122.7 last month, its highest since June 2000, the tail end of the late 1990s economic boom. August's reading was revised down to 120.7. Over the past few weeks, Fed officials have gone out of their way to remind investors and consumers that they must continue to raise interest rates to ward off inflation. The survey's annualized growth rate, which smoothes out month-to-month variance, jumped to 6.6 percent from 3.7 percent. "If the Fed continues to approach policy as an exercise in managing risks, the clear danger remains inflation and not recession," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at ECRI, an independent research group.

White House 'Moving Forward' on Greenspan Successor

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171592,00.html WASHINGTON President Bush wants to pick a replacement for retiring Federal Reserve (search) Chairman Alan Greenspan (search) as soon as possible, the White House said Friday. Spokesman Scott McClellan described Bush as actively in pursuit of the next Fed chairman. Greenspan's 18-year run on the Federal Reserve is expected to end on Jan. 31.

"As soon as possible," McClellan said when asked when Bush might choose a Greenspan successor. "The president will make a decision when he's ready to do so, but we are moving ahead on the nomination." McClellan said the process had not been slowed by the focus in the past couple of months on Hurricane Katrina (search) and the nominations of John Roberts and Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. He called the Fed chairman position a "priority appointment" and said Bush was thinking about it very carefully and his staff had been working hard on potential candidates. "The president's staff has been working very hard at looking at individuals to bring to his attention and he's been thinking about it as well," McClellan said. "This is a priority appointment, the president is thinking about it very carefully and we continue to move forward on that nomination," he said. "I'm not going to speculate about the timing or any names." Greenspan, 79, has signaled he prefers to retire when his term ends early next year, although the White House could ask him to stay on longer if a successor is not confirmed by January 31. Asked about the Fed search process at a news conference on Tuesday, Bush said he had not yet seen a list of prospective nominees but would select a successor to Greenspan "at an appropriate time." He also said he wanted to name someone who is viewed as independent from politics. Three potential candidates are regularly mentioned -- Glenn Hubbard (search), a past adviser to Bush; Harvard economist Martin Feldstein (search); and Fed Governor-turned-White House adviser Ben Bernanke (search). Other potential contenders include former Bush economic aide and ex-Federal Reserve governor Lawrence Lindsey (search), Fed Governor Donald Kohn (search), Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson (search) and ex-Dallas Fed President Robert McTeer (search).

Greenspan: Banking Competition Remains Intense

Friday, April 08, 2005

WASHINGTON Even though the country has just half the banks that it did two decades ago, the competition to provide consumers

with financial services remains intense, Federal Reserve (search) Chairman Alan Greenspan (search) said Friday. Speaking to a Federal Reserve sponsored conference, Greenspan said that deregulation of the U.S. banking industry (search) has contributed to an approximately 50 percent decline in the number of banks and savings and loan institutions since the mid-1980s. At the same time, he said, the 10 largest U.S. banks and thrift institutions have increased their share of domestic assets such as consumer loans from 29 percent of the total to 49 percent. But Greenspan said most studies show that this ongoing consolidation has not reduced overall competition to provide consumers with banking services. "Even in the face of consolidation, competition is fought on the battlefield of the local market, where most households obtain the majority of their banking services," Greenspan said in his prepared remarks. "It is noteworthy that our measures of local market competition have remained quite stable over the past 15 years." Greenspan said that competition is being bolstered by the fact that deregulation has spurred many nonbank enterprises to provide loans and other services that were once mainly offered by traditional banks. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3053419/?qp=53123

GENERAL COMMUNICATION INC.: General Communication Inc. is laying off 77 employees as part of a corporate restructuring. The Anchorage-based telecom and cable-TV company, one of the state's largest employers, notified its 1,351 workers of the pending job cuts by e-mail. GCI now is being run under management units focused on selling all of what the company has to offer to four specific types of customers: consumers; businesses and organizations; other telecom carriers; and customers using custom services such as telemedicine. The shift in management focus from products to customer groups is similar to one GCI's cross-town rival, Alaska Communications Systems, recently adopted under its new senior management team. GCI's reorganization was prompted by advances in communications technology and a changing regulatory environment that made managing by product line inefficient. 9/21 COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL CORP.: Mortgage lending giant Countrywide Financial Corp.'s subprime lending division will lose about 55 employees to downsizing, as the company deals with substantial

overcrowding at its Rosemead facility. All of the affected workers were involved in checking loan documentation and assessing risk factors or distributing loan funds. Subprime loans, typically made to borrowers with credit scores near 520, generally have the highest upfront costs and very high interest rates. The consolidation was part of ongoing efforts to alleviate overcrowding in many of the Calabasas-based lender's Southland offices. The Rosemead facility held nearly 300 people above its intended capacity. The trickle out of California was also attributed to the firm's three-year standing policy of assigning corporate expansion to areas in Arizona and Texas, where the cost of doing business primarily worker's compensation insurance payments is considerably lower. 9/14 STEEL HECTOR & DAVIS: After months of negotiations, the 80-year-old Steel Hector & Davis finalized a merger recently that took effect with Cleveland-based Squire Sanders & Dempsey in one of the largest law firm combinations in Florida history. The transaction gives 800-lawyer Squire Sanders, which was formed in 1890 and was seeking to expand in Florida and Latin America, four new offices and 100 lawyers in Florida, South America and the Caribbean. Squire Sanders ranked 52nd in this year's Am Law 100 survey of the nation's largest law firms in terms of gross revenue. About 25 Steel staffers were let go, including the entire marketing department, most of the information technology and accounting departments, two paralegals, file room clerks and about six secretaries. The company said it did not know how many Steel Hector lawyers were let go but said about 20 lawyers had left in recent weeks, some voluntarily and some through layoffs. About five lawyers were laid off in Miami, including one partner and one of counsel. 10/3 PARADYNE NETWORKS INC.: Communications equipment maker Paradyne Networks Inc., of Largo, will cut 102 workers. As of July, Paradyne had 400 employees in Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire. Paradyne makes telecommunications equipment to deliver high-speed Internet service over telephone lines. Paradyne is being acquired by another communications firm, Zhone Technologies of Oakland, Calif. 10/3 FLORIDA CRYSTALS CORPORATION: Florida Crystals Corp. has officially laid off 344 employees at its Atlantic Sugar Mill near Belle Glade, in effect shutting down the cane-grinding facility. The mill's future has been uncertain since last spring when layoffs began. Atlantic Sugar, which ground up to 15,000 tons of cane a day, is one of three Palm Beach County mills owned by Florida Crystals. Florida Crystals said foreign sugar imports under the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement are forcing cutbacks in domestic production, and Atlantic lacks sufficient cane to maintain its efficiency. 10/3 FLORIDAS NATURAL GROWERS: Recently, Florida's Natural Growers said it will close a Bartow processing plant and reduce production at another in Lake

Wales, causing job losses for about 60 seasonal workers in Bartow and about 40 permanent workers at the Lake Wales plant. Citrus processing layoffs are due to two consecutive years of reduced crops. 9/26 TITAN CRUISE LINES: Titan Cruise Lines filed notice recently with the state Agency for Workforce Innovation that it plans to lay off the Ocean Jewel's 415 fulltime employees. Titan recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. 9/21 RHODES, INC.: Rhodes Inc., an Atlanta-based furniture retailer with five locations in Central Florida, has notified the state it's closing its south Orlando distribution center and laying off 62 people. The 130-year-old, privately held retailer filed for bankruptcy reorganization in November and recently agreed to sell its remaining stores to Florida-based Rooms To Go. 9/14/2005 DAIMLERCHRYSLER AG: DaimlerChrysler AG will close its Indianapolis foundry and eliminate 881 jobs, reducing the automaker's once formidable Indiana manufacturing presence. The plant was owned by American Foundry Co. until Chrysler bought it in 1946. The automaker invested in major upgrades there in 1964, 1978, 1988, and the late 1990s. The closing will diminish DaimlerChrysler's presence in Indiana to Kokomo, where three transmission plants and an aluminum casting plant employ about 7,500 workers. 9/12 WINNEBAGO INDUSTRIES, INC.: Winnebago Industries Inc. has laid off 4.5 percent of its workforce at its four Iowa plants, blaming a softening market for recreation vehicles. The Forest City-based motor home marker announced the layoffs earlier this month, but officials didn't know how many workers would be affected. A spokeswoman said 171 workers were laid off. The majority of the layoffs were at the company's main plant in Forest City, with others at plants in Charles City, Hampton and Lorimor. In Charles City, 17 of the plant's 587 workers were laid off and in Hampton, 19 of 167 workers. Lorimor will lose six of its 54 with Forest City losing 129 of the 2,965 at its main plant. The RV industry posted record sales of $14 billion last year, but sales have plummeted in 2005. Rising oil prices and higher interest rates have contributed to the slump. 9/26 MAYTAG CORPORATION: Maytag Corp. said it will lay off 200 workers at its flagship laundry plant, reducing the work force to its lowest levels in nearly 60 years. The layoffs will leave the plant with about 1,000 production workers. The pending sale of Maytag also has generated nervousness that if rival Whirlpool Corp. is the new owner, it will close factories such as the Newton plant and the corporate headquarters. 9/19 ORLEANS PARISH SCHOOL BOARD: The Orleans Parish school system is cutting 150 employees, the first round of what a school board member expects will be at least 1,000 job reductions as it tries to cut $48 million from its budget. The district needs to cut $48 million from a $420 million budget approved late last month. That budget already called for eliminating 800 positions, although about

half of those are already vacant, officials said. 9/21 GRAPHIC PACKAGING CORPORATION: Graphic Packaging Corp. plans to eliminate 78 jobs at its West Monroe carton plant. Those layoffs follow 28 previous job cuts made recently. More than 500 people work at the carton plant, 472 as hourly employees. More than 700 people work at Graphic Packaging's West Monroe paper mill, which is a separate operation but located in the same complex. The plant hit by the layoffs makes cartons for beer. 9/19 RIVIANA FOODS: Riviana Foods is cutting 100 jobs, or half of the work force, at its Abbeville rice plant, the company says. Riviana said 30 other jobs will be eliminated company-wide. Overall, the cuts will affect 12 percent of Riviana's work force of 1,075. The plant, which has been operating since the turn of the last century, was too expensive to modernize, the Houston-based company said. Unfortunately, it is simply not economically feasible to modernize the facilities, some of which are over 90 years old, to achieve the level of efficiency that is necessary today to economically provide the highest quality products and service to our markets throughout the United States, Riviana president said in a statement announcing the reduction. The company's product lines include Mahatma, Water Maid and Success rice brands. 9/7 DETROIT FIRE DEPARTMENT: The city said recently it would cut 75 more fire department jobs and deactivate some firefighting units to help address a budget crisis that also has forced reductions in the police force and other city services. The cuts are in addition to the 113 department jobs trimmed in July and come as Detroit faces a possible state takeover of its finances. The latest cuts involve 65 firefighters and 10 battalion chiefs. The city budget that went into effect this summer contained cutbacks of $300 million, forcing reductions in bus, trash and other services and staff layoffs. If things don't improve, the city could go into receivership and be taken over by the state. 10/3/2005 LEAR CORPORATION: Lear Corp. plans to close a plant in Marshall, eliminating about 130 jobs. The factory makes injection-molded door panels and hard trim for the automotive industry. Lear had 650 workers in Marshall in 2003 before laying off 120 people, the start of a steady decline in plant employment. 9/21 CROTTY CORPORATION: Auto parts supplier Crotty Corp. plans to close its operations in Quincy, Mich., leading to about 246 permanent layoffs. The company makes sun visors and engine gaskets. 9/19 FORD MOTOR COMPANY: Ford Motor Co. notified workers at the Wixom Assembly Plant recently that production of the Lincoln LS would end with the 2006 model year next spring or summer. The move will eliminate 250 to 280 jobs and perhaps seal the fate of the plant. As Ford's traditional domestic brands have lost market share year after year, the company has found itself losing money on its automotive business and needing to close plants. Wixom has long been seen by

analysts as a plant in danger of being closed. LS never struck a chord with consumers, who saw it as neither sporty enough nor luxurious enough to compete with BMWs or other premium brands. 9/19/2005 ANHEUSER-BUSCH COMPANIES, INC.: Seeking to boost productivity, Anheuser-Busch Cos. will trim about 100 jobs in St. Louis that it found overlapped with other engineering and production jobs or were no longer needed there. Anheuser-Busch employs about 5,000 people in St. Louis. Anheuser-Busch has been beefing up its sales and marketing efforts this year as it seeks to drive up sales in a sluggish U.S. beer market. 10/3 UNITED INDUSTRIES CORPORATION: At the former Maryland Heights headquarters of United Industries Corp., which was acquired in February by a company then known as Rayovac Corp., employees have learned their fate. About 60 jobs will end soon. In February, the remaining 90 local workers will close the Maryland Heights building and move to a renovated corner of a company warehouse and manufacturing facility in Earth City. At its peak, United Industries, which made lawn and garden products and last year entered the pet-care business through an acquisition, employed 220 people in the St. Louis area. 9/26 CARLISLE POWER TRANSMISSION PRODUCTS INC.: Carlisle Power Transmission Products Inc.'s Springfield plant will lay off 55 hourly workers. The manufacturing plant primarily makes rubber and plastic hoses and belting. The layoff is the result of an unexpected business downturn the company has experienced in recent months, according to a company statement. Carlisle Companies Inc., the plant's parent company, serves several industries, including power transmission, construction materials, commercial roofing and food service. 9/26 SAINT MARYS REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center cut 96 employees from its 2,380-person staff and trimmed hours for five others in its ongoing effort to stem millions in losses the past two years. The cutbacks came a year after the Renobased Catholic institution eliminated 137 positions, including 35 layoffs, and one week after an annual state report showed an operating loss of $10.3 million in 2004. The latest job losses, expected to save $6.3 million a year, will not affect patient care. The latest layoffs were spread among the nonprofit hospital's work force and included 18 management positions but no nursing jobs. 9/26 PLUM ISLAND ANIMAL DISEASE CENTER: The United States Department of Homeland Security announced last month that it had decided to replace Plum Island Animal Disease Center with a new federal biological and agricultural defense center at a location yet to be determined. The news means a loss of 200 jobs and federal tax dollars for the region. 10/10

BRUNSWICK HOSPITAL CENTER, INC.: Ending weeks of speculation, Brunswick Hospital Center in Amityville announced that it will close its general hospital and emergency department and eliminate about 150 jobs. A physical rehabilitation facility, a psychiatric hospital and a longterm care nursing home, will remain open and fully staffed. The three divisions have about 250 patients. Brunswick is the last for-profit hospital on Long Island. The closing of the financially struggling hospital comes as no surprise. About 200 hospital workers were laid off in June. 10/3 COACH USA INC.: Coach USA will close its bus terminal in North Tonawanda, eliminating more than 70 local jobs. The closing comes months after Coach USA lost a contract to provide shuttle services on the University at Buffalo campus and more than a year after it stopped providing shuttle services downtown. The terminal, which employed drivers, mechanics, dispatchers and a handful of salaried workers, provided coach tours, as well as transportation for events such as school ski trips and field trips. 10/3 GUILFORD COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION: Teacher assistants were the losers recently when the Guilford County Board of Education used money saved by cutting those jobs to balance its 2005-2006 budget. Those additions were possible after the state gave the district $1.2 million more for teacher assistants, equal to about 49 jobs. The school board instead used the money to help balance its budget. It also cut another 96 positions to save about $2.3 million. 9/26 CH2M HILL MOUND INC.: The company that is cleaning up the former Mound nuclear weapons plant for conversion to a business park will lay off about 115 of its 215 workers over the next few months as it finishes the project. The site manager for CH2M Hill Mound Inc. said recently that the 100 workers remaining following the layoffs will taper off to zero through 2006. Much of the 306-acre property in this Dayton suburb already has been converted to the Mound Advanced Technology Center. Mound began making triggers and detonators for nuclear weapons in 1949. The U.S. Department of Energy ended production at the plant in 1996, leaving cleanup of radioactive and hazardous waste as the primary activity. 10/3 DELTA AIR LINES, INC.: Delta Air Lines is shrinking its Cincinnati hub, cutting about 1,000 jobs, adding international flights and selling more jets in its latest restructuring wave. Delta said it would "right-size" the Cincinnati hub, cutting flight capacity there by 26 percent and

eliminating about 1,000 jobs. Delta will cut overall capacity about 2 percent. The ailing airline, which most analysts think is edging toward a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, also is selling 11 older Boeing 767-200 widebodies to ABX Air, a cargo carrier. The Cincinnati hub is Delta's second-largest, behind Atlanta. Delta expanded the hub in the 1990s, mainly through rapid growth at its Comair regional subsidiary. But it lost traffic there to rival carriers at other airports in the region. The changes will bring more international and domestic flights to the Atlanta hub, which Delta has continued growing during its four-year financial crisis. 10/3 MT PICTURE DISPLAY CORPORATION OF AMERICA: Hammered by hemorrhaging sales for its television picture tubes, MT Picture Display Corp. will cut another 236 workers, or nearly a third of its remaining work force. In recent employee meetings, hourly workers hired after February 1997 were told they'll be permanently laid off as the company reacts to competition from less expensive Asian imports and newer television technologies, such as plasma and liquid crystal display. After the recent cuts, the 16-year-old Troy plant will employ 510 workers, including 125 salaried workers. That's down from a permanent work force of more than 1,400 five years ago. 9/14 MELLON FINANCIAL CORPORATION: Mellon Financial Corp., having lost a government contract to process U.S. passports, will eliminate about 220 full-time jobs at its Downtown client service center. The layoffs will occur soon. Mellon said it was advised by the government's Financial Management Service agency that the contract was awarded to another provider based solely on pricing. Mellon has processed U.S. passports in Pittsburgh since 1988 and will continue to provide process-related services from Pittsburgh to more than 30 other federal agencies. 10/3 WINNER STEEL, INC.: Air Products and Chemicals' problems with a pair of liquid hydrogen plants are rippling throughout the steel industry, as steelmakers struggle with a sudden shortage of a critical material. Winner Steel Co. of Sharon, Mercer County, said it laid off 70 workers and cut back production in a bid to conserve its limited supply of liquid hydrogen. Steel companies use the extremely cold liquid to make galvanized, cold-rolled and other specialized types of steel. As of recently, Winner Steel had a 10-day supply of hydrogen, and was scrambling to find other sources. The company employs 300 people. 10/3

SIX FLAGS INC.: Six Flags Inc. said it will close its AstroWorld park in Houston and sell the property to boost value for shareholders. The action will eliminate 119 jobs. 10/10 METROPOLITAN TRANSIT AUTHORITY: The Metropolitan Transit Authority recently approved a three-year labor agreement with the Transit Workers Union, which represents bus operators, mechanics and cleaners. The agency also laid off 77 employees in jobs described as non-mission critical. The employee "restructuring" involved slightly more than 2 percent of Metro's work force and was limited to nonunion salaried employees in functions and activities whose value to the authority had diminished over time or become unnecessary. 10/3 RCA RUBBER OF AKRON: The Pulaski Rubber Co. will close, eliminating 73 jobs. RCA Rubber of Akron, its parent company, had earlier announced plans to close the Pulaski facility by the end of the first quarter of this year as part of a consolidation plan. The company originally planned to close an older factory in Akron, Ohio, and move all of its manufacturing to a new building in Akron. Negotiations with the union there prompted the company to modernize its Akron plant instead, which delayed the consolidation plans. The company will begin its Pulaski layoffs soon. 9/7 STATE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY DEPARTMENT: Tacoma's East Side will lose 83 jobs when a state unemployment office call center is closed. The call center consolidation is expected to save the Employment Security Department $ 600,000 to $1.3 million a year. The agency is making other cuts, including a department wide reduction in its work force, to fill a $7 million to $8 million gap in its $ 70 million annual administrative budget. Workers at the facility handle telephone calls from residents who are applying for unemployment benefits, answer questions about the program and deal with clients' problems. Washington residents also may apply for benefits and manage their claims online. But if they want to talk to someone about a claim, they must call an 800 number. Calls are routed to one of the call centers, depending on availability. The call center consolidation is necessary because unemployment claims have dropped dramatically in the last two years. 9/26 SPOKANE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS: Local mental health providers will lay off as many as 200 employees because of a $3 million shortfall. The unexpected lack of funds stems from a dispute with the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. County officials say that federal Medicaid cuts coupled with a new DSHS funding

formula that rewarded some counties at the expense of three of the state's most populous ones leaves Spokane County more than $3 million shy of what it needs to operate its mental health system through June 2006. The shortfall will likely mean a 10 percent cut to crisis services such as emergency mental health hospitalizations and responses to those who are suicidal, and a 25 percent cut to outpatient care services like counseling and medication. Layoffs will be systemwide and include everyone from doctors, administrators and nurses to therapists and office workers. 9/19 ROBBINS & MYERS, INC.: Robbins & Myers Inc. has sold its Edlon-PSI plastic-lined pipe fittings business to Crane Co., idling its Charleston plant and cutting 86 jobs. The plant will close permanently soon. Robbins & Myers, headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, will continue to make Edlon's specialty and vessel accessory products at factories in Avondale, Pa., and in Scotland. 10/3 CASCADES INC.: Quebec-based Cascades is shutting down a fine-papers machine at its Thunder Bay, Ontario, operations and cutting about 150 jobs. The company says some of the converting activities, as well as the manufacture of certain grades of paper, will be transferred to other plants within the fine-papers group. It says in spite of sustained efforts over the past few years to improve profitability, the Ontario plant has continued to incur major financial losses. Cascades cites high energy costs in Ontario and the appreciation of the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar. The firm also points to unfavorable market conditions prevailing in the pulp and paper industry. 9/21 TECHTRONIC INDUSTRIES CO. LTD.: Techtronic Industries Co., which makes lawn and garden tools, will cut 320 jobs in Pickens as it moves operations to China to save money. The plant assembles string trimmers and produces leaf blowers and chain saws sold under the Ryobi and Homelite brands. Techtronic, of Hong Kong, acquired the Pickens plant and a power-tool sales, marketing and distribution center in Anderson from Ryobi Ltd., of Japan, in 2000. The Anderson site has 750 workers. 9/19 SMURFIT-STONE CONTAINER CORP.: Smurfit-Stone Container Corp., a major collector and user of recycled fiber, is permanently closing containerboard capacity at three locations and laying off 565 employees. The Chicago-based company said the decision impacts a linerboard machine in Fernandina Beach, Fla., a linerboard mill in New Richmond, Quebec, and a medium mill in Bathurst, New Brunswick. Linerboard and medium combine to make corrugated containers, or cardboard boxes, which are commonly recycled. Smurfit-Stone is removing about 700,000 tons of containerboard capacity from its system through the moves. About 295 employees in New Richmond and 270 employees in Bathurst are losing their jobs. The manufacturing exodus overseas has had a strong impact on containerboard demand

throughout North America. 9/14 CANADA POST CORPORATION: Recently, the new Canada Post management team informed employees, the public and the union that it will close the Saint-Paul Street Letter Processing Plant in Quebec City, eliminating more than 300 jobs. The work currently done in Quebec City will be transferred to Montreal. These cuts to jobs and service come despite the fact that Canada Post has earned over $700 million in profits over the past five years. 9/7 FALCON PRODUCTS, INC.: A furniture manufacturer has decided to lay off 200 employees because the work is being outsourced to China. Shelby Williams/Falcon Products will lay off the workers in the fourth quarter of this year. The plant makes furniture for hotels and motels and employs 600 people. The company will buy product in China and bring it in, cutting down on the staff. The plant is owned by The Falcon Companies, based in St. Louis. The company filed for bankruptcy reorganization in January. 9/7 MICROSOFT CORPORATION: Ever since Microsoft opened a call center in Bangalore, India, in 2003, taking advantage of that nation's highly skilled and relatively low-paid workers, employees at its call center in Sammamish have waited for what they feared was inevitable. Recently it happened to some. Thirty-three Sammamish employees were laid off because their work is being shifted abroad, including to the Bangalore office. Altogether, Microsoft is cutting the jobs of 72 employees who take customer calls at company facilities in Sammamish; Las Colinas, Texas; and Charlotte, N.C. The jobs are being transferred abroad, but most will be outsourced to a call-center company in Canada. About 20 percent will shift to Microsoft's Bangalore office. Jobs being cut are first-tier positions that route incoming calls for help with Microsoft products. 9/6 FORD LABOR PACT IN CANADA CALLS FOR 1, 100 JOB CUTS The Ford Motor will cut 1,100 jobs in Canada by 2008, or about 9% of its hourly work force in Canada, as part of a tentative agreement reached recently with the Canadian Auto Workers union. The agreement, subject to ratification by Ford's Canadian workers, comes as Ford faces billions of dollars in losses in its North American auto operations and is close to announcing what is likely to be a revamping plan that will bring a wave of job cuts in the U.S. Auto workers at Ford, GM and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler have pay and benefits that are the envy of other blue-collar workers. But withering competition from rivals like Toyota and the slump in the sale of large SUVs have led the automakers to take a hard line in recent labor negotiations, shrinking their work force to new lows. The agreement on a new 3-year contract with the Canadian Auto Workers includes the lowest increase in wages in the CAW's 2-decade history. It also omits, for the 1st time, traditional perks like a signing bonus and an increase in the number of days off. Job cuts will be made at Ford's operations in Windsor Ontario, a Canadian city sitting across the border from Detroit and shares a dependence on auto jobs. As part of the agreement, Ford will close an engine casting plant in Windsor that dates to the '20's.

The agreement is structured to trim jobs by encouraging early retirement; a payment to some workers who retire early increases to $70,000 CN (about $59,000) from $60,000 CN. Hourly wages would increase by 45 CN in the 1st year of the contract, then 30 in each of 2 subsequent years, on top of cost-of-living adjustments. On a positive note for the union, an assembly plant in St. Thomas Ontario, that makes the Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis will receive about $200 million Canadian in new investments. In a sign of Ford's steep sales challenges, the sides negotiated new enticements to encourage Ford workers to buy their own products, including an increase of $2,000 CN in their employee discounts. A trust fund is being set up to provide workers who buy Ford vehicles a discount of $1,000 CN on their car insurance. The Ford agreement is the first reached by the Canadian union in its 2005 negotiations. As is traditional, the first deal will be used as a framework for agreements that will be negotiated later this month with GM and DaimlerChrysler. In Oakville Ontario, site of a Ford plant that assembles Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans, workers didn't need reminders of the perilous state of their jobs. Immediately behind their factory, weeds are already consuming the parking lots of a Ford pickup truck plant that closed 14 months ago. Sagging sales of the Freestar have meant that 2 groups of workers share a single shift. Each alternates 2 weeks of work with two weeks of unemployment benefits. 9/14 JPMORGAN TO BUY CREDIT CARD UNIT OF SEARS JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to buy Sears Canada Inc.'s credit card business for $2.87 billion in cash and debt. Shares of Sears Canada, in which Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings Corp. owns 54 percent, surged 24 percent, the biggest gain in at least 21 years. The card business at Sears Canada has about 1,000 employees, 10 million accounts and nearly $3 billion in uncollected bills, the Toronto-based company said recently. JPMorgan will pay about $2 billion in cash and inherit nearly $900 million in debt, a Sears Canada spokesman said. JPMorgan is battling Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. for a bigger share of the credit card market. A spate of acquisitions has swallowed up independent U.S. issuers like MBNA Corp., as well as the card portfolios of retailers like Federated Department Stores Inc. With fewer options to expand locally, U.S. banks are looking abroad. Sears Canada will receive about $1.9 billion in net cash proceeds after factoring in the value of the unit's unpaid debts along with unspecified costs and taxes. The company will record an after-tax gain of about $650 million from the sale. The deal, expected to close by the end of the year, includes Sears Canada's private-

label cards as well as those co-branded with MasterCard International Inc. JPMorgan and Sears Canada also agreed to a 10-year marketing and servicing pact. JPMorgan said the purchase would begin contributing to profit next year. Citigroup bought the credit card operations of Sears Roebuck & Co., a predecessor of Sears Holdings, in 2003 for $3.4 billion. 9/7 KODAK TO SHUT, REDUCE OUTPUT AT PLANTS IN U.S., CHINA Eastman Kodak Co., the world's largest photography company, will eliminate about 1,000 jobs in the U.S. and China as the decline in film sales accelerates. Kodak will close a paper plant and a chemical facility in Rochester, NY and reduce output at a film plant in Xiamen, China. The cuts, including shutting a WV plant obtained through the acquisition of Creo Inc., will cost around $181 million, the company said in statements. The closings are part of a plan expanded last month to let go as many as 25,000 workers. About 900 employees will lose their jobs in Rochester and Xiamen, with more than half at Kodak's NY home base. The CEO, now more than halfway through the restructuring, is trying to keep pace with the film decline as he expands the digital business. Kodak in July changed its forecast for the industrywide global decline in film sales this year to as much as 27%, from about 20% at the beginning of the year. It said in July it would no longer provide such forecasts. The faster-than-anticipated drop in film sales, with increased debt from digital acquisitions, prompted Moody's Investors Service, S&P's and Fitch Ratings to lower Kodak's credit ratings this year to below investment grade. Kodak has posted 3 straight quarterly losses because of costs for the job cuts and closures. The U.S. SEC is informally looking into accounting errors that forced Kodak to restate earnings for 2003 and 2004. Kodak said it'll close an operation in Rochester that makes photographic paper and move it to Windsor, CO and, Harrow, England. It also will shut a facility that processes raw material for polyester film base by the end of the year and hire an outside company to recycle polyester waste. Once the biggest employer in Rochester, Kodak has reduced the workforce at its home base to 16,300, from more than 60,000 in 1982. Separately, Kodak said it will close a former Creo printing-plate plant in Middleway, WV, by March 2006. The action affects about 108 workers, some of whom will be offered other jobs, it said. Kodak bought Creo, a maker of commercial digital-printing software and equipment, for $988 million in June. The shutting of the Creo plant is separate from Kodak's restructuring plan announced in Jan. 2004, the company said. The recent reductions represent 1.8% of Kodak's 54,800 employees worldwide as of the end of 2004. As of July, Kodak had eliminated

13,475 positions. Kodak has cut its workforce by almost 2/3 and improved productivity since 1988, when each of 145,300 employees accounted for $117,230 in annual sales. As of the end of 2004, sales per worker doubled to $246,666, according to Bloomberg data. Kodak's biggest rival, Tokyo-based Fuji Photo Film Co., is also switching over to digital products as the popularity of film wanes. The company said that 1st-Q net income sank 26% from a year earlier. 8/31 CHINAS TRADE SURPLUS WIDENED TO $10.4 BILLION IN JULY China had its second-highest trade surplus on record in July, reflecting a surge in exports that has led the U.S. and Europe to threaten sanctions. The surplus widened to $10.4 billion from $1.97 billion a year earlier and $9.68 billion in June, the Beijing-based customs bureau said on its Web site recently. Overseas sales rose 28.7 percent to $65.6 billion from a year earlier, more than double the 12.7 percent gain in imports. Lawmakers in the U.S., China's biggest export market, say the Chinese government's July 21 revaluation of the yuan doesn't go far enough and the nation's exporters continue to benefit from an artificially weak currency. Rising overseas sales of computers, cell phones and clothing helped China's economy, Asia's biggest after Japan, triple in size in the past decade. China's exports rose 32 percent from a year earlier to $407.9 billion in the first seven months, the customs bureau said recently, and Setser predicts they could reach $750 billion this year. Imports in the same period increased 13.8 percent to $358 billion and the trade surplus was $49.9 billion, surpassing the $32 billion reported for the whole of 2004. Yuan Impact Exports of electrical equipment and electronics, which includes computers and mobile phones, jumped 31.3 percent to $86.7 billion and those of clothing and accessories rose 20.5 percent to $38.7 billion, the customs bureau said. Overseas sales of color televisions surged 55.9 percent to $3.9 billion and steel exports more than doubled to 13.1 million tons. The commerce ministry said that the trade surplus may swell to a

record $80 billion this year. July's surplus was more than the median $9.8 billion forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 10 economists. The Chinese government may be reluctant to let the yuan appreciate further as exports are helping to sustain economic growth and create jobs as government investment curbs cool demand at home, said an economist at Citigroup Inc. in Hong Kong. The economy expanded 9.5 percent in each of the past two years and maintained that pace of growth in the first half. He said the surplus is something they are going to have to live with for a while; there's no quick solution. The state-backed China National Textile and Apparel Council said recently that even modest revaluations have a significant impact on textile makers' profit margins, which are typically 3 percent to 4 percent. Textile companies employ more than 19 million people and the council estimates that every $100 million drop in the industry's exports will cost 7,000 jobs. 8/10 UNOCAL SHAREHOLDERS OK CHEVRON TAKEOVER Shareholders of oil and gas company Unocal Corp. formally voted recently to accept a takeover bid by Chevron Corp., even as some at the meeting continued to lament a failed rival bid by a Chinese oil company. The approval of the approximately $18 billion purchase of the world's ninth-largest oil company follows months of negotiations and a highprofile courtship from CNOOC Ltd., a Chinese oil company that hoped to secure energy resources needed to accompany its country's rapid economic growth. Unocal announced that holders of 77.2 percent of eligible shares favored the Chevron buyout and 2.6 percent were opposed. Of the shares actually voted, 96.6 percent approved the deal. The two companies said the deal would be final soon and its stock would be delisted. Chevron said the acquisition would add to earnings in 2006. The combined companies will produce the equivalent of 2.8 million barrels of oil per day and the acquisition will increase Chevron's reserves by about 15 percent, Chevron said in a press release.

CNOOC's bid caused a political uproar, and was clearly on the minds of about 100 Unocal shareholders and employees gathered at a hotel for the final vote. Several expressed patriotic pride in Unocal being sold to a U.S. company, while some suggested the company may have sold too soon and wondered whether the Chinese company ever had a shot. Unocals Chairman and CEO told the shareholders that Chevron is a fine company. They have a global perspective. They have comparable values. After the meeting, he lamented the political firestorm that erupted over the CNOOC bid and said both companies underestimated the opposition. He said they both recognized there would be political repercussions. This touched a nerve. It really became a platform in his mind for much more complex and greater China-United States issues than just CNOOC and Unocal. That they did not anticipate. He acknowledged that the price of oil rose more rapidly since the Chevron deal was first reached in April than he had anticipated. But he said that Unocal shareholders who opted to take Chevron stock will participate in the profits resulting from higher prices. Indeed, San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron, the nation's second-largest oil company, initially made a combination cash and stock offer of about $61 per share in April, but sweetened the deal only after CNOOC made its higher bid. Chevron raised its buyout offer last month to $63 per share, and the value has risen in recent weeks along with Chevron's stock price. Most Unocal shareholders chose to receive all cash in the deal. CNOOC dropped its all-cash bid of $67 per share this month after U.S. politicians, noting that the company is 70 percent owned by China's communist government, expressed concern that national security would be compromised. A flurry of legislation intended to derail the deal was introduced in both houses of Congress. The controversy focused public attention on China's growing appetite for foreign investments and the question of how U.S. corporations and lawmakers should respond.

Hoping to allay fears, CNOOC agreed to sell Unocal's U.S. assets and promised to retain all of Unocal's workers. CNOOC also argued that its bid was purely commercial and not connected in any way with the Chinese government. That argument held little sway on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers fretted Unocal's oil drilling might have military applications that could someday be used against the United States, and that CNOOC's ownership structure helped it secure favorable financing terms unavailable to Chevron. Despite the prospect of six months or more of uncertain regulatory haggling, Unocal's board nearly approved the CNOOC offer until Chevron increased its bid. CNOOC had been willing to raise its all-cash bid even further, but Unocal balked at the conditions, which included Unocal publicly endorsing the CNOOC offer and shouldering the $500 million breakup fee that would be owed to Chevron. 8/10 VOLKSWAGEN CONFIRMS INTENTIONS TO CUT 13, 000 EXPENSIVE GERMAN MANPOWER Volkswagen AG, burdened by high labor costs, underutilized plants and shrinking sales in the U.S. and China, said it has "several thousand" more employees in Germany than needed and that it plans to reduce its work force through voluntary measures such as early retirement. The company's announcement, amid negotiations with its unions on where to build a new sport-utility vehicle, is the most extensive step this year by the CEO to reduce the auto maker's high labor costs to make it competitive. Most of Volkswagen's work force is in Germany, where hourly wages in the auto-manufacturing sector are the highest in the world, an average of 34, according to the German Automotive Industry Assn. Volkswagen is constrained from cutting jobs in Germany, partly because of a labor deal that guarantees no layoffs at its German plants until 2011 but also because its largest shareholder, the German state of Lower Saxony, has an interest in preserving employment levels in Germany. Most seats on the equivalent of Volkswagen's board belong to German politicians and labor leaders, in keeping with a German law that guarantees workers' representatives approximately half the seats on the boards of large corporations. But in a recent statement, VW said it has "considerable overcapacity" in its German plants and "will therefore be intensifying its efforts to cut back manpower." VW, which employs 179,000 people in Germany, declined to specify how many jobs it plans to cut or how underutilized its plants are. But analysts have estimated its largest plant, in Wolfsburg, which makes its flagship Golf model, is using 70% of its capacity, well below

the 80% threshold many industry analysts consider necessary to break even. In announcing the planned cuts, Volkswagen put new pressure on its unions to give up lucrative night-shift work at the Wolfsburg plant or risk the possibility that the company will build a planned new compact SUV in Portugal, where labor costs per car are 1,000 less. A decision to build the compact SUV in Wolfsburg could secure some 1,000 jobs. This would be an important decision for the site. However, it would not alter the fact that Volkswagen has surplus manpower of the order of several thousand employees at its German sites, in particular Wolfsburg. Volkswagen's top labor representative expressed willingness to negotiate on cost cuts but said he expects "more creativity" from executives. The company's main union, IG Metall, has blasted the company's threat to build the SUV outside Germany as a "Wild West" tactic that would violate a labor agreement. Volkswagen's cost-cutting drive is unfolding less than two weeks before Germany's scheduled election, in which the country's high unemployment rate, 11.6%, threatens to topple Chancellor Gerhard Schrder. 9/7 PHILIPS TO SHAVE PRODUCTION COSTS AT ITS CHIP UNIT Philips Electronics NV unveiled further restructuring at its semiconductor business, that is struggling with sluggish consumer demand and a weak dollar. The move by the Amsterdam maker of products such as mobile-phone chips, electric toothbrushes and medical scanners comes as costs for building chip-making factories rises and competition from Asia stiffens. Philips CEO expects to save 250 million ($305.6M) by the end of '06 by trimming manufacturing costs and research expenses, among other things. It also plans to rely more heavily on outsourced manufacturing, prune sluggish products and take a more targeted approach to customers, aiming, for instance, to increase market share in underpenetrated markets such as Taiwan. The goal is to cut volatility during the semiconductor business cycle and reach profit margins ranging from 5% during an industry downturn to 15% during a peak, he said. The unit achieved profit margins of 9% during the last peak in 2004 and just 2% in the first half of 2005. He expects the chip division's sales to rise 5% in the 3rdQ from the 2nd-Q. For the 4th-Q, the unit is likely to post midsingledigit sales growth on a sequential basis, he said. He added while customer orders are increasing, "visibility remains short." The company said its consumer-electronics unit is on track to meet profit forecasts. In a separate phone interview, the head of Philips's consumer-electronics arm said the div. has met its savings targets, discontinued or divested unprofitable businesses and focused on higher-growth products, such as flat-screen television sets. 9/21

IMF SAYS ARGENTINA MUST RAISE INTEREST RATES TO FIGHT INFLATION Argentina must raise interest rates to lower inflation from a 26-month high, said the International Monetary Fund recently. "Further tightening is required," even after interest rates were raised in recent months, said the IMF in its World Economic Outlook report. Consumer prices in Argentina, South America's second-largest economy, are rising at an annual pace of 9.7%, in part because the central bank is seeking to fuel economic expansion by keeping lending rates below the inflation rate. The rate on 3-month central bank bills, a benchmark for lending rates, rose to 6.% at a Sept. 14 auction from 3.54% at the start of 2005. Argentina's economy probably will expand 7.5% this year and 4.2% in '06, the IMF said, more than its April forecast of 6% growth for 2005 and 3.6% next year. The Argentine economy grew 9% in 2004, the fastest pace since 1992. Quickening inflation is also a result of its central bank interventions in the currency market, the IMF said. Argentine authorities have been selling pesos for dollars since President Kirchner took office in May 2003 to prevent the local currency from strengthening and hurting exports. The IMF also said Argentina needs to encourage private investment in utilities and negotiate with investors who refused to swap defaulted bonds for new debt in July to keep up high economic growth rates. 9/21/2005

Nagin: 3,000 City Workers Will Be Laid Off

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171168,00.html NEW ORLEANS As the search for Hurricane Katrina (search) victims came to an end in Louisiana Tuesday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (search) announced that the government would be forced to lay off about 3,000 "non-essential" city employees.

"It's with great sadness that we were unable to hold onto some of our dedicated city workers," he told an afternoon news conference. "I want to thank everyone who has served our city." Nagin said the local government couldn't "put together the financing" to maintain the pre-hurricane level of city staffing. The 3,000 represent about half the city's workforce, but the mayor said no police or firefighters would be among those let go. "I wish I didn't have to do this. I wish we had the money, the resources to keep these people," Nagin said. "The problem we have is we have no revenue streams." Nagin described the layoffs as "pretty permanent" and said that the city will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (search) to contact municipal employees who fled the city in the aftermath of Katrina, which struck about a month ago. The mayor said the move will save about $5 million to $8 million of the city's monthly payroll of $20 million. The layoffs will take place over the next two weeks. Also Tuesday, former President Clinton met with dozens of New Orleansarea evacuees staying at a shelter in Baton Rouge's convention center.
Watch FOX News' "On the Record" tonight at 10 p.m. for Greta Van Susteren's interview with former President Clinton. The state's death toll stood at 972 as officials completed their door-to-door hunt for victims Tuesday, but more searches will be conducted if someone reports seeing a body, a state official said. Some schoolchildren returned to classes Tuesday as New Orleans revved up efforts to recover from the devastating hurricane.

The search for Katrina victims ended in Louisiana with a death toll substantially less than the 10,000 victims some officials feared. A private company hired by the state to remove bodies was on call if any others were found. The toll Tuesday stood at 972, eight more than Monday, the state health department said. Mississippi's death toll remained at 221. The death toll probably will continue to rise, but authorities have said sweeps yielded fewer bodies than feared and that the toll was likely to be well below the dire projections. Nagin said soon after Katrina struck that New Orleans alone could have 10,000 dead. On Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton met with several dozen New Orleansarea residents who are staying in a shelter in Baton Rouge's convention center. The evacuees, many of whom have been sleeping on cots in the Rivercenter's vast concrete hall for more than a month, complained of lack of showers, clean clothes, privacy and medical care. Clinton, working with former President Bush to raise money for victims, toured the sleeping area, shaking hands, hugging and chatting. "My concern is to listen to you ... and learn the best way to spend this money we've got," said Clinton, who was to visit the city itself later in the day. Robert Warner, 51, of New Orleans said he and others have struggled to get private housing set up through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "We've been mired in the bureaucratic red tape since Day One," he said. There were signs of normality in New Orleans on Monday five weeks to the day since Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. St. Andrew the Apostle elementary school in the reopened Algiers neighborhood was the first Roman Catholic school to resume in New Orleans. "My heart is just bursting," said teacher Jewell McCartney, fighting back tears as she welcomed her class of sixth-graders. "I just want to give them all a hug." Archdiocese officials said their schools also were reopening in areas outside the city. Some public schools in nearby parishes also opened Monday, but public schools in New Orleans remain closed. Some may resume by November. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues pumping water out of the lower Ninth Ward and efforts to rebuild the levees that breached, causing water to cascade into the city, remained under way. However, two canals near the area were closed Monday as a precaution, because of stronger-than-normal winds and higher tides, spokesman Alan

Dooley said. As of late Monday afternoon, a steady stream of water leaked through the repaired levees. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Georgia-Pacific to Cut 1,100 Jobs

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171240,00.html

ATLANTA Georgia-Pacific Corp. (GP), maker of Brawny paper towels and a variety of other paper and lumber products, said Tuesday it is cutting more than 1,000 jobs in a broad restructuring that aims to save $100 million a year. The company said it will idle up to four tissue paper machines and about 70 lines that convert a large tissue roll into smaller sizes that consumers can use as it eliminates 850 jobs in North America. Its tissue paper products also include Angel Soft (search) and Quilted Northern (search) toilet papers and Mardi Gras napkins. Internationally, Georgia-Pacific said it will cut 250 jobs as it reorganizes operations in France and changes its operating procedures in Britain and the Nordic region. The announcement comes amid challenging times for the paper industry. Another major paper maker, Weyerhaeuser Co. (WY), announced plans Tuesday to close a pulp and paper mill in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada, early next year, eliminating 690 jobs. Federal Way, Wash.-based Weyerhaeuser blamed "poor market conditions" and said its uncoated free-sheet paper and pulp markets "face fundamental challenges, including excess capacity, declining demand, mounting inventories and weak prices." The Georgia-Pacific restructuring will cost $106 million over the next two years, Georgia-Pacific said, including a third-quarter charge of $42 million. About $53 million of the expense will come from asset devaluation, about $21 million from paying severance and other employee termination benefits and another $32 million for costs related to exiting certain plants, the company said. The company said it expects the changes to reduce operating costs by $100 million annually during the next two years, with about 75 percent of the savings in North America.

The company said most of the North American job cuts will be at its Green Bay, Wis., mill. Georgia-Pacific plans to move most of the mill's warehouse operations to a new center in the Green Bay area and close certain operations there. Mills in Muskogee, Okla., and Savannah, Ga., will also be affected, the company said. Some of the affected employees may be able to work at the new center, said spokeswoman Robin Keegan. "We think the skilled employees from Georgia-Pacific's warehouse operations would make great candidates at the (new) mix center," she said. The moves are part of a larger reconfiguring that Georgia-Pacific is undertaking in an attempt to attain a yearly operating profit of $1.2 billion in North America. The company has already reduced its work force at tissue plants in Plattsburgh, N.Y., Camas, Wash., and Wauna and Halsey, Ore., along with its Dixie factory in Parchment, Mich., where the popular papercup brand is manufactured. Georgia-Pacific said it also plans to shut a tissue converting operation in Maine. Georgia-Pacific has previously eliminated more than 2,250 positions while integrating plants from its acquisition of Fort James in 2000. Since 2001, the company has shut down nine tissue-paper machines and idled 47 converting lines in the tissue and Dixie businesses. "Much of the capacity of these machines and lines was moved to newer, faster assets," Georgia-Pacific said in a statement. The company said the international changes include closing one facility in Greece and two operations in Britain, along with substantial reductions in overhead costs. Georgia-Pacific said it is shutting down a paper machine at its Kunheim facility in the Alsace region of France. The company did not specify in a news release where the majority of the European job cuts would occur. In July, the company cited higher raw materials and energy costs as it reported a more than 11 percent drop in second-quarter profit on a decline in revenue. Georgia-Pacific said it earned $194 million, or 73 cents a share, for the three months ending June 30, compared to a profit of $220 million, or 84 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Excluding unusual items,

the company said it earned $217 million, or 82 cents a share. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting earnings of 83 cents a share. Company officials then said raw materials and energy inflation increased operating costs by $105 million compared with the second quarter in 2004. Georgia-Pacific shares fell 22 cents to $33.37 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. They have traded in a 52-week range of $30.69 to $38.45.

CASCADES INC.: Quebec-based Cascades is shutting down a fine-papers machine at its Thunder Bay, Ontario, operations and cutting about 150 jobs. The company says some of the converting activities, as well as the manufacture of certain grades of paper, will be transferred to other plants within the fine-papers group. It says in spite of sustained efforts over the past few years to improve profitability, the Ontario plant has continued to incur major financial losses. Cascades cites high energy costs in Ontario and the appreciation of the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar. The firm also points to unfavorable market conditions prevailing in the pulp and paper industry. 9/21/2005 TECHTRONIC INDUSTRIES CO. LTD.: Techtronic Industries Co., which makes lawn and garden tools, will cut 320 jobs in Pickens as it moves operations to China to save money. The plant assembles string trimmers and produces leaf blowers and chain saws sold under the Ryobi and Homelite brands. Techtronic, of Hong Kong, acquired the Pickens plant and a power-tool sales, marketing and distribution center in Anderson from Ryobi Ltd., of Japan, in 2000. The Anderson site has 750 workers. 9/19 SMURFIT-STONE CONTAINER CORP.: Smurfit-Stone Container Corp., a major collector and user of recycled fiber, is permanently closing containerboard capacity at three locations and laying off 565 employees. The Chicago-based company said the decision impacts a linerboard machine in Fernandina Beach, Fla., a linerboard mill in New Richmond, Quebec, and a medium mill in Bathurst, New Brunswick. Linerboard and medium combine to make corrugated containers, or cardboard boxes, which are commonly recycled. Smurfit-Stone is removing about 700,000 tons of containerboard capacity from its system through the moves. About 295 employees in New Richmond and 270 employees in Bathurst are losing their jobs. The manufacturing exodus overseas has had a strong impact on containerboard demand throughout North America. 9/14 CANADA POST CORPORATION: Recently, the new Canada Post management

team informed employees, the public and the union that it will close the Saint-Paul Street Letter Processing Plant in Quebec City, eliminating more than 300 jobs. The work currently done in Quebec City will be transferred to Montreal. These cuts to jobs and service come despite the fact that Canada Post has earned over $700 million in profits over the past five years. 9/7 FALCON PRODUCTS, INC.: A furniture manufacturer has decided to lay off 200 employees because the work is being outsourced to China. Shelby Williams/Falcon Products will lay off the workers in the fourth quarter of this year. The plant makes furniture for hotels and motels and employs 600 people. The company will buy product in China and bring it in, cutting down on the staff. The plant is owned by The Falcon Companies, based in St. Louis. The company filed for bankruptcy reorganization in January. 9/7 MICROSOFT CORPORATION: Ever since Microsoft opened a call center in Bangalore, India, in 2003, taking advantage of that nation's highly skilled and relatively low-paid workers, employees at its call center in Sammamish have waited for what they feared was inevitable. Recently it happened to some. Thirty-three Sammamish employees were laid off because their work is being shifted abroad, including to the Bangalore office. Altogether, Microsoft is cutting the jobs of 72 employees who take customer calls at company facilities in Sammamish; Las Colinas, Texas; and Charlotte, N.C. The jobs are being transferred abroad, but most will be outsourced to a call-center company in Canada. About 20 percent will shift to Microsoft's Bangalore office. Jobs being cut are first-tier positions that route incoming calls for help with Microsoft products. 9/6/2005 GENERAL COMMUNICATION INC.: General Communication Inc. is laying off 77 employees as part of a corporate restructuring. The Anchorage-based telecom and cable-TV company, one of the state's largest employers, notified its 1,351 workers of the pending job cuts by e-mail. GCI now is being run under management units focused on selling all of what the company has to offer to four specific types of customers: consumers; businesses and organizations; other telecom carriers; and customers using custom services such as telemedicine. The shift in management focus from products to customer groups is similar to one GCI's cross-town rival, Alaska Communications Systems, recently adopted under its new senior management team. GCI's reorganization was prompted by advances in communications technology and a changing regulatory environment that made managing by product line inefficient. 9/21/2005 THE TIMKEN COMPANY: The Timken Co. is cutting 190 jobs locally, moving the jobs in its automotive division out of state. The plans outlined recently call for moving product engineering affiliated with its automotive powertrain business from Torrington to research centers in South Carolina, Canton and Detroit. The Canton, Ohio-based company which acquired the former Torrington Co. on Feb. 18, 2003, employs about 350 people in Torrington and about 650 in Watertown. The cuts

do not directly affect the Watertown facility, but more announcements related to the restructuring of Timken's automotive operations are expected in the third quarter. Worldwide, Timken employs about 26,000 people manufacturing bearings and specialty steels. Its Torrington operations also include 100 people in corporate operations and in the engineering of needle bearings for industrial uses, as well as 50 to 60 employees in cage-and-roller bearings production. 9/21/2005 EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY: Eastman Kodak said recently it would cut about 900 jobs as the result of shuttering some facilities and expects to take charges worth $153 million. About half the job cuts will take place in Rochester, N.Y., where Kodak is based. These actions are regrettable because they impact our Kodak people whose performance has been outstanding, but they are necessary in light of the accelerated declines in consumer film and paper. 9/19 NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION: Northrop Grumman Corp. is cutting 400 jobs from its New Orleans-area shipyard, along with another 500 jobs from other yards in Louisiana and Mississippi by the end of the year. Most of the other 500 cuts will come from the company's shipyard at Pascagoula, Miss. The rest of the cuts will come from smaller fabrication plants in Tallulah and Gulfport, Miss. The layoffs are the latest in a cutback program announced in January that is expected to eliminate 2,500 workers, or 13 percent of the combined shipyards' 20,000 workers, over three years. 9/14 MODINE MANUFACTURING CO.: Modine Manufacturing Co. will close the Bensalem, Pa., plant that makes Airedale-branded air conditioners, cutting 60 jobs. Modine bought closely-held Airedale International Air Conditioning Ltd. in May. The Bensalem factory makes air conditioners for schools, offices and other commercial spaces. Over the next six months, production will move to factories in Virginia and Rhode Island. 9/14 MORGAN STANLEY: Morgan Stanley began dismissing as many as 1,000 brokers in its underperforming retail unit recently. The headcount reduction, as first reported in The Post, is part of a broader move to squeeze more profit out of Morgan's retail network of 10,438 brokers and bring it more in line with Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and UBS. About 10 percent of the unit is expected to be pared back. To avoid the cut, brokers with eight years of experience had to have produced at least $225,000 in annual fees and commissions last year. The figure for brokers with four to eight years was $150,000. 9/12

AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC.: Agilent Technologies said recently that the sale of its semiconductor business to a private equity partnership for $2.6 billion was part of a strategic re-alignment intended to let the company focus on high-margin products. Agilent expects to cut costs by $450 million in the effort, which will include eliminating 1,300 jobs. The company, a maker of electronic testing and measurement equipment with 28,000 employees worldwide, also reported third-quarter earnings that were at the high end of Wall Street estimates. Agilent was spun off from HP in 2000. 9/12 TOWER AUTOMOTIVE, INC.: Tower Automotive Inc. has announced a layoff of 154 workers that could spell the end for the company's north side Milwaukee factory. Those workers are all that remain from about 3,500 who worked at the sprawling complex shortly after Tower bought the auto-parts business of Milwaukee-based A.O. Smith Corp. eight years ago. The company plans to move production of Ford Ranger frames from Milwaukee to Bellevue, Ohio, this fall. 9/12 MCI INC.: Long-distance phone carrier MCI Inc. plans to close three call centers around the country including one in Alpharetta that employs nearly 600 people. The other two states seeing job cuts are Maryland and Iowa. The Ashburn, Va.-based company, which is being acquired by Verizon Communications, says the job cuts are being made because of "new market realities" in the telecommunications industry. Of the three MCI call centers being closed, Alpharetta involves the most positions. Hunt Valley, Md., north of Baltimore, is losing a center with about 300 jobs. Iowa City, Iowa, is losing about 200 jobs. 9/12 PRESIDENT CASINOS, INC.: Hundreds of workers at President Casino learned that their jobs will end, months earlier than they had expected. Of the more than 700 people who work at the casino, only 62 will be retained. Some of the workers who received termination notices said they felt misled. They knew they would be without work when the gambling barge's new owner, Silver Slipper, moved it to a new location in Hancock County, but they didn't know it would be so soon. 9/7 BIRCH TELECOM INC.: Birch Telecom Inc. said recently it has laid off 330 employees, or a third of its work force, as the telephone company continues to struggle under new rules restricting its access to local phone lines. The company, which has dropped from 1,100 employees earlier this year to 525, said a majority of the layoffs were in field sales offices in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri, including 81 in

the company's Kansas City headquarters. The company laid off 87 employees last month. Birch is one of several smaller telecom companies that grew up from the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The act sought to increase competition in the industry by forcing the regional Bell companies to lease space on their local phone lines to competitors for government-set prices. The Federal Communications Commission earlier this year eliminated that requirement, allowing the Bells to negotiate new, and higher, terms. Birch said the FCC's decision will drive up costs and affect 90 percent of the company's 500,000 access lines. 9/7

U.S. Jobless Claims Spike to 432K

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170113,00.html September 22, 2005
WASHINGTON Hurricane Katrina's (search) aftermath fueled a surge in initial U.S. claims for jobless aid last week to 432,000, the highest level in more than two years, the government said Thursday. The number of Americans requesting first-time unemployment benefits rose a relatively modest 8,000 the week ended Sept. 17 after a revised 97,000 jump the prior week. The previous week's change was the biggest seasonally adjusted one-week jump since July 25, 1992. Private economists had expected claims would rise to 440,000 from the Labor Department's (search) original reading of 398,000 in the Sept. 10 week. Unadjusted for seasonal factors, jobless claims linked to the deadly storm that claimed more than 1,000 lives and wreaked havoc on infrastructure totaled 103,000 last week and 91,000 the week before. A Labor Department analyst said many of the claims had been filed by unconventional means, which may lead to future revisions in the numbers. Katrina's effects on the claims data are likely to linger for some weeks. The four-week moving average of claims (search), a more reliable barometer because it smooths weekly volatility, rose to its highest level since Nov. 8, 2003.

SONY: 10,000 JOBS TO BE CUT September 22, 2005 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170112,00.html

TOKYO Struggling electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Corp. (SNE) said on Thursday it would cut about 7 percent of its

global work force, sell more than $1 billion in assets and post a loss this year. With a restructuring plan that failed to excite some analysts, Sony (search) hopes to reverse its fading fortunes and catch up with rivals such as Matsushita Electric Industrial (MC) and Sharp Corp. in flat TVs and Apple Computer (AAPL) and its popular iPod player in the portable music industry. The inventor of the Trinitron TV and Walkman (search) cassette player said it would book 210 billion yen ($1.9 billion) in restructuring charges in the two business years through March 2007 as it closes plants and slashes 10,000 jobs. Mizuho Securities analyst Koichi Hariya said there was little surprise in the company's latest turnaround strategy, potentially putting a lid on Sony shares. "These are pretty moderate plans," he said. "Sony's shares gained in the run-up to today's announcement and feelings of disappointment may emerge. There could have been some investors who had expected more drastic measures from the new foreign CEO." Sony estimates the restructuring will produce cost savings of 200 billion yen by the end of the business year to March 2008, when it aims to achieve an annual group operating profit margin of 5 percent and more than 8 trillion yen in revenues. That would be similar to Matsushita's 5 percent profit margin target for 2006/07, up from 3.5 percent last year. Matsushita (search) recently finished a major restructuring and its earnings are improving, helped by robust sales of appliances and plasma TVs. "Sony and its peers all face tremendous pressure in the marketplace, but we have a sense of urgency and we have a sense of purpose. We can and will compete vigorously," Howard Stringer, Sony's new chief executive, told a news conference. To help boost efficiency, Sony abolished the company system that Stringer said was preventing different business units from communicating freely and working together for common goals. This caused overlap and missed opportunities in the market.

The electronics group will be reorganized to place centralized decisionmaking under Ryoji Chubachi, who became president and electronics CEO in a management reshuffle in June. "We are going to achieve our goals by breaking down the existing silo walls and eliminating the highly decentralized structure we've maintained in the past," said Welsh-born Stringer, a former journalist and the first nonJapanese at the helm of a major Japanese electronics company. Sony said it now expected to post a group operating loss of 20 billion yen in the current business year to March due to an increase in restructuring charges. Sony's previous estimate was for an operating profit of 30 billion yen. RIGHT DIRECTION Sony unveiled plans to sell real estate, stocks and non-core assets worth 120 billion yen by 2007/08, vowed to reduce the number of product models by one-fifth and close 11 of its 65 global factories. Sony said it would postpone the planned listing of its financial unit until the 2007/08 business year or beyond. It had originally eyed a listing in 2006. It said it would continue restructuring its loss-making TV unit by closing production lines for traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) sets and shifting resources to fast-growing liquid crystal display (LCD) and rear-projection TVs. Sony plans to bring the TV unit back to profitability in the second-half of 2006/07 through various cost-cutting measures such as procuring more parts for rear-projection TVs from China and concentrating its design operations for LCD models in Japan. The firm has been investing aggressively in chips and other core parts such as LCD panels to achieve a vertically integrated production structure, which it believed was key to differentiating its products from low-cost rivals. It plans to invest 340 billion yen on semiconductors over the two business years to March 2008. That compares with an estimated 500 billion yen over the three years through next March. The company also unveiled plans to establish a display group to further its development efforts on organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, a

promising next-generation flat panel that could one day replace LCDs in some applications. Stringer said Sony would cultivate revenue growth by focusing on expanding its presence in high-definition camcorders, DVD recorders and TVs. Another key product will be the PlayStation 3, its next-generation game console due in early 2006, he said. Stringer also talked to the packed news conference about the potential for the cell chip, a high-powered microprocessor jointly developed with Toshiba Corp and IBM that it hopes will be used in a wide range of audiovisual products. But investors have heard a similar story before. Sony has already cut 20,000 jobs and significantly lowered fixed costs under a previous three-year restructuring plan that was scheduled to end in the current business year. Instead of boosting profitability, Sony has watched its earnings dwindle under the plan, hit by sliding demand and prices for ageing product lines such as CRT TVs and CD Walkmans in which it has relatively high market shares. Yet Jun Nishizaki, chief portfolio manager at Nissay Asset Management, said Sony seemed to be on the right track this time. "I think Sony is heading to the right direction," he said. "But whether it is attractive enough to buy or not is a question to be answered a bit later when things get clearer." Before the announcement, shares in Sony closed down 2.2 percent at 3,940 yen after touching a three-month intraday high this week. The Tokyo stock market's electric machinery index was down 1.45 percent.

Delta to Slash 9,000 Jobs

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170111,00.html ATLANTA September 22, 2005 Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), the nation's third-largest carrier, said Thursday it will cut up to 9,000 jobs, reduce employee pay and make changes to its route network to focus more on international flying as it moves swiftly to restructure its costs in bankruptcy. The changes are part of the airline's effort to save an additional $3 billion annually by the end of 2007. That's on top of $5 billion Delta had previously said it wanted to save by the end of 2006. The company's chief executive, Gerald Grinstein (search), will take a 25 percent pay cut and all other executives will take a 15 percent pay cut. The job cuts are on top of roughly 24,000 that Delta has said it would shed since 2001, when the terrorist attacks sent the major airlines into a tailspin most of them have never recovered from. Delta and its subsidiaries listed in regulatory filings 65,300 employees as of June 30, but that figure included recently sold feeder carrier Atlantic Southeast Airlines. Delta on Thursday said it has 52,000 mainline employees. It was not immediately clear how many employees Delta has overall. The new cuts come eight days after Delta filed for bankruptcy protection in New York. No. 4 U.S. carrier Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWAC) filed for Chapter 11 later the same day. On Wednesday, Northwest said it will lay off 1,400 flight attendants by January. "The only thing that surprised me is that they did it so quickly," Ray Neidl, an airline analyst with Calyon Securities in New York, said of the changes. "It shows that they're determined to turn this airline around." Grinstein said the plan announced Thursday is designed to "save Delta in the near term, so that it can compete and win in the long term." He said the effort will protect Delta from the threats posed by its competitors and make the company profitable in just over two years. Among the highlights of the plan:

 In the bankruptcy case, Delta's goal is to save $970 million annually through debt relief, lease and facility savings and fleet changes. The company has already rejected leases on 40 mainline aircraft and plans to cut its mainline fleet by another 80-plus aircraft by the end of 2006. Another $1.1 billion in annual savings is expected to be gained through changes to Delta's route network. It will reduce domestic mainline capacity by 15 percent to 20 percent. At the same time, it will increase international capacity by 25 percent in 2006 to pursue more profitable routes. Roughly $930 million in annual savings will be gained through reduced employment costs, employee productivity improvements and overhead reductions. The total includes savings of $325 million from Delta pilots and $605 million from the non-pilot work force, including management. The pilot reductions would have to be agreed to by the pilot union or imposed on the union in bankruptcy court. The union agreed to $1 billion in annual concessions a year ago. Besides the pay cuts for executives, there also will be a 9 percent pay reduction for supervisory and other administrative personnel. Pay scales will be reduced 7 percent to 10 percent for most frontline employees, excluding those earning less than $25,000 annually. Atlanta-based Delta has lost nearly $10 billion since January 2001. An initial transformation plan announced a year ago, which included up to 7,000 job cuts and the shedding of the airline's Dallas hub, was hobbled by the high price of jet fuel. NEW YORK Delta Air Lines (DAL) shares shot higher Thursday, one day after it declared bankruptcy as expected, but Northwest Airlines (NWAC) stock plunged as it surprised investors by also seeking Chapter 11. Shares in Northwest dropped more than 50 percent as investors dumped them after the company surprised the Street and filed for Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection, while Delta shares rose more than 30 percent. Delta and Northwest, the third- and fourth-largest U.S. air carriers, both declared bankruptcy on Wednesday as the industry's struggle with soaring oil prices and low-cost competition led to one of its darkest days.

While Wall Street took different takes on each filing, one analyst said this kind of stock disparity is not that unique. "I've seen it with other bankruptcies," said Susan Donofrio, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners. "I think it really has to do with retail investors and airline customers. They hear about a filing, they see an aircraft flying and they assume there's some value on the stock and that they're going to get it at a bargain." While Delta's filing had been long expected, Northwest's came as a surprise to many on Wall Street, including analysts at blue-chip securities firms J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, who reiterated their "overweight" ratings on its stock before the filings. The New York Stock Exchange (search) on Thursday said it is reviewing the listing status of Delta's common stock and related securities. The Exchange has suspended trading in Northwest's debt securities, and said it would move to delist those securities. Wall Street analysts also weighed in on the airlines. Until Thursday, Prudential analyst Bob McAdoo had an "overweight" rating on Northwest shares. However, he cut the rating to "underweight" following the Chapter 11 filing. Fulcrum Global Partners had a "buy" rating on Northwest until Thursday, when it downgraded it to "sell." The analysts stuck by the Eagan, Minnesota-based airline even after Northwest's pilots disclosed the airline's board was set to consider whether to seek a bankruptcy filing. Northwest shares were down 49 percent at 95 cents each, after plunging more than 52 percent earlier in the morning. Delta shares, however, rose 31 percent to 93 cents on the New York Stock Exchange. Northwest's stock has plunged 86 percent so far this year, while Delta has lost more than 90 percent of its value. Both carriers' stocks will also be deleted from the Dow Jones Transportation Average (search) at the close of business on Friday, Dow Jones said.

Bankrupt companies' shares often continue to trade, as they have with airlines UAL Corp. (search) and US Airways Group Inc. (search) , but their value is typically wiped out. Delta is set to embark on Thursday on what may be a long march through Chapter 11 with its first public hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The hearing will clear the way for Delta to start rejecting aircraft leases as it begins to shrink its fleet as part of the reorganization process. Both Delta and Northwest made clear on Wednesday that they will focus on eliminating what they see as an excess of available seats by reducing flights and switching to smaller planes on some routes. Those moves will almost certainly lead to further layoffs at both, though neither airline said how many. That would add to headaches for once wellpaid airline workers. Their pensions are also up in the air as both have made clear they are unable to honor their current retiree commitments. Northwest's Chief Executive Doug Steenland (search) said on Wednesday that the airline hoped to avoid a wholesale dumping of pensions like the one earlier this year at United Airlines that infuriated workers and politicians. Both airlines may cancel orders for planes from Boeing Co. and European archrival Airbus, making the bankruptcies a potential negative for their shares, though analysts said the planemakers would have little trouble placing their aircraft elsewhere. Delta's filing could, however, hurt its leasing companies. Computer services company Electronic Data Systems Corp. on Thursday said it will take a third-quarter charge to write down the value of its aircraft leases with Delta Airlines. Walt Disney Co. (DIS) on Wednesday said it may have to write down $100 million of Delta leases.

Hewlett-Packard to cut 5,900 European jobs

PC maker seeks to slash costs amid fierce competition
PARIS - Hewlett-Packard Co. is cutting 5,900 jobs in Europe as part of its global restructuring plan announced in July, the maker of computers and printers announced Monday. HP did not say how many of the cuts would be voluntary or give a breakdown of the number of jobs to be shed in each country. HPs European spokeswoman Anette Nachbar said the company was under a legal obligation in many countries to inform workers representatives before announcing the cuts. The local consultation processes are still ongoing, Nachbar said. She confirmed that the 5,900 European layoffs are part of a plan announced in July to cut 14,500 jobs worldwide and overhaul HPs retirement plan in order to save $1.9 billion a year. HP France, the French arm of the company, confirmed that 1,240 jobs will be shed in France, where the company employs about 4,800 workers. Germanys IG Metall trade union said HP had not yet notified staff representatives of any job cuts there but that an announcement on possible reductions was expected this week. Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP employs about 44,000 workers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but Nachbar said the company does not disclose the numbers of people it employs in individual countries. HP is fighting to stay competitive with formidable rivals like International Business Machines Corp. in the high-end market and Dell Inc. in budget PCs. Announcing the French job cuts, HP France said the layoffs had been decided to safeguard the future of the company.

Although the cuts will not contribute significantly to Frances jobless rate currently at 9.9 percent they come at a sensitive time for President Jacques Chiracs conservative government as it struggles to contain union protests against labor-market reforms and boost flagging economic morale. Frances Deputy Labor Minister Gerard Larcher said he will meet HP executives Friday to discuss the planned cuts, vowing to make sure the company takes all its responsibilities toward the employees concerned. Michel Destot, the Socialist deputy mayor of the southern France city of Grenoble where HP has one of its French plants said the layoffs were unacceptable and demanded that HP managers also meet local politicians to discuss scaling back the job cuts. We have the capacity in France to have HewlettPackard sites that can develop, Destot said in an interview with France-2 television.

GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY: Up to 150 workers at General Electric Co.'s steam turbine and generator plant are facing a job loss, while another 75 to 200 may face temporary layoffs. A GE spokesman said the company had no announcements to make, but that the plant's order backlog for 2006 is a little weaker than earlier anticipated. 8/29/2005 WASTE MANAGEMENT, INC.: Waste Management, North America's largest trash hauler, said 2005 profit likely will be toward the low end of analysts' estimates. The Houston-based company said it will cut 600 jobs, about 1 percent of its work force, to reduce costs. Garbage collections have dropped since May as the company raised prices. 8/29 TRIARC COMPANIES INC.: Arby's plans to lay off up to 80 of the 100 workers at its Fort Lauderdale offices when the fast-food chain moves its headquarters to Atlanta, the company said. The move to Atlanta was announced last month, the same time as the owner of the Arby's brand, Triarc Co. of New York, said it would buy Georgia-based RTM Restaurant Group, the largest Arby's franchisee in the country. Several other fast-food chains are also already based in Atlanta, including Chick-fil-A, Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Blimpie International. 8/29 SIMONTON WINDOWS INC.: Simonton Windows plans to relocate its manufacturing plant to Georgia, a move that will displace 205 management and production employees. The closure, expected soon, stems from the company's plans to expand its production of coastal windows and products, plans that couldn't overcome obstacles such as zoning restrictions and small facility size. Officials of the Parkersburg, W.Va.-based corporation broke the news to employees during two meetings recently. 8/29 PFIZER INC.: Pfizer Inc. said recently it will restructure operations at a Nebraska plant that makes animal health products, cutting 300 jobs, or more than a third of the plant's 800 employees. The Lincoln plant will focus on the production of animal health vaccines and will transfer its pharmaceutical production and packaging operations to other plants over the next few years, Pfizer said in a release. Nearly half of the job losses will happen in the next four months. The rest will occur over two or three years as Pfizer transfers production of traditional pharmaceutical products for the animal health industry are transferred to other locations. Lincoln's biological clinical operation will be consolidated with a facility in St. Louis. 8/29 MCI, INC.: MCI will close its Hunt Valley telemarketing center north of Baltimore, a move that will result in 300 lost jobs. The Ashburn-based telecommunications company said it will transfer some executives to its Towson operations center, where about 100 people work, but other employees will be laid off. 8/29 APAC CUSTOMER SERVICES INC.: Deerfield-based APAC Customer Services

Inc., a provider of customer interaction solutions, reported a larger loss and announced a recovery plan that includes eliminating 400 salaried jobs. The company expects to improve operating margins sequentially to return to profitability by the first quarter of 2006. The company had conversations with certain clients who are planning to move offshore, which leaves APAC with no way of supporting them in the long term. APAC will discontinue certain services and realign cost structures in order to bring the company back to a positive cash flow by the end of the year. 8/29 WACHOVIA CORPORATION: Wachovia Corp. will eliminate as many as 150 jobs in its human resources department and transfer 165 employees to a Chicago-based personnel company as part of an outsourcing agreement between the two companies, a Wachovia spokeswoman said. As part of the deal with Hewitt Associates, the Charlotte-based bank will cut between 120 and 150 human resources positions. Wachovia now employs about 1,600 workers in human resources, with 1,200 of those positions based in Charlotte. 8/29 PAPER CONVERTING MACHINE COMPANY: Paper Converting Machine Co., laid off 58 office and administrative workers recently. The layoffs were because of general business conditions and the company's ongoing restructuring. Paper Converting Machine Co., which makes equipment for tissue converting, nonwovens converting, engraving and embossing, flexo printing and laminating and in-line printing systems, has 910 employees in Brown Count and 1,140 worldwide. 8/29 BIOMARIN PHARMACEUTICAL INC.: BioMarin simultaneously announced that it had filed an application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new oral tablet version of its asthma therapy Orapred, which faces a major threat from a generic competitor. Although BioMarin continues to lose money, laid off 58 employees and recently reduced sales projections for Orapred, it has taken steps to ensure an improved financial future. Most of the 58 job cuts the company made were sales positions throughout the country tied to Orapred. The company had about 360 employees before the layoffs. 8/29 ALLTEL CORPORATION: Alltel Corp. has begun its first round of job cuts after acquiring Western Wireless, laying off 140 workers in this east Seattle suburb. Employees in the Western Wireless' Bellevue headquarters started receiving layoff notices recently, saying their last day of work will be soon. Meanwhile, Alltel said it would add about 130 new customer service, engineering, sales, marketing and accounting jobs at its Little Rock, Ark., headquarters. Once Alltel absorbs Western Wireless, it will be the nation's fifth-largest cellular carrier, serving more than 10 million wireless customers in 34 states. 8/29 BECKMAN COULTER INC.: Beckman Coulter Inc., a maker of medical tests and equipment, reported an 18% drop in second-quarter net income recently because of slower sales and the wrenching effects of a shift to a new equipment-leasing strategy. The Fullerton-based company slashed its full-year earnings forecast, announced

plans to lay off 350 employees, about 3% of its worldwide workforce. Beckman makes tests that are used in hospitals to diagnose diseases, such as prostate cancer and heart failure, or to measure certain compounds in the blood, such as calcium and cholesterol. Its chief competitors are Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson. 8/22 COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL: Computer Associates International said recently that its first-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by acquisitions and tax credits, but the pace of new deals slowed and the company said it would cut 800 more jobs to reduce costs. The company said it expected the job cuts, which represent about 5 percent of its work force, to generate savings of $75 million a year. The latest cuts are in addition to 800 job reductions. Software for mainframes, or large computers that manage corporate systems, is one of Computer Associates' central businesses, but customers put purchases on hold in the quarter as they waited for I.B.M. to upgrade its mainframes. 8/22 SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC.: Sun Microsystems Inc. shares rose as much as 3% recently after the server and software giant reported fourth-quarter net income fell 85% amid fierce competition from the likes of Dell Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. Separately, Sun said it is cutting another 1,000 jobs and would reduce its real estate square footage 10% in fiscal 2006. 8/22 HOOKER FURNITURE CORPORATION: Hooker Furniture Corp. said recently that it plans to close its wood-furniture plant in Pleasant Garden, laying off 280 workers, or about 16 percent of the company's work force. The company said that the move would better match its domestic-manufacturing capacity with demand. Production in Pleasant Garden will be shifted to Hooker's plants in Martinsville and Roanoke, Va. 8/22 MILLENNIUM PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.: Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. said recently it expects to cut about 200 jobs as a result of the restructuring of the company's collaboration agreement with Schering-Plough Corp. The Cambridge, Mass.-based drug development company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the modified agreement, under which Schering-Plough acquires exclusive development and marketing rights for the cardiovascular drug Integrilin, will lead to a 15 percent decrease in research-and-development costs and selling, general and administrative expenses for Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Millennium said the job cuts will affect its sales force, medical science liaisons and other positions. 8/22 METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority intends to eliminate the positions of 313 train conductors on four subway lines, starting in 2007. The changes would be phased in over two years on the No. 7, N, J and M lines. The planned job cuts have not been announced but are detailed in the authority's 428-page preliminary budget for 2006, which was released recently. The projected job cuts would be part of a larger effort to reduce

large budget deficits that are estimated to begin in 2007. 8/22 MORGAN STANLEY: Morgan Stanley, which has been struggling to increase the size and productivity of its broker force, plans to eliminate about 10 percent of its brokers. In a memo to employees recently, the Wall Street investment bank said it will slash about 1,000 of its lowest-producing brokers from its force of about 10,200. 8/22 DOCTORS COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE CORP.: The magnitude of layoffs at Greater Southeast Community Hospital caught employees and their union leaders off guard, but administrators insist the 200 job cuts do not signal a return to bankruptcy. Greater Southeast primarily serves the poor and has struggled with its finances over the years. The hospital's parent company, Arizona-based Doctors Community Healthcare Corp., emerged from bankruptcy last year. The hospital also regained its full accreditation, hired new management, recruited full-time nurses to replace contract employees and won an award for its care of stroke and heart-attack victims. But on July 1, Greater Southeast cut 200 jobs, including 136 full-time positions. Greater Southeast administrators say the layoffs were needed because the hospital was overstaffed. 8/22 IOMEGA CORPORATION: Iomega Corp., a maker of data-storage products for computers and networks, said it would cut 120 jobs, or about 30% of its workforce. The San Diego-based company is cutting jobs and consolidating facilities as part of a restructuring plan to reduce expenses. 8/22 FIBERMARK INC.: FiberMark Inc.'s business reorganization plan that would take the company private and reduce its work force has won preliminary approval in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. FiberMark, which makes cloth and paper products, believes it will save $10 million starting in 2006 as a result of the plan. FiberMark's plan includes reducing operations in New Jersey, which translates into 135 job cuts there. FiberMark employs roughly 200 people locally and 1,600 throughout the United States and Europe. The company is putting steps in place to make the job cuts. The company plans to shut down a facility in Hughesville, N.J., and one of its two paper machines in Warren Glen, N.J. Duties will then be shifted to branches in Warren Glen, Brownville, N.Y., and its headquarters in Brattleboro. 8/22 THE TIMKEN COMPANY: The Timken Co. recently said it would cut 500 jobs in its automotive group as it reported earnings in the second quarter that more than doubled from a year ago. The company said a lack of profitability in its automotive group is prompting the job cuts in the third quarter. Timken's Automotive Group has 10 plants in the United States and 13 in other countries, with about 11,000 employees overall. The company said it will specify from 400 to 500 job cuts during the third quarter. 8/22 JOHN BROTHERS LIQUOR COMPANY: A local liquor distributor will move to Champaign and reduce the city's job tally by 54 employees. John Brothers Liquor

Co. is being purchased by Glazer's Distributors of Texas. The Lincoln facility will be closed. 8/15 JPMORGAN CHASE & COMPANY: JP Morgan Chase will cut 300 employees in the Rochester area by the end of the year, the company announced recently. The cuts will begin soon and will leave Chase with about 340 workers at its Rochester home equity center. A Chase spokesman said the cuts are an effort to get more efficiency after Chase's merger with Bank One a year ago. The Rochester center's retail services will be moved to another center in Milwaukee. Rochester is one of the company's three national home equity hubs, along with Milwaukee and Tempe, Ariz. The bank is phasing out a fourth center in Houston. 8/15 PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP, INC.: PNC Financial Services Group Inc. recently reported a 7 percent drop in second-quarter profit because of lower trading revenue and equity management gains. The Pennsylvania bank also announced a corporate restructuring that will eliminate 3,000 jobs. Pittsburgh-based PNC said it plans to reorganize its business to "reduce bureaucracy and to better service its customer base." The move is designed to achieve $300 million in cost savings through a combination of work force reductions and other actions, as well as boost revenue by more than $100 million per year. PNC's banking businesses will be reorganized into units consisting of consumer and institutional activities to increase the span of control and shed layers of management. PNC currently employs about 24,500 workers in 36 states, including more than 7,000 in western Pennsylvania. The bank operates 774 branches in six states. 8/15 TYSON FOODS, INC.: Tyson Foods said it was closing its processed chicken plant in Bentonville, Ark., which employs 320 people, and combining its operations with its plant in Russelville, Ark., which will be expanded to accommodate the increased production. The Russelville plant's production capacity will be increased by 60% and its workforce will grow by 165 employees. The company is also closing one poultry plant in Forest, Miss., and shifting production to another upgraded plant in Forest, resulting in the elimination of 300 employees. 8/15 EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY: Eastman Kodak Co., an icon of photography for more than a century, said recently that it is shedding as many as 10,000 more jobs, as digital imaging devours its traditional film business at a faster-than-expected pace. Kodak is in a race to build sales of its digital cameras and, more important, its photo printers and other digital supplies, as sales of its traditional film products are plunging. Most of the new layoffs will affect manufacturing workers. The company did not specify what facilities would close, but did say its manufacturing infrastructure, worth nearly $3 billion at the beginning of last year, would shrink in value to about $1 billion. Kodak remains No. 1 in nearly every digital category in which it competes. That includes high-speed inkjet printers for commercial use, medical laser printers and online photo services. 8/15 NKT HOLDING A/S: Nilfisk-Advance Group, a supplier of professional floor

cleaning equipment, plans to close its plant, eliminating 92 jobs, as part of the consolidation of its North American operations. The company will add jobs to its Plymouth, Minn., operations. The northwest Ohio plant produces professional industrial cleaning equipment under the American-Lincoln brand name. 8/15 MOTOROLA, INC.: Motorola announced recently it was trimming about 150 jobs, or about 5 percent of its 3,000-person workforce in Plantation. Plantation in the home of Motorola's Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) division. The technology combines the capability of wireless phones and two-way radios. The 150 jobs set to be eliminated in this latest round of cutbacks are in Motorola's distribution operation, but are considered part of its manufacturing workforce. The distribution operations will be shifted to a customer-fulfillment center in Fort Worth, Texas. 8/15 US AIRWAYS GROUP, INC.: US Airways is cutting 300 more flight attendant jobs, the airline said. The reductions result from the planned return of aircraft associated with the US Airways-America West merger. To save money, the two airlines plan to hand 60 planes back to creditors, including at least 30 before February. 8/15/2005 INVACARE CORPORATION: Medical products company Invacare Corp. said it's planning to cut about 230 jobs from its global work force and close some manufacturing and distribution facilities. The job cuts amount to about 4 percent of its 6,100 workers worldwide, the company said. 8/29/2005 ALTIRIS INC.: Lindon-based software company Altiris Inc. plans to cut approximately 10 percent of its 850 employees worldwide this quarter. About one-third of the company's workers are based in Utah, most of them in the Lindon headquarters. Altiris software is designed to allow information technology organizations to manage, secure and service devices and other software. 8/29 NOVELL INC.: Novell Inc., a seller of network software and consulting services, said that it plans to eliminate 120 to 150 jobs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in an effort to cut costs after results fell short of estimates. The company, which is based in Waltham, Mass., and has significant operations in Utah, is struggling to turn itself into a seller of Linux operating system software amid competition from market leader Red Hat Inc. and the departure of executives. 8/29 SMURFIT-STONE CONTAINER CORPORATION: Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. said it will close two Canadian containerboard mills, resulting in about 565 job cuts, and reduce capacity at a Florida mill. The Chicagobased maker of paperboard and paper-based packaging will close a

paper machine at its Fernandina Beach, Fla., linerboard mill and will shut down its linerboard mill in New Richmond, Quebec, and its medium mill in Bathurst, New Brunswick. These actions, while extremely difficult, are necessary to address the market realities facing Smurfit-Stone, in particular, the declining growth rate for containerboard and oversupply in the northeast portion of North America. Smurfit-Stone, which has about 35,000 employees, also noted a manufacturing exodus overseas has hurt containerboard demand in North America. 8/29 INTERGRAPH CORPORATION: Intergraph said Q2 revenues were $145.4 million, above the sole Street estimate for $142 million. It earned a quarter per share, including items. The FC mean was for $0.21 per share. The company will lay off an additional 60-80 positions in Q3, with a focus in Europe and Asia. 8/22 ABITIBI-CONSOLIDATED INC.: Newsprint giant Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. is closing two mills, selling other assets and curbing production as it targets renewed profitability after a second-quarter loss of $43 million. The closures at Kenora, Ont., and Stephenville, Nfld., will affect more than 600 workers and result in pre-tax writedowns of about $75 million and costs of about $35 million in third-quarter results, the Montreal company said. The company blamed high energy costs and a shortage of readily available wood for a decision to close its Stephenville mill and let 295 people go. The decision will also remove 194,000 tonnes of annual newsprint production. The problem with Stephenville is its energy costs have gone up significantly and couple that with the high wood costs in Canada, it just was not sustainable. In Kenora, which has 360 workers, one machine will be permanently closed in October, removing 90,000 tonnes of capacity. The mill's other machine, with capacity of 150,000 tonnes of newsprint, will be idled indefinitely. Abitibi's products are priced mainly in U.S. dollars, meaning a stronger Canadian currency makes it more expensive to finance operations. 8/22 PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION: The federal government will cause a grave disservice to Canadians, particularly those living in Northern Canada, the Atlantic and Saskatchewan by closing nine Public Services Commission (PSC) offices. The district office closures will result in the loss of 94 full-time jobs and an unspecified number of term workers. The federal government announced that it is reducing its 16 current points of service to seven locations: Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver. The closures will occur in Victoria, Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Iqualuit, Regina, QuDebec,

Moncton, Charlottetown and St. John's. 8/22 XEROX CORPORATION: Xerox Corp. is scaling back its revenue projections for 2005 and cutting up to 4.4 percent of its workforce worldwide. The company said that sales of its higher-profit, higher-end production and office copiers and presses lagged behind lower-priced models, creating pressure on profitability. To help improve future results, Xerox plans to cut 2,600 jobs, mostly in technical service and manufacturing. About 1,800 positions worldwide were already cut in the second quarter. 8/22 KIMBERLY-CLARK CORPORATION: Kimberly-Clark Corp. announced plans to cut 6,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its work force, and to sell or close 20 plants worldwide. The cuts will be made over the next three years, and could affect everyone from manufacturing workers to employees at the consumer-products giant's Irving, Texas, headquarters. Kimberly-Clark Corp. declined to identify which of the company's worldwide plants would be closed. In addition to its Irving headquarters, which employs some 100 people, Kimberly-Clark has Texas plants in Fort Worth, San Antonio, Del Rio and Paris, as well as facilities in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The cuts as part of a plan to boost spending on several key product lines; streamline production; fuel spending on research and development; and expand in emerging markets. Consumer products companies have lost much of their ability to set prices on basic goods to the rising power of large retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. This year, rising commodity prices, especially for energy, have further dented profits. Finally, more spending on research and development is needed to bring unique, innovative products to market. Kimberly-Clark has long faced fierce competition from the likes of Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co. and others. 8/22/2005

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." Henry Kissinger, Speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Bilderberg meeting. "We are at present working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. All the time

we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands." Arnold Toynbee, "The Trend of International Affairs Since the War", International Affairs, November 1931, p. 809 "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." Thomas Jefferson "Language is a field of battle, the media is the artillery, and vocabulary is the ammunition. The NWO has taken the field by storm, and is proceeding with coordinated attacks on several fronts, using all the latest high-tech vocabulary ammunition. They've laid a bed of land mines that cripple us when we try to stand on them: 'liberalism', conservatism', prosperity', 'democracy'." Richard Moore, Doublespeak

KATRINA AND THE POLITICS OF DISASTER http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Katrina_Politics_Disaster.htm In the wake of hurricane Katrina, many within the government are ducking for cover as the blame game begins. One individual who has been targeted is Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Associated Press reported the following: The top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers, internal documents show. Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to ``convey a positive image'' about the government's response for victims. Acknowledging that such a move would take two days, Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged. Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ``this near catastrophic event'' but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ``Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.'' (No pagination) Michael Brown is not the only one with a bull's eye on his chest. Former Clinton advisor Sydney Blumenthal also got in on the fun, placing blame squarely on the President's shoulders: In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war. (No pagination) Many in the mainstream media have interpreted these revelations the same way: gross incompetence on the part of the government. Apparently, Uncle Sam cannot get a thing right these days. What the media has completely missed (or ignored) is how certain factions within government could use the Katrina catastrophe to introduce social changes previously unthinkable. There is a discomforting possibility that Americans must consider in light of the fact that there is no one else looking out for their best interest. It is

the possibility that warnings were ignored and assistance was intentionally delayed to create a pretext for unprecedented government growth. One supporter of this contention is Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. On the 5th September 2005 Alex Jones show, Roberts: "agreed that FEMA has deliberately withheld aid, and cut emergency communication lines, and automatically made the crisis look worse in order to empower the image of a police state emerging to 'save the day'" (Watson and Jones, no pagination). Steve Watson and Alex Jones also report: Roberts further commented "There is no excuse for this, we have never had in our history the federal government take a week to respond to a disaster...this is the first time ever that the help was not mobilized in advance. The proper procedure is that everything is mobilized and ready to go." (No pagination) Roberts can hardly be called a conspiracy theorist. The former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury has recognized a certain game plan at work in the Katrina situation. This game plan has been used for centuries. Researcher Ralph Epperson elaborates: The first step consisted of having the conspiracy's own people infiltrate the government (the "pressure from above.") The second step was to create a real or alleged grievance, usually through either an action of government or through some situation where the government should have acted and didn't. The third step consisted in having a mob created by the real or alleged grievance that the government or the conspiracy caused demand that the problem be solved by a governmental action (the "pressure from below.") The fourth step consisted in having the conspirators in the government remedy the real or alleged situation with some oppressive legislation. The fifth step is a repeat of the last three. The government does not solve the problem and the mob demand more and more legislation until the government becomes totalitarian in nature by possessing all of the power. (37) If this method were fully implemented, it would be no exaggeration to describe the end result as being a Soviet-style America. One of the government agencies that have much to gain from the execution of this technique is FEMA. Michael Brown may become a sacrificial lamb. However, the Agency he heads, FEMA, has much to gain from the Katrina catastrophe. The hurricane disaster may lead to calls for increasing FEMA's budget and power. In a hopes of silencing his critics, the President

may favor such a move. America would then fall back to sleep, believing FEMA had its back covered in the event of another disaster. However, several researchers have recognized that FEMA has little to do with emergency relief. One such individual was deceased researcher Jim Keith. In his book, Black Helicopters Over America, Keith noted the following concerning FEMA: FEMA is intended to assume the powers of government during "emergencies," even to the extent of taking over the powers of the President, if the situation is believed to warrant it. The organization is located in the top secret National Security Agency facility in Fort Meade, Maryland. In its more benign aspects, FEMA is seen as an "umbrella" agency that, during times of disaster or natural cataclysm, will step into to throw the stricken populace life preservers. But there are aspects of FEMA which have some worried, one being that only a small percentage, less than 10% of FEMA employees according to a Congressional investigation, is engaged in anything having to do with disaster relief. So what the hell is FEMA doing behind those closed doors at Fort Meade? Among other things, the agency is engaged in compiling computer records on millions of Americans, to provide a database for CAPS, Crisis Action Programs, to be deployed whenever the non-elected bureaucrats of FEMA anticipate something which might compromise almighty COG, what they term the "Continuity of Government." (108) Was Keith merely being an alarmist when he penned these words? In his book The Triangle of Death, former DEA agent Michael Levine records a conversation he had with a CIA agent that reinforces Jim Keith's contention: "How can you be so good at what you do and have so little understanding of what really pulls your strings? Don't you realize that there are factions in your government that want this to happen - an emergency situation too hot for a constitutional government to handle." "To what end?" I asked. "A suspension of the Constitution, of course. The legislation is already in place. All perfectly legal. Check it out yourself. It's called FEMA. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'Turn in your guns, you antigovernment rabble rousers. And who would be king, Michael?" (353) In an interview with William Norman Grigg, Levine made it clear that this account was not fictitious: According to Levine, this shocking exchange is not the product of an imagination fed by alarmist myths. "That scenariocame from a specific conversation I had with a CIA officer in Argentina in 1979," Levine informed The New American. "There was a small group of us gathered for

a drinking at the CIA guy's apartment. There were several Argentine police officers there as well; at the time, Argentina was a police state in which people could be taken into custody without warning, tortured, and then 'disappeared.'" "At one point my associate in the CIA said that he preferred Argentina's approach to social order, and that America should be more like that country," Levine continues. "Somebody asked, 'Well, how does a change of that sort happen?' The spook replied that it was necessary to create a situation of public fear - a sense of impending anarchy and social upheaval"(11) The lack of response on the part of the government to hurricane Katrina created a situation just like that described by Levine's CIA acquaintance. An August 31, 2005 WWLTV news report seems to suggest that the situation had the desired effect: Disgusted and furious with the lawlessness of looters who have put fear into citizens, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared Martial Law in the city and directed the city's 1,500 person police force to do "whatever it takes" to regain control of the city. Nagin said that Martial Law means that officers don't have to worry about civil rights and Miranda rights in stopping the looters. (No pagination) With the proper pretext now in place, FEMA could enter the scene. Lieutenant-general Carl A. Strock of the Army Corps of Engineers informed the press that FEMA was heading up the federal response: "Ultimately, the corps is directed, along with 15 other agencies, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'It is FEMA who is really calling the shots and setting priorities here,' General Strock said" (Revkin, no pagination). Indeed, FEMA is calling all the shots in New Orleans. In the event of a larger crisis, the agency's powers could be further augmented by Executive Order 11051. This Executive Order would allow FEMA to enact other Executive Orders, extending the organization's control over numerous state and federal functions. This control would overarch education, welfare, and health services (Executive Order 11051, no pagination). In addition, FEMA would wield substantial authority over America's financial institutions. The agency would regulate wages, credit, salaries, and the flow of capital (Executive Order 11051, no pagination). The nation's means of production and distribution would also be commandeered (no pagination). In short, the infrastructure of the United States would be effectively controlled by one omnipotent governmental entity. FEMA is a dictator's wet dream, and with Katrina it is starting to be given teeth. The lesson to be learned from Katrina is fairly obvious. In the event of a catastrophe, we cannot depend on the government to be our savior. The politics of disaster are not about relief for the victims. They are about the acquisition of power.

Sources Cited

Blumenthal, Sydney. " Former Clinton Advisor: 'No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming'." Spiegel Online, 31 August 2005. Epperson, Ralph. The Unseen Hand. Tucson, Arizona: Publius Press, 1985. Executive Order 11051: PRESCRIBING RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE OFFICE OF EMERGENCY PLANNING IN THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT. 27 September 1962. Grigg, William Norman. "Battle Lines in the Drug War." New American, October 27, 1997: pg. 11-16. Keith, Jim. Black Helicopters Over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order. Lilburn, Georgia: Illuminet Press, 1994. Levine, Michael and Laura Kavanau. The Triangle of Death. New York: Delacorte Press, 1996. Revkin, Andrew. " Gazing at Breached Levees, Critics See Years of Missed Opportunities." New York Times, 2 September 2005. Unsigned document. "FEMA Chief Sent Help Only When Storm Ended." Associated Press, 7 September 2005. Unsigned document. "Nagin declares Martial Law to crack down on looters." WWLTV.com, 31 August 2005. Watson, Steve and Alex Jones. " Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury on New Orleans: 'Americans Are Being Brainwashed'" Prison Planet.com, 6 September 2005.

About the Author Paul D. Collins has studied suppressed history and the shadowy undercurrents of world political dynamics for roughly eleven years. In 1999, he completed his Associate of Arts and Science degree. He is working to complete his Bachelor's degree, with a major in Communications and a minor in Political Science. Paul has authored another book entitled The Hidden Face of Terrorism: The Dark Side of Social Engineering, From Antiquity to September 11. Published in November 2002, the book is available online from www.1stbooks.com, barnesandnoble.com, and also amazon.com. It can be purchased as an e-book (ISBN 1-4033-6798-1) or in paperback format (ISBN 1-40336799-X).He also co-authored the book, The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship: An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, From the 19th to the 21st Century, which is available online here.

Impoverished evacuees begin looking for work Hurricane Katrinas victims give up on quick return to homes, former jobs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9208494/ September 5, 2005 JACKSON, Miss. - Juan Herreras house on the Gulf coast is destroyed. He has no money, little clothing and is living with

his family in a high school gym. But what he needed most in Hurricane Katrinas aftermath, he said, was a job. I have to make money. I have nothing, he said. Thousands of evacuees from ravaged coastal areas began scraping for work in the cities and towns where they found themselves stranded after the storm. Many launched their search with skills of limited immediate value and no transportation, but with a desperate need to put enough dollars in their pockets to get moving again. Some cold-called businesses asking about jobs. Some tried temp agencies in areas where the power and phones were back on. Herrera bumped into an employment agent who visited the shelter in Richland looking for laborers for a business that makes dry ice. The job was only for a few days and would require him to work overnight, but Herrera took it, along with an offer of a nightly ride to work. What else can I do? he asked, adding that he hoped to eventually return to his old job at a Chevron facility in Pascagoula. Other evacuees are looking for a longer-term solution. Tina Davis, of New Orleans, took one look at video of the disaster back home, and came to two quick conclusions: Her house was almost certainly destroyed, and it was time to get to work building a new life someplace else. If we can find work in Jackson, were staying. Whats there to go back to? she asked. My fiance is an executive chef. Im sure there are plenty of places that would love to have him. For many job seekers, though, the search is unlikely to be easy. Hundreds of thousands of people were thrown out of work by the storm. Many are still in areas without power or gasoline and state labor agencies are crippled.

Liz Barnett, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, said officials hope to have toll-free telephone numbers available shortly for job seekers needing assistance. A few employers reached out Friday with offers of work. A fast food restaurant hung fliers offering jobs at the shelter in Richland. A company in need of laborers to work with steel visited a shelter at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson. Craigslist, the Internet-based classified advertising service, was filled with job offers for victims willing to relocate. Some businesses skipped advertising altogether. I was getting ready to put a big ad in the paper, and I said, Why would I do that? There are tons of people out here looking for work, said Pene Long, who was hoping to hire between 10 and 15 beauty stylists at her spa in Richland. The U.S. Department of Labor announced it would provide $50 million to Mississippi, $62 million to Louisiana and $4 million to Alabama to hire displaced people to help with storm clean up. That may not be enough. There are a lot more people looking than there are jobs, said Dianne Adcock, co-owner of an employment agency in Flowood, Miss. I just cant see there being enough for everyone.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Katrina's Victims Poorer Than U.S. Average

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168500,00.html September 5, 2005
NEW YORK People living in the path of Hurricane Katrina's (search) worst devastation were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car factors that may help explain why so many failed to evacuate as the storm approached. An Associated Press analysis of Census data shows that the residents in the three dozen hardest-hit neighborhoods in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama also were disproportionately minority and had incomes $10,000 below the national average.

"Let them know we're not bums. We have houses. Our houses were destroyed. We have jobs. It's not our fault that we didn't have cars to leave," Shatonia Thomas, 27, said as she walked near New Orleans' convention center five days after the storm, still trapped in the destruction with her children, ages 6 and 9. Money and transportation two keys to surviving a natural disaster were inaccessible for many who got left behind in the Gulf region's worst squalor. "It's a different equation for poor people," explained Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian. "There's a certain ease of transportation and funds that the middle class in this country takes for granted." Catina Miller, a 32-year-old grocery deli worker who lived in the Ninth Ward, a poverty-stricken New Orleans enclave created in the 1870s by immigrants who were too poor to find higher ground, said she certainly would have liked to have left the city before the hurricane hit. "But where can you go if you don't have a car?" she asked. "Not everyone can just pick up and take off." Jack Harrald, director of the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University (search) in Washington, said emergency planners have known for years that the poverty and lack of transportation in New Orleans would be a significant problem, but the government spent more time and money preparing itself rather than communities for disaster. "All issues were known," said Harrald, whose institute had been scheduling a series of emergency planning community meetings through a partnership with the University of New Orleans. "But it was still a work in progress. ... There's enough blame to go around for everybody." The AP analysis showed: Median household income in the most devastated neighborhood was $32,000, or $10,000 less than the national average. Two in 10 households in the disaster area had no car, compared with 1 in 10 in nationwide. Nearly 25 percent of those living in the hardest-hit areas were below the poverty line, about double the national average. About 4.5 percent in the disaster area received public assistance; nationwide, the number was about 3.5 percent. About 60 percent of the 700,000 people in the three dozen neighborhoods were minority. Nationwide, about 1 in 3 Americans is a racial minority. One in 200 American households doesn't have adequate plumbing. One in 100 households in the most affected areas didn't have decent plumbing, which, according to the Census, includes running hot and cold water, a shower or bath and an indoor toilet. Nationwide, about 7 percent of households with children are headed by a single mother. In the three dozen neighborhoods, 12 percent were single-mother households.

"It's the same people who don't have the wherewithal to get out of Dodge," explained National Guard Lt. Col. Connie McNabb, who was running a medical unit at the besieged convention center in New Orleans. The disparities were even more glaring in large, urban areas. One of the worst-hit neighborhoods in the heart of New Orleans, for example, had a median household income of less than $7,500. Nearly three of every four residents fell below the poverty line, and barely 1 in 3 people had a car. "I didn't have much in there," said Deanna Harris, a 57-year-old unemployed New Orleans resident, "but it was mine. "Now, this is what I've got," she said, patting a plastic bag. The hardest hit victims of Mississippi have much the same story. In one Pascagoula neighborhood, where 30 percent of residents are minorities, more than 20 percent live in poverty. In Alabama, where Katrina wasn't as severe, one of the hardest hit areas was a downtown Mobile neighborhood, where the median household income is barely $25,000 and one of every four residents lives below the poverty line. "There's not a lot of interest in this issue, except when there's something dramatic," said Carter, the South Carolina historian. "By and large, the poor are simply out of sight, out of mind."

U.S. Home Prices Rose 13.43% Over Year

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168141,00.html September 5, 2005 WASHINGTON Average U.S. home prices soared more than 13 percent over the past year and showed no sign of peaking as low mortgage interest rates and speculative buying boosted demand, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (search) said Thursday. In the year-long period through June 2005, home prices jumped 13.43 percent, the report said. That marked the biggest increase over a 12-month period since the second quarter of 1979. Home values appreciated 3.2 percent during the second quarter from the first quarter of 2005, or at an annualize House prices grew much faster over the past year than did prices of other goods and services, said OFHEO, the regulator for mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). While homes appreciated by more than 13 percent, prices on other goods and services rose 3.1 percent, the regulator said. The Pacific region posted the fastest price appreciation, while the slowest was reported for the division that includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Nevada had the highest appreciation for all states, with house prices up 28.1 percent over the past year and 5.5 percent for the quarter.

But for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2003, Las Vegas was not on OFHEO's list of the 20 fastest growing metropolitan areas. Thirty of the 265 ranked metropolitan statistical areas had price appreciation over the 12 months through June 2005 that exceeding 25 percent. Washington, D.C. and 24 states had double-digit annual price growth while eight states showed price increases exceeding 20 percent. In Maryland and Virgina, percentage home price rises in the year-long period through June 2005 were at their highest levels in the history of OFHEO's house price index.

New Orleans residents lament lack of insurance

Homeowners say they had grown complacent with all the warnings September 5, 2005
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9170157/ NEW YORK - Packing just a few T-shirts and some shorts, Jenny Bagert joined the hordes fleeing New Orleans after a warning that one of the fiercest hurricanes in U.S. history was about to hit the low-lying southern city. Her lack of preparation was fairly typical for New Orleans residents who had grown increasingly complacent about hurricane warnings and evacuation plans, with few adequately insured against the long forewarned disaster. We evacuate so often we know what and how we should prepare, but you just get used to it. We never thought it would be this bad, Bagert, 32, a photographer, told Reuters by telephone from an aunts house near Houston, Texas. Im hoping my one-story, raised house in mid-city might be OK, but we saw my mothers house on the television with just the roof showing so we know she has lost it. But Bagerts family is among the lucky ones. They took out flood insurance, well aware of the risks in New Orleans, which is below sea level and encircled by levees. They are still stunned by the devastation and thousands of deaths in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We just keep breaking down, Bagert said.

Only about 40 percent of New Orleans homeowners have flood insurance, which is provided in the United States under a government program, the National Flood Insurance Program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Standard homeowner insurance only covers damage from fire and wind while commercial or automobile insurance does cover flood damage. A high number of car claims are expected from Katrina with thousands of cars submerged. Private insurers, like State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and Allstate Corp., which lead the home insurance market in the state of Louisiana, do sell policies for the FEMA and can settle the claims for policy holders. Few insured But only 85,000 residential and commercial policies have been sold in Orleans parish, in which the city is located, by the NFIP, according to latest figures while the U.S. census lists about 213,000 housing units in the city in 2002. We estimate about 40 percent of properties have flood insurance and virtually all the damage caused in New Orleans was by floods, not winds, a FEMA spokesman said. The NFIP program also only offers up to $250,000 for homeowners to rebuild damaged properties, and up to $100,000 to replace contents. Risk modeler Risk Management Solutions has estimated that 150,000 properties have been flooded in New Orleans. But widespread flooding, debris, power outages and a lack of lodging could prevent damage assessments for weeks. Early estimates expect Katrina to be the most costly U.S. storm, with insured losses of more than $25 billion topping insured losses of $21 billion from Hurricane Andrew in 1992. This is going to be one of the, if not the, most costly natural disaster in the United states, said Jeanne Salvatore, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. Salvatore said each claim would be have to handled on a caseby-case basis to see if the damage was caused by water, winds,

or a combination of both. Some properties were destroyed by fire. Homeowners without flood coverage whose homes were water damaged will have to rebuild using their own funds. In past catastrophes, insurers have covered about 60 percent of total economic loss, but this could be considerably less with Katrina because so much of the damage has been caused by flooding, which is not covered by the insurers. Instead, business claims, such as insurance for business interruption, could represent about 50 percent of claims, up from 30 percent after previous hurricanes. Bedonna Wakeman, 56, a street artist, was renting an apartment in the Marigny area that was badly affected but she was out of town when the Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast. I have lost everything I own from my mother and fathers wedding picture to the 12 canvases I had painted for a new show, Wakeman said from her sons apartment in New York. Its just so hard to fathom that it could be two months, six months, or a year before we are allowed back. No one knows. Hurricane Katrina is likely to put further upward pressure on insurance rates, which were already rising in the Gulf states and the Southeast, by reminding insurers that too much exposure to coastal areas can be risky. But the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the property and casualty industry had adequate capital and liquidity required to withstand even the record losses expected to stem from Katrina. The industry has $425 billion in reserves, according to second-quarter figures. However, residents who managed to leave the city to watch the disaster unfold from a safe distance said their losses were nothing compared with the suffering of those left behind, with flooding wiping out many of the poorer neighborhoods. You are just looking into the face of death when you see those people still there, Wakeman said.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Katrina economic loss seen at $100 billion

Risk modeling firm sees half of damage due to flooding
September 4, 2005 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9170157/ NEW YORK - Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding in New Orleans will cause an economic loss expected to top $100 billion, a risk modeler said on Friday. Risk Management Solutions said at least half of the loss will result from the flooding, which has left New Orleans essentially uninhabitable. The remainder will come from wind and infrastructure damage, storm surges and indirect economic impacts, it said. The cost of interrupted economic activity tops $100 million a day, the firm said. The most catastrophic damage from the storm occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi. Katrinas ultimate economic and insurance consequences will depend highly on how quickly authorities can respond, said Laurie Johnson, the firms vice president of technical marketing. RMS estimated that at least 150,000 properties have been flooded, surpassing the record 137,000 set in 1927 from flooding and levee failures on the lower Mississippi River. The firm said property in the flooded areas is worth about $100 billion. Decontamination costs will be significant, and prolonged immersion of wooden residential buildings in polluted water may require a large proportion of buildings to be replaced, it said. Not all analysts are as gloomy about Katrinas potential economic impact. Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Lehman Brothers Inc., in a report on Friday said: Despite the immense destruction of property and lives, Hurricane Katrina will likely have a modest impact on the national economy.

RMS, which is based in Newark, California, had on Monday forecast that insured losses from Katrina would total $10 billion to $25 billion. It made that forecast before levees protecting New Orleans, which lies mostly below sea level, failed.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Katrina's Economic Bill Could Hit $100B

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168315,00.html September 5, 2005
NEW YORK Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding in New Orleans will cause an economic loss expected to top $100 billion,risk modeler Risk Management Solutions (search)said on Friday. Risk Management Solutions said at least half of the loss will result from the flooding, which has left New Orleans essentially uninhabitable. The remainder will come from wind and infrastructure damage, storm surges and indirect economic impacts, it said. The cost of interrupted economic activity tops $100 million a day, the firm said. The most catastrophic damage from the storm occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi. Katrina's ultimate economic and insurance consequences "will depend highly on how quickly authorities can respond," said Laurie Johnson, the firm's vice president of technical marketing. RMS estimated that at least 150,000 properties have been flooded, surpassing the record 137,000 set in 1927 from flooding and levee failures on the lower Mississippi River. The firm said property in the flooded areas is worth about $100 billion. Decontamination costs will be significant, and prolonged immersion of wooden residential buildings in polluted water may require a large proportion of buildings to be replaced, it said. Not all analysts are as gloomy about Katrina's potential economic impact. Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. (LEH), in a report on Friday said: "Despite the immense destruction of property and lives, Hurricane Katrina will likely have a modest impact on the national economy." RMS, which is based in Newark, Calif., had on Monday forecast that insured losses from Katrina would total $10 billion to $25 billion. It made that forecast before levees protecting New Orleans, which lies mostly below sea level, failed.

Katrina's agriculture costs will top $2 billion

Hurricane flattened southern crops, destroyed chicken houses
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9178542/ WASHINGTON - Hurricane damages to farm-related industries will cost more than $2 billion and could increase food prices, according to estimates by American Farm Bureau Federation. The impact is rippling throughout agriculture. Hurricane Katrina flattened and drenched southern crops such as sugar cane and cotton. Its winds destroyed chicken houses and the flocks inside. Those losses may be the tip of the iceberg, said Terry Francl, economist for Farm Bureau, which is the nations largest general farm organization. Farm Bureau said a conservative estimate is that direct damages to crops and livestock will rise above $1 billion. Indirect costs, such as increased shipping rates and fuel prices, also will reach at least $1 billion, the group said. Food prices could rise slightly, mainly because of higher energy costs. Energy prices were up quite a bit beforehand, but certainly this hurricane is really emphasizing the problem, Francl said. Farmers only get 20 cents on average of the food consumer dollar, he said. The other 79 or 80 percent goes to processing, packaging, shipping and distribution of food. Those are all going to be affected by energy prices. Chicken prices might remain stable, Francl said, even though most chicken slaughter facilities in Mississippi, which accounts for about 10 percent of the nations chicken production, were knocked out of operation. Broiler production had been increasing nationwide before the hurricane, he said.

Farmers in the region will get help paying loans from the government, the Farm Credit Administration said Friday. The government can extend loan terms, restructure debt, ease requirements for documentation or take other steps to make loan repayment easier. The hurricane will have long-term effects on agriculture across the nation and in rural America, said Nancy C. Pellett, FCA board chairman and CEO.
2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Jobless rate in Gulf Coast could hit 25 percent

Recovery likely to be hardest for working poor, employees of small firms
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9170134/ WASHINGTON - The jobless rate in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast is expected to spike to 25 percent or higher, and when the long rebuilding process begins it's likely the same people the economy had left behind before the storm the unemployed and working poor will have the most trouble getting back on their feet. Workers in flooded New Orleans, which faces major cleanup challenges, are taking the biggest hit. "There's no question that the recovery is going to be much longer and more painful for the 28 percent of the local population in the New Orleans area living below the poverty line," said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. "It's going to be much harder for the local economy to recover in the absence of resources and insurance." Lives and livelihoods are in limbo, perhaps for a long time since it could take years to rebuild the city. "It's just so devastating. You got to shore up the levees and get rid of the water before you can restore the necessities electricity, water, sanitation, telecommunications. The

engineering challenges faced will be gigantic," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. Rebuilding strategic oil facilities and ports will be a priority eventually bringing people back to their jobs, Hoffman said. But smaller Mom and Pop shops and their workers probably face a more precarious future. Some small businesses, restaurants and hotels likely won't reopen. Casinos built on barges along the coast that were damaged or destroyed probably will resume operations, though some uprooted casino workers may seek employment elsewhere, such as Las Vegas or Atlantic City. "The populations in Louisiana and Mississippi are incredibly poor. Most of the damage was from flooding, which doesn't tend to be covered by insurance. That combination adds up to an incredibly long and painful rebuilding process I think five to 10 years," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia. Mississippi last year ranked the lowest among all 50 states in terms of per capita income, $24,650, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. Louisiana was ranked No. 42, with per capita income of $27,581. Alabama placed 40th, with per capita income of $27,795. The nationwide per capita income last year was $32,937. Poverty rates for the three states also are higher than the national average.

Economy Added 169,000 Jobs in August

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168279,00.html
WASHINGTON (September 5, 2005) Employers created 169,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell unexpectedly to 4.9 percent, its lowest since August 2001 reminders of the economy's vigor before Hurricane Katrina. While August's job-creation tally fell slightly short of the 190,000 gain expected by Wall Street, job growth in June and July was stronger than previously thought, the Labor Department (search) said on Friday, bumping up its tally for those two months by a combined 44,000. Financial markets initially seized on the weaker-than-expected August measure, sending prices for government bonds up and the value of the dollar down. But some of that action quickly reversed as traders digested the data. "You've got decent payroll growth, which tells you the economy had some nice upside momentum going into Katrina," said Steve Ricchiuto, chief U.S. economist at ABN AMRO in New York. "But it doesn't tell what the economy has done after Katrina and that's really the problem for the marketplace right now." Job gains in August were broad-based, although factory employment slipped by 14,000 the third consecutive monthly decline. Over the past year, the manufacturing sector has shed 110,000 workers. Hurricane Katrina did not impact the August job count, since it crossed Florida and slammed into the Gulf Coast after the government had surveyed employers. But economist expect it to hurt payroll employment this month. Overall, however, analysts believe the storm, which killed an untold number of people and left thousands more homeless, will prove only a temporary set-back to the $12 trillion U.S. economy. The decline in the unemployment rate came as a separate survey of households also found job creation robust. Analysts had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.0 percent. Last month's 4.9 percent reading was the lowest since before the September 11, 2001, attacks and offered a reminder that labor-market conditions had been improving before Katrina struck. The unemployment rate has fallen one-half percentage point since February. The tightening job market has been a key factor in the thinking of policy-makers at the Federal Reserve, who began pushing short-term interest rates higher in June 2004 in an effort to keep inflation tame. Ten straight quarter-percentage-point hikes have taken overnight rates up to 3.5 percent. The storm surge that breached levees in low-lying New Orleans and battered other towns along the coast brought with it a sea change in expectations for further interest rate increases from the U.S. central bank. Futures markets show investors expect just one more rate hike this year, with even another quarter-percentage point hike at the Fed's next meeting on September 20 uncertain. Before Katrina, rate rises had been expected at each of the central bank's next two meetings.

"This is a view of the economy as we knew it, the world has changed a bit," said James Glassman, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. "It's highly likely that the Fed will pause for a while." The jobs report is usually eyed closely by financial markets as a potential indicator of the direction of the economy and interest rates. But analysts said the uncertain outlook in the wake of the hurricane lessened the usefulness of the August figures. "It just seems to pale into insignificance," said Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in New York. The report showed construction payrolls grew by 25,000 a figure sure to swell in the months ahead as rebuilding after Katrina gets under way. The service-side of the economy created 156,000 jobs, spread across most sectors. Average hourly earnings increased two cents, or 0.1 percent, with the year-on-year reading edging down to a 2.7 percent gain from July's upwardly revised 2.8 percent. The length of the average work week held steady at 33.7 hours.

Chance of recession doubles after Katrina

Aftermath of hurricane to tax economy, Standard & Poor's says
September 4, 2005 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9176389/ NEW YORK - The likelihood of a recession has doubled in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, credit rating agency Standard & Poors said Friday. The likelihood of a recession has increased from less than 12 percent to 25 percent following Katrina, the agency said. What would drive it is $100 (a barrel) oil prices, said Beth Ann Bovino, a senior economist at S&P. While the possibility has risen, were pretty confident of the health of the U.S. economy. Insurance risk assessment companies estimate that insurance claims from Katrina could top $25 billion, but once damage to roads and bridges is factored in, Katrina could cost $50 billion, S&P said.

 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

STOCKHOLDERS WHO CAUSED THE GREAT LAYOFFS OF 1995 TO 2005 Most Americans, if they know anything at all about the Federal Reserve, believe it is an agency of the United States Government. This article charts the true nature of the "National Bank." Chart 1
Source: ** Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence ** - - Published 1976

Chart 1 reveals the linear connection between the Rothschilds and the Bank of England, and the London banking houses which ultimately control the Federal Reserve Banks through their stockholdings of bank stock and their subsidiary firms in New York. The two principal Rothschild representatives in New York, J. P. Morgan Co., and Kuhn, Loeb & Co. were the firms which set up the Jekyll Island Conference at which the Federal Reserve Act was drafted, who directed the subsequent successful campaign to have the plan enacted into law by Congress, and who purchased the controlling amounts of stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1914. These firms had their principal officers appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Advisory Council in 1914. In 1914 a few families (blood or business related) owning controlling stock in existing banks (such as in New York City) caused those banks to purchase controlling shares in the Federal Reserve regional banks. Examination of the charts and text in the House Banking Committee Staff Report of August, 1976 and the current stockholders list of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks show this same family control.
N.M. Rothschild , London - Bank of England | | Schroder Corp. | ______________________________________ | J. Henry Banking |

| | Brown, Shipley - Morgan Grenfell - Lazard - | & Company & Company Brothers | | | | | --------------------| -------| | | | | | | | | Alex Brown - Brown Bros. - Lord Mantagu - Morgan et Cie -- Lazard ---| & Son | Harriman Norman | Paris Bros | | | / | N.Y. | | | | | | | | Governor, Bank | J.P. Morgan Co -- Lazard ---| | of England / N.Y. Morgan Freres |

| 1924-1938 / Guaranty Co. Paris | | / Morgan Stanley Co. | / | / | \Schroder Bank | / | Hamburg/Berlin | / Drexel & Company / | / Philadelphia / | / / | / Lord Airlie | / / | / M. M. Warburg Chmn J. Henry Schroder | | Hamburg --------- marr. Virginia F. Ryan | | | grand-daughter of Otto | | | Kahn of Kuhn Loeb Co. | | | | | | Lehman Brothers N.Y -------------- Kuhn Loeb Co. N. Y. | | -------------------------| | | | | | | | Lehman Brothers - Mont. Alabama Solomon Loeb Abraham Kuhn | | __|______________________|_________ Lehman-Stern, New Orleans Jacob Schiff/Theresa Loeb Nina Loeb/Paul Warburg - ------------------------| | | | | Mortimer Schiff James Paul Warburg _____________|_______________/ | | | | | | Mayer Lehman | Emmanuel Lehman \ | | | \ Herbert Lehman Irving Lehman \ | | | \ Arthur Lehman \ Phillip Lehman John Schiff/Edith Brevoort Baker / | Present Chairman Lehman Bros / Robert Owen Lehman Kuhn Loeb - Granddaughter of / | George F. Baker | / | | / | | / Lehman Bros Kuhn Loeb (1980) | / | | / Thomas Fortune Ryan | | | | | | Federal Reserve Bank Of New York | |||||||| | ______National City Bank N. Y. | | | | | National Bank of Commerce N.Y ---| | | \ | Hanover National Bank N.Y. \ | | \ | Chase National Bank N.Y. \

| | | | Shareholders - National City Bank - N.Y. | - ----------------------------------------- | | / James Stillman / Elsie m. William Rockefeller / Isabel m. Percy Rockefeller / William Rockefeller Shareholders - National Bank of Commerce N. Y. J. P. Morgan ----------------------------------------------M.T. Pyne Equitable Life - J.P. Morgan Percy Pyne Mutual Life - J.P. Morgan J.W. Sterling H.P. Davison - J. P. Morgan NY Trust/NY Edison Mary W. Harriman Shearman & Sterling A.D. Jiullard - North British Merc. Insurance | Jacob Schiff | Thomas F. Ryan | Paul Warburg | Levi P. Morton - Guaranty Trust - J. P. Morgan | | Shareholders - First National Bank of N.Y. - ------------------------------------------J.P. Morgan George F. Baker George F. Baker Jr. Edith Brevoort Baker US Congress - 1946-64 | | | | | Shareholders - Hanover National Bank N.Y. - -----------------------------------------James Stillman William Rockefeller | | | | | Shareholders - Chase National Bank N.Y. - --------------------------------------George F. Baker

Chart 2
Source: ** Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence ** - - Published 1983

The J. Henry Schroder Banking Company chart encompasses the entire history of the twentieth century, embracing as it does the program (Belgium Relief Commission) which provisioned Germany from 1915-1918 and dissuaded Germany from seeking peace in 1916; financing Hitler in 1933 so as to make a Second World War possible; backing the Presidential campaign of Herbert Hoover ; and even at the present time, having two of its major executives of its subsidiary firm, Bechtel Corporation serving as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. The head of the Bank of England since 1973, Sir Gordon Richardson, Governor of the Bank of England (controlled by the House of Rothschild) was chairman of J. Henry Schroder Wagg and Company of London from 1963-72, and director of J. Henry Schroder, New York and Schroder Banking Corporation, New York, as well as Lloyd's Bank of London, and Rolls Royce. He maintains a residence on Sutton Place in New York City, and as head of "The London Connection," can be said to be the single most influential banker in the world.
J. Henry Schroder ----------------| | | Baron Rudolph Von Schroder Hamburg - 1858 - 1934 | | | Baron Bruno Von Schroder Hamburg - 1867 - 1940 F. C. Tiarks | 1874-1952 | | | marr. Emma Franziska | (Hamburg) Helmut B. Schroder J. Henry Schroder 1902 | Dir. Bank of England | Dir. Anglo-Iranian | Oil Company J. Henry Schroder Banking Company N.Y. | | J. Henry Schroder Trust Company N.Y. | | | ___________________|____________________ | | Allen Dulles John Foster Dulles Sullivan & Cromwell Sullivan & Cromwell Director - CIA U. S. Secretary of State Rockefeller Foundation Prentiss Gray ------------

Belgian Relief Comm. Chief Marine Transportation US Food Administration WW I Manati Sugar Co. American & British Continental Corp. | | M. E. Rionda -----------Pres. Cuba Cane Sugar Co. Manati Sugar Co. many other sugar companies. | | G. A. Zabriskie --------------Chmn U.S. Sugar Equalization Board 1917-18; Pres Empire Kai Biscuit Co., Columbia Baking Tientsin Co. , Southern Baking Co. La Belgique

Lord Airlie ----------Chairman; Virgina Fortune Ryan daughter of Otto Kahn of Kuhn,Loeb Co. | | | | | | _______| | | | | | | | | |

Emile Francoui -------------Belgian Relief Comm. Ping Coal Mines, Railroad,Congo Copper, Banque Nationale de

Suite 2000 42 Broadway | N. Y | __________________________|___________________________| | | | | | | Edgar Richard Julius H. Barnes Herbert Hoover ----------------------------------------Belgium Relief Comm Belgium Relief Comm Chmn Belgium Relief Com Amer Relief Comm Pres Grain Corp. U.S. Food Admin U.S. Food Admin U.S. Food Admin Sec of Commerce 1924-28 1918-24, Hazeltine Corp. 1917-18, C.B Pitney Kaiping Coal Mines | Bowes Corp, Manati Congo Copper, President | Sugar Corp. U.S. 1928-32 | | | John Lowery Simpson - ------------------Sacramento,Calif Belgium Relief | Comm. U. S. Food Administration Baron Kurt Von Schroder Prentiss Gray Co. J. Henry Schroder ----------------------Trust, Schroder-Rockefeller, Chmn Schroder Banking Corp. J.H. Stein Fin Comm, Bechtel International Bankhaus (Hitler's personal bank Co. Bechtel Co. (Casper Weinberger account) served on board of all Sec of Defense, George P. Schultz German subsidiaries of ITT . Bank Sec of State (Reagan Admin). for International Settlements,

| SS Senior Group Leader,Himmler's | Circle of Friends (Nazi Fund), | Deutsche Reichsbank,president | | Schroder-Rockefeller & Co. , N.Y. - --------------------------------Avery Rockefeller, J. Henry Schroder Banking Corp., Bechtel Co., Bechtel International Co. , Canadian Bechtel Company. | | | | Gordon Richardson ----------------Governor, Bank of England 1973-PRESENT C.B. of J. Henry Schroder N.Y. Schroder Banking Co., New York, Lloyds Bank Rolls Royce

Chart 3
Source: ** Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence ** - - Published 1976

The David Rockefeller chart shows the link between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Standard Oil of Indiana, General Motors and Allied Chemical Corportion (Eugene Meyer family) and Equitable Life (J. P. Morgan).
DAVID ROCKEFELLER - ---------------------------Chairman of the Board Chase Manhattan Corp | | ______|_______________________ Chase Manhattan Corp. | Officer & Director Interlocks|--------------------------|----------------------| | | Private Investment Co. for America Allied Chemicals Corp. | | Firestone Tire & Rubber Company General Motors | | Orion Multinational Services Ltd. Rockefeller Family & Associates | | ASARCO. Inc Chrysler Corp. | | Southern Peru Copper Corp. Intl' Basic Economy Corp. | | Industrial Minerva Mexico S.A. R.H. Macy & Co. | | Continental Corp. Selected Risk Investments S.A. | | Honeywell Inc. Omega Fund, Inc. | | Northwest Airlines, Inc. Squibb Corporation | | Northwestern Bell Telephone Co. Olin Foundation | | Minnesota Mining & Mfg Co (3M) Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co. of NJ | | American Express Co. AT & T | | Hewlett Packard Pacific Northwestern Bell Co. | | FMC Corporation BeachviLime Ltd. | | Utah Intl' Inc. Eveleth Expansion Company | | Exxon Corporation Fidelity Union Bancorporation | |

International Nickel/Canada | Federated Capital Corporation | Equitable Life Assurance Soc U.S. | Federated Dept Stores | General Electric | Scott Paper Co. | American Petroleum Institute | Richardson Merril Inc. | May Department Stores Co. | Sperry Rand Corporation | San Salvador Development Company

Cypress Woods Corporation | Intl' Minerals & Chemical Corp. | Burlington Industries | Wachovia Corporation | Jefferson Pilot Corporation | R. J. Reynolds Industries Inc. | United States Steel Corp. | Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. | Norton-Simon Inc. | Stone-Webster Inc. | Standard Oil of Indiana

Chart 4
** Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence ** - - Published 1976

This chart shows the interlocks between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York J. Henry Schroder Banking Corp., J. Henry Schroder Trust Co., Rockefeller Center, Inc., Equitable Life Assurance Society ( J.P. Morgan), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Alan Pifer, President Carnegie Corporation of New York - ---------------------| | - ---------------------Carnegie Corporation Trustee Interlocks ----------------------------------------------| | | Rockefeller Center, Inc J. Henry Schroder Trust Company | | The Cabot Corporation Paul Revere Investors, Inc. | | Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Qualpeco, Inc. | Owens Corning Fiberglas | New England Telephone Co. | Fisher Scientific Company | Mellon National Corporation

| Equitable Life Assurance Society | Twentieth Century Fox Corporation | J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation

Chart 5
Source: ** Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence ** - - Published 1976

This chart shows the link between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Brown Brothers Harriman,Sun Life Assurance Co. (N.M. Rothschild and Sons), and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Maurice F. Granville Chairman of The Board Texaco Incorporated - ---------------------| | Texaco Officer & Director Interlocks ---------- Liggett & Myers, Inc. - -----------------------------------| | | | | L Arabian American Oil Company St John d'el Ray Mining Co. Ltd. O | | N Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. National Steel Corporation D | | O Brown Harriman & Intl' Banks Ltd. Massey-Ferguson Ltd. N | | American Express Mutual Life Insurance Co. | | N. American Express Intl' Banking Corp. Mass Mutual Income Investors Inc. M. | | Anaconda United Services Life Ins. Co. R | | O Rockefeller Foundation Fairchild Industries T | | H Owens-Corning Fiberglas Blount, Inc. S | | C National City Bank (Cleveland) William Wrigley Jr. Co H | | I Sun Life Assurance Co. National Blvd. Bank of Chicago L | | D General Reinsurance Lykes Youngstown Corporation | | General Electric (NBC) Inmount Corporation

** Source: Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence. Staff Report, Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing, House of Representatives, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, August 1976.

Legal Land Theft and the Supreme Court http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Eminent_Domain.htm

When a student is introduced to the subject of American political science, the three branches of the national government is one of the first topics explored. The student is taught that the judicial branch's primary task is to interpret the law. It was for this purpose that the Supreme Court was created. In June of 2005, a Supreme Court ruling in Kelo versus New London, a case concerning the issue of eminent domain, drastically redefined the Court's role in national politics. CNN's Parija Bhatnagar reported the following concerning the Supreme Courts ruling: The Supreme Court may have just delivered an early Christmas gift to the nation's biggest retailers by its ruling Thursday allowing governments to take private land for business development. Retailers such as Target, Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond have thus far managed to keep the "eminent domain" issue under the radar -- and sidestep a prickly public relations problem -- even as these companies continue to expand their footprint into more urban residential areas where prime retail space isn't always easily found. Eminent domain is a legal principle that allows the government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation. Local governments have increasingly expanded the scope of public use to include commercial entities such as shopping malls or independent retail stores. Critics of the process maintain that local governments are too quick to invoke eminent domain on behalf of big retailers because of the potential for tax revenue generation and job creation. The Supreme Court's decision Thursday clarified that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private and public economic development. (No pagination) The Court's actions in this particular case make it painfully obvious that the justices have become little more than politicians in robes. Do not be deceived. Supreme Court nominees are no longer chosen based on their judicial philosophy. It is naive to believe that a potential nominee is called into the Oval Office by the President and asked whether he or she is a proponent of judicial activism or judicial restraint. A simple question is posed to the nominee: "Are you willing to dance?" Eager to ascend up the political ladder, the nominee will invariably answer in the affirmative. So the Supreme Court is

now made up of justices dancing to a political tune. This leads to the next question: "Who is calling the tune?" The answer to the above question is disturbing. If property can be taken away from the people for private economic development, then that means the government is giving preferential treatment to private forces. Those private forces would be correctly labeled an aristocracy. The Supreme Court has been prostituted out to the Power Elite for the purpose of transforming the Republic into an oligarchy. The Kelo versus New London ruling will help preserve the blueblood tradition of stealing the commoners' lands in the name of profit. This is a tradition that goes back thousands of years. In fifteenth century England, major landowners began fencing in common land. Originally, those lower down the economic food chain used these lands as tilling and grazing grounds. All of that had changed by 1600. Major landowners had enclosed oneeighth of England's arable land (Chambers et al. 474). In the eighteenth century, notions and concepts of democratic institutions and representative, constitutional republicanism began to be popularized. With this rise in popularity, the masses began to breathe easy, believing Olympian delirium had finally been expunged. Perhaps now the common person would enjoy the property rights as well. After all, two of the inalienable rights recognized by America's Founding Fathers were the right to liberty and property. This meant that man had an inalienable right not only to produce, but also to keep that which he produced. One's incentive to be productive comes from these two rights. However, the plight of the Native Americans painfully illustrates the fact that the bluebloods' tradition of land theft was far from over. As Dr. James W. Wardner points out in The Planned Destruction of America: "It was the privately owned railroads which initially worked with the government to steal Indian land and water. Now it's the privately owned oil conglomerates and agribusinesses" (150-151). Wardner explains how this was accomplished: Through a number of "Leasing Acts," the federal government through the secretary of the interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been authorized to lease public and Indian lands and mineral rights to private corporations (MNCs). By 1973 the federal government had leased 680,854 acres of public land and 258,754 acres of Indian land, containing over 20 billion tons of coal to approximately fifteen multinational oil companies. Through the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, 38 million acres were stolen outright from the North American Indians by the government. As if that wasn't enough, Indian landowners were forced to sell an additional 23 million acres between 1887 and 1934 because of inability to pay their taxes and mortgage payments. By 1934 the Indians has lost nearly twothirds of their land or 90 million acres! (149)

Whites and other Americans that were not of Native American descent were able to brush off these crimes because they were largely unaffected by such land theft. Social engineering has programmed the majority of Americans to reside strictly in their belly buttons, unmoved by injustice so long as they go unharmed. With Kelo versus New London, the debt collector has finally come knocking at our doors and it is now our turn to pay. Fortunately, there has been some movement in the right direction. Shortly after the decision in Kelo came down, over 40 states began taking steps to limit their general policing power as it pertains to property seizures. However, this can only be considered a starting point. What is needed now are Supreme Court Justices who are unwilling to prostitute themselves out to the Power Elite. Blocking the confirmation of Bush's current nominee, John G. Roberts, would certainly begin to reverse the trend. Many conservatives within the controlled conservative movement have misidentified Roberts as one of their own. Nothing could be further from the truth. Roberts has backed several authoritarian measures that would aid the Power Elite in transforming America into an oligarchy. One such measure was his proposal for the establishment of a national ID card, ostensibly to fight illegal immigration. In USA Today, Joan Biskupic and Tony Locy reported the following: When he worked in the Reagan White House in 1983, John Roberts made the case for a national ID card, saying in a memo that it would help address the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration." (No pagination) The two journalists explored the rationale behind Robert's proposal: "I recognize that our office is on record in opposition to a secure national identifier, and I will be ever alert to defend that position," Roberts wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding on Oct. 21, 1983. "I should point out, however, that I personally do not agree with it. I yield to no one in the area of commitment to individual liberty against the spectre of overreaching central authority, but view such concerns as largely symbolic as far as a national ID card is concerned." Roberts said the USA already had "for all intents and purposes, a national identifier - the Social Security number." A national ID would not "suddenly mean constitutional protections would evaporate and you could be arbitrarily stopped on the street and asked to produce it." (No pagination) Robert's support of authoritarian measures did not end with his days in the Reagan White House. His action in July 2005 show that he is still a long way off from walking the straight and narrow. William Grigg elaborates:

Roberts participated in a July 15 decision by a panel from the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Bush administration's claim that the president can designate any individual as an "enemy combatant" and detain that individual indefinitely. The July 15 decision also assented to the administration's claim that the president can create special military tribunals to conduct trials of enemy combatants, rendering decisions that are not subject to judicial review of any sort. (No pagination) It is obvious that behind Robert's clean-cut conservative mask hides a proponent of oligarchy. Moreover, the democrats cannot be expected to save us from him. When the democrats started using the filibuster to block the President's nomination, Senate majority leader William Frist proposed the "nuclear option". The "nuclear option" was a call for a vote to do away with the filibuster. With the republicans dominating both the House and the Senate, elimination of the filibuster was almost guaranteed. This led to the "Gang of 14", which was a group of fourteen senators, coming together and reaching a compromise. Democrats promised not to use the filibuster unless there were "extraordinary circumstances". A clear and concise definition of "extraordinary circumstances" was never presented. Charles Schumer has done a good job at talking tough when it comes to the Roberts nomination. However, it should be noted that good ole Chucky has never been on our side. Schumer showed his authoritarian propensities when he lumped all members of citizen militias into a criminal category. While there are some shady characters in the militia movement, there are also many law-abiding citizens who correctly fear the rise of a garrison state. The senator also shamefully sided with the ATF against the Branch Davidians during the time of the Waco atrocity. Schumer's threats of releasing the dogs of war on Roberts is merely a publicity stunt to convince his supporters that he fought hell and high water for their interest. Behind closed doors away from the media's eye, Roberts and Schumer are merely Establishment kissing cousins. Grass roots opposition is what is called for here. Instead of relying on a well-dressed politician who promises the world and delivers absolutely nothing, Americans should voice their sentiments for themselves. If the majority of Americans were heard through petitions, letters, and phone calls to their representatives, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the rest of the Senate would have no choice but to be receptive. In the very least, they will realize they are no longer dealing with an ignorant and indolent public. Sources Cited

Bhatnagar, Parija. "Eminent domain-A big box bonanza?" CNN 24 June 2005. Biskupic, Joan and Tony Locy. "Roberts argued for ID Card, against women's rights act." USAToday, 18 August 2005. Chambers, Mortimer et al. The Western Experience Volume B: The Early Modern Era. 8th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. Grigg, William Norman. "The Roberts Nomination: Presidential Power Uber Alles." The New American 20 July 2005.

Wardner, Dr, James W. The Planned Destruction of America. DeBary, Florida: Longwood Communication, 1994.

Stocks Fall on Red-Hot Jobs Data NEW YORK Stocks fell Friday after the Labor Department reported surprisingly strong gains in jobs and wages, which in turn could spark inflation and prompt the Federal Reserve to keep raising interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average (search) fell 52.07 points, or 0.49 percent, to end at 10,558.03. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (search) slipped 9.44 points, or 0.76 percent, to finish at 1,226.42. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index (search) dropped 13.41 points, or 0.61 percent, to close at 2,177.91. For the week, stocks fell. The blue-chip Dow dropped 0.8 percent, while the S&P 500 declined 0.6 percent and the Nasdaq slipped 0.3 percent. "You had the jobs report -- in particular, the wage growth numbers raised inflation concerns and worried investors that interest rates will keep rising," said Chris Burba, a market analyst at Standard & Poor's. On the positive side, Baidu.com (BIDU), China's largest Web search company, referred to by many as "China's Google," saw its stock's price quintuple on its first day of public trading. The Labor Department (search) reported nonfarm payrolls (search) rose by 207,000 in July, compared with a revised increase of 166,000 in June. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected the report to show employers added 183,000 jobs last month. Nonfarm payrolls are considered an important indicator of the economy's health, and the data may partly determine how the Federal Reserve adjusts monetary policy. Federal Reserve (search) policy-makers are expected to raise the short-term federal funds rate when they meet next Tuesday, which would be the 10th hike since last June, but investors have been longing for a sign that the Fed will stop its yearlong streak of interest rate hikes. An end to rate hikes is unlikely if the job market stays this strong.

Higher oil prices also weighed on stocks. Crude oil settled up 93 cents at $62.31 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (search), a record settlement price, as problems at several refineries stirred concerns about supply. The decline in the Dow Jones home construction companies' index came as the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 4.4 percent, its highest level in about four months. The note's yield is used as a proxy for lending rates, including mortgage rates. "A nagging concern would be if bond yield continue to go higher," said Steven Goldman, chief market strategist, Weeden & Co. in Greenwich, Conn., since rich bond yields make stocks less attractive. "Assuming that does not occur, I think stocks can find support in the next week or two and start to stabilize." Among decliners in the Dow Jones index of homebuilders were Toll Brothers (TOL), down 7.2 percent, or $3.93, at $50.95, and D.R. Norton Inc., down nearly 4 percent, or $1.37, at $33.09. Shares of mortgage lenders also slipped, with Countrywide Financial Corp. (COF)down 0.6 percent, or 20 cents, at $35.01, and Fannie Mae (FNM) , down 1.6 percent, or 91 cents, at $54.96. The meteoric debut of the Beijing-based Baidu.com (BIDU) was reminiscent of the Internet companies' IPO heyday, when shares of new online and technology companies routinely doubled or tripled on their first day of public trading. Baidu.com's stock was at $122.54, up 354 percent from its initial offering price of $27 per American depositary share, or ADS. Earlier, the stock hit a session high at $151.21 -- or more than five times its IPO price. Baidu.com's market entry overshadowed that of world Web search leader Google Inc.'s IPO last year. Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), a Dow component and one of the Nasdaq's most heavily weighted issues, rose 1.6 percent, or 44 cents, to $27.76. The company Thursday named Kevin Turner, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club warehouse stores business, as its new chief operating officer. Auto parts supplier Delphi Corp. (DPH) Friday said it is in talks with former parent General Motors Corp. and its main unions about a restructuring of its unprofitable operations. Delphi also said it would draw $1.5 billion from a $1.8 billion revolving credit facility. Delphi's stock fell more than 14 percent, or 82 cents, to $4.96, making it among the biggest percentage decliners on the New York Stock Exchange.

Viacom Inc. (VIAB) rose 12 cents to $34.19 after its second-quarter earnings were flat compared with the same period a year ago, when the company still owned the Blockbuster video unit. Excluding that and other discontinued operations, earnings, reported after the close of regular trading Thursday, rose 6 percent, beating analysts estimates by a penny. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) said after the close of trading Thursday its second-quarter earnings doubled, beating analysts' estimates, as sales reached a record. The company also said it would raise some of its prices as its raw materials costs increase. Its stock rose $1.04 to $18.49. Volume was fairly active on the NYSE, where about 1.50 billion shares changed hands, above last year's daily average of 1.46 billion, while on Nasdaq, the pace was slower, with 1.51 billion shares traded, below last year's daily average of 1.81 billion. Decliners outpaced advancers by a ratio of more than 3 to 1 on the NYSE and about 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 9.05, or 1.35 percent, to 662.79. Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.98 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.02 percent, Germany's DAX index was down 0.96 percent, and France's CAC-40 was down 0.84 percent. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Ex-WorldCom Accountant Vinson Gets 5 Months August 7, 2005 NEW YORK Former WorldCom Inc. (search) accountant Betty Vinson (search) was ordered Friday to serve five months in prison for participating in the $11 billion business fraud at the company, while one of her former colleagues who also had a role in the scheme was sentenced to probation. Vinson, 49, and Troy Normand, 38, each pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. Both testified for the government at the trial of former Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers (search), saying they were pressured by their superiors to falsify the telecommunications company's books to help it meet profit expectations.

Ebbers was found guilty in March and sentenced last month to 25 years in prison. The WorldCom fraud precipitated the company's descent into bankruptcy in July 2002 and widespread losses for investors. It now operates as MCI Inc (MCIP). Vinson, a former WorldCom director of management who helped prepare financial documents, was also ordered to serve five months in home detention. While Vinson "was among the least culpable members of the conspiracy at WorldCom," that did not excuse her behavior, said Manhattan federal judge Barbara Jones. "It's possible this conspiracy might have been nipped in the bud" if Vinson had refused to carry out her superiors' orders, Jones said. At a separate hearing before the same judge, Normand was sentenced to three years probation. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Anders said Normand, a former WorldCom accountant, was at the "very bottom" of the hierarchy that perpetrated the fraud. "He was the first person to say, basically 'that's enough,"' Anders said. Three more former WorldCom officials who cooperated with prosecutors probing financial wrongdoing at the company face sentencing next week. Ex-WorldCom Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan (search), considered the government's star witness at Ebbers' trial, will be sentenced next Thursday. Defense attorney Joseph Hollomon, who represented both Vinson and Normand, asked for probation instead of jail for both of his clients. But in Vinson's case, the judge said it was necessary to impose some prison time, although Jones said Vinson's cooperation with prosecutors "played a very significant role in the unraveling of the fraud." Vinson and Normand each faced a possible maximum prison term of roughly 14 years, but they had been widely expected to receive a lighter sentence because they cooperated with prosecutors. In brief, barely audible remarks to the judge, Vinson said she "never expected to be here" and "certainly will never do anything like this again."

The judge ordered Vinson to begin serving her sentence on Nov. 7. Her lawyer requested she be housed in a prison near friends and family in Jackson, Miss., but federal probation officials will make a final determination. Normand told the judge he regretted the decisions he made at WorldCom. "My head was telling me one thing, but my heart was telling me another," he said. When the judge announced she would sentence him to probation, Normand bowed his head briefly in apparent relief. WASHINGTON Employers expanded their payrolls by 207,000 in July, the most in five months, while the unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent, the government reported Friday. The latest snapshot from the Labor Department (search) offered strong evidence that the job climate is improving considerably. Boosts in hiring came in retailing, education and health services, financial activities and construction. But factories shed jobs for the second straight month. The department said Hurricane Dennis (search), which ripped through Florida, Alabama and Mississippi last month, had "no discernible" effect on job growth in July. Revised figures released Friday for May and June showed that payroll gains in those months proved stronger than previously thought. The number of jobs increased by 126,000 in May and 166,000 in June. Analysts had predicted a gain of 180,000 positions in July and forecast that jobless rate (search) to hold steady. The employment increase in July was the most since the addition of 300,000 jobs in February. The Federal Reserve, which next meets on Tuesday, is expected to raise shortterm interest rates by one-quarter of a percentage point. It would be the 10th such increase since the central bank began to tighten credit on June 2004 to keep inflation in check. With the labor market improving, the Fed is keeping close watch for signs of inflation, especially any from the compensation front. Workers' average hourly earnings rose to $16.13 in July. That was 0.4 percent more than the average in June of $16.07. The increase was the most in a year. The July report also showed that the average time that the unemployed spent searching for work was 17.6 weeks, compared with 17.1 in June.

Economists predict the Fed will continue to raise rates this year to prevent inflation from breaking out. The labor market is the one part of the economy that has had difficulty getting back to full health after the 2001 recession. President Bush wants to see both jobs and the economy on solid footing as he tries to sell his plan for overhauling the Depression-era Social Security retirement system. Friday's report offered hope that the labor market recovery might stay in a higher gear and suggested that surging energy prices were not crimping employment. Oil prices hit a closing hit of $61.28 a barrel in early July. On Wednesday prices briefly reached $62.50 a barrel before retreating. Gasoline prices are staying well above $2 a gallon.

Peru Judge Orders 23 GE Execs Arrested for Fraud August 7, 2005 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164915,00.html LIMA, Peru A Peruvian judge has ordered the arrest of 23 current and former General Electric Co. (GE) executives on fraud charges in a case brought by a former sales representative, a court spokesman and the defendant's lawyer said Friday. El Comercio newspaper said former General Electric CEO Jack Welch (search) was among those named in the case. The fraud charges stem from a suit brought by Guillermo Gonzales (search), a sales representative for the company from 1991 to 1998. Gonzales said he invested $10 million in a GE Peru headquarters and assembly plant after a verbal promise from the company to renew his contract. He said the contract was terminated despite the agreement. No one was immediately available to comment at General Electric's Peru office and the Fairfield, Conn., headquarters of the industrial, financial and entertainment conglomerate declined immediate comment.

General Electric International Peru (search) took out an advertisement in newspapers Friday expressing outrage at the arrest order against the 23 managers, who it did not identify. "GE expresses its indignation and most vigorous rejection of the opening of a case plus an international arrest order and embargo against the executives since this is a flagrant violation of their right to individual liberty," it said. The advertisement said arrest orders were issued for 19 Americans, two Chileans and two Brazilians. A Peruvian court spokesman confirmed Judge Cesar Herrera had ordered the arrests of the GE officials. "There is a case open and the executives will have to come to testify ... the sentence for fraud can be up to six years in jail," Gonzales lawyer, Victor Cubas, said. General Electric, the world's second-biggest company by market capitalization, has sued Gonzales in the United States "for nonpayment of a debt that he does not deny," Cubas told Reuters. According to media reports, the debt was for just under $215,000. Cubas said his client countersued the 25 managers for fraud.

GE Settles with SEC Over Jack Welch's Perks http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133309,00.html WASHINGTON/BOSTON General Electric (GE) and the Securities and Exchange Commission settled the industrial giant's failure to disclose former CEO Jack Welch's (search) lavish retirement package with a ceaseand-desist order on Thursday. In a case that highlighted the massive compensation awarded to corporate America's CEO elite, the SEC slapped GE with a cease-and-desist order, but imposed no other sanctions. The Consumer Federation of America (search) expressed disappointment at the settlement, with its investor advocate Barbara Roper saying: "It certainly does seem like a missed opportunity" for the SEC to make a strong statement about executive pay and the right of shareholders to know about it.

Welch, after retiring in September 2001, was widely criticized for his retirement perks. These included a luxury Manhattan apartment, office space in New York and Connecticut and access to GE aircraft and a chauffeured limousine. The scope of his package came to light in court documents filed by his former wife in a 2002 divorce battle. "From 1997-2002, GE failed to fully and accurately describe the retirement benefits Welch was entitled to receive from the company," the SEC (search) said in announcing the settlement. GE neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, as is customary in SEC settlements. It said in a statement that the settlement "represents a constructive conclusion" to the matter. GE said Welch paid the company a total of $3.7 million for services used between October 2001 to September 2003. "The whole scandal surrounding Welch's retirement package exposed a flaw in SEC disclosure requirements on executives' retirement benefits," said Brandon Rees, a research analyst in the Office of Investment at the AFL-CIO, a labor group. None of GE's five most highly compensated officers, including CEO Jeffrey Immelt, has an employment contract that includes guaranteed perks like Welch's, GE said. "Shareholders have a clear interest in knowing how public companies compensate their top executives," said Paul Berger, SEC associate enforcement director in a statement. "Compliance with SEC disclosure rules ensures that shareholders are provided a full and accurate understanding of senior executives' compensation arrangements."

WHO OWNS THE JOB MARKET, TEMP AGENCIES, JOB SEARCH SITES, & CLASSIFIED JOB ADS? SEE IF YOU CAN MAKE THE CONNECTION OF A NETWORK, WORKING TOGETHER TO BUILD THE ANTI-CHRIST GLOBAL EMPIRE

MONSTER.COM
GET DIVERSITY ADVICE SECTION ENTITLED GAYS AND LESBIANS CAREER ADVICE FOR YOU

African Americans

American Indians

Asian Americans

Gays/Lesbians Hispanics/Latinos Older Workers

Veterans/Military Transition

Women

Workers with Disabilities

NOTICE HOW THERE IS NOT A SECTION FOR WHITE PEOPLE? INTERESTING HUH? HOW ARE WHITE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO COPE WITH THE ABOVE MENTIONED FACTORS? DO THEY OFFER ANY ADVICE TO US WHITE MEN ON HOW TO COPE WITH HAVING TO BE FORCED TO PUT UP WITH THESE PEOPLE? NO, NONE! Gay-Friendly Employers by David L. Long Monster Contributing Writer The Gay Financial Network (GFN) maintains a list of the 50 most powerful gay-friendly public companies based on revenue, growth, economic power, and corporate gay, lesbian and HIV-related policies. Only Fortune 500 companies that maintain a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and extend benefits to same-sex domestic partners were considered. The list is a great resource for searching for jobs on Monster. Just use the company name as your keyword to locate every opportunity it has posted. Here's a peek at GFN's findings -- the 10 most powerful gay-friendly companies:

American Express Co. Walt Disney Co. Microsoft Corp. Lucent Technologies Inc. Xerox IBM Hewlett-Packard Co. Apple Computer Inc. AMR Corp. Citigroup Inc.

The Most Powerful & Gay-Friendly Public Companies in Corporate America

To celebrate gfn.com's 5th Anniversary in 2003, look for our soon-to-beannounced plans for honoring the country's most powerful GLBT-friendly individuals and companies. In the meantime, consult our data from the 2001 gfn.com 50, a comprehensive list of the most powerful and gay-friendly publicly traded companies. Using the Fortune 500 and the gfn.com 500 as a starting ground, gfn.coms team of experts spent weeks combing through economic reports, analyst findings and corporate policies on gay, lesbian and HIV policies. First and foremost, only public companies were considered, as public companies are responsible to their shareholders at large and not to a few private gayfriendly individuals. Second, only public companies within the Fortune 500 were considered because of the considerable influence that these companies exercise in shaping not only American corporate policy, but public perceptions, as well. It was also necessary that two basic prerequisites be satisfied before a firm could be considered for the list. Each company had to have a policy in place stating that it does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Second, the firm had to extend benefits to same-sex domestic partners. From there, the companies were analyzed in terms of revenues, growth, economic power, as well as how they ranked on issues of corporate policies relating to diversity training, employee benefits, employee groups, nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the sale or purchase of goods and services, advertising to the gay market and having in place a ban on any negative stereotypes based on sexual orientation, among others.

Read last year's results. Discuss the gfn.com 50 in our forum! Rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Company American Express Co. Walt Disney Co. Microsoft Corp. Lucent Technologies Inc. Xerox International Business Machines Hewlett-Packard Co. Apple Computer Inc. AMR Corp. Citigroup Inc. Gap Inc. Verizon Communications AT&T Corp. AOL-Time Warner Inc. JP Morgan Chase & Co. Intel Corp. SBC Communications Ford Motor Co. Compaq Computer Corp. New York Times Co. Oracle Corp. Coca-Cola Co. Sun Microsystems Texas Instruments Aetna Inc. FleetBoston Financial Bank of America Corp. US Airways Group Inc. General Motors Corp. Boeing Co. Merrill Lynch & Co. Symbol NYSE: AXP NYSE: DIS Nasdaq: MSFT NYSE: LU NYSE: XRX NYSE: IBM NYSE: HWP Nasdaq: AAPL NYSE: AMR NYSE: C NYSE: GPS NYSE: VZ NYSE: T NYSE: AOL NYSE: JPM Nasdaq: INTC NYSE: SBC NYSE: F NYSE: CPQ NYSE: NYT Nasdaq: ORCL NYSE: KO Nasdaq: SUNW NYSE: TXN NYSE: AET NYSE: FBF NYSE: BAC NYSE: U NYSE: GM NYSE: BA NYSE: MER

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

Charles Schwab Corp. General Mills Eastman Kodak Co. Qwest Communications Int. UAL Corp. Chevron Corp. Wells Fargo & Co. Cisco Systems Inc. Motorola Inc. Costco Wholesale Corp. Chubb Corp. Federated Department Stores Enron Corp. Allstate Corp. Gillette Co. Honeywell International Fannie Mae Barnes & Noble Inc. Nordstrom Inc.

NYSE: SCH NYSE: GIS NYSE: EK NYSE: Q NYSE: UAL NYSE: CHV NYSE: WFC Nasdaq: CSCO NYSE: MOT Nasdaq: COST NYSE: CB NYSE: FD NYSE: ENE NYSE: ALL NYSE: G NYSE: HON NYSE: FNM NYSE: BKS NYSE: JWN

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The State of the Workplace for Gays and Lesbians

by Kim I. Mills, Human Rights Campaign Monster Contributing Writer

American workplaces have come a long way in the last 25 years. In 1975, AT&T became the first US corporation to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy. Seven years later, the Village Voice became the first employer to add same-sex domestic partners to its health insurance benefits program. Some gains have resulted from changing laws, but many are due to market forces and the increasing sophistication with which gay and lesbian workers advocate for themselves. In addition, more gays and lesbians are out in the open about their sexuality, both at work and elsewhere in society, which has helped move public opinion in a positive direction.

The Private Sector

At least 2,162 U.S. employers have nondiscrimination policies covering sexual orientation, and 4,463 offer health insurance benefits to employees' domestic partners. And the higher a company is on the Fortune 500 list, the more likely it is to have both domestic partner benefits and a written nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation.
The Public Sector

The first state to pass a law against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation was Wisconsin in 1982. Eleven states have since followed suit, and eight states have executive orders barring sexual orientation discrimination in their public workforces. In an effort to attract and keep the best workers, scores of public employers have also added domestic partner benefits. Today, eight states and 130 local governments and quasi-governmental agencies offer such coverage to their employees' partners. The federal government isn't quite keeping pace -- either with private industry or state and local governments. Congress has yet to pass the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would outlaw job discrimination based on sexual orientation. ENDA was first introduced in 1994 and was voted out of a Senate committee for the first time this past April. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (Democrat - South Dakota) has promised a vote before Congress adjourns in the fall. But chances of the bill passing the House this year are not strong since the Republican leadership does not support it. Federal employees are protected from discrimination by an executive order signed by President Clinton in 1998 that is so far still in effect under the Bush administration. Federal workers are not eligible for domestic partner benefits, although Rep. Barney Frank (Democrat - Massachusetts) has introduced a bill to change that.
The Growth of Domestic Partner Benefits

Much of the recent growth of domestic partner benefits can be traced to two important factors: The low unemployment rate during much of the 1990s, which led employers to seek creative yet inexpensive means of attracting the best employees, and passage of the first equal benefits ordinance in San Francisco. That 1996 law states that any employer under contract with the city must offer the same benefits to its employees' domestic partners as it offers to married spouses. Since then, the number of employers offering such benefits and the number of jurisdictions passing similar ordinances have increased. Another important but rarely noted fact is that two-thirds of the employers offering domestic partner benefits cover both same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners. This trend appears to be in reaction to America's changing demographics. According to the 2000 census, many more Americans live in nontraditional households -- such as unmarried partners and people living with other relatives. Human resources managers are

realizing benefits programs that essentially pay married workers more than unmarried workers are inherently unfair and need reexamination.
Protecting Transgender Workers

The next wave of change has already begun: Protecting transgender workers from discrimination. (Transgender is a broad term used to describe people who don't identify with the sex they manifested at birth. Some take steps to change via hormones or surgery.) Seven states have laws or other rulings that protect people from discrimination based on gender identity, and 43 cities and counties have passed such laws -- most in the last five years. In addition, at least 30 private workplaces have adopted policies against gender-identity discrimination, including 15 of the Fortune 500.

Gay-Friendly Employers
by David L. Long Monster Staff Writer

The Gay Financial Network (GFN) maintains a list of the 50 most powerful gay-friendly public companies based on revenue, growth, economic power, and corporate gay, lesbian and HIV-related policies. Only Fortune 500 companies that maintain a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and extend benefits to same-sex domestic partners were considered. The list is a great resource for searching for jobs on Monster. Just use the company name as your keyword to locate every opportunity it has posted. Here's a peek at GFN's findings -- the 10 most powerful gay-friendly companies:

American Express Co. Walt Disney Co. Microsoft Corp. Lucent Technologies Inc. Xerox IBM Hewlett-Packard Co. Apple Computer Inc. AMR Corp. Citigroup Inc.
by The Honorable Alexis M. Herman US Secretary of Labor (1997-2001) Monster Contributing Writer http://featuredreports.monster.com/gayandlesbian/domestic/

Domestic Partner and Family-Friendly Benefits

The trend started almost 20 years ago when the Village Voice, an alternative weekly newspaper in New York City, offered domestic partner benefits to its employees. Since

then, more than 2,500 employers have gotten on the bandwagon, including corporations, local governments and 121 of the Fortune 500. Aetna Insurance, Avon, Nike, Time Warner, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, Ford Motor Company and the Readers Digest Association are just a sampling of the companies offering domestic partner benefits. Most of the major airlines offer "spousal equivalent" benefits to their employees, as do the cities of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Lotus Development Corporation was the first publicly traded company to offer them back in 1992. Is there a trend here? Are more and more employers becoming liberal or accepting? Has corporate America turned cool? Perhaps. But I have another theory. Employers offering domestic partner benefits to their workers are smart, very smart. At first blush, it might seem these employers are making a very visible and important effort to eliminate workplace discrimination and provide equal compensation for equal work. That's commendable, and I am by no means downplaying that effort or goal. But the bottom line here is the bottom line. And the reality is that providing domestic partner and other similar benefits makes a workplace more attractive to more workers. That's critical, as employers struggle to find, and just as important, keep good workers. And with good reason. Some CEOs estimate the cost of recruiting a new employee can run as high as $75,000 if you calculate advertising, interviewing, training, testing, relocation expenses, lost productivity and recruitment incentives. That's why it's critical for both employers and employees to think of family-friendly policies and fringe benefits like domestic partnership as well as childcare and eldercare in a whole new way: As part of that all-important bottom line. Case in point: There is an innovative initiative between the United Auto Workers Union and the Big Three Automakers to invest more in childcare in metropolitan Detroit. The agreement emerged from a collective bargaining pact that included childcare and development initiatives. Everything from daycare for toddlers, to grants to the local YMCA to expand summer camps and back-up programs to care for kids during unplanned circumstances like school snow days are included. Sounds nice, doesn't it? But get this: The report is that the companies save $2 for every dollar they spend on the program. Turning one dollar into two isn't just nice; it's profitable. Make no mistake. This is all about smart economics and shrewd business. Companies of every kind succeed in the global marketplace when families of every kind succeed around the kitchen table. And that, my friends, is cool. http://featuredreports.monster.com/gayandlesbian/domestic/

Coming Out at Work

by Susan Bryant Monster Contributing Writer http://featuredreports.monster.com/gayandlesbian/comingout/

You've come out to yourself, your family and your friends, but have you come out at work? The freedom of being yourself from 9 to 5 can be rewarding -- and a little frightening.
In or Out?

"My fears about coming out at work ranged from being very serious, like losing my job, to the not-so-serious but bothersome, like hearing rude jokes or comments regarding homosexuality." - Mary Risher, 31 According to Monster Equal Opportunity Advisor Kim Mills of the Human Rights Campaign, the biggest concern people have about coming out at work is losing their job. And this fear is legitimate, since in 38 states it is legal to discriminate against employees based on their sexual orientation. Coming out at work could open the door to blatant hostility, termination or being passed over for promotions.
Why Risk It?

"When you're out -- whether you're accepted by your peers or not -- you're being true to yourself, which is the most important thing for living a valid life." - Angela Holton, 35 What possesses people to come out on the job when the potential risks are so great? According to Mills, those who feel safe enough to come out on the job often experience a more integrated and honest identity. The stress of living a dual life -- sometimes in, sometimes out -- can be exhausting. Worrying about being found out or accidentally slipping up when referring to a partner takes an emotional toll. "I felt a sense of freedom and empowerment when I stopped hiding such a huge part of myself," says Risher. "I immediately felt more confident and comfortable with myself and around my coworkers; it made my life at work much better."
First, Consider This

"Don't come out at work, with family or anytime until you are personally ready. It's not something you can take back. Sharing anything that revealing makes you susceptible to negative reactions -- be prepared for it." - Risher Reactions from coworkers or bosses can range from support and encouragement to shock and disapproval. In his book Outing Yourself: How to Come Out As a Lesbian or Gay to Your Family, Friends and Coworkers, Michelangelo Signorile describes the importance of assessing the nature of your workplace before deciding to come out. Consider your

personal safety. If you are in an extremely homophobic, hostile environment, finding a new job may make more sense than coming out in your current one. Barring this threat, Signorile recommends making a list of everyone in your workplace who has an effect on your job. Think about how each person might react upon learning of your sexual orientation. How important to your career are those who might react negatively? Is it realistic to think your job could be jeopardized, or is this fear more imagined? Taking an analytical approach to this process can help you get a clearer picture of what to anticipate. Mills also suggests finding out if your company has a written policy regarding discrimination based on sexual orientation. If other employees have come out, connect with them to gain a valuable support network.
Out and About

"I've always spoken of 'we' and 'our' and 'us' when asked by coworkers about my evening or weekend plans, and I just let people draw their own conclusions. When you demonstrate your own comfort with your orientation, those around you will follow your cue." - Holton If you've decided to come out at work, how will you actually do it? "Don't come in with a big 'I'm gay!' announcement," says Mills. An overwhelming statement isn't necessary and only increases potential shock value. Choose a few trusted coworkers, possibly those who you think may have been wondering about your sexuality, to tell first. Or put a picture of you and your partner on your desk. If asked about your weekend plans, mention doing something with your partner or attending a gay pride event, for example. By letting information spread as it may, you reinforce that this new information about you is not earth-shattering, but just another facet of your life. "Initially, coming out at work was a huge issue -- at least to me," says Steve, who preferred not to use his last name. "I was so well-received, though, that now it's not even spoken about. It's been the easiest thing in the world."

Gay-Friendly?
Avoid Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation
by Ellen Alcorn Monster Contributing Writer http://featuredreports.monster.com/gayandlesbian/inclusive/

After a string of bad job experiences in which revelations that you are gay seemed to impede your advancement, you are once again in search of employment. This time, you want to find an employer that is inclusive of all its employees, regardless of sexual orientation. Which of the following should you do?

A. Keep your fingers crossed that this time will be different. B. Ask the interviewer how diverse the company's workforce is regarding sexual orientation. C. Do your homework before, during and after your interview. If you answered C, you're on your way to finding the right job.
Preparing for the Interview

By the time you arrive for your interview, you should be a regular walking encyclopedia about the prospective employer. Go online, read newspapers and talk to people who've worked for the company. Look for these indicators of whether or not a company is a good fit:

Company Nondiscrimination Statement If it doesn't include anything about sexual orientation, it's a red flag.

Benefits Plan A company that offers a domestic partner benefits plan to life partners regardless of sexual orientation is inclusive in its practices, not just on paper. Good news: According to a recent survey, a steadily rising number of employers are offering these benefits.

Diversity Initiatives Is there evidence of diversity initiatives in the company literature? How extensive does it seem to be? "Many people understand that a diversity initiative is often a precursor to career opportunities that await them," says Todd Campbell, manager of the diversity initiative at the Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Virginia.

Litigation History Has the company been in the news lately because of discrimination lawsuits? If so, you might not want to waste the cab fare or gas needed for getting to the interview.

Media References

Many publications offer annual roundups of the most employeefriendly companies. Fortune, for example, publishes a list of the 50 best companies for minorities. Don't worry too much if your prospective employer doesn't make the list. But if the company does appear, shine those shoes and get a good night's rest so you get the best possible shot at the job.

Company Awards "If a company has won awards for things such as the promotion of women in the workplace or community service, that's a good indicator that the company is probably inclusive," says Campbell.

During the Interview

In addition to presenting yourself as the best thing to walk through those doors since takeout was invented, the interview is a good time for you to fill in as many blanks as possible. Here's how.

Ask Questions. If your research hasn't turned up any information about the company's diversity initiative or domestic-partner benefits plan, now's the time to ask. But don't ask questions about whether people of diverse sexual orientation hold positions of authority within the company. "The interview needs to be job-related," says Campbell. "The sexual orientation of employees is not jobrelated."

Look Around When You Walk Through the Hallways. Who's sitting in the fancy offices? Whose pictures are hanging on the walls? If those depicted are all white males, this might not be the most diversity-minded office.

After the Interview

If after all that research you're still not sure about a company, you need to take a hard look at the reasons for your hesitation. Have previous bad experiences left you gun-shy, or have you spotted some red flags along the way?

Know Your Rights. No matter what the circumstances of your new employment are, it's always best to start with a clear picture of your rights. While

no federal law currently exists prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, several states have enacted such laws, including California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Get to Know People. The minute you start the job, make lots of connections, including with the company's human resource manager. The more allies you have now, the easier it will be to combat on-the-job discrimination down the road.

http://equalopportunity.monster.com/
Best Buddies Essence Gay Financial Network Latina Resource Partnership Veteran's Enterprise Black Perspective Gaywork.com Hispanic Today National Urban League ThirdAge Women in Business and Industry

Monster Equal Opportunity Advisors

Ellen Bravo National Codirector 9to5, National Association of Working Women Roger Campos Executive Director Minority Business RoundTable JoAnn K. Chase Executive Director National Congress of American Indians Ingrid Duran Executive Director Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Inc. (CHCI) Kim I. Mills R. Fenimore Fisher Compliance Manager, Wall Street Project Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Lorene B. Ulrich Program Consultant AARP Cindy O'Neill Development Writer Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) Audrey Paek President, Boston Chapter National Association of Asian American Professionals Wanda Jackson

Education Director Human Rights Campaign Georgina C. Verdugo Education Director Americans for a Fair Chance Graciela Kenig President and Founder Graciela Kenig and Associates Career Development Specialists for Hispanics Ian Minicuci Operations Manager iCan! Tonya Davis Senior Field Services Associate Women Work! The National Network for Women's Employment

Director, Human Resources National Urban League Melissa Josephs Senior Policy Associate Women Employed Institute Rebecca (Becky) Ogle Former Executive Director Presidential Taskforce on Employment of Adults with Disabilities Renee Rakowsky Executive Director Boston Women's Network

Power in Numbers Gay/Lesbian Employee Groups Are Good for Business by Barbara Dozetos Monster Contributing Writer
One good sign that a prospective employer is gay-friendly is that the company recognizes and sanctions an employee organization for its gay/lesbian employees. The next best thing is an organized group working toward gaining official status from the employer. An employer may turn to this employee group to try to understand how a change in policy may affect the gay/lesbian segment of the company's population. The group can also serve as a resource for the employees wanting a safe place to network and socialize. It can be particularly useful to an employee new to the area or just coming out for the first time. In many cases, the gay/lesbian employee group lobbies the employer for expansion of personnel policies inclusive of the gay/lesbian community. Businesses in the high tech sector have led the way in sponsoring such employee organizations. For example:

IBM's EAGLE Lucent Technologies' EQUAL! AT&T's League

Compaq's CompaqPlus Intel's IGLOBE

Xerox sponsors GALAXE Pride at Work, and, according to member David Frishkorn, it was management's idea. They actually opened our closet door and asked us if we wanted to come out, he says. Apparently, after hearing an executive from a Fortune 100 company claim there were no gays/lesbians among his 100,000 employees, Xerox's vice president for human resources saw how important it was for gay/lesbian employees to be vocal and visible. So she approached our informal social network and asked if we would step forward to get formally recognized as one of the company's official employee resource groups, Frishkorn remembers. A founding cochair of the organization, Frishkorn can't say enough about GALAXE's positive effects. I believe we have accomplished everything you could hope for relative to our workplace and in working with the company, he says. We have comprehensive policies, training, outreach marketing, domestic partner benefits, etc. The highlight was having management reach out to the group again when the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index was adjusting to be fully inclusive of transgender issues. The company actually approached us wanting to know what needed to be done to assure our high-level standing in this index, says Frishkorn. I think it is great that they knew the bar was being raised and that action would be required to stay a leader in this area. And it paid off. Xerox is one of only 13 companies to receive a perfect score on the Index. Organizations for gay/lesbian employees are becoming the norm in most industries now. You'll find them at:

Major airlines (American's GLEAM) Automobile manufacturers (Ford GLOBE) Oil companies (Chevron's CLGEA) Financial companies (Charles Schwab & Co.)

Gaywork.com maintains a list of company employee groups and contact information, but don't assume it's comprehensive. If your research doesn't give you the answer, ask during your job interview if such a group exists. If you're already employed somewhere and would like the benefits of a gay/lesbian employee group, the Human Rights Campaign also offers some advice on How to Start an Employee Network Group. The camaraderie can lift your spirits, and you may be surprised by the power of numbers.

TMP WORLDWIDE (PARENT COMPANY OF MONSTER.COM)

TMP Worldwide have responded to the growing need within the compliance profession, and from the beginning of 2002 have had a specialist team providing advice and human capital solutions to our clients and candidate within the compliance industry. The team, which is headed up by Simon Cutner, focuses on positions within the following areas: Investment Banking Investment Management Insurance Stockbroking Private Wealth Management.

Recruiting for positions from Entry Level to Director, Simon and his team are able to provide you with advice relating to salaries, bonuses, market trends and industry updates. For further information please contact Simon Cutner on 0207 406 5896 About TMP Worldwide. Established in 1967, TMP Worldwide is a global leader in Human Capital Management with annual revenue exceeding $2.4 billion. Employing in excess of 10,000 staff within 34 countries each striving to deliver exceptional service to clients who demand both innovative and cost effective resource solutions. Facts on TMP include:
One of the worlds largest mid-market executive recruiters with divisions operating across all major industry sectors and disciplines. TMP owns the Worlds first, largest and on-line recruitment leader with Monster.com, which achieves over 20m unique visits each month and hosts over 1 million CVs in the UK and 14 million CVs across the globe. The largest recruitment advertising agency in the world. The third largest global Executive Search firm. NASDAQ listed. S&P 500 accredited. A member of the fortune e50. TMP Worldwide operates across all major industry sectors and covers multiple disciplines with specialist teams in Financial Services, Finance, Sales & Marketing, Legal, Human Resources, IT and Telecoms; as well as the Manufacturing, Consumer, Supply Chain, Public Sector and Energy & Utilities sectors. For more information please visit our website at www.eResourcing.tmp.com or For further information about Monster please visit www.monster.co.uk

Vision & Values TMP Worldwides vision is: To be the premier Internet based Human Capital Management firm in the world A key business objective of TMP is to continue to develop our culture based on a number of core values that are fundamental to TMP providing exceptional service and achieving its vision. Each of our employees understands the importance of these values and strives to achieve the highest standards in each of them.
Integrity, Communication, Respect Accountability, Striving for excellence, Passion Creativity, Teamwork, Urgency

Functional Areas of TMP Worldwide As previously mentioned, TMP Worldwide operates across all major industry sectors and disciplines with specialist teams providing permanent, temporary and contract recruitment services within the UK and internationally. All areas possess strong functional recruitment brands and for the purpose of this document we will focus on our capabilities within Financial Services. The Financial Services Business of TMP Worldwide is largely broken down into three main Divisions: Accounting & Finance, Operations and Front Office (including Credit & Market Risk) with other areas of financial services recruitment sitting within their functional teams i.e. IT, Legal, Human Resources, Sales & Marketing and Secretarial. Our areas of specialism within Financial Services include:
Accounting and Finance Compliance Operations Risk Debt Information Technology Legal Human Resources Sales & Marketing Secretarial and office support

Below is a list of corporate firms who currently advertise their job vacancies on Complinet Recruitment. Click on the link, where available, to view the firm's corporate profile.
Bloomberg CIBC InvestecUK Ltd Mellon Newton Phillip Securities (UK) Limited PricewaterhouseCoopers Prudential RBC Global Services and RBC Investments

May 30, 2001 TMP Worldwide Acquires FlipDog.com By Christopher Saunders Recruitment and yellow pages advertising giant TMP Worldwide, which owns Monster.com, is now the owner of competing jobs site FlipDog.com, through an acquisition designed to boost Monster's paid job advertisements. Few terms of the acquisition were disclosed, but it's clear that New York-based TMP is less interested in FlipDog.com's massive job listings (it lists about 600,000, while Monster hosts about 434,000) but rather, the Provo, Utah-based firm's technology. FlipDog.com's former owner, WhizBang! Labs, Inc., specializes in online data extraction. That technology is at the heart of FlipDog.com's job listing site: an information extraction engine finds and links to joblisting data on other Web sites, including "Powered by FlipDog" clients. This enables FlipDog.com to list many jobs described on the employment pages of companies' own Web sites, increasing the number of listings available for searching. Monster.com would presumably then go after these companies with jobs to fill, seeking to entice them to purchase more prominent listings. "The upside is incredible," said TMP's chairman and chief executive, Andrew McKelvey. "FlipDog.com will serve to drive new business leads for Monster and across TMP's other businesses, while broadening and deepening the services we can provide to our clients." Indeed, McKelvey said he sees FlipDog.com continuing as its own Web site, but serving chiefly as a back-end data resource for TMP's

businesses, which includes not only Monster.com, but relocation site MonsterMoving.com and a classified, yellow pages and mainstream media recruitment advertising practice. While the companies declined to discuss the arrangement in detail, the deal also specifies that WhizBang! Labs will help set up TMP's implementation of FlipDog's information extraction system. "FlipDog.com brings incredible technology and content to the TMP family of companies," said Mark Simonsen, who is president and chief executive of FlipDog.com. "Customers worldwide stand to benefit tremendously from combining the strengths of FlipDog.com with Monster.com, the most powerful online recruiting force in the market today." The FlipDog acquisition comes as Monster.com and TMP offered to buy a leading European recruitment site, Stockholm's Jobline International AB. That offer, tendered Friday, entails TMP offering cash for all of Jobline's outstanding stock. Should the deal go through, Monster would add Sweden to its thirteen existing European sites. As a result, McKelvey said Jobline would benefit from FlipDog's services as well. "FlipDog.com's powerful technology will also be brought to bear upon our recently announced pending acquisition of Jobline to further drive our expansion in Europe," he said. "As the completion of the Jobline acquisition increases our brand dominance throughout Europe, FlipDog.com's information extraction technology will enhance our offerings and accelerate our business development growth."

TMP Worldwide's Monster Quarter

TMP Worldwide bucked the recent trend and reported estimate-beating profits last night. The company also gave a rosy outlook for the coming year thanks largely to the success of its Monster.com career site. www.fool.com/news/2001/tmpw010221.htm

By Paul Larson (TMF Parlay) February 21, 2001 With a long list of companies missing profit projections and lowering expectations for the future, TMP Worldwide's (Nasdaq: TMPW)

earnings last night provided a welcome change of pace. The advertising and marketing company that owns the popular Monster.com job-search site reported adjusted fourth-quarter earnings per share of $0.35, a full four pennies better than Wall Street's estimates. Total sales at the company were $351.9 million in the fourth quarter, a healthy 45% jump from 1999's $243.2 million. The lion's share of TMP's growth was driven by the company's Interactive division, which includes Monster.com. Revenue at the Interactive division was $142.1 million, up an impressive 150% year-over-year. TMP's profit margins also showed significant improvement in the quarter. Backing out merger-related costs, operating income grew to $54.2 million in the quarter, a 180% increase year-over-year. Adjusted net income was $38.0 million in three months ended Dec. 31, a 305% annual increase. The fact that operating and net profits are growing much faster than the company's revenue shows that the company's profit margins are improving as the firm scales its business. Monster.com is profitable Thought that all "dot-coms" were "dot-bombs"? TMP's flagship Monster.com job portal is actually profitable. Monster.com contributed $117.2 million in revenue in the fourth quarter and also had adjusted operating profits of $28.1 million. Monster.com also continues to distance itself from the competition. As of January, the site had a database of 8.3 million rsums, up from 2.7 million at the same time last year. Furthermore, it has almost 500,000 job listings, and it also has an estimated 53% market share in the hot online career niche as measured by total time visitors spend on the site. These figures are important because Monster.com looks like it may have a significant and sustainable competitive advantage thanks to the network effect, which says the value of a network grows exponentially with each additional participant. This is the same effect that has kept eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) easily atop the online auction market. In a nutshell, employers are going to list their job openings where they are likely to get the greatest number of applicants, and job-seekers are going to migrate to the sites that have the most "help wanted" signs and the widest selection of potential "dream" jobs. There will always be competition to deal with, especially from sites that specialize

in a given sector, but Monster.com is the undisputed online career services gorilla. It is also ironic that Monster.com may actually benefit from all the recent layoffs and downsizings. With every new wave of layoffs comes a new wave of serious job-seekers entering the market and using sites like Monster.com and HotJobs.com (Nasdaq: HOTJ). A recession certainly won't hurt these sites. TMP's outlook TMP Worldwide expects to bring in roughly $1.6 billion in revenue this year, which would be a 24% increase over 2000's full-year results. The company's offline career services business as well as its advertising businesses are not expected to grow significantly. However, the company's Interactive division is now expected to bring in roughly $725 million in sales next year, or about 50% year-overyear growth. TMP's Interactive services are expected to account for almost half of the company's 2001 revenues, up from just 17.4% of the company's sales in 1999. Bottom-line profits are also expected to grow nicely in the coming year. The company said to expect full-year adjusted earnings per share between $1.38 and $1.42, a solid improvement from the adjusted $1.02 per share the company earned in 2000. While the economic climate is cloudy and battering other companies around, TMP Worldwide appears to be the bucking the trend. Paul Larson is happily employed. While he does not own shares of TMP Worldwide, he does own a handful of eBay shares. You can view all of Paul's holdings online at fool.com. The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors. TMP stock tumbles as Chief Operating Officer resigns
http://www.hrmguide.net/usa/recruitment/tmp_tumbles.htm

August 8 2002 - The value of TMP Worldwide shares fell by 30 per cent yesterday after James J. Treacy, TMP's President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), announced his resignation. TMP owns Monster - the world's largest job search website. 44-year-old Treacy was TMP's second-in-command, having joined TMP Worldwide in 1994 as chief executive officer of the company's

Recruitment Advertising Division. He led the division from its infancy to its current position as one of the world's largest recruitment advertising businesses. Significantly he played a key role in the acquisition of Monster in 1995 and the creation of TMP's cross-selling strategy known as "feeding the Monster." Treacy will stay with TMP until his successor is found and will retain his seat on the company's board after he leaves. "Jim is a superb leader with keen management skills and talent. Since joining TMP Worldwide eight years ago, our company has thrived under his strategic guidance and benefited greatly from his operational sensibilities and commitment to delivering continuous and meaningful results," said Andrew J. McKelvey, Chairman and CEO of TMP Worldwide. "As company president and COO, Jim led our efforts to align our operations with the reality of today's human resource marketplace, and championed many of the online recruitment innovations and strategies that have enabled us to provide clients with the broadest array of human capital solutions in the industry. While I will miss his daily contributions, I am pleased that we can still count on his insight and counsel as a member of the company's Board of Directors." Treacy explained that he wanted the top job at a major global company: "My tenure and experience at TMP Worldwide has been extraordinary. With Andy's contract as CEO being renewed until May 2005 and my personal aspirations to be chief executive officer of a major global company, I realized it was time for me to move on, and Andy supported my decision," said Mr. Treacy. "I'm looking forward to working with Andy and the rest of TMP's senior management team to make this transition a smooth and seamless one." His resignation came on the same day as the company also announced a $504.1 million second-quarter loss. The loss, equating to $4.53 per share, contrasts with a profit of $19.8 million, or 17 cents per share in the same quarter a year ago. TMP also announced that it is in the process of cutting 1,000 jobs and closing 102 offices. As of June 30, 2002, the company said that approximately 750 positions had been eliminated and 60 offices had already been exited.

Founded in 1967, TMP Worldwide Inc. had over 10,000 employees in 33 countries at the end of 2001, and claims to be the world's largest Recruitment Advertising agency network, and one of the world's largest Executive Search & Executive Selection agencies. Monster is headquartered in Maynard, Mass. It is the world's largest global careers website, recording over 41.1 million unique visits during the month of June 2002 according to independent research conducted by I/PRO. TMP is also one of the world's largest Yellow Pages advertising agencies. "We continue to be challenged by the 'jobless recovery' and its impact on our businesses," said McKelvey. "Specifically, in the second quarter, commissions and fees for Monster, Executive Search, and Monstermoving were below our expectations." Commenting on the job search situation, Jim Nagel, VP Business Development for 20interviews.com said: We know the usual free resume posting sites generate their revenue from employment agencies and employers paying to access their resume databases. Now that the job market has swung in the opposite direction (more candidates - not enough job openings) there is no need to pay thousands of dollars to these sites in order to find candidates. "Yet the problem remains for the candidate," added Nagel, "and that is the ongoing search to find a job. We saw the need for a fresh approach. 20interviews gives the jobseeker an opportunity to get 100% resume exposure to the hiring world because we do not charge an access fee to our resume databank." The Power Behind The Powerhouse: TMP Worldwide 5 continents. Over 22 countries. Comprehensive recruitment and communications solutions. One company that encompasses it all: TMP Worldwide (NASDAQ:TMPW) TMP Worldwide Executive Search is part of TMP Worldwide, the worlds leading supplier of human capital solutions. In addition to its Executive Search division, TMP Worldwide's "Intern to CEO" continuum includes an integrated array of services: TMP Worldwide Interactive's Monster.com is the worlds leading online career resource. As one of the Internet's most visited and commercially successful Web sites, it connects the most progressive companies with career-minded individuals,

offering a range of superior, value-added services. ChiefMonster (www.chiefmonster.com) is an exclusive marketplace within Monster.com that allows pre-screened, senior-level executives (VP-level and above) to have instant access to senior-level positions at industry-leading companies, as well as all the tools they need to manage their careers successfully. For companies who use it, ChiefMonster streamlines the advertising process, shortens the hiring cycle, and reduces the expenses associated with recruitment. TMP Worldwide eResourcing is the world's largest mid-level selection firm, harnessing the power of the Internet, state-ofthe-art assessment technology, and sophisticated project management tools to identify and evaluate candidates. Services include single and multiple placements, review of current hiring processes and retention issues, interviewing skills training, and global candidate identification and evaluation. TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications is the world's largest recruitment advertising agency. This awardwinning division of TMP Worldwide creates and places classified advertising; advises on employee retention issues; develops employee print and online communications; and produces public relations and marketing communications programs. TMP Worldwide Directional Marketing is the world's largest Yellow Pages advertising agency, leading national and international firms across geographical and political boundaries and into customers' homes since 1967. With thirty years' experience analyzing trends and consumer purchasing patterns, Directional Marketing can translate statistics into targeted advertising strategies.

MANPOWER STAFFING SERVICES ROCKEFELLER GRANT

www.rockfound.org

Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation New York, NY July 17, 2002 $300,000

Toward the costs of analysis and planning for a second phase of the Neighborhood Jobs Initiative
Program: Working Communities Geographic Focus: United States

FORD FOUNDATION
www.fordfound.org

Organization:Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation Purpose:To expand the evaluation of Project GRAD to all GRAD cities Location:NEW YORK, NY Program:Education, Media, Arts and Culture Unit:Education, Knowledge and Religion Subject:Education Reform Amount:$ 800,000

As of October 1, 2002, Education, Media, Arts and Culture has been changed to Knowledge, Freedom and Creativity.

Monster.Com and Manpower sign major deal Largest contract ever for top online career site includes commitment to Monster talent market 23 August 1999 Maynard, Massachusetts, USA In an expanded foray into the online job market, Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN), one of the world's leading staffing services companies, has signed a deal in the high six figures with Monster.com for an expanded subscription program for North American recruiting. Monster.com, the leading global online career site, is ranked by Media Metrix as the 71st most visited of all Internet sites. "We're excited to be working with Manpower to harness the recruiting power of the Internet," said Jeff Taylor, CEO of Monster.com. "I'm very pleased that Manpower continues to turn to us to help them gain access to the growing pool of talent looking for employment opportunities online. With our extensive reach and Manpower's career management expertise and training resources, it's a natural fit." The deal, the largest ever for Monster.com, will allow Manpower to recruit for the majority of its jobs, including Manpower Technical - the fastest growing segment of Manpower - through listings on the Monster.com site. In addition, Manpower will use Monster.ca to recruit for positions in Canada. Manpower will also have access to the Monster.com resume database, enabling its recruiters to search Monster.com's 1.7 million resumes.

"The strength of the Internet connection that comes from this partnership will enable Manpower to provide more responsive service to our contractors and the customers who need their skills," said Jeffrey Joerres, president and CEO of Manpower Inc. "Those professionals that join us will not only enjoy leading-edge assignments with world-class companies, but they will also have access to an unprecedented array of technical and professional development training delivered through our internet-based Global Learning Center." Manpower is also making a major commitment to the Monster Talent Market, a marketplace within Monster.com where free agents (contractors, consultants and micro-business owners) can market their skills directly to employers in an innovative auction-style environment. The new service, launched last month, has already attracted over 55,000 independent professionals. About Monster.com Monster.com, headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts, is the leading global careers Web site with 8.1 million unique visits per month. Monster.com connects the most progressive companies with the most qualified career-minded individuals, offering innovative technology and superior services that give them more control over the recruiting process. The Monster.com network consists of local content and language sites in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Monster.com is the flagship brand of the Interactive Division of TMP Worldwide (NASDAQ: "TMPW"; ASX: "TMP"). Founded in 1967, TMP Worldwide, now with more than 5400 employees in 24 countries, is the online recruitment leader, one of the world's largest recruitment advertising agency networks, and one of the world's largest search and selection agencies. TMP Worldwide, headquartered in New York, is also the world's second largest yellow page advertising agency and a provider of direct marketing services.
http://www.manpower.com/en/ourop.asp

Manpower operates through a network of 3,900 branch offices and franchises in 61 countries throughout the world. This extensive global network provides Manpower with unparalleled knowledge of the global workforce, as well as local labor market expertise, to effectively serve the needs of our customers and our temporary or contract employees. We currently have operations in the following countries: Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Honduras Hong Kong Hungary India Peru Philippines Poland Portugal

Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Czech Republic Denmark Ecuador El Salvador Finland France Germany Greece Guatemala

Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea Luxembourg Malaysia Mexico Monaco Morocco Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Norway Panama Paraguay

Puerto Rico Reunion Russia Singapore South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Tunisia United Kingdom United States Uruguay Venezuela

Manpower Inc. Facts Established: 1948 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States Established in the international marketplace: In 1955, Manpower established business in Canada. The first European offices opened in 1956 in the United Kingdom. Manpower France was established in 1957 Total sales: US$11.8 billion worldwide in 2001. Largest markets: France is Manpower's largest market, followed by the United States and the United Kingdom Fortune 500 rank: Manpower is ranked 182 in the Fortune 500 list for 2001 Number of customers: 400,000 worldwide, includes 98 of the Fortune 100 U.S. companies and 94% of the Fortune 500 Number of offices: 3,900 worldwide in 61 different countries Number of staff employees: 22,400 worldwide in 2001

Number of temporary workers: 1.9 million worldwide in 2001 Hours of work supplied: 780 million hours worldwide in 2001 Stock market listing: Manpower is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol: MAN HISTORY OF MANPOWER 1940 - Attorneys and business partners, Elmer Winter and Aaron Scheinfeld are under a tight deadline to finish a legal brief. Finding themselves in need of supplemental administrative employees, they discover there are no companies to provide this service. As a result, they establish Manpower. 1948 MANPOWER ESTABLISHED 1955 - Manpower becomes an international company, opening offices in Montreal and Toronto, Canada. 1956 - Manpower expands beyond North America to Europe, starting operations in the U.K. 1940
1948 - Manpower established

1950
1954 - First franchise opened 1955 - First international office opened 1956 - Manpower begins European operations

1960
1960 - Manpower has offices on 3 continents 1962 - Manpower stock is listed on NYSE 1962 - Manpower has offices on 4 continents. 1963 - Manpower has offices on 5 continents 1964 - Youthpower, a non-profit staffing service for America's youth, is established 1965 - Manpower has operations in more than 30 countries 1968 - Manpower Technical established

1970
1972 - Mitchell Fromstein named to Board of Directors 1976 - Manpower sold to the Parker Pen Company 1976 - Mitchell Fromstein named President and CEO 1976 - Manpower introduces its industry leading Predictable Performance System to assure customers will receive the highest quality candidates to fill their temporary job assignments

1980
1982 - Manpower introduces Skillware 1985 - Manpower has over 1000 offices worldwide 1987 - Manpower introduces Ultradex, a validated battery of tests to determine a candidate's aptitude for industrial work. 1987 - Worldwide sales surpass $1 billion 1987 - Manpower acquired by Blue Arrow PLC

1990
1991 - UK Offices achieve ISO registration 1991 - Manpower reemerges independent of Blue Arrow 1994 - International Headquarters and Canadian Headquarters achieve ISO registration 1994 - Manpower has over 2000 offices and sales surpass $5 billion. 1996 - Manpower launches TechTrack, computer based training for IT specialists 1996 - Manpower has operations in more than 40 countries 1998 - Manpower sponsors the World Cup football (soccer) tournament in France 1998 - Manpower opens the Global Learning Center 1998 - John Walter is named to Board of Directors 1998 - Manpower has 3000 offices in more than 50 countries with sales of more than $10 billion 1999 - Mitchell Fromstein retires, Jeffrey Joerres is promoted to President and CEO, and John Walter is named Chairman. 1999 - Manpower Professional brand is launched in the U.S. and Canada 1999 - Manpower sponsors the Work Zone in the Millennium Dome in Greenwich England

2000
2000 - Manpower acquires Elan Group, Ltd. 2000 - Manpower forms global strategic alliance with SHL Group plc 2000 - Manpower forms The Empower Group to provide global consulting services. 2001 - Jeff Joerres is named Chairman of the Board 2001 - Manpower Inc. acquires Jefferson Wells International

THE EMPOWER GROUP

www.empowergrp.com OUR CLIENTS

Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing ContiGroup Companies Ingersoll-Rand Company The NZ Dairy Board

Mining BHP BP Amoco Exxon Mobil Natural Gas Corporation (NZ) Pasminco Rio Tinto Texaco Construction Leighton Contractors National Data Corporation (AUS) Manufacturing Amcor Colgate-Palmolive CSR Limited Fosters Brewing International Flavor & Fragrances Inc Johnson & Johnson Pacific Dunlop PBR Automotive PepsiCo Inc Pilkington Glass Simplot Australia Smorgon Steel Southcorp Limited Tenneco The Coca-Cola Company The Estee Lauder Companies Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals PPG Industries| Pfizer Merck & Co Schering-Plough Corporation Glaxo Smith Kline Covance Rhodia Asia-Pacific

Printing, Publishing & Allied Industries BMG/RCA Records Group Readers Digest Association The New York Times Company Communications & IT AT&T Atlantic Cellular Bailey Telecom Bell South British Telecom (BT) Compaq DoubleClick EDS GT Interactive Software IBM Corporation Motorola Inc Nortel Oracle Phillips Electronics Pitney Bowes Inc Telstra Utilities & Transport Chevron Corporation Fletcher Challenge Energy Meridian Energy United Energy Utilicorp Western Power Yarra Valley Water Wholesale & Retail Trade Bloomingdales Holden Limited Rip Curl Finance, Insurance and Real Estate American Express Company AXA Sun Life Bank America

Barclays Group CGU Citigroup Credit Lyonnais Credit Suisse First Boston Deutsche Bank GE Capital Group HSBC JPMorgan Chase Lloyds TSB National Australia Bank Norwich Union The New York Stock Exchange Toronto Dominion Business & Professional Services AT Kearney Avis Bates USA Booz-Allen & Hamilton Deloitte Touche Ernst & Young Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobsen KPMG Mayer, Brown & Platt Ogilvy & Mather PriceWaterhouseCoopers Government & Community Services Australian Defence Force Brookhaven National Laboratories Brotherhood of St Lawrence Chief Ministers Department, ACT Government City of Melbourne Civil Aviation & Safety Authority (AUS) New Zealand Post Queensland Government Sandia National Laboratories The Federal Department of Communication, Information Technology & the Arts (AUS) The Federal Department of Education and Youth Affairs (AUS) BACK TO THE MANPOWER DESIGN WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT DIVERSITY

As a value-based organization, Manpower understands the role diversity plays in the success of our company. Working with minority suppliers, embracing the diverse backgrounds of our employees and reaching out to our community are not just the right things to do; they are also parts of an essential business strategy. In order to realize our vision of being the best worldwide provider of higher-value staffing services and the center for quality employment opportunities, we must embrace diversity - in our workforce, in our strategic partnerships and in our communities. Manpower has developed many programs to help strengthen the diversity of our communities worldwide and create opportunities for all people to participate in the workforce. A few examples of our recent programs and partnerships include: Manpower Unlimited, Belgium In 2000, Manpower Belgium developed a recruitment and selection service for the disabled, working in partnership with the local disabled community. The service is provided by a mobile team of Manpower employees equipped with a specially adapted vehicle that is used to go out and meet with candidates and companies to generate employment opportunities that match the skills of the disabled individuals. Candidates are provided with career guidance, legal and administrative advice, and other personalized services. Employers are provided with feasibility studies of their work environment, the recruitment and selection of candidates, training and assistance with integration of the candidate into the workplace. Diversity Partnership Program, USA Our Diversity Partnership Program in the USA is a collaborative venture with firms owned by women, minorities, disadvantaged and small businesses who share our mission of providing quality services to their customers. Our goal is to help those businesses that participate in our program to acquire the skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary to grow and maintain a successful business. Manpower is committed to developing relationships with diversity vendors who can benefit from working with us, and can enhance the already innovative workforce solutions we offer our customers. Caminemos Juntos, Mexico In 2001, Manpower Mexico launched an innovative program

named Caminemos Juntos (Let's walk together) to bring job opportunities to disabled people, in partnership with Mexico's Secretary of Labor, non-government organizations (NGOs), interested companies and educational institutions. The program is expanding today to meet the needs of a larger pool of candidates, and other disadvantaged groups in the community. MANPOWERS ONLINE INTERNATIONAL STAFFING RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS WANTING TO LEARN ABOUT THE STAFFING AGENCIES
Online International Staffing Resources Please click on the following URL links for additional information about the staffing industry and labor markets worldwide. Organization AMEDIRH - Mexican Association for Human Resource Management ASA - American Staffing Association BLS - US Government Bureau of Labor Statistics CIETT - International Confederation of Temporary Work Businesses EAPM - European Association for Personnel Management EU - Official Web site of the European Union ILO - International Labour Organization NAHRMA - North American Human Resources Management Association OECD - Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development SHRM - Society for Human Resource Management UN United Nations UNICE - Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe WFPMA World Federation of Personnel Management Associations WTO - World Trade Organization >> www.un.org >> www.unice.org >> www.wfpma.com >> www.wto.org >> www.shrm.org >> www.oecd.org >> www.europa.eu.int >> www.ilo.org >> www.shrm.org/nahrma >> www.eapm.org >> www.staffingtoday.com >> www.bls.gov >> www.ciett.org URL >> www.amedirh.com.mx

BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR MANPOWER

Jeffrey A. Joerres Mr. Joerres was named Chairman of the Board of Manpower Inc. in 2001. He has been President and CEO of Manpower Inc., and a Director, since 1999. For full biography, please go to Executive Management.

J. Thomas Bouchard Mr. Bouchard has been a member of the Manpower Inc. Board of Directors since 2001. He retired as Senior Vice President, Human Resources of IBM in 2000. He also served as a member of IBMs Corporate Executive Committee and Worldwide Management Council. Before joining IBM, Mr. Bouchard was Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for US WEST, Inc. He previously spent 15 years with United Technologies, where he held a variety of senior human resources executive positions. Mr. Bouchard is a past Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Labor Policy Association; sits on the Boards of HealthNet, Inc., Nordstrom fsb and Concept Five Technologies; is a Trustee of the American Indian College Fund; and was elected by his peers as a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. Willie D. Davis Mr. Davis is President and Owner of All Pro Broadcasting Inc., which operates radio stations in California and Wisconsin. He previously served as Owner and President of West Coast Beverage Company. Before that, he enjoyed a Hall of Fame career in the National Football League. Mr. Davis serves on the Board of Directors for Sara Lee Corporation, Kmart Corporation, Dow Chemical Company, MGM, Inc., MGM Grand Inc., Alliance Bank, Wisconsin Energy, Johnson Controls Inc., Strong Fund and Checkers Inc. He is a Trustee of the University of Chicago, Occidental College and Marquette University. He is also a member of the Grambling College Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Committee. Mr. Davis has been a member of the Manpower Inc. Board of Directors since 2001. J. Ira Harris Mr. Harris is Chairman of J. I. Harris & Associates, a consulting firm, and Vice Chairman of The Pritzker Organization, LLC, a merchant banking investment management services firm. He was Senior Managing Director of the investment banking firm of Lazard Freres & Co., LLC until December 1997. He has been a Director of Manpower Inc. for more than 5 years. Terry A. Hueneke Mr. Hueneke has been a Director of Manpower Inc. since December 1995. He retired as Executive Vice President of The Americas and Asia Pacific for Manpower Inc. in 2001. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President Group Executive of the company's former principal operating subsidiary from 1987 until 1996. Rozanne L. Ridgway

Ms. Ridgway has been serving as chair of the Baltic American Enterprise Fund since 1994. She was a career diplomat for 32 years, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the German Democratic Republic from 1982 to 1985 and as the U.S. Ambassador to Finland from 1977 to 1980. She capped her career as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs from 1985 to 1989. From 1989 to 1996, she was President and then Co-Chairman of the Atlantic Council of the U.S., a non-partisan network promoting constructive U.S. leadership and engagement in international affairs. In 1998, she was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame. Ms. Ridgway is currently a director for The Boeing Company, Emerson Electric Co. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M), Sara Lee Corporation, and the New Perspective Fund. She is also a Trustee for the Brookings Institution, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the National Geographic Society and Hamline University, her alma mater in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has been a director of Manpower Inc. since February, 2002. Dennis Stevenson Lord Stevenson is Chairman of Pearson plc, a multimedia company, and Chairman of Halifax plc, a banking institution. He has been a director of Manpower Inc. for more than 5 years. John R. Walter Mr. Walter has been a Director of Manpower Inc. since 1998, and served as Non-executive Chairman of the company from 1999 to 2001. He is Chairman of the Ashlin Management Company and a Director of Abbott Laboratories, Celestica Inc., Jones Lang LaSalle, Deere & Company and Prime Capital Corporation. Mr. Walter is the retired President and COO of AT&T Corporation, a position he held from 1996 to 1997. Previously, he was Chairman and CEO of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, a print and digital information management company, from 1989 through 1996. Edward J. Zore Mr. Zore is President of Northwestern Mutual and a member of its Board of Trustees. He is a Director of the Frank Russell Company, Robert W. Baird Financial Corporation and MGIC Investment Corporation. He serves as Chairman of Childrens Health System, Inc., and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee. He has been a member of the Manpower Inc. Board of Directors since 2000.

ACT 1 PERSONNEL SERVICES (DOMINATED MONSTER.COM)

http://www.act1personnel.com/employer/enterprise/diversity.asp

ACT1 - Talent and Technology for the 21st Century Workforce

The Largest Certified Woman-Minority-Owned Staffing Agency in the U.S. Janice Bryant Howroyd founded ACT1 in 1978 with a single personnel office in Beverly Hills. Since then, ACT1 has grown into a network of over 70 strategically positioned offices across the United States, and employs more than 65,000 temporary employees and over 300 full-time employees nationwide.
The Spirit of Diversity - Because a Diverse Workforce Makes Good Business Sense

At ACT1, we believe that diversity of thought forms the basis for true diversity. All of ACT1's recruitment efforts are undertaken in the spirit of recruiting for diversity. ACT1 firmly believes that a diverse workforce is important, not only in terms of creating opportunity, but because diversity in the workplace truly provides the basis for a stronger and more competent organization. ACT1 is deeply committed to employing small, disadvantaged, woman-owned and minority-owned businesses as suppliers and as support vendors. ACT1 actively seeks and recruits qualified woman- and minority-owned suppliers to help provide professional staff to our clients.
Recognized as an Industry and Community Leader

ACT1 Personnel became a National Corporate Plus Member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council in 1999. Nominated for this honor by the Ford Motor Company, ACT1 is one of only 70 companies, out of 16,000 minority-owned businesses nationwide, to achieve Corporate Plus membership. Corporate Plus membership is a defining moment for minority-owned businesses that have proven their ability to provide innovative, quality solutions to both national- and international-size clients. Since its founding, ACT1 has received many awards and accolades. In 2001, ACT1 was recognized as Supplier of the Year by the Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council, and became a mentor in the State of Georgia Governor's Mentor-Protg Program - the only minority-owned company to be named as a mentor. Other honors have included:
2000 Western Region Supplier of the Year (National Minority Supplier Development Council) 1999 Business Owner of the Year (National Association of Women Business Owners) 1995 Madame C.J. Walker Award (Los Angeles African-American Women's Political Caucus) 1995 Gas Company Prime Time Award (for support of women, minority, and service disabled veterans)

1994 Arizona Department of Commerce Minority Enterprise (Development Week Achievement Award) 1993 Distinguished Service Award (from the Joint Conference, Inc. for "emerging minority and woman-owned businesses") 1992 Certificate of Achievement Award (Northern California Regional Purchasing Council)

CORESTAFF
www.corestaff.com

ABOUT CORESTAFF
NATIONAL RESOURCES & LOCAL EXPERTISE Headquartered in Houston, Texas, CORESTAFF Services works through more than 100 U.S. offices and on-site client locations to serve thousands of companies in a wide variety of industries. CORESTAFF Services was formed nearly a decade ago by combining the strengths of 12 highly successful regional staffing companies, some with success stories over 50 years in the making. That's why CORESTAFF can offer our clients and job candidates the expanded resources of a national company with in-depth, localized market knowledge and personalized service. Reflecting its regional roots, CORESTAFF also operates under the brand names TeleSec CORESTAFF in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area; Leafstone Staffing Services in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut; General Employment CORESTAFF in the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington State and FlexForce CORESTAFF in Portland, Oregon and surrounding areas. Through its parent company, The Corporate Services Group PLC, CORESTAFF Services is part of a network of over 250 offices in the United States and Great Britain.

Our Corestaff Parent Company

THE CORPORATE SERVICES GROUP PLC http://www.corporateservices.co.uk/investor/fr_investor.htm Headquartered in London, The Corporate Services Group is the United Kingdom's leading employment services organization. With over 150 staffing offices located in Great Britain, The Corporate Services Group is recognized for redefining the way people will work in the next century. As a benchmark provider of human resource solutions, The Group serves an international client base through seven key service areas: technical, industrial logistics, building services, office services, sales and marketing, healthcare, and catering.

Chairman Julian Treger was appointed to the Board in September 2002. He is Joint Managing Director of Active Value Advisors Limited, the company he

established in 1992 after an early career with the J Rothschild Group. He also holds a number of other directorships and is Chairman of Illuminator plc, and non-executive director and Chairman of BNB Resources plc. Julian Treger, Joint Executive Chairman. He holds a BA with honours from Harvard College and MBA from Harvard Business School and held corporate positions at J Rothschild Group and Hambros Bank with a broad range of responsibilities before 1992, when he set up his own business specialising in the restructuring and refinancing of public companies. There he was involved in the restructuring of WPP Group plc and the sale of TVS Entertainment plc amongst others. In 1993 he founded Active Value Advisors Limited along with Brian Myerson. He is also joint nonexecutive Chairman of BNB Resources plc and a non-executive director of Primedia Limited, a South African media business.
www.illuminator.co.uk/people.htm

JULIAN TREGER & BNB RESOURCES http://www.bnb-global.com/ The Corporate Services Group is a leading provider of staffing solutions. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, we have established operations across the UK and USA. We provide general staffing and more specialist services to a wide-range of clients. We offer workforce management and outsourcing services which focus on increasing the productivity of workforces. Through our core staffing companies, Blue Arrow and Corestaff, the Group meets the needs of national and regional employers as well as niche businesses who use us to fill key positions. The sectors we supply include office, utilities, pharmaceuticals, finance, catering and technical. Our candidates are sourced from our extensive databases which contain thousands of skill sets. Through Medacs, our specialist healthcare company, the Group is also one of the UK's a leading suppliers of temporary healthcare professionals. Comensura is the Group's human capital solutions business. Launched in 2001, the company meets clients' growing demand for services which improve the efficiencies of their people and processes while reducing their costs. Comensura's "Workforce Solutions" is already firmly established in the US helping major companies manage their workforces. Non-executive Director LORD BLACKWELL Lord Blackwell was appointed to the Board in December 2000. He is currently a non-executive director of Dixons Group plc, and a special advisor to KPMG Corporate Finance. He is also Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies. He was Director of Group Development at NatWest until April 2000 and is a former partner at McKinsey & Co, the international management consultants. Prior to re-entering commercial life, Lord Blackwell was head of the No 10 Policy Unit from 1995 to 1997.

TONY COLLVER
Mr Collyer, 44, was formerly Finance Director of New Look Group plc, the womenswear retail chain and, prior to this, was Finance Director of Allders plc, the retail operation acquired from Hanson in 1989 and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1993. Before joining Allders in 1989, Mr Collyer was a Senior Manager at Arthur Andersen & Co.

GILLES AVENEL
Gilles Avenel was appointed to the Board in May 1999. He has considerable international experience having been group finance director of Sun Life and Provincial Holdings plc from its flotation in 1996 until January 1999. Previously he held senior financial positions with UAP, a large French insurance group. Non-executive Director PETER BUTTON Peter Button is a chartered accountant and worked for over 16 years in the corporate finance department of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson until February 1999. He was appointed to the Board in May 1999. CORESTAFF RESOURCE CENTER HAS THIS LINK: http://www.corestaff.com/resourcecenter.html

International HR http://www.mindexchange.com/international-hr.htm
Associations, Companies, Cultural, Expatriates, General

International HR: Associations

Institute of International Human Resources. A division of SHRM. American Council on International Personnel International Employee Exchange. Non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating international exchange of executives, employees and student interns. International Federation of Training and Development Organisations (IFTDO). Includes articles, conference highlights. International Labour Organization. National Association of Human Resource Management Associations. Coalition of North America HR organizations. World Federation of Personnel Management Associations. Represents close to 50 national personnel associations and 300,000 personnel professionals worldwide.

International HR: Companies International HR: Culture

World Culture. Info on international laws, customs, embassies, more. World Wide Holidays and Events. Info on international holidays and the countries that celebrate them.

International HR: Expatriates

Expat Exchange Expat Forum. A source of information and services for expatriates and international business executives. Includes a cost of living index for 40+ countries. IAS Home Page. Offered by Price Waterhouse's International Assignment Technology Group, this forum is designed for use by expatriate program administrators.

International HR: General

Baker & McKenzie Publications. White papers on global labor, employment and benefit trends from Chicago-based international law firm. Bureau of International Labor Affairs. U.S. Department of Labor. Cafe Berlitz Newsstand. Links to foreign newspapers, magazines and broadcasts. Center for Disease Control's travel information page Foreign Labor Statistics. From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CIA World Factbook. Large directory of country studies. Currency Converter. International exchange rates, updated weekly The Embassy Page. Addresses and information for consulates around the world. Global Zone. Tips on international recruiting, organized by country. From Monster Board. Human Resource Management International Digest. Requires free registration. Immigration Law. Analysis of laws for hiring foreign workers in the U.S. International Intranets. Article from HR Magazine International Labor Office. A department of the United Nations Mercer's International Benefits Guide. Benefits information, organized by country. Nottingham Trent University's Business School has an extensive set of links to HR sites in the UK and around the world. Salary Calculator. Application calculates the cost of living differential for hundreds of U.S. and international cities. U.S. State Department travel advisories Watson Wyatt Global News. International HR and business news, presented by Watson Wyatt Worldwide consultants. Web Wombat Online Newspapers. Collection of 1,700 newspapers from around the world. Windham World Article Library. Information on global relocation management. World Competitiveness Yearbook, 1996. From International Institute for Management Development. World Federation of Personnel Management Associations

Jury finds Merck liable in landmark Vioxx case

Widow of Texas man who died after taking drug awarded $253 million
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9006921/ ANGLETON, Texas - A Texas jury found pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. liable Friday for the death of a man who took the once-popular painkiller Vioxx, awarding his widow $253.4 million in damages in the first of thousands of lawsuits pending across the country. The panel deliberated for 10 hours over two days before returning the verdict in a 10-2 vote. But the damage award is likely to be drastically cut to no more than $26.1 million because Texas law caps the punitive damages that made up the bulk of the total. Plaintiff Carol Ernst began to cry when the verdict was read while her attorneys jumped up and shouted, Amen! Jurors in the semi-rural county rejected Mercks argument that Robert Ernst, 59, died of clogged arteries rather than a Vioxxinduced heart attack that led to his fatal arrhythmia. Ernst, a produce manager at a Wal-Mart store, ran marathons and taught aerobics classes on the side. The case drew national attention from pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, consumers, stock analysts and arbitrageurs as a signal of what lies ahead for Merck, which has vowed to fight the more than 4,200 state and federal Vioxx-related lawsuits pending across the country. Merck said it plans to appeal. A 'wake-up call' for drug companies Ernst called the verdict a wake-up call for pharmaceutical companies. This has been a long road for me, she told reporters later. But I felt strongly that this was the road I needed to take so other families wouldnt suffer the same pain I felt at the time.

After news of the late-afternoon decision, Merck shares fell 7.7 percent to close at $28.06, wiping away almost $5.2 billion in market capitalization. Merck lawyer Jonathan Skidmore said the appeal would center on what he termed unreliable scientific evidence. Itll be based on the fact that we believe unqualified expert testimony was allowed in the case; there were expert opinions that werent grounded in science, the type that are required in the state of Texas, he said. We dont believe they (plaintiffs) met their burden of proof. The seven-man, five-woman jury awarded $450,000 in economic damages for Robert Ernsts lost pay, $24 million for mental anguish and loss of companionship and $229 million in punitive damages. But the punitive damage amount is likely to be reduced since state law caps punitive damages at twice the amount of economic damages lost pay and up to $750,000 on top of non-economic damages, which are comprised of mental anguish and loss of companionship. That would give Ernst a maximum of $1.65 million in possible punitive damages, meaning her total damage award could not exceed $26.1 million. This case did not call for punitive damages, Skidmore said in a prepared statement. Merck acted responsibly from researching Vioxx prior to approval in clinical trials involving almost 10,000 patients to monitoring the medicine while it was on the market to voluntarily withdrawing the medicine when it did. 'It could have been prevented' Juror Derrick Chizer, who voted for Ernst, said the 10 likeminded jurors believed a heart attack triggered the Texas mans fatal arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat. It could have been prevented, Chizer, 43, said. That is the message (to pharmaceutical companies). Respect us. But juror James Fruidenberg, one of the two who voted for Merck, said he couldnt go with the probabilities of what caused Robert Ernsts death. I think there are a lot of good people there who care, he said of Merck.

Merck pulled Vioxx, a $2.5 billion seller, from the market in September 2004 when a long-term study showed it could double risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for 18 months or longer. By then, more than 20 million Americans had taken the medicine, which along with Pfizer Inc.s Celebrex, was one of a class of COX-2 inhibitor drugs once dubbed as super aspirin. Another Vioxx trial is set to begin in New Jersey, where Merck is based, next month, and the first federal trial in New Orleans is slated for late November. If Merck loses in those cases, experts predict it will open the floodgates for more lawsuits and could force the drug company to settle cases. Analysts have speculated Mercks liability could reach $18 billion. But if Merck prevails in future cases, lawsuits could fade away, easing some of the pressure on its stock. Unlike many other pending lawsuits involving obvious heart attacks, the Ernst case centered on an autopsy that attributed his death to an arrhythmia secondary to clogged arteries. That autopsy and the coroner who performed it proved critical to the trials outcome. Case centered on autopsy report Merck pointed to the autopsy as proof that Vioxx could not have caused the death of Ernst, who ran marathons and taught aerobics. However, Dr. Maria Araneta, the pathologist who performed Ernsts autopsy, testified for Ernst that a blood clot that she couldnt find probably caused a heart attack that triggered Ernsts arrhythmia. She also said the heart attack killed Ernst too quickly for his heart to show damage. While Araneta couldnt say definitively that he had a blood clot and heart attack, she insisted they were the likely culprits in triggering an arrhythmia, which she said wouldnt happen on its own. Araneta didnt blame Vioxx, however, noting she knew little about the drug when she performed Ernsts autopsy. But three plaintiffs experts in arrhythmia, cardiology and public health did.

Mercks experts agreed with Aranetas conclusions in the autopsy, but not her undocumented theory of what triggered the arrhythmia. Vioxx inhibits an enzyme known as Cox-2, which thins the blood. That feature allows it and other drugs in its class Pfizers Bextra and Celebrex to relieve acute pain and arthritis without causing stomach bleeds or ulcers, as painkillers such as aspirin can. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel concluded in February that Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra all pose heart risks but should be available to consumers. But in April, Pfizer withdrew Bextra from the market at the FDAs request when the agency said it carries risk of serious and sometimes fatal skin reactions in addition to heart attacks and strokes. The FDA also said that all prescription nonsteroidal, antiinflammatory drugs, not just Cox-2 inhibitors, should carry a so-called black box warning label about cardiovascular risk. Celebrex remains available to consumers.
2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Damages: $450,000 This covers past and future lost pay, maintenance, support and household services, such as chores, that Carol Ernst probably would have received from Robert Ernst had he not died in May 2001 after taking Vioxx for eight months to alleviate pain in his hands.

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases.shtml http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/history/historicdates.htm http://omrpublic.iea.org/ http://omrpublic.iea.org/ http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3053419/?qp=70343 CORPORATE SCANDALS http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases.shtml SEC INVESTIGATIONS http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3053419/?qp=70350

Unions plan fight against big multinationals

Labor groups want better benefits, wages from Wal-Mart, other companies - Representatives from some 900 unions said Tuesday they would start organizing workers in several countries to pressure multinational companies like retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for better benefits and wages.
CHICAGO "We're trying to use globalization to raise working standards," Stephen Lerner, a director with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said on the sidelines of the an international union convention held in Chicago. "Global

companies have global responsibilities," he added.

Union leaders representing 15.5 million workers are meeting this week from Monday to Thursday under the banner of Union Network International (UNI), a Swiss-based federation, to devise strategies to organize workers to press for better pay, health care and other benefits. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has for years resisted unionization of its 1.6 million workers, union representatives said. The 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, based in Washington, D.C., has made Wal-Mart its

main focus, Alan Spaulding, director of global strategies, told Reuters in an interview.

A spokesman from Wal-Mart did not immediately return calls seeking comment. The UFCW's goal is to organize workers at Wal-Mart in Brazil,

Argentina, South Korea, Britain and Germany. Some workers in Brazil, Argentina and Germany are already unionized because of Wal-Mart acquisitions.
The UFCW is also preparing to launch campaigns in Russia and

India where Wal-Mart is poised to expand.

"Wal-Mart and other companies are saying that they have to lower wages and cut benefits to be able to compete in the 21st century," Spaulding said. "We are determined to stop that race to the bottom." SEIU's Lerner said his union, which represents workers such as janitors and security guards, is targeting Group4 Securicor , a British-based security company with many U.S. clients. The 1.8-million member SEIU said it would announce later this week five countries where it would launch organizing campaigns to pressure the company to allow its workers -wherever they are -- to join the union. Lerner said the union was in negotiations with Swedish security company Securitas to sign a global agreement allowing workers to unionize. The SEIU was also holding meetings with janitorial and security unions in seven Latin American nations to decide which companies they would focus on in that region, Lerner said. The Teamsters union, which joined UNI this year, is currently holding talks with DHL, the logistics and express delivery business of Germany's Deutsche Post. The Teamsters want an international agreement that would allow non-union DHL contract drivers to organize in the United

States, Thomas Keegel, the Teamsters's general secretary-treasurer said in an interview.

There are already 9,000 union workers in DHL, Keegal said.

He said the Teamsters were also trying to organize workers in countries where Quebecor World Inc., a Canadian-based printing company, has operations. "We are in a multinational corporate world," Keegel said. "We are asking for fairness ... and international organizing is the only way that it can be done." Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

New World Economy

The balance of power will shift to the East as China and India

evolve

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8997518/

It may not top the must-see list of many tourists. But to appreciate Shanghai's ambitious view of its future, there is no better

place than the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, a glass-and-metal structure across from People's Square. The highlight is a scale model bigger than a basketball court of the entire metropolis -- every skyscraper, house, lane, factory, dock, and patch of green space -in the year 2020.
There are white plastic showpiece towers designed by architects such as I.M. Pei and Sir Norman Foster. There are immense new industrial parks for autos and petrochemicals, along with new subway lines, airport runways, ribbons of expressway, and an elaborate riverfront development, site of the 2010 World Expo. Nine futuristic planned communities for 800,000 residents each, with generous parks, retail districts, man-made lakes, and nearby college campuses, rise in the suburbs. The message is clear. Shanghai already is looking well

past its industrial age to its expected emergence as a global mecca of knowledge workers. "In an information economy, it is very important to have urban space with a better natural and social

environment," explains Architectural Society of Shanghai President Zheng Shiling, a key city adviser.
It is easy to dismiss such dreams as bubble-economy hubris -until you take into account the audacious goals Shanghai

already has achieved. Since 1990, when the city still seemed caught in a socialist time warp, Shanghai has erected enough high-rises to fill Manhattan. The once-rundown Pudong district boasts a spaceage skyline, some of the world's biggest industrial zones, dozens of research centers, and a bullet train. This is the story of China, where an extraordinary ability to mobilize workers and capital has tripled per capita income in a generation, and has eased 300 million out of poverty. Leaders now are frenetically laying the groundwork for decades of new growth.
INVALUABLE ROLE Now hop a plane to India. It is hard to tell this is the world's other

emerging superpower. Jolting sights of extreme poverty abound even in the business capitals. A lack of subways and a dearth of expressways result in nightmarish traffic.
But visit the office towers and research and development centers sprouting everywhere, and you see the miracle. Here, Indians are playing invaluable roles in the global innovation chain. Motorola, (MOT) Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Cisco Systems (CSCO), and other tech giants now rely on their Indian teams to devise software platforms and dazzling multimedia features for next-generation devices. Google (GOOG) principal scientist Krishna Bharat is setting up a Bangalore lab complete with

colorful furniture, exercise balls, and a Yamaha organ -- like Google's Mountain View [Calif.] headquarters -- to work on core search-engine technology. Indian engineering houses use 3-D computer simulations to tweak designs of everything from car engines and forklifts to aircraft wings for such clients as General Motors Corp. (GM) and Boeing Co (BA). Financial and marketresearch experts at outfits like B2K, OfficeTiger, and Iris crunch the latest disclosures of blue-chip companies for Wall Street. By 2010 such outsourcing work is expected to quadruple, to $56 billion a year.
Even more exhilarating is the pace of innovation, as tech hubs like Bangalore spawn companies producing their own chip designs,

software, and pharmaceuticals. "I find Bangalore to be one of the most exciting places in the world," says Dan Scheinman, Cisco

Systems Inc.'s senior vice-president for corporate development. "It is Silicon Valley in 1999." Beyond Bangalore, Indian companies are showing a flair for producing high-quality goods and services at ridiculously low prices, from $50 air flights and crystal-clear 2 centsa-minute cell-phone service to $2,200 cars and cardiac operations by top surgeons at a fraction of U.S. costs. Some analysts see the beginnings of hypercompetitive multinationals. "Once they learn to sell at Indian prices with world quality, they can compete anywhere," predicts University of Michigan management guru C.K. Prahalad. Adds A. T. Kearney high-tech consultant John Ciacchella: "I don't think U.S. companies realize India is building next-generation service companies."
SIMULTANEOUS TAKEOFFS China and India. Rarely has the economic ascent of two still

relatively poor nations been watched with such a mixture of awe, opportunism, and trepidation. The postwar era witnessed economic miracles in Japan and South Korea. But neither was populous enough to power worldwide growth or change the game in a complete spectrum of industries. China and India, by contrast, possess the weight and dynamism to transform the 21st-century global economy. The closest parallel to their emergence is the saga of 19th-century America, a huge continental economy with a young, driven workforce that grabbed the lead in agriculture, apparel, and the high technologies of the era, such as steam engines, the telegraph, and electric lights.
But in a way, even America's rise falls short in comparison to

what's happening now. Never has the world seen the simultaneous, sustained takeoffs of two nations that together account for one-third of the planet's population. For the past two decades, China has been growing at an astounding 9.5% a year, and India by 6%. Given their young populations, high savings, and the sheer amount of catching up they still have to do, most economists figure China and India possess the fundamentals to keep growing in the 7%-to-8% range for decades.
Barring cataclysm, within three decades India should have

vaulted over Germany as the world's third-biggest economy. By midcentury, China should have overtaken the U.S. as No. 1. By then, China and India could account for half of global output. Indeed, the troika of China, India, and the U.S. -- the only industrialized nation with significant population growth -- by most projections will dwarf every other economy.

What makes the two giants especially powerful is that they complement each other's strengths. An accelerating trend is that technical and managerial skills in both China and India are

becoming more important than cheap assembly labor. China will stay dominant in mass manufacturing, and is one of the few nations building multibillion-dollar electronics and heavy industrial plants. India is a rising power in software, design, services, and precision industry. This raises a provocative question: What if the two nations merge into one giant "Chindia?" Rival political and economic ambitions make that unlikely. But if their industries truly collaborate, "they would take over the world tech industry," predicts Forrester Research Inc (FORR). analyst Navi Radjou.
In a practical sense, the yin and yang of these immense workforces already are converging. True, annual trade between the two economies is just $14 billion. But thanks to the Internet and plunging telecom costs, multinationals are having their goods built in China with software and circuitry

designed in India. As interactive design technology makes it easier to perfect virtual 3-D prototypes of everything from telecom routers to turbine generators on PCs, the distance between India's low-cost laboratories and China's low-cost factories shrinks by the month. Managers in the vanguard of globalization's new wave say the impact will be nothing less than explosive. "In a few years you'll see most companies unleashing this massive productivity surge," predicts Infosys Technologies (INFY) CEO Nandan M. Nilekani.
To globalization's skeptics, however, what's good for Corporate America translates into layoffs and lower pay for workers. Little wonder the West is suffering from future shock. Each new Chinese corporate takeover bid or revelation of a major Indian outsourcing deal elicits howls of protest by U.S. politicians.

Washington think tanks are publishing thick white papers charting China's rapid progress in microelectronics, nanotech, and aerospace -- and painting dark scenarios about what it means for America's global leadership.
Such alarmism is understandable. But the U.S. and other

established powers will have to learn to make room for China and India. For in almost every dimension -- as consumer markets, investors, producers, and users of energy and commodities -- they will be 21st-century heavyweights. The growing economic might will carry into geopolitics as well. China and India are more assertively pressing their interests in the Middle East and Africa, and China's military will likely challenge U.S. dominance in the Pacific.

One implication is that the balance of power in many technologies will likely move from West to East. An obvious reason is that China and India graduate a combined half a million

engineers and scientists a year, vs. 60,000 in the U.S. In life sciences, projects the McKinsey Global Institute, the total number of young researchers in both nations will rise by 35%, to 1.6 million by 2008. The U.S. supply will drop by 11%, to 760,000. As most Western scientists will tell you, China and India already are making important contributions in medicine and materials that will help everyone. Because these nations can throw more brains at technical problems at a fraction of the cost, their contributions to innovation will grow.
CONSUMERS RISING American business isn't just shifting research work because Indian and Chinese brains are young, cheap, and plentiful. In many cases, these engineers combine skills -- mastery of the latest software tools, a knack for complex mathematical algorithms, and fluency in new multimedia technologies -- that often surpass those of their American counterparts. As Cisco's Scheinman puts it: "We came to India for the costs, we stayed for

the quality, and we're now investing for the innovation."

A rising consumer class also will drive innovation. This year,

China's passenger car market is expected to reach 3 million, No. 3 in the world. China already has the world's biggest base of cell-phone subscribers -- 350 million -- and that is expected to near 600 million by 2009. In two years, China should overtake the U.S. in homes connected to broadband. Less noticed is that India's consumer market is on the same explosive trajectory as China five years ago. Since 2000, the number of cellular subscribers has rocketed from 5.6 million to 55 million.
What's more, Chinese and Indian consumers and companies now demand the latest technologies and features. Studies show the attitudes and aspirations of today's young Chinese and Indians resemble those of Americans a few decades ago. Surveys of thousands of young adults in both nations by marketing firm Grey Global Group found they are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future, believe success is in their hands, and view products as status symbols. In China,

it's fashionable for the upwardly mobile to switch high-end cell phones every three months, says Josh Li, managing director of Grey's Beijing office, because an old model suggests "you are not

getting ahead and updated." That means these nations will be huge proving grounds for next-generation multimedia gizmos, networking equipment, and wireless Web services, and will play a greater role in setting global standards. In consumer electronics, "we will see China in a few years going from being a follower to a leader in defining consumer-electronics trends," predicts Philips Semiconductors (PHG) Executive Vice-President Leon Husson.
For all the huge advantages they now enjoy, India and China

cannot assume their role as new superpowers is assured. Today, China and India account for a mere 6% of global gross domestic product -- half that of Japan. They must keep growing rapidly just to provide jobs for tens of millions entering the workforce annually, and to keep many millions more from crashing back into poverty. Both nations must confront ecological degradation that's as obvious as the smog shrouding Shanghai and Bombay, and face real risks of social strife, war, and financial crisis.
Increasingly, such problems will be the world's problems. Also, with wages rising fast, especially in many skilled areas, the cheap labor edge won't last forever. Both nations will go through many boom and harrowing bust cycles. And neither country is yet producing companies like Samsung, Nokia (NOK), or Toyota (TM) that put it all together, developing, making, and marketing world-beating products. Both countries, however, have survived earlier crises and possess immense untapped potential. In China, serious

development only now is reaching the 800 million people in rural areas, where per capita annual income is just $354. In areas outside major cities, wages are as little as 45 cents an hour. "This is why China can have another 20 years of high-speed growth," contends Beijing University economist Hai Wen.
Very impressive. But India's long-term potential may be even

higher. Due to its one-child policy, China's working-age population will peak at 1 billion in 2015 and then shrink steadily. China then will have to provide for a graying population that has limited retirement benefits. India has nearly 500 million people under age 19 and higher fertility rates. By mid-century, India is expected to have 1.6 billion people -- and 220 million more workers than China. That could be a source for instability, but a great advantage for growth if the government can provide education and opportunity for India's masses. New Delhi just now is pushing to open its power, telecom, commercial real estate and retail sectors to foreigners. These

industries could lure big capital inflows. "The pace of institutional changes and industries being liberalized is phenomenal," says Chief Economist William T. Wilson of consultancy Keystone Business Intelligence India. "I believe India has a better model than China, and over time will surpass it in growth."
For its part, China has yet to prove it can go beyond forced-march

industrialization. China directs massive investment into public works and factories, a wildly successful formula for rapid growth and job creation. But considering its massive manufacturing output, China is surprisingly weak in innovation. A full 57% of exports are from foreign-invested factories, and China underachieves in software, even with 35 software colleges and plans to graduate 200,000 software engineers a year. It's not for lack of genius. Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) 180-engineer R&D lab in Beijing, for example, is one of the world's most productive sources of innovation in computer graphics and language simulation.
While China's big state-run R&D institutes are close to the cutting

edge at the theoretical level, they have yet to yield many commercial breakthroughs. "China has a lot of capability," says Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Craig Mundie. "But when you look under the covers, there is not a lot of collaboration with industry." The lack of intellectual property protection, and Beijing's heavy role in building up its own tech companies, make many other multinationals leery of doing serious R&D in China.
China also is hugely wasteful. Its 9.5% growth rate in 2004 is less

impressive when you consider that $850 billion -- half of GDP -- was plowed into already-glutted sectors like crude steel, vehicles, and office buildings. Its factories burn fuel five times less efficiently than in the West, and more than 20% of bank loans are bad. Two-thirds of China's 1,300 listed companies don't earn back their true cost of capital, estimates Beijing National Accounting Institute President Chen Xiaoyue. "We build the roads and industrial parks, but we sacrifice a lot," Chen says.
India, by contrast, has had to develop with scarcity. It gets scant

foreign investment, and has no room to waste fuel and materials like China. India also has Western legal institutions, a modern stock market, and private banks and corporations. As a result, it is far more capital-efficient. A BusinessWeek analysis of Standard & Poor's (MHP) Compustat data on 346 top listed companies in both nations shows Indian corporations have achieved higher returns on equity and invested capital in the past five years in industries from

autos to food products. The average Indian company posted a 16.7% return on capital in 2004, vs. 12.8% in China.
SMALL-BATCH EXPERTISE The burning question is whether India can replicate China's mass

manufacturing achievement. India's info-tech services industry, successful as it is, employs fewer than 1 million people. But 200 million Indians subsist on $1 a day or less. Export manufacturing is one of India's best hopes of generating millions of new jobs.
India has sophisticated manufacturing knowhow. Tata Steel is

among the world's most-efficient producers. The country boasts several top precision auto parts companies, such as Bharat Forge Ltd. The world's biggest supplier of chassis parts to major auto makers, it employs 1,200 engineers at its heavily automated Pune plant. India's forte is small-batch production of high-value goods requiring lots of engineering, such as power generators for Cummins Inc. (CMI) and core components for General Electric Co. (GE) CAT scanners.
What holds India back are bureaucratic red tape, rigid labor laws,

and its inability to build infrastructure fast enough. There are hopeful signs. Nokia Corp. is building a major campus to make cell phones in Madras, and South Korea's Pohang Iron & Steel Co. plans a $12 billion complex by 2016 in Orissa state. But it will take India many years to build the highways, power plants, and airports needed to rival China in mass manufacturing. With Beijing now pushing software and pledging intellectual property rights protection, some Indians fret design work will shift to China to be closer to factories. "The question is whether China can move from manufacturing to services faster than we can solve our infrastructure bottlenecks," says President Aravind Melligeri of Bangalore-based QuEST, whose 700 engineers design gas turbines, aircraft engines, and medical gear for GE and other clients.
However the race plays out, Corporate America has little choice but to be engaged -- heavily. Motorola illustrates the value of leveraging both nations to lower costs and speed up development. Most of its hardware is assembled and partly designed in China. Its R&D center in Bangalore devises about 40%

of the software in its new phones. The Bangalore team developed the multimedia software and user interfaces in the hot Razr cell phone. Now, they are working on phones that display and send live video, stream movies from the Web, or route incoming calls to

voicemail when you are shifting gears in a car. "This is a very, very critical, state-of-the-art resource for Motorola," says Motorola South Asia President Amit Sharma.
Companies like Motorola realize they must succeed in China

and India at many levels simultaneously to stay competitive. That requires strategies for winning consumers, recruiting and managing R&D and professional talent, and skillfully sourcing from factories. "Over the next few years, you will see a dramatic gap opening between companies," predicts Jim Hemerling, who runs Boston Consulting Group's Shanghai practice. "It will be between those who get it and are fully mobilized in China and India, and those that are still pondering."
In the coming decades, China and India will disrupt workforces,

industries, companies, and markets in ways that we can barely begin to imagine. The upheaval will test America's commitment to the global trade system, and shake its confidence. In the 19th century, Europe went through a similar trauma when it realized a new giant -- the U.S. -- had arrived. "It is up to America to manage its own expectation of China and India as either a threat or opportunity," says corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae. "America should be as open-minded as Europe was 100 years ago." How these Asian giants integrate with the rest of the world will largely shape the 21st-century global economy.
Copyright 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

Ex-HealthSouth CFO gets 3 months in prison

Beam sentenced for role in company's $2.7 billion earnings overstatement
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9075344/

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A judge sentenced HealthSouth Corp.'s first finance chief to three months in prison Thursday for his role in a $2.7 billion earnings overstatement at the rehabilitation and medical services chain.

Aaron Beam, who helped Richard Scrushy found the company in a one-room office in 1984 and testified against the ousted chief executive officer earlier this year in his fraud trial, also will forfeit $275,000 under a deal worked out with prosecutors. The judge added a $10,000 fine, plus one year of probation. Sobbing as he stood before the judge, Beam apologized and said he went along with the fraud out of fear of Scrushy.

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"I should have stood up to Richard Scrushy and said 'No,' but I didn't," he said. A jury found Scrushy innocent of criminal charges earlier this year. But during Thursday's sentencing, U.S. District Judge Robert Propst said he had no reason to doubt the trial testimony of Beam, who said Scrushy ordered the fraud by telling him to "fix the numbers." "I guess there's somebody out there still looking for the real killer. I don't know," Propst said. Later, after two of Beam's friends pleaded for leniency, Propst praised Beam for acknowledging his role in the crime. "You're certainly not the worst fish in the sea in this deal," said the judge. Probation wasn't an option under the law because of the seriousness of the charge, Propst said. While 15 former HealthSouth executives pleaded guilty in the fraud, Beam was only the second one sentenced to prison.

Beam pleaded guilty in 2003 to bank fraud, but prosecutors asked Propst for leniency and suggested the three-month sentence because of the "substantial assistance" Beam provided in the case against Scrushy and others. The charge carried a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a fine of as much as $1 million under the law, but the actual maximum penalty was far less under federal sentencing guidelines. In his plea, Beam admitted signing fraudulent financial statements to obtain loans and credit from AmSouth Bank before leaving HealthSouth. He retired in October 1997 as the overstatement scheme grew. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Jones said AmSouth lost no money because HealthSouth repaid the entire $55 million loan. Of 10 former HealthSouth executives previously sentenced, only one was sent to prison, and that was for just five months. The nine others received combinations of probation, house arrest, fines and forfeitures. Four more former HealthSouth workers await sentencing, including two more CFOs. During Scrushy's trial, Beam testified that his longtime associate instigated the fraud with a demand that he "fix the numbers," so earnings would not fall below Wall Street forecasts in 1996. But Beam also said Scrushy never explicitly told him to do anything illegal. While jurors acquitted Scrushy of all criminal charges, the Securities and Exchange Commission is pushing ahead with a lawsuit against him seeking $785 million in civil penalties. The judge allowed Beam to remain free on bond until Nov. 1 since he is scheduled to auction his Baldwin County home in

October and plans to pay the fine and forfeiture with proceeds from the sale.
2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Ex-Kmart CEO, CFO face SEC accusations

Charles Conaway, John McDonald allegedly misled investors
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9051995/

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission on

Tuesday accused two former Kmart executives with misleading investors about the companys financial condition before the retailers bankruptcy filing in early 2002.
The civil charges filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit allege that

former chairman and CEO Charles C. Conaway and former Chief Financial Officer John T. McDonald were responsible for disclosures that were materially false and misleading.
The SECs complaint charges Conaway and McDonald with securities fraud and aiding and abetting securities fraud. It also accuses them of aiding and abetting violations of rules that require publicly traded companies to file quarterly reports and to include material information in the reports so they are not misleading. Investors are entitled to both accurate financial data and an accurate description of the story behind the numbers, Peter H. Bresnan, an associate director in the SECs Enforcement Division, said in a statement. Conaways lawyer, Scott Lassar said in a statement that Conaway is disappointed by the action and expects to be exonerated. Mr. Conaway acted at all times in good faith and in the best interest of Kmart, the statement said. Contact information for McDonald was not immediately available. The disclosures in question were part of regulatory filings Kmart made for the third quarter and nine months ended Oct.

31, 2001, and in an earnings conference call with analysts and investors, the SEC said.
Kmart filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 22, 2002, leading to the

closing of about 600 stores, termination of 57,000 Kmart employees and cancellation of company stock. The Troy-based retailer acquired Sears, Roebuck & Co. in March. The new company, called Sears Holdings Corp., is based in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
Spokesman Stephen Pagnani said the company would have no comment on the charges. According to the SEC, the Managements Discussion and Analysis section of Kmarts filings failed to disclose the reasons for a massive inventory buildup in 2001 and the impact it had on the companys liquidity. The companys disclosure attributed the inventory increases to seasonal inventory fluctuations and actions taken to improve our overall in-stock position, the SEC said. The commission alleges that was misleading because a large portion of the inventory buildup was caused by a Kmart officers reckless and unilateral purchase of $850 million of excess inventory, the statement said. According to the complaint, Conaway and McDonald dealt with the liquidity problem by withholding $570 million in vendor payments by the end of the third quarter of 2001, and the vendors stopped shipping product. The SEC alleges Conaway and McDonald lied about why vendors were not being paid on time and misrepresented the impact that the problem had on Kmarts relationship with its vendors. Kmarts senior management failed to honestly inform investors that Kmart faced a liquidity crisis in the third quarter of 2001, how the companys own ill-advised action had caused the problem and what steps management took to respond to it, Bresnan said in a statement. The SEC is seeking civil penalties against Conaway and McDonald and a ban on the former executives serving as an officer or director at a publicly traded company.

An unrelated federal lawsuit is pending against Conaway and several other former executives from Kmart employees who lost retirement savings in the bankruptcy. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Ebbers to be sent to medium-security prison

Former WorldCom CEO scheduled to begin 25-year sentence Oct. 12
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9071646/
NEW YORK - Prison officials have told former WorldCom Inc. chief Bernard Ebbers that he must serve his 25-year sentence at a medium-security prison in Louisiana not the low security facility near his Mississippi home he had requested, according to court papers. It is virtually unprecedented for a first time, white collar offender like Mr. Ebbers to be required to serve his sentence in a medium security facility, defense lawyers said in a memo earlier this week asking the judge to grant Ebbers bail pending the outcome of his appeal. Ebbers, 63, has been ordered to report to prison on Oct. 12. He was convicted in March of nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and filing false statements stemming from the $11 billion accounting scandal at WorldCom. The former telecommunications chief executive says he is innocent and will appeal his convictions. His 25-year prison sentence is one of the harshest ever issued to a white-collar defendant in recent memory. At Ebbers sentencing hearing last month, Manhattan federal

judge Barbara Jones recommended that the federal Bureau of Prisons -- which makes prison assignments -- designate Ebbers to a minimum-security facility in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

Low-security prisons are designed for non-violent offenders. They often resemble college dormitories, and typically do not have barbed wire or guard towers. In the court papers, Ebbers lawyers said their client was notified by the prisons bureau on Aug. 11 that he would be sent to a medium-security facility in Oakdale, Louisiana, nearly

200 miles from his Mississippi home.

His lawyers said that if the judge believes there is even a slight chance that Ebbers will get his convictions overturned or be granted a new trial on appeal, we respectfully urge the court to grant bail pending appeal to prevent the injustice of Mr. Ebbers having to serve any time in the harsh conditions of a medium security facility. Prosecutors have opposed Ebbers request for bail while on appeal, saying he has little chance of overturning his convictions. Ebbers lawyers say he has a strong case on appeal. They contend the jury that convicted him received flawed instructions and that the court should have granted immunity to three prospective defense witnesses. Defense lawyers also noted that in another high-profile business fraud case, another Manhattan federal judge has

allowed Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas and his son Timothy to stay out of prison while they appeal their convictions.
Judge Jones has not said when she expects to rule on Ebbers bail motion. Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Israeli PM's Son Charged With Corruption

Sunday, August 28, 2005 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167252,00.html

JERUSALEM The oldest son of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (search) was indicted Sunday on corruption charges in connection with fund-raising activities for one of his father's election campaigns, the Justice Ministry announced. Omri Sharon (search) is suspected of setting up fictitious companies to conceal illegal contributions during the 1999 campaign, when his father won the chairmanship of the Likud Party and became its candidate for prime minister. "The first indicted man is the son of Ariel Sharon. ... In the relevant period he was employed by Ariel Sharon to administer and run his campaign for the Likud party primaries," the indictment said. According to the indictment, Omri Sharon received more than $1.3 million in 1999 and 2000 from groups in Israel (search) and overseas for his father's campaign. "These sums are significantly higher than allowed by the party finance laws," it said. Omri Sharon was charged with violating campaign finance laws, forging documents and perjury. He could face up to five years in prison. Ariel Sharon's two terms as prime minister been marred by scandals over shady campaign financing and real estate deals, but the prime minister himself has escaped indictment. Prosecutors decided not to charge Ariel Sharon with involvement in the same scandal. Omri Sharon is a member of the Israeli parliament. He has already agreed to waive his parliamentary immunity to face the corruption charges. Both Omri Sharon and his lawyers declined to comment on the indictment. Attorney General Meni Mazuz said last month that he planned to indict Omri Sharon after negotiations to reach a plea bargain broke down. The Justice Ministry said charges were also filed Sunday against Gabriel Manor, a friend of Omri Sharon, and a fictitious company founded by the two men to channel the illegal contributions.

Shadowy Hamas Terror Chief: Eradicate Israel

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167248,00.html Sunday, August 28, 2005

JERUSALEM Hamas (search) terrorists released a videotape Saturday purportedly showing a bombmaker believed to top Israel's most-wanted list celebrating the Gaza Strip (search) pullout as a victory for armed resistance. Senior Hamas commander Mohammed Deif (search), who masterminded the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings, also urged the destruction of the Jewish state. It was the latest call for continued violence by Hamas officials as the group refocuses its armed struggle on the West Bank, where most of Israel's 246,000 settlers live. "You are leaving Gaza today in shame," Deif said in comments directed toward Israel, which finished evacuating the last of its 21 Gaza settlements Monday. "Today you are leaving hell. But we promise you that tomorrow all Palestine will be hell for you, God willing." In the tape, Deif praised the armed struggle against Israel (search). Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis since violence resumed in 2000. "We did not achieve the liberation of the Gaza Strip without this holy war and this steadfastness," he said, adding that attacks should continue until Israel is eradicated. Israel's obliteration is Hamas' ultimate goal. On Sunday, a suicide attacker blew himself up next to a bus in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, wounding at least 10 people, officials said. Witnesses said the bomber was stopped by a security guard before he could board the bus. The bombing was the first since Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip earlier in the month. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Deif, known for operating in the shadows, has eluded Israeli security forces for more than a decade, surviving at least two assassination attempts, including a 2002 missile attack in which he lost an eye. There was no way to positively identify the figure on the videotape as Deif, because his face was in silhouette. He has been in hiding since 1992 and the only known photos of him were taken in the 1980s. But the high quality of the video, which was stamped with the logo of the Hamas military wing, as well as the similarity of the voice to previous recordings indicated the tape was authentic. Hamas would not say when the tape was made. But it had boasted for nearly two weeks that Deif would make a public statement, and militants delivered the tape to The Associated Press offices in Gaza City. The group also posted a transcript of his comments on its Web site. Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry senior official, said Deif's comments threatened to sour the climate of good will that the Gaza pullout created.

"The disengagement opened a prospect of hope for the Palestinian people and Mohammed Deif is trying to spoil the show," Meir said. "His declaration proves again why the Palestinian Authority must fulfill its duty and fight the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades." Separately, President Bush also called on the Palestinians to clamp down on militants after the Gaza pullout. "The Palestinians must show the world that they will fight terrorism and govern in a peaceful way," Bush said in his weekly radio address Saturday. Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, a spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry, which oversees security in Palestinian-controlled areas, said Hamas remains committed to a cease-fire Israel and the Palestinians declared in February. "It wasn't secret that a Hamas military wing in Gaza exists, and Mohammed Deif is still alive," he said. "All Palestinian factions are committed to the truce, including Hamas, and we see nothing new in Hamas' position toward the truce." Hamas has scaled back its attacks since the truce declaration, but Israel says the group is using the lull to rearm. Israel has said any resumption of peace talks would depend on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' disarming Hamas and other militant groups. Deif's comments on continuing the armed struggle echoed those made by Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar shortly after the Gaza pullout began. Zahar credited the resistance with driving Israel out of Gaza and said the armed struggle now must move to the West Bank. Although Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has hinted he would be willing to dismantle small, isolated Jewish settlements in the West Bank, he has made it clear that he sees the Gaza pullout as solidifying Israel's grip on major West Bank settlement blocs, where most Jewish settlers live. With Palestinian parliamentary elections nearing, the Deif videotape also was Hamas' latest salvo in a power struggle between militants and the Palestinian government over who should receive credit for the Gaza withdrawal. Hamas claims that years of suicide bombings and rocket attacks drove the Israelis out. Abbas, a vocal critic of violence who aspires to renewing peace talks with Israel, has tried to shore up his standing with promises he can improve life in Gaza after the withdrawal. In an open challenge to Abbas, Deif rejected calls to disarm, though he said differences between Palestinian groups should be resolved through peaceful dialogue. "We warn against touching these weapons, and want to keep them as an effective element to liberate the rest of our homeland," he said. "We want to use dialogue to solve any differences in order to protect our Palestinian blood and our national achievement."

California Religious Schools Sue University Over Creationism

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167235,00.html Saturday, August 27, 2005 LOS ANGELES A group representing California religious schools has filed a lawsuit accusing the University of California (search) system of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism (search) and other conservative Christian viewpoints. The Association of Christian Schools International (search), which represents more than 800 schools, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming UC admissions officials have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution (search). Other rejected courses include "Christianity's Influence in American History." According to the lawsuit, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta was told its courses were rejected because they use textbooks printed by two Christian publishers, Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books. Wendell E. Bird, a lawyer for the association, said the policy violates the rights of students and religious schools. "A threat to one religion is a threat to all," he said. UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said she could not comment, because the university had not been served with the lawsuit. Still, she said the university has a right to set course requirements. "These requirements were established after careful study by faculty and staff to ensure that students who come here are fully prepared with broad knowledge and the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed," Poorsina.

Investors to Watch Crude's Impact on Economy

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167254,00.html

NEW YORK As the summer of discontent over runaway oil prices comes to an end, stock investors will pore over key U.S. economic data, including Friday's August payrolls report and retailers' monthly sales figures, for signs of how big a toll crude's surge has taken on the economy.

With oil hitting a record $68 a barrel this week, the fear on Wall Street (search) is that consumer spending and corporate investment will suffer. When companies and individuals have to devote more of their available cash to pay more for gasoline, electricity and other energy costs, that leaves less to spend on business equipment, clothing or other items. "With the increased focus on the potential of an economic slowdown, driven by the higher energy prices, anything that comes out of the economic data to either support or refute that is going to be key," said John Caldwell, chief investment strategist at McDonald Financial Group (search), of Cleveland. School Bells, Factory Whistles On Thursday, major U.S. retailers will report August sales, providing a gauge of consumer spending during the key back-to-school shopping season. The same day, August U.S. car and truck sales are due, with economists expecting a decline from July levels. A report on personal consumption also is due on Thursday, with the forecast calling for a gain, according to economists polled by Reuters. The consumer confidence index for August from the Conference Board (search), a private research group, kicks off the week's economic calendar on Tuesday. The forecast calls for the index to slip to 101.5 from a previous reading of 103.2, according to economists polled by Reuters. July factory orders, due on Tuesday, are expected to drop, compared with a previous month's gain. In contrast, the Institute for Supply Management's August index of U.S. manufacturing activity, due on Thursday, is expected to show a slight pickup in pace from July. If a weaker-than-expected reading comes in on any of these data points, Wall Street could take that as a sign that high oil prices are weighing on the economy. Jumping Crude, Falling Stocks Oil's surge to yet another record this week took a toll on the major U.S. stock indexes. On Thursday, U.S. crude jumped to $68 a barrel, the highest price since oil futures started trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 1983. For the week, stocks fell, giving up their mid-summer gains. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average finished the week down 1.5 percent, while the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 1.2 percent, and the tech-laced Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.7 percent. "A lot of the short-term action is dependent on oil prices," said Michael Metz, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer & Co., of New York.

On Friday, though, U.S. oil prices retreated late in the day on expectations that Hurricane Katrina would bypass oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. NYMEX crude for October delivery settled on Friday at $66.13 a barrel, down $1.36. If Oil Eases ... A drop in oil prices from their current peak would likely drive stocks higher in the week ahead, strategists said. They also noted volume is likely to be light in the coming week, with many traders trying to squeeze in final vacation days. "My guess is we've seen a little bit of a blow-off on oil and it's going to be a little bit more of a hospitable climate, as far as oil prices are concerned," Metz said. Nabi cited a historical trend as a reason to expect oil prices to ease. "I go back to late 1979 and 1980, at the point when oil had the last spike in price," said Stanley Nabi, vice chairman of Silvercrest Asset Management in New York. "Oil stocks ignored that spike. That's exactly what they are doing right now ... This is an indication that maybe we are going to have a peak here in oil prices." The American Stock Exchange index of energy companies, which usually rises with oil prices, has fallen 5 percent in the last two weeks as crude has hit new highs. Still, if oil prices continue their rally, it could signal trouble for equities. "If we saw them continually ratcheting higher, that would be a negative for stocks," McDonald Financial Group's Caldwell said. "Investors do feel that energy prices matter." Job Growth Cuts Both Ways On Friday, the Labor Department's employment report is expected to show that U.S. nonfarm payrolls added 190,000 jobs in August, according to economists polled by Reuters. In July, the economy added 207,000 nonfarm jobs. "I think the data will be supportive of good, solid employment figures," Nabi said. But he warned that positive numbers can be interpreted in different ways. "Employment will be solid. Then the naysayers will say that also means that the Fed is going to have its marching orders from the employment data to further raise interest rates." The data will dominate the week's agenda, with the wave of quarterly earnings reports from U.S. companies near its end. Only four S&P 500 components due to report next week, including jeweler Tiffany & Co. (TIF) and tax preparer H&R Block Inc. (HRB)

So far, 402 of the 482 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings have met or beaten analysts' forecasts, with the group as a whole running 4.3 percent ahead of consensus estimates, according to Reuters Estimates

OPEC President Concerned About Oil Costs

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167272,00.html

KUWAIT CITY The president of OPEC (search) said Sunday the oil cartel is concerned over the rising price of oil and will be looking at ways to ease prices at a September meeting. Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, said in a statement that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will be exploring various options to keep crude prices at moderate levels at its Sept. 19 meeting in Vienna. The statement, which was carried by Kuwait's state-run news agency, did not say what the options were. Oil prices reached record highs on the New York Mercantile Exchange (search) last week, hovering below $68 a barrel before the close of trading Friday. The spike occurred amid fears that Hurricane Katrina (search) would disrupt American oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico (search). But crude oil futures ended up closing Friday slightly down at $66.13 a barrel from their record highs as it became clear the hurricane would not effect the refineries. "We are becoming increasingly concerned at the continuing high level of oil prices, which does not properly reflect the underlying fundamentals of the market," Sheik Ahmed said in his statement. Sheik Ahmed said oil supplies were "plentiful" and that OPEC has been producing 1.5 million barrels per day more than needed during the third quarter of 2005. Existing spare capacity in OPEC countries, together with new capacity additions early next year, will be more than able to cover the growing demand throughout the coming winter and in 2006, he added. Much of the new capacity will be provided by OPEC and non-OPEC members using lighter crudes in demand by the market, he said.

Based on such fundamentals, Sheik Ahmed said he expected some price moderation instead of further rises.

Storm Fears Push Oil Past $70

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167283,00.html

NEW YORK With crude oil prices already near record levels, Hurricane Katrina (search) targeted the heart of America's oil and refinery operations Sunday, shutting down an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity and sharply curbing offshore production in the region. It is an area crucial to the nation's energy infrastructure offshore oil and gas production, import terminals, pipeline networks and numerous refining operations throughout southern Louisiana and Mississippi. The impact was immediate Sunday night when electronic trading resumed on the New York Mercantile Exchange (search), as crude oil futures spiked $4.50 per barrel, putting the cost above $70 for the first time since oil began trading there in 1983. The Category 5 storm was still churning in the Gulf of Mexico but was on a path to hit New Orleans early Monday. Last September, Hurricane Ivan (search) also swept across the region causing heavy damage and reducing the region's output for months. Katrina's winds were fiercer. Oil companies evacuated workers and shut down more than 600,000 barrels of daily production in the Gulf. Refiners closed down more than 1 million barrels of refining output by Sunday, but that amount could be higher because not every producer reports data, said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst with Cameron Hanover. "This is the big one," he said. "This is unmitigated, bad news for consumers." Gasoline futures soared more than 20 cents per gallon, above $2.12 per gallon, and natural gas was up $2.20 per 1,000 cubic feet in the opening minutes of trade. The "out of control" buying is spurred by the prospect that the region's numerous refineries could be idled for weeks by flooding, power outages, or both, Beutel said.

The U.S. has ample crude oil supplies, even if major hurricane destruction trims Gulf oil output and foreign imports, but refining capacity is extraordinarily tight. As a result, prices for gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel and other products have flirted with records and could go even higher this week. "If this thing knocks out significant quantities of refining capacity ... we're going to be in deep, dark trouble," said Ed Silliere, vice president of risk management at Energy Merchant LLC in New York. The market has been on edge for months, with traders and speculators buying on the slightest fear. With Katrina, all those fears could be realized, Beutel said. "Basically I could spill a can of oil at my local gas station and you'd see the price of crude go up by $1 per barrel," he said. Crude settled at $66.13 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down $1.36 after hitting $68 last week. On Friday, Katrina had been expected to be inconsequential to the energy industry, with many traders selling. That all changed Saturday, when the system gained power and charged west, directly toward areas of offshore oil production. ChevronTexaco Corp. completed evacuations of all workers in the eastern and central Gulf of Mexico and nonessential workers in the western Gulf late Saturday, company spokesman Matt Carmichael said. Chevron has about 2,100 employees and contractors working in the Gulf, Carmichael said. Chevron will continue to produce 90 percent of its normal production by remote as long as weather cooperates, he said. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which processes loads from tankers too large for mainland ports, evacuated all workers and stopped unloading ships on Saturday morning said Mark Bugg, the terminal's manager of scheduling. The LOOP, 20 miles offshore, is the nation's largest oil import terminal and handles 11 percent of U.S. oil imports. Royal Dutch-Shell Group evacuated more than 1,000 offshore workers by Saturday. Only those in the far west remained, the company said on its Web site. BP PLC and ExxonMobil Corp. also brought workers ashore Saturday. Shell estimated 420,000 barrels of oil and 1.35 million cubic feet of gas per day will be shut in at its central and eastern Gulf facilities. Exxon Mobil said it has ceased daily production of 3,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of gas. Valero Energy Corp. evacuated all but a few workers at its 260,000-barrel-a-day St. Charles refinery on Saturday. Murphy Oil Corp. also shut down its 120,000-barrel-a-day Meraux, La.,

refinery, and Exxon Mobil Corp. planned to shut down its 183,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Chalmette, La. Motiva Enterprises, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell PLC and state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., began implementing hurricane contingency plans at its 225,000-barrel-a-day Norco refinery on Saturday. Motiva also was exploring contingencies for its 235,000-barrel-a-day Convent refinery, about 45 miles west of New Orleans, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Greenspan: End of Housing Boom Inevitable

Saturday, August 27, 2005

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JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming U.S. home prices could fall as the housing boom "inevitably" slows, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (search) said on Saturday as he cast doubt on central banks' ability to sway such asset values. Greenspan offered the warning about the U.S. housing market in concluding remarks to an annual Kansas City Fed symposium (search), his last as Fed chairman and one focused this year on a retrospective of his 18-year tenure. In unusually explicit terms, the central bank chief gave his reading of challenges he sees facing his still-unknown successor and laid out his own views on issues such as inflation targeting, fiscal policy and economic imbalances. "The housing boom (search) will inevitably simmer down," Greenspan said in the prepared remarks. "As part of that process, house turnover will decline from currently historic levels, while home price increases will slow and prices could even decrease." Greenspan said while he expects continuing debate over whether the Fed could and should use its power over interest rates to try to influence prices for assets such as stocks and homes, he did not think it was feasible to do so. "The configuration of asset prices is already an integral part of our evaluation of the large array of forces that influence financial stability and economic growth," he said. "But given our current state of knowledge, I find it difficult to envision central banks successfully targeting asset prices any time soon."

He said he would not rule out the possibility that better knowledge of how asset prices behave could in the future affect the conduct of monetary policy. Home prices have surged by double-digit percentages in some U.S. regions, especially along the coasts. Nationwide, average prices are up 50.5 percent over the past five years. And despite the pain it will cause many Americans, Greenspan implied the slowing in home price gains could yield some benefits for the broader economy. "The surprisingly high correlation between increases in home equity extraction and the current account deficit suggests that an end to the housing boom could induce a significant rise in the personal savings rate, a decline in imports and a corresponding improvement in the current account deficit," the Fed chief said. Greenspan said the degree to which these changes are "wrenching" depends on whether the United States and its key trading partners maintain flexible economic policies that allow needed trade and other adjustments. The large gap in the U.S. current account, the broadest measure of trade since it includes investment flows, has many in Congress worried. The Fed chief has long warned that trade protectionism, including tariffs and other barriers to the global flow of goods, are a threat to world economic stability. In what could be seen as a parting shot at those who maintain the U.S. central bank should adopt specific and openly stated targets for inflation similar to those at many of the world's major central banks Greenspan reiterated his steadfast opposition. "I remain unpersuaded that explicit numerical inflation targets are a key characteristic that distinguishes behavior among the world's central banks," he said, adding that the Fed, and most others, already pursue price stability as a goal. "That said, I am certain this will remain a topic of lively discussion here and at other monetary forums in years to come," said Greenspan. While the White House has not yet chosen a successor to the 79-year-old Fed chief, at least one of those cited as a potential heir former Fed board governor and current Bush administration economic adviser Ben Bernanke is a staunch proponent of inflation targets.

Home Builder, Real Estate Stocks Hammered by Greenspan Comments

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NEW YORK Shares of home builders and real estate companies fell broadly Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (search) warned that buying power fueled by rising prices for assets such as homes could disappear if investors turn cautious. The Dow Jones U.S. home construction index (search) slid by as much as 2 percent to its lowest level in more than two months. The Morgan Stanley Capital Index of U.S. REITs, a broad measure of REIT stocks, fell 1.2 percent. In remarks prepared for delivery to the annual central U.S. central bank chairman at the end of January 2006. He said that "newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear" if investors grow wary for some reason and demand a higher risk premium for lending. While most of Greenspan's comments seemed directed at the U.S. housing market, his comments also grabbed the attention of commercial real estate investors, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. "What he's basically saying here is that history has not been kind to overly aggressive investors who have driven risk premiums down and that describes real estate investors today," Zandi said. Although the fundamentals of most commercial real estate, such as office property have recently begun to improve, the prices they have commanded have been setting records for about three years, as a flood of capital chases these assets. "He's (Greenspan) indicating that what's going on in the real estate markets is overdone and there's a good chance that prices will correct," Zandi said. "That's implicit in what he's saying. That's what's got investors worried today." On Friday, real estate stocks were some of the biggest losers. Top decliners included D.R. Horton Inc (DHI), the largest U.S. home builder which ended down 2.3 percent at $34.40; Toll Brothers Inc (TOL), off 2.89 percent at $46.71; and Lennar Corp (LEN), down 1.45 percent at $58.41, all on the New York Stock Exchange. Real estate developer and services shares also moved lower, with CB Richard Ellis Group Inc (CBG), the biggest U.S. commercial real estate services provider, finishing down 5.36 percent at $43.30. Brokerage fees from real estate sales have propelled CB Richard's share price up 163 percent since its initial public offering in June 2004. Rival Jones Lang LaSalle Inc (JLL) fell almost 2 percent to $46.22.

Economists also interpreted Greenspan's remarks as indicating the Fed will not take a hiatus any time soon from its campaign of gradual interest rate increases. Some worry that this may lead to higher interest rates for home mortgages and stall home building activity, which has thrived in recent years amid historically low home loan rates. At one point in the market's session, the home building index hit its lowest level since June 14. Since hitting a lifetime high on July 20, the group has fallen 15.7 percent amid concern that the boom in the stocks may have peaked.

BECKMAN COULTER INC.: Beckman Coulter Inc., a maker of medical tests and equipment, reported an 18% drop in second-quarter net income recently because of slower sales and the wrenching effects of a shift to a new equipment-leasing strategy. The Fullerton-based company slashed its full-year earnings forecast, announced plans to lay off 350 employees, about 3% of its worldwide workforce. Beckman makes tests that are used in hospitals to diagnose diseases, such as prostate cancer and heart failure, or to measure certain compounds in the blood, such as calcium and cholesterol. Its chief competitors are Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson. 8/22/2005 COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL: Computer Associates International said recently that its first-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by acquisitions and tax credits, but the pace of new deals slowed and the company said it would cut 800 more jobs to reduce costs. The company said it expected the job cuts, which represent about 5 percent of its work force, to generate savings of $75 million a year. The latest cuts are in addition to 800 job reductions. Software for mainframes, or large computers that manage corporate systems, is one of Computer Associates' central businesses, but customers put purchases on hold in the quarter as they waited for I.B.M. to upgrade its mainframes. 8/22 SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC.: Sun Microsystems Inc. shares rose as much as 3% recently after the server and software giant reported fourth-quarter net income fell 85% amid fierce competition from the likes of Dell Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. Separately, Sun said it is cutting another 1,000 jobs and would reduce its real estate square footage 10% in fiscal 2006. 8/22 HOOKER FURNITURE CORPORATION: Hooker Furniture Corp. said recently that it plans to close its wood-furniture plant in Pleasant Garden, laying off 280 workers, or about 16 percent of the company's work force. The company said that the move would better match its

domestic-manufacturing capacity with demand. Production in Pleasant Garden will be shifted to Hooker's plants in Martinsville and Roanoke, Va. 8/22 MILLENNIUM PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.: Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. said recently it expects to cut about 200 jobs as a result of the restructuring of the company's collaboration agreement with ScheringPlough Corp. The Cambridge, Mass.-based drug development company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the modified agreement, under which Schering-Plough acquires exclusive development and marketing rights for the cardiovascular drug Integrilin, will lead to a 15 percent decrease in research-anddevelopment costs and selling, general and administrative expenses for Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Millennium said the job cuts will affect its sales force, medical science liaisons and other positions. 8/22 METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority intends to eliminate the positions of 313 train conductors on four subway lines, starting in 2007. The changes would be phased in over two years on the No. 7, N, J and M lines. The planned job cuts have not been announced but are detailed in the authority's 428-page preliminary budget for 2006, which was released recently. The projected job cuts would be part of a larger effort to reduce large budget deficits that are estimated to begin in 2007. 8/22 MORGAN STANLEY: Morgan Stanley, which has been struggling to increase the size and productivity of its broker force, plans to eliminate about 10 percent of its brokers. In a memo to employees recently, the Wall Street investment bank said it will slash about 1,000 of its lowestproducing brokers from its force of about 10,200. 8/22 DOCTORS COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE CORP.: The magnitude of layoffs at Greater Southeast Community Hospital caught employees and their union leaders off guard, but administrators insist the 200 job cuts do not signal a return to bankruptcy. Greater Southeast primarily serves the poor and has struggled with its finances over the years. The hospital's parent company, Arizona-based Doctors Community Healthcare Corp., emerged from bankruptcy last year. The hospital also regained its full accreditation, hired new management, recruited full-time nurses to replace contract employees and won an award for its care of stroke and heart-attack victims. But on July 1, Greater Southeast cut 200 jobs, including 136 full-time positions. Greater Southeast administrators say the layoffs were needed because the hospital was overstaffed. 8/22

IOMEGA CORPORATION: Iomega Corp., a maker of data-storage products for computers and networks, said it would cut 120 jobs, or about 30% of its workforce. The San Diego-based company is cutting jobs and consolidating facilities as part of a restructuring plan to reduce expenses. 8/22 FIBERMARK INC.: FiberMark Inc.'s business reorganization plan that would take the company private and reduce its work force has won preliminary approval in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. FiberMark, which makes cloth and paper products, believes it will save $10 million starting in 2006 as a result of the plan. FiberMark's plan includes reducing operations in New Jersey, which translates into 135 job cuts there. FiberMark employs roughly 200 people locally and 1,600 throughout the United States and Europe. The company is putting steps in place to make the job cuts. The company plans to shut down a facility in Hughesville, N.J., and one of its two paper machines in Warren Glen, N.J. Duties will then be shifted to branches in Warren Glen, Brownville, N.Y., and its headquarters in Brattleboro. 8/22 THE TIMKEN COMPANY: The Timken Co. recently said it would cut 500 jobs in its automotive group as it reported earnings in the second quarter that more than doubled from a year ago. The company said a lack of profitability in its automotive group is prompting the job cuts in the third quarter. Timken's Automotive Group has 10 plants in the United States and 13 in other countries, with about 11,000 employees overall. The company said it will specify from 400 to 500 job cuts during the third quarter. 8/22 JOHN BROTHERS LIQUOR COMPANY: A local liquor distributor will move to Champaign and reduce the city's job tally by 54 employees. John Brothers Liquor Co. is being purchased by Glazer's Distributors of Texas. The Lincoln facility will be closed. 8/15 JPMORGAN CHASE & COMPANY: JP Morgan Chase will cut 300 employees in the Rochester area by the end of the year, the company announced recently. The cuts will begin soon and will leave Chase with about 340 workers at its Rochester home equity center. A Chase spokesman said the cuts are an effort to get more efficiency after Chase's merger with Bank One a year ago. The Rochester center's retail services will be moved to another center in Milwaukee. Rochester is one of the company's three national home equity hubs, along with Milwaukee and Tempe, Ariz. The bank is phasing out a fourth center in Houston. 8/15

PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP, INC.: PNC Financial Services Group Inc. recently reported a 7 percent drop in second-quarter profit because of lower trading revenue and equity management gains. The Pennsylvania bank also announced a corporate restructuring that will eliminate 3,000 jobs. Pittsburgh-based PNC said it plans to reorganize its business to "reduce bureaucracy and to better service its customer base." The move is designed to achieve $300 million in cost savings through a combination of work force reductions and other actions, as well as boost revenue by more than $100 million per year. PNC's banking businesses will be reorganized into units consisting of consumer and institutional activities to increase the span of control and shed layers of management. PNC currently employs about 24,500 workers in 36 states, including more than 7,000 in western Pennsylvania. The bank operates 774 branches in six states. 8/15 TYSON FOODS, INC.: Tyson Foods said it was closing its processed chicken plant in Bentonville, Ark., which employs 320 people, and combining its operations with its plant in Russelville, Ark., which will be expanded to accommodate the increased production. The Russelville plant's production capacity will be increased by 60% and its workforce will grow by 165 employees. The company is also closing one poultry plant in Forest, Miss., and shifting production to another upgraded plant in Forest, resulting in the elimination of 300 employees. 8/15 EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY: Eastman Kodak Co., an icon of photography for more than a century, said recently that it is shedding as many as 10,000 more jobs, as digital imaging devours its traditional film business at a faster-than-expected pace. Kodak is in a race to build sales of its digital cameras and, more important, its photo printers and other digital supplies, as sales of its traditional film products are plunging. Most of the new layoffs will affect manufacturing workers. The company did not specify what facilities would close, but did say its manufacturing infrastructure, worth nearly $3 billion at the beginning of last year, would shrink in value to about $1 billion. Kodak remains No. 1 in nearly every digital category in which it competes. That includes high-speed inkjet printers for commercial use, medical laser printers and online photo services. 8/15 NKT HOLDING A/S: Nilfisk-Advance Group, a supplier of professional floor cleaning equipment, plans to close its plant, eliminating 92 jobs, as part of the consolidation of its North American operations. The company will add jobs to its Plymouth, Minn., operations. The

northwest Ohio plant produces professional industrial cleaning equipment under the American-Lincoln brand name. 8/15 MOTOROLA, INC.: Motorola announced recently it was trimming about 150 jobs, or about 5 percent of its 3,000-person workforce in Plantation. Plantation in the home of Motorola's Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) division. The technology combines the capability of wireless phones and two-way radios. The 150 jobs set to be eliminated in this latest round of cutbacks are in Motorola's distribution operation, but are considered part of its manufacturing workforce. The distribution operations will be shifted to a customerfulfillment center in Fort Worth, Texas. 8/15 US AIRWAYS GROUP, INC.: US Airways is cutting 300 more flight attendant jobs, the airline said. The reductions result from the planned return of aircraft associated with the US Airways-America West merger. To save money, the two airlines plan to hand 60 planes back to creditors, including at least 30 before February. 8/15 BUCILLA CORP.: A Hazleton area factory that endured an 80 percent reduction in its work force in the last decade, now is relocating to Georgia. Bucilla Corp., which makes counted and stamped cross-stitch kits, is relocating its manufacturing and distribution centers at the Humboldt Industrial Park to the parent corporation's headquarters in Atlanta. The consolidation is expected to be complete by November. Plaid Enterprises, a craft company, bought Bucilla in 1996 and moved its marketing and sales functions to Georgia in 2000. The 55 workers who will be idled by the consolidation will receive health insurance for two months after their employment ends. 8/8 TERADYNE INC.: Teradyne Inc., the world's biggest maker of semiconductor-testing equipment, plans to cut 400 jobs by the end of the year to reduce costs, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Job cuts will occur across the company's U.S. locations, including at facilities in Fridley; Boston and North Reading, Mass., and Agoura Hills and San Jose, Calif., one spokesman said. Boston-based Teradyne notified the affected workers, all from the company's Semiconductor Test Division, of the recent move, the filing said. Teradyne did not break out the number of jobs to be cut at each location. 8/8 JK HARRIS: JK Harris, a North Charleston firm that offers tax- and debt-resolution services nationwide, is laying off about 100 employees, all of them out of state, in a restructuring of its debt-negotiation

business. The biggest hit will be felt at the Baltimore headquarters of JKH Financial Recovery Systems, which negotiates clients' unpaid debt with their creditors. About 60 people will be let go gradually in Baltimore by the time the office closes. The rest of the cuts will come from the layoffs of outside consultants and staff at the unit's Florida call center, which is phasing out a little less than half its 70 jobs. The cuts will equate to about one-sixth of JK Harris' total national work force of about 600. But the North Charleston headquarters stands to gain as a result of the restructuring, as about 30 positions are expected to be moved here. 8/8 NATIONAL DAIRY HOLDINGS L.P.: 160 workers are losing their jobs in a major shake-up at National Dairy Holdings L.P., parent company of Valley Rich Dairy. The Roanoke milk processing plant, distributor and bottler will close soon. Company officials, citing competition in the industry, told workers that it was closing 15 of its 17 distribution plants in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. Workers will get separation packages, and they will be considered for openings at other NDH plants. A spokesman in Dallas would not disclose the financial terms. 8/8 LONGABERGER COMPANY: The Longaberger Co. said recently that it will lay off about 450 workers, mostly from its manufacturing division, because of excess inventory at the nation's largest handmade basketmaker. The job cuts are the second round this year, with Longaberger laying off 360 workers in April. The company has eliminated more than 4,000 jobs since 2000, when it employed about 8,300 people. Newarkbased Longaberger, founded in 1973, sells handmade baskets, pottery and other home products through 70,000 individual consultants who sell the products from their homes. Longaberger has expanded its product line, and baskets now make up only 48 percent of total sales. Other home products such as pottery, candles and wrought-iron decorations are a growing portion of the company's sales. 8/8 LOUISVILLE LADDER GROUP: Louisville Ladder Group has announced plans to close its Smyrna plant and move production of wooden attic ladders to Monterrey, Mexico. The company blamed the closure, which will eliminate 110 jobs, on "the increasingly competitive North American ladder business." The 20-year-old Smyrna plant is the last of the company's U.S. manufacturing facilities. The company's Louisville, Ky., manufacturing moved to Monterrey in 2002. The plant is scheduled to close soon, and the warehouse and customer service operations, also in Smyrna, will close soon. Warehouse functions will

be handled at a new distribution center in Louisville. It's uncertain where the customer service office will go. 8/8

SARA LEE CORPORATION: Consumer goods giant Sara Lee Corp. is to eliminate 775 jobs in the United States, Mexico and Canada in the last phase of its global company reorganization review. The Chicago-based firm, makes a range of consumer products from pantyhose to cheesecake. Sara Lee's current brands includes US-based Playtex and Hanes, French lingerie group Dim, Aoste packaged meats in Europe and Jimmy Dean sausage in the US. 8/8/2005 ACXIOM CORP.: Business-software maker Acxiom Corp., which is embroiled in a takeover fight, announced recently that its first quarter profits would fall short of expectations and that it will lay off 250 employees as part of a larger plan to cut annual costs by some $60 million. The Little Rock-based company also plans to sell or close some operations. Acxiom, whose software is used in marketing and government security work, cut 230 jobs a little over a year ago, leaving roughly 6,000 workers in the U.S. and overseas. About 100 of the new job cuts will be in Arkansas, another 100 at assorted U.S. sites and the rest in other countries. About 4 percent of Acxiom's work force is being let go, a move the company said would save $16 million per year. The company, in addition to government-related work, analyzes data fields for credit card issuers, banks, auto manufacturers, telecommunications companies and retailers. 8/8 HUSKY INJECTION MOLDING SYSTEMS LTD.: Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd. will close the smaller of two plants it operates in Milton, meaning 69 jobs will be cut or moved to Canada, where the company is based. A spokesman for the Bolton-Ontario-based company said it will continue to operate its larger plant and planned no immediate reductions in the 350-member workforce there. But the smaller plant, which has operated in a local industrial park, will close soon. Husky makes molds and machines for the plastics industry. It moved its control manufacturing facility into the industrial park in 2003, but now plans to move that operation back to Ontario. The control cabinet parts manufactured in Milton are shipped to Bolton so they can be assembled as part of injection molding machines. Employees in the affected division will be given severance packages and will be expected to assist in the transition to Bolton. 8/8 TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON: Swedish wireless telephone equipment manufacturer Ericsson plans to cut 300 jobs in Montreal between now and the end of the year, Montreal La Presse reported recently. The cuts eliminate 15 per cent of the firm's workforce in Canada, which will drop to 1,500 from the current 1,800. The layoffs will affect engineers and research and development technicians

working on the CDMA technology for wireless phones. Analysts say the move comes because of Ericsson's inability to exploit the giant American market with its products. 8/8 JONES APPAREL GROUP, INC.: Jones Apparel Group says it will lay off 3,500 workers when it closes its laundry, assembly and distribution operations in San Luis, Mexico. All manufacturing will be consolidated into existing operations in Durango and Torreon, Mexico. 8/8 GST AUTOLEATHER, INC.: GST AutoLeather Inc., a maker of automotive seating leather, will end more than a century of U.S. production when it lays off the last 400 manufacturing workers at its plant near Williamsport. The Western Maryland plant will be closed soon. GST, with headquarters in nearby Hagerstown and Southfield, Mich., has moved much of its production to Mexico and China since being acquired by Citicorp Venture Capital in 2000. 8/8 ELECTROLUX AB: About 800 of the 2,700 people employed at an Electrolux AB refrigerator plant scheduled to close early next year will be laid off soon, a company spokesman said. It will be the first major round of job cuts at the plant since the appliance maker announced its closing 18 months earlier. The most recent hires will be the first to go, with layoffs hitting some assembly and support feeder lines for sideby-side Frigidaire refrigerators. Meanwhile, Electrolux opened its massive, new refrigerator plant in Juarez, Mexico, with an initial work force of 800. 8/8 PLAYTEX PRODUCTS, INC.: Playtex says it will cut 85 jobs in the restructuring of its Canadian and U.S. Banana Boat Sun Care Direct Sales Delivery operations. PYX's Arnprior, Ontario Canada facility will begin a phased shut down, with a targeted completion date of Q106. 8/8 TOWER AUTOMOTIVE, INC.: Tower Automotive Inc. has cut an additional 190 jobs at its north side plant. The workers, who made about $20 an hour plus benefits, were laid off recently after turning out the last Milwaukee-made frames for the Dodge Ram. DaimlerChrysler is moving production of the truck frames to a Toweraffiliated company in Mexico. Tower, based in Novi, Mich., has been cutting jobs in Milwaukee since it bought the automotive components business of A.O. Smith Corp. in 1997. 8/8 EGL, INC.: EGL Eagle Global Logistics blames slowing growth in airfreight volume, higher fuel prices and operating losses in Europe for

a 2 percent drop in first-quarter profit and a subsequent announcement of 350 layoffs. The Houston-based forwarder and logistics provider said jobs will be eliminated across its international operations, a field that EGL entered in 2001 with the acquisition of Circle International. Two stations may be closed, the company's Washington office and possibly a European site. 8/1 FISHER BAY SEAFOOD LTD: Soon will be the last day of work for as many as 250 workers in Ucluelet who are being laid off because of a truckers strike at the Port of Vancouver and Fraser Port on the mainland. The workers, representing the bulk of the Wholey Plant staff of Fisher Bay Seafood Ltd., include everyone from boat operators, to truck drivers and fish plant employees. The strike means some 2,700 containers a day are in limbo, as the truckers have stopped moving goods to and from Vancouver's ports. The lack of packaging means there is no work for about 150 employees who work in the division that sends filleted pacific hake to North American markets. The other 100 employees work in exporting hake to South Asia and Europe. Those shipments are transported in containers by truck. Because of the strike, they're sitting in storage at the plant, or in containers at the port with no way of moving until the strike is over. 8/1 ALCOA INC.: Alcoa Inc., the world's largest aluminum producer, recently said it will eliminate about 6,500 jobs globally during the second quarter as part of a restructuring aimed at saving the company $150 million a year. The Pittsburgh-based company said it will record after-tax charges of between $220 million to $250 million, or 25 cents to 28 cents per share, as part of its plans to streamline the company. The charges encompass layoffs, plant closings and consolidations, and will be implemented over the next 12 months. 7/18 KRUGER: Following the decision by the Quebec Superior Court granting the Betsiamites Innu a Safeguard Order that temporarily forbids Kruger Inc. to perform harvesting and forest management activities on Ile RenDe-Levasseur, the Company is forced to layoff 153 workers on the North Shore. Thus, the company will gradually let go 91 jobs in the forest, and one work shift each at the Manic sawmill in Ragueneau, the HCN sawmill in Forestville, and the Longue Rive dressing and drying plant, for as long as the Order remains in effect. Kruger is a major pulp and paper company engaged in the manufacturing and sale of newsprint, specialty grades, lightweight coated paper, directory paper, tissue, recycled linerboard, corrugated containers, lumber and wood products. It has operations in Quebec,

Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Kruger employs more than 10,500 people. 7/18 EGL, INC.: Transportation company EGL Inc. recently forecast secondquarter earnings between 24 cents to 26 cents per share, and said it plans to cut 350 jobs in the United States and Europe to improve its financial performance. EGL, which provides airfreight and ocean freight forwarding and related logistics services, said the forecast excludes a $2 million pretax restructuring charge for the job cuts. 7/18/2005

Corporate Announcements, Mergers, Bankruptcies

CB RICHARD ELLIS: TALK OF TRAMMELL CROW MERGER HEATS UP Speculation about a merger of CB Richard Ellis Inc. and Trammell Crow Co. has gained renewed momentum since an English real estate magazine reported recently that the two American real estate service firms were in talks. London-based Property Week, citing real estate industry sources, said Los Angeles-based CB would acquire its Dallas-based rival in a $1 billion deal. CB has a market capitalization of almost $3.4 billion, compared to Trammell Crow's $925 million. Adding fuel to the speculation is that Trammell Crow's ordinarily slow-moving stock price has risen more than $2 since July 26. But rival real estate magazine Estates Gazette reported on its Web site that CB's European staff had been told in an internal memorandum to "ignore" rumors of a merger with Trammell Crow. Representatives at both companies declined to comment on the talks, which could not be independently confirmed. 8/10 TYSON TO COMBINE PLANTS Tyson announced plans to consolidate its two poultry plants recently, a move that will eliminate 300 jobs, but cause no layoffs according to company officials. Expected to be complete by early 2006, the move will expand and renovate the former Choctaw Maid, or old Sarah Lee plant, known as Tyson 2 and close the original Tyson plant on Cleveland St. known as Tyson 1. Area poultry and feed producers who supply Tyson should not be affected by the change as officials say production levels will remain the same throughout and after the consolidation. After the consolidation Tyson expects to employ about 1,400 people, down 300 from its current total. Officials said recently

layoffs will not be necessary, however, explaining that normal attrition will account for the loss in jobs. While the cost of the project was not disclosed by the company, it is reportedly in the millions and will not only add processing lines to the Tyson 2 plant, but modernize the facility. Changes to the former Choctaw Maid plant will include more product lines, which will enable the plant to increase its production of processed and marinated chicken. It will also make improvements to the plant's roofing, flooring and refrigeration systems. Tyson officials chose to upgrade the former Choctaw plant because it is newer and provides room for growth. It opened approximately four years ago and covers approximately 325,000 sq.ft. The plant Tyson will be vacating began operations in 1957 and covers 140,000 sq.ft. Tyson emphasized that while they work towards consolidation that production levels would not suffer and suppliers would not be affected. 8/3 IBM ACQUIRES DATA INTEGRATION COMPANY Big Blue announced recently it plans to acquire customer data integration software maker DWL, in move aimed at bolstering its information management group. IBM has dramatically increased its acquisitions in information management in the past year, with DWL representing the 5th such deal. Over the past 4 years, Big Blue has acquired 9 companies in this market. DWL develops middleware that pulls together records about a single customer, or prospective customer, from a number of data areas within a company in real-time. DWL previously served as a strategic partner to IBM and will now be folded into IBM's information management group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ascential Software, which IBM bought early this year, made data integration products that help companies transport and format data files. Information integration is becoming a high priority for corporate America, as companies seek to combine info from a variety of sources, or systems to monitor how the organization is running. 8/3 KELLWOOD WILL RESTRUCTURE, SELL UNITS Kellwood Co. plans to drop several divs. and clothing lines to focus on increasing its penetration of stronger-growth, higher-margin lifestyle brands. The Chesterfield MO-based apparel maker recently also revised its earnings estimates and said it would use up to $75 million cash to buy back up to 10% of its stock to show confidence in the company. Annual sales of the businesses Kellwood is leaving are about $335M, or 14% of the company's total sales. Those businesses include private-label menswear, intimate apparel and Kellwood New England. Kellwood said it's reviewing options for each of those businesses and would consider selling some or all of them. 8/3

SAPPI CLOSING MICHIGAN PAPER MACHINE Sappi Fine Paper North America announced it will shut down one of its paper machines at the Muskegon MI mill. The machine is the highest cost and oldest printing and writing paper machine in North America. It also plans to suspend operation of the Muskegon pulp mill indefinitely and will cease operations by Sept. Another paper machine at Muskegon will continue to operate and produce a variety of coated free sheet papers to meet changing customer needs. 8/3 RUBBERMAID TO CLOSE GOODYEAR AZ PLANT FURLOUGH 260 Rubbermaid recently announced plans to close its Valley manufacturing facility and lay off 260 employees. High oil prices are putting pressure on Rubbermaid's raw material costs, the company said. The Goodyear plant was a victim in efforts to boost profits by streamlining the company. Rubbermaid, maker of products like laundry baskets, bins, totes and trashcans, has phased out some older, underperforming items over the past year. Rubbermaid's attempt to bring the business in line also stems from increasing competition from imported and cheaper products. Rubbermaid manufactures products domestically and plans to transfer some of Goodyear's work to other facilities across the country, it said. The 1st wave of local layoffs will occur soon. Rubbermaid, part of Newell Rubbermaid Inc., plans to finish the layoffs in 60 days. Employees will be offered severance pay and job-placement assistance. 8/3 NAVIGANT ACQUIRES A.W. HUTCHISON Navigant Consulting Inc., a provider of management consulting services, recently said it has acquired A.W. Hutchison & Associates LLC for about $23 million. A.W. Hutchison, a provider of construction management and dispute resolution, last year saw revenue of about $18.6 million, and pro forma operating income of $4.3M. Navigant said it expects the deal to boost its earnings in 2005. The transaction, which includes a team of 57 billable consultants based primarily in Atlanta and LA, is expected to further Navigant's reach into the Southeast U.S. market and in Southern California. 7/27 CGI TO BUY REAL ESTATE SCHOOL ONLINE CGI Holding Corp., owner of Internet marketing company Websourced, recently said it acquired Real Estate School Online Inc for $4.4 million in cash and CGI common stock. Under the deal, CGI of Northbrook purchased all of Real Estate School's stock with $2.2 million cash and $2.2 million in CGI common shares. CGI said it will also pay former shareholders of the online school up to $500,000 if the pretax earnings

of Real Estate School surpass specific targets in the next 12 quarters. The acquisition will immediately boost earnings, it said. The Miamibased Real Estate School, which offers online real estate licensing and continuing education classes, is expected to generate over $1.6M in income before taxes in 12 months. CGI also owns KeywordRanking.com and ProRanking.com, Web sites that help clients improve their position in Internet search engine results. The company is seeking shareholder approval to change its name to Think Partnership Inc. In March, it changed its stock ticker symbol to THK. CGI Holding shares rose 8, or 3.9%, to $2.11 on the AMEX. 7/27 HEWITT LANDS BPO DEAL WITH MERVYNS Lincolnshire-based Hewitt Associates Inc. has inked a deal to provide outsourcing and consulting services to Mervyns, the CA-based retail chain sold by Target in 2004. The 7-year arrangement calls for Hewitt to provide HR, payroll, retirement plan and health benefit services to Mervyns 29,000+ employees. In Mervyns statement, it said Hewitts services were necessary to help the former Target unit become an independent company. BPO agreements involve both consulting and outsourcing, and therefore generate more fees than individual consulting or outsourcing deals. However, because BPO arrangements require outsourcing firms, like Hewitt, to take on large capital expenses, like building and running call centers, they tend to offer lower profit margins than simple consulting arrangements. While Hewitt saw outsourcing revenues increase 41% in the 2nd-Q, due largely to its 2004 acquisition of Exult Inc., its outsourcing segments income fell 28%, to $48.2 million. 7/27 NBC UNIVERSAL, DREAMWORKS TALK, REPORTS SAY NBC Universal is in talks to buy the privately held live-action film studio DreamWorks SKG, according to news reports recently. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Universal was considering acquiring the studio founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The board of General Electric Co., which owns NBC Universal, is scheduled to meet, but it's unclear how much the company would be willing to pay for DreamWorks. Calls to both DreamWorks and NBC Universal were not immediately returned. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., the animation studio that was spun

off last year, is reportedly not a part of the discussions, but Universal would have the right to distribute future cartoon titles from the company that created "Shrek," the Journal reported. DreamWorks has created such movies as "American Beauty" and "Gladiator," but the studio has scaled back its plans over the years. It abandoned plans to build a high-tech studio lot in Los Angeles in 1999, sold its music division in 2004 and has curtailed its TV production. Universal, along with Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, is considering a possible breakup of United International Pictures, the overseas movie distribution apparatus they jointly own. UIP also distributes DreamWorks SKG's films overseas. Dismantling the company would allow both studios to establish their own international distribution operations, which is considered an important source of revenue. 7/27/2005

Volkswagen reportedly may cut 10,000 jobs

Car maker wants to reduce German workforce, magazine says
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9187256/ FRANKFURT, Germany - Volkswagen could cut more than 10,000 jobs in Germany in the coming few years to make Europe's largest car maker competitive with its international rivals, a magazine said on Saturday. Volkswagen wanted to reduce the workforce in west German plants drastically, Spiegel magazine said in a report released before publication, quoting internal VW projections. Hit by a strong euro and weak sales, VW has been negotiating with its staff about cost-saving concessions in high-wage Germany. Volkswagen and its main union struck a landmark labor deal in November that freezes pay for staff in western Germany, where it employs some 103,000, until early 2007 in return for job guarantees until the end of 2011.

The magazine said Volkswagen would even go ahead with the plans if it decided to build a new sport utility vehicle (SUV) at its main Wolfsburg plant. The firm is currently evaluating whether to assemble the car in Germany or in low-wage Portugal. A Volkswagen spokesman said the report was pure speculation. "It makes no sense to join this speculation," he said. VW's internal product strategy committee has recommended building the SUV in Portugal from 2007 rather than in Germany, saying assembling the model there would cost at least 1,000 euros less per vehicle than in Wolfsburg. Focus magazine said Wolfsburg looked set to emerge as the assembly plant for the model but staff would then face wage cuts of some 20 percent and longer working hours. The VW spokesman said no decision had been taken yet. Chief Executive Bernd Pischetsrieder has warned that the future of car making in western Europe was at risk if manufacturers did not get their production costs under control.
(c) Reuters 2005. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Albertsons considers sale of company

Sales at nations second-largest supermarket chain lagging many rivals
BOISE, Idaho - Albertsons Inc. said Friday it was considering putting itself up for sale as well as other alternatives as the nations second-largest supermarket chain contends with sales

that have lagged many of its rivals. Its shares surged 11 percent. The company which operates about 2,500 stores including Albertsons, Acme, Shaws, Jewel-Osco and Sav-on Drugs said it is interested in pursuing strategic alternatives to increase shareholder value. Albertsons board retained Goldman Sachs & Co. and Blackstone Group LP as financial advisers. Albertsons, second only to Kroger Co. among U.S. supermarket chains, said it would not comment on developments until its board approves a definitive transaction. In June, Albertsons reported first-quarter earnings nearly tripled due to an acquisition and the continued recovery of the Southern California market after a major labor dispute. However, analysts said the companys underlying sales with or without the Southern California stores are still not as good as its main competitors. At the time the earnings were released, Goldman Sachs analyst John Heinbockel said Albertsons continued lagging sales would put increasing pressure on earnings later in the year, despite cost cuts. The company is recovering from a 4 1/2-month strike of 59,000 supermarket workers in California. The strike ended Feb. 29 when members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union ratified a contract with Albertsons, Safeway Inc. and Kroger.
2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Layoffs/Hirings
... Employer Branding Diversity Labor Shortage Current News HR News Corporate News International News Shaker in the News Economic News Layoffs/Hirings Economic Indicators Layoffs/Hirings This section reflects all of ...
o www.shaker.com/layoffs.html

Media Layoffs
Five years of job cutback reports Media companies are continuing to tighten their belts and, sadly, cut jobs. Many cutbacks are attributed to the slowing economy and advertising market, disappointing results at online units, restructurings in the aftermath of mergers, and business shutdowns (Remember APBNews.com? Brill's Content? Talk magazine?) This tabulation of news reports of U.S. media layoffs, begun shortly after the start of the dot-com bust, has recorded nearly 72,000 job cuts since June 2000.

http://www.iwantmedia.com/layoffs.html
Houston Chronicle ??? Jobs Cut About 7% of the staff will be cut as the newspaper restructures for the "multiplatform world."
Source: Houston Chronicle, "Chronicle to Pare Its Work Force," 08/19/05

American Media 20 Jobs Cut Jobs in the California office of the old Weider Publications are relocating to New York.
Source: New York Post, "Inc., Fast Company Execs Resign," 08/03/05

WXLV/WUPN 22 Jobs Cut Sinclair's two Winston-Salem stations are shutting down their news operations.
Source: Winston-Salem Journal, "WXLV and WUPN Will End Newscasts," 07/29/05

TV Guide ??? Jobs Cut The revamp of the television listings magazine will bring "significant" job cuts.
Source: Folio:, "In Drastic Shift, TV Guide to Become Less of a Guide, More of a Magazine," 07/26/05

Wired News ??? Jobs Cut

Lycos is cutting back as part of a restructuring of its Web sites.

Source: CNET News.com, "Editorial layoffs hit Wired News," 07/26/05

WMDN ??? Jobs Cut The Meridian, Miss., station is "unable to negotiate a renewal" with Global Communications.
Source: TVJobs.com, "WMDN to Discontinue Newscasts," 07/01/05

Gruner + Jahr USA 75 Jobs Cut Employees are being let go as Meredith closes on its acquisition of four G+J magazines.
Source: New York Post, "G+J Cuts 75 Before Meredith Takeover," 06/30/05

TheStreet.com 40 Jobs Cut TheStreet.com is shutting down its stock research and brokerage services firm.
Source: TheStreet.com, "TheStreet.com Shutters Research Subsidiary," 06/28/05

Boston Herald ??? Jobs Cut Staffers are taking buyouts and being laid off at the struggling tabloid.
Source: Boston Globe, "Amid Cuts, Herald Loses Newsroom Veterans," 06/11/05

Gannett 14 Jobs Cut Gannett will shut down the struggling Green Bay News-Chronicle on June 3.
Source: Appleton Post Crescent, "Green Bay Newspaper Will Cease Publishing," 05/27/05

CBS News 50 Jobs Cut CBS News is canceling its news program "60 Minutes Wednesday."
Source: New York Daily News, "Viacom Execs' Pay Irks Shareholders," 05/27/05

Time Warner Cable 38 Jobs Cut Time Warner Cable is consolidating three New York 24-hour news outlets.
Source: Albany Times Union, "Time Warner Consolidating News Operations," 05/25/05

New York Times Co. 190 Jobs Cut The New York Times Co. plans to cut about 2% of its work force.
Source: Reuters, "New York Times Planning to Cut 190 Jobs," 05/25/05

Christian Science Monitor 10 to 15 Jobs Cut Due to a "reallocation of funds," the newspaper is cutting editorial positions.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, "Bergenheim Named New Editor of Monitor," 05/11/05

Sundance Channel 10 Jobs Cut Sundance Channel is restructuring in order to widen its programming focus.
Source: Mediaweek, "Sundance Shifts Focus; 10 Staffers Axed," 04/26/05

KDLH 36 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut after the sale of Duluth TV station KDLH to Malara Broadcast Group.
Source: Duluth News Tribune, "Former Staffers Face Life After KDLH," 03/12/05

WISE 50 Jobs Cut Indiana TV station WISE is merging newsrooms with another local station.
Source: Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, "WISE, WPTA Align; Pull Plug on 50 Jobs," 03/09/05

Discovery Networks 24 Jobs Cut Staffers are being let go in marketing and new media, in order to "create efficiencies."
Source: Multichannel News, "TLC GM Resigns; Discovery Lays Off 24," 01/27/05

Dow Jones & Co. 97 Jobs Cut Dow Jones is seeking "operational cost synergies" as it integrates MarketWatch.
Source: Dow Jones, "Dow Jones to Cut 97 Jobs Following MarketWatch Purchase," 01/26/05

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ??? Jobs Cut Management is consolidating offices and telling employees that layoffs are coming.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Shakeup at the Tribune-Review," 01/20/05

Seattle Times 90 to 110 Jobs Cut The planned job cuts are aimed at returning the newspaper to profitability.
Source: Seattle Times, "Seattle Times Plans to Cut Up to 110 Jobs," 01/14/05

E! Entertainment Television 5 Jobs Cut "E! News Live" will become a taped show and staffers are being let go.
Source: Variety, "'E! News' Drops an Anchor Amid Redo," 01/05/05

U.S. News & World Report ??? Jobs Cut In a round of cutbacks, employees are taking buyouts and exiting.
Source: New York Post, "Been There, Dunne That," 01/05/05

Durham Herald Sun 81 Jobs Cut Paxton's acquisition of the newspaper resulted in a restructuring and massive layoffs.
Source: Independent Weekly, "Black Monday at the Herald-Sun," 01/05/05

Silicon Valley Business Ink 20 Jobs Cut Silicon Valley publications Biz Ink and Valley Scene are going out of business.
Source: San Jose Mercury News, "Biz Ink Weekly, Valley Scene Run Out of Cash," 12/21/04

Primedia 20 Jobs Cut

Primedia's b-to-b publications are laying off senior managers.

Source: Folio:, "Primedia Business Lays Off 20," 12/10/04

America Online 750 Jobs Cut AOL is aggressively slashing costs to counter subscriber losses.
Source: Washington Post, "AOL Cuts 750 Jobs," 12/07/04

Hartford Courant 10 Jobs Cut The newspaper is cutting jobs, citing an ongoing budget crunch.
Source: WTNH.com, "Hartford Courant Eliminates 10 Newsroom Positions," 12/06/04

Texas Cable News 45 Jobs Cut Belo's Texas Cable News is dropping all original programming except weather.
Source: Dallas Morning News, "Belo Cuts TXCN's Staff, Production," 12/03/04

WBIX 15 Jobs Cut The Boston AM station is cutting most jobs after its owner was accused of embezzling.
Source: Boston Globe, "WBIX Lays Off Most Staff Members," 12/01/04

Newsday 100 Jobs Cut About 3% of Newday's work force will be cut following the paper's circulation scandal.
Source: Newsday, "Newsday to Cut Staff by 100," 11/12/04

Hachette Filipacchi 12 Jobs Cut Philip Morris' custom-published magazine Unlimited is closing down.
Source: New York Post, "Newsday to Cut Staff by 100," 11/10/04

Orlando Sentinel 20 Jobs Cut The paper is cutting positions across all departments, citing tough times.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Orlando Sentinel Cuts Staff," 11/09/04

Time Inc. ??? Jobs Cut Time Inc.'s Time4Media is shuttering Freeze and TransWorld BMX magazines.
Source: Advertising Age, "Time Inc. Shutters Two Youth-Oriented Sports Titles," 11/03/04

Clear Channel 100 Jobs Cut Clear Channel Entertainment is cutting jobs in a reorganization.
Source: Billboard/Reuters, "Clear Channel Unit Lays Off Staffers in Restructure," 11/01/04

Houston Chronicle 243 Jobs Cut The Houston Chronicle is cutting jobs to help reduce operating expenses.
Source: Houston Chronicle, "Houston Chronicle Cuts 10 Percent of Work Force," 10/26/04

Hoy About 20 Jobs Cut Tribune's Spanish-language daily newspaper is reducing its staff.
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel, "Tribune's Hoy Cutting its Staff by 20 Percent," 10/22/04

San Francisco Chronicle ??? Jobs Cut The paper is laying off staffers due to flat revenue and a difficult economy.
Source: San Francisco Business Times, "Chronicle to Lay Off 10 Percent," 10/20/04

Playboy 90 Jobs Cut Citing a sour economy, Playboy is cutting jobs, mostly in its online unit.
Source: Variety, "Playboy's Job Cuts Hit Online Unit Hard," 10/11/04

Belo 250 Jobs Cut In the aftermath of a circulation scandal, jobs will be cut at the Dallas Morning News.
Source: AP, "Belo to Cut 250 Jobs, Most at Dallas Paper," 09/29/04

Dennis Publishing 15 Jobs Cut The publisher is dismissing executives and editors to cut costs.
Source: New York Times, "Publisher of Men's Magazines Cuts 15 Officers and Editors," 09/25/04

LA.com ??? Jobs Cut The city guide run by Los Angeles Newspaper Group is restructuring.
Source: LAVoice.org, "LA.com Falls Short - Top Management Laid Off," 09/24/04

New York Times ??? Jobs Cut The New York Times Co. is shedding almost half of its pressmen.
Source: Dow Jones/Excite, "NY Times to Reduce Pressmen Staff, Limit Wage Increases," 09/13/04

Gruner + Jahr USA 80 Jobs Cut The publisher of Family Circle and other major magazines is cutting costs.
Source: New York Post, "G+J Boss Slashes 80 Jobs," 09/10/04

Time Warner Cable 40 to 50 Jobs Cut Time Warner Cable is consolidating certain operations in North Carolina.
Source: Charlotte Business Journal, "News 14 Cutting 40 to 50 Local Jobs," 08/13/04

Primedia 6 Jobs Cut Trade magazines Folio: and Circulation Management are part of a new joint venture.
Source: New York Post, "Primedia Offloads Two Trades," 08/13/04

Time Warner / Belo 190 Jobs Cut

Time Warner Cable and Belo are ending their joint venture in local cable news channels.
Source: AP, "Time Warner Cable, Belo Dissolve Venture," 07/23/04

Christian Science Monitor 21 Jobs Cut The newspaper has eliminated jobs since the start of 2004, in an effort to cut costs.
Source: Christian Science Monitor, "The Monitor's Path Ahead," 07/16/04

New York Sports Express ??? Jobs Cut The free weekly is being closed by parent New York Press Media.
Source: New York Post, "Express Stop: Publisher Kills Sports Weekly," 07/15/04

Reed Business Information 140 Jobs Cut The publisher of business titles such as Daily Variety is restructuring.
Source: Crain's New York Business, "Reed Business Cuts Staff," 07/08/04

Tribune 200+ Jobs Cut Due to a slowdown in ad revenue, Tribune says it will cut jobs at its 14 newspapers.
Source: AP/Yahoo! News, "Tribune Co. to Cut More Than 200 Jobs," 06/07/04

New York Press ??? Jobs Cut The owner of the weekly is combining office functions with a sister publication.
Source: New York Post, "Sixth Day of Journal Back on Drawing Board," 06/04/04

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia 40 Jobs Cut Martha Stewart's TV show is going on "hiatus," so the TV division is cutting jobs.
Source: BusinessWeek, "Martha Fades to Black," 05/18/04

NBC Universal 500 Jobs Cut The newly formed media giant will cut overlapping jobs over the next two years.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "New Day Dawns for NBC Universal," 05/16/04

TechTV 285 Jobs Cut Following its acquisition by Comcast, TechTV is cutting jobs in its San Francisco office.
Source: CNET News.com, "TechTV Lays Off San Francisco Staff," 05/06/04

Gruner + Jahr USA ??? Jobs Cut G+J USA's Fast Company and Inc. magazines are merging sales staffs.
Source: New York Post, "Ron Galotti is Exposed," 04/30/04

News World Communications 86 Jobs Cut The publishing arm of the Unification Church is closing two publications.
Source: New York Post, "Noticias to Close; Moonies Axing 86," 04/20/04

King County Journal 24 Jobs Cut The Bellevue, Wash., newspaper is laying off staffers and selling its headquarters.
Source: Seattle Times, "King County Journal Announces Cuts, Selling of Office," 03/24/04

World Press Review 15 Jobs Cut The magazine is shutting down because its charitable foundation has stopped funding.
Source: New York Post, "Kelly Gang Remembers Atlantic Editor Killed in Iraq," 03/17/04

HBO 12 Jobs Cut HBO is cutting jobs as part of a corporate streamlining begun last year.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "HBO Lays Off 12 for Restructuring," 03/04/04

WDSI 30 Jobs Cut The Fox affiliate in Chattanooga, Tenn., is shutting down its news department.
Source: Chattanoogan.com, "30-Member Fox61 News Team Laid Off," 02/27/04

Detroit Newspaper Agency 60 Jobs Cut The agency that serves the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News is cutting jobs.
Source: ClickonDetroit.com, "Detroit Newspaper Agency Announces Layoffs," 02/27/04

Cablevision 80 Jobs Cut Madison Square Garden is laying off staffers as part of cutbacks by Cablevision.
Source: New York Post, "Cablevision Axes 80 at MBG," 02/07/04

Tulsa World 38 Jobs Cut Hit by the economic downturn, the newspaper is reporting its first layoffs in 87 years.
Source: Associated Press, "Tulsa World Cuts 38 Newspaper Jobs," 01/29/04

Cablevision 71 Jobs Cut Cablevision is laying off staffers at its high-speed Internet access and telephone service.
Source: Newsday, "Cablevision Lays Off Dozens of Employees," 01/16/04

Newsday 26 Jobs Cut The newspaper is eliminating jobs outside the newsroom as part of an effort to cut costs.
Source: Newsday, "Newsday Announces Layoffs," 01/07/04

America Online 450 Jobs Cut AOL is consolidating its California operations and shuttering two offices.
Source: CNET News.com, "AOL Lays Off 450 Calif Employees," 12/09/03

Yolk ??? Jobs Cut

The magazine for Asian Americans is folding after 10 years of scrambling to stay alive.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "Pop Culture Asian American Magazine Falters," 12/08/03

Crain Communications 9 Jobs Cut Crain is merging its Modern Physician magazine into its Modern Healthcare title.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times, "Crain Ends Magazine That Targeted Doctors," 12/05/03

KRON 20 Jobs Cut The San Francisco station, which lost its NBC affiliation last year, is cutting newscasts.
Source: Contra Costa Times, "Yeh, 2 Newscasts Out at KRON," 12/04/03

San Francisco Examiner 14 Jobs Cut The family that owns the San Francisco Examiner and two other papers is making cuts.
Source: Associated Press, "San Francisco Examiner Fires More Staff, Hires New CFO," 12/03/03

Vanguarde Media 70 Jobs Cut The African-American magazines Savoy, Heart & Soul and Honey are folding.
Source: Advertising Age, "African-American Magazine Publisher Folds," 11/25/03

Discovery Communications 10 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut in new media in order to take advantage of "opportunities in broadband."
Source: Washington Post, "Discovery Lays Off 10 New-Media Employees," 11/20/03

Grace Magazine ??? Jobs Cut The fashion and lifestyle magazine for women size 12 and up is shutting down.
Source: Associated Press, "Grace Magazine Shuts After Investor Quits," 11/19/03

Boston Herald 19 Jobs Cut The job cuts include 12 full-time newsroom workers who accepted buyout packages.
Source: Boston Globe, "Herald Reports Staff Cutbacks; 19 Are Affected," 11/15/03

Random House 29 Jobs Cut The book publisher is cutting jobs in its New York City and Westminster, Md., offices.
Source: Publishers Weekly, "Random Cuts Jobs in Sales, Technical Staff," 11/10/03

Tribune-Review Publishing ??? Jobs Cut The newspaper publisher is cutting jobs at its six daily newspapers.
Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Staff at Newspapers Cut by 4%," 11/06/03

E! Networks 10 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut in news following a decision to trim "E! News Live" to a half hour.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "E! Halves 'Live,' Trims News Staff," 11/04/03

Associated Press 40 Jobs Cut Services and technology staffers are being let go due to reduced demand for tech support.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "AP Trims Technical Staff," 10/22/03

Book Magazine ??? Jobs Cut The title will cease publication because co-owner Barnes & Noble is withdrawing funding.
Source: New York Times, "Book Magazine Will Be Closed," 10/22/03

Time Inc. 20 Jobs Cut Time Inc. is cutting jobs at its magazine Web sites, mainly in IT and design.
Source: PaidContent.org, "Restructuring at Time Inc.," 10/01/03

Wall Street Journal 12 Jobs Cut The paper is planning to combine news desks in New York, Brussels and Hong Kong.
Source: Advertising Age, "WSJ Lays Off 12 Editors in Reorganization," 09/23/03

Reed Business Information 5 Jobs Cut Jobs are being cut at Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News magazines.
Source: BtoB, "More Jobs Cut at Reed TV Magazines," 09/23/03

Blink 102.7 20 Jobs Cut The New York radio station is dropping its news-and-gossip formula.
Source: TheStreet.com, "The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week," 09/19/03

Adweek Magazines 5 Jobs Cut Due to continuing softness in advertising, the trade publisher is reducing its staff.
Source: Mediaweek, "Adweek Magazines Announces Staff Reductions," 09/17/03

Simon & Schuster ??? Jobs Cut The book publisher is selling its interactive unit because it is "not a core operation."
Source: Publishers Weekly, "S&S Puts Interactive Unit Up For Sale, Lays Off Some Staff," 09/15/03

American Media 70 Jobs Cut The tabloid newspaper is making cutbacks due to a decline in newsstand sales.
Source: Associated Press, "Publisher American Media Inc. Lays Off About 70 Workers," 09/11/03

Biography Magazine ??? Jobs Cut A&E's magazine will cut its frequency and will no longer be available on the newsstand.
Source: Advertising Age, "Biography Magazine Drops from Newsstands," 09/04/03

NBC News About 15 Jobs Cut

"Dateline NBC" is being cut from three nights to two in the coming season, sources say.
Source: Television Week, "'Dateline' Cuts Staff," 08/28/03

WOTV 23 Jobs Cut Battle Creek, Mich.'s ABC affiliate is shutting down its news department.
Source: WOOD-TV, "LIN Television to Close WOTV Channel 41 News Department," 08/21/03

San Diego Union-Tribune 102 Jobs Cut The newspaper is cutting jobs in circulation as it plans to outsource customer service.
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune, "Union-Tribune to Trim 102 Jobs," 08/19/03

Rainbow Media 12 Jobs Cut Rainbow Media's on-demand video magazine service is firing its entire production staff.
Source: New York Post, "Cablevision Fires Total Staff at Unit," 08/07/03

WUTR ??? Jobs Cut The Utica, N.Y., Clear Channel TV station is shutting down its news operation.
Source: Utica Observer-Dispatch, "WUTR Ends Local Newscasts," 08/02/03

Comcast 7,000 Jobs Cut The cable-TV operator cut 7,000 jobs since since it acquired AT&T Broadband last year.
Source: Philadelphia Business Journal, "Comcast Job Cuts Were Bigger Than Anticipated," 07/31/03

Reader's Digest Association 580 Jobs Cut The publisher of Reader's Digest is posting a wider loss after restructuring charges.
Source: Reuters, "Reader's Digest Announces Loss, Cuts," 07/30/03

Hartford Courant 23 Jobs Cut The newspaper says it is continuing to struggle with a "significant decline" in revenue.
Source: Hartford Courant, "Courant Plans to Eliminate 23 Jobs," 07/29/03

Village Voice 6 Jobs Cut The New York City weekly is cutting jobs due to a "difficult business climate."
Source: Memos Sent to Romenesko, "Village Voice Layoffs, Resignations," 07/23/03

Simon & Schuster 75 Jobs Cut Viacom's book publishing unit plans to cut about 5% of its work force.
Source: New York Post, "Simon & Schuster to Cut Titles, Ax 5% of Staff," 07/22/03

KTKA 8 Jobs Cut The Topeka ABC station's "good news" show "just wasn't pulling down the ratings."
Source: Topeka Capital-Journal, "KTKA Ends 'Talk of the Town'," 07/18/03

WTVI 8 Jobs Cut Layoffs come in the wake of budget cuts at the Charlotte, N.C., PBS station.
Source: Charlotte Observer, "WTVI Cuts 8 Employees, 2 Shows and Magazine," 07/03/03

WTTW 2 Jobs Cut Two senior execs at the Chicago PBS station are being let go amid budget cutbacks.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times, "Cutback at Ch. 11 Throws Top Veeps Out the Window," 06/25/03

Comedy Central About 80 Jobs Cut Staffers are being let go as Viacom's latest acquisition is integrated into MTV Networks.
Source: Television Week, "Comedy Central Lays Off 20 Percent of Employees," 06/24/03

CMP Media ??? Jobs Cut The editorial staffs of EE Times and EBN are being combined, cutting a number of jobs.
Source: BtoB, "CMP's 'EE Times,' 'EBN' Combining Editorial Staffs," 06/24/03

Request Magazine ??? Jobs Cut Musicland's Request music magazine is being shut down.
Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Musicland Cuts 59 Jobs, Closes Request Magazine," 06/24/03

Tribune Star 13 Jobs Cut The Terre Haute newspaper plans to cut part-time jobs, including nine in the newsroom.
Source: Associated Press, "Terre Haute Newspaper Cutting Staff," 06/24/03

Country Music 2 Jobs Cut Two editors are said to be the only employees to lose jobs as the magazine is shut down.
Source: The Tennessean, "Country Music Ends 30-Year Run," 06/12/03

U.S. News & World Report 12 Jobs Cut Jobs are being cut in response to a sustained drop in advertising at all newsweeklies.
Source: Washington Post, "U.S. News Cuts 12 Jobs In Midst of Sales Slump," 06/11/03

Scholastic About 400 Jobs Cut The children's book publisher is cutting jobs due to industry and economic conditions.
Source: Dow Jones Newswires, "Scholastic Corp Cuts 4% From Work Force," 05/28/03

Country Living Gardener Less than 10 Jobs Cut Staffers are losing jobs as the Hearst title cuts its frequency from six times a year to four.
Source: Advertising Age, "Country Living Gardener Magazine Cuts Frequency," 05/22/03

WMHT 16 Jobs Cut

The Albany station is feeling the economic woes affecting public broadcasters nationwide.
Source: Albany Times Union, "Economy Forces Layoffs at WMHT," 05/22/03

South Carolina Educational Television 35 Jobs Cut Like other South Carolina agencies, SCETV is suffering from reductions in state funds.
Source: Associated Press, "SCETV Announces 35 Layoffs," 05/21/03

United Press International 16 Jobs Cut UPI says it is restructuring to focus on new and growing global markets.
Source: United Press International, "UPI Restructures, Lays Off 16," 05/16/03

Primedia 24 Jobs Cut Primedia is splitting up its Media Central unit of media-related trade publications.
Source: Advertising Age, "Primedia Dismantles Media Central Properties," 05/08/03

Showtime 70 Jobs Cut Showtime is cutting jobs after a "strategic review" turned up "opportunities to streamline."
Source: Variety, "Showtime Lays Off 70 Staff," 05/06/03

HBO 20 Jobs Cut Consolidation and the sluggish economy are blamed for job cuts in HBO affiliate sales.
Source: Multichannel News, "Layoffs Seen at HBO, Showtime," 05/05/03

Alameda Newspaper Group 49 Jobs Cut The publisher of the Oakland Tribune and other papers cites the economy for the layoffs.
Source: San Jose Mercury News, "Alameda Newspaper Group Lays off 49," 05/02/03

Central Maine Newspapers 18 Jobs Cut The publisher of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel is aiming to cut costs.
Source: Augusta Morning Sentinel, "Newspapers Lay Off 18 Employees," 04/29/03

Worth Media ??? Jobs Cut The firm planned to cut all jobs and rehire as needed, but suspended publication instead.
Source: Media Life, "Worth Magazine Halts Publication," 04/29/03

Travel Holiday 24 Jobs Cut Hachette is closing the 102-year-old travel magazine.
Source: Advertising Age, "Hachette Closes Travel Holiday," 04/23/03

WPGH 10 Jobs Cut Owner Sinclair is rolling out a centralized news operation for its local stations.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "WPGH Fires 10 in Sinclair Shake-Up," 04/22/03

SI.com 14 Jobs Cut Two months after CNNSI.com changed its name to SI.com, the Internet unit cut jobs.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "CNN/SI Remnant Sheds 14 Jobs in Two Months," 04/15/03

WGBH 25 Jobs Cut The Boston PBS station is letting go staffers in response to a reduction in funding.
Source: Boston Globe, "WGBH Staff Cut by 7 Percent," 04/12/03

Victoria ??? Jobs Cut The magazine is folding and its 30 staffers will be offered severance or new jobs at Hearst.
Source: Mediaweek, "Hearst Shutters Victoria," 04/07/03

Gear 15 Jobs Cut The men's magazine is cutting its staff as it prepares to suspend publication.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Guccione to Suspend Publication of Gear Magazine," 04/01/03

America Online 475 Jobs Cut Jobs are being cut at AOL call centers nationwide as part of a company reorganization.
Source: Associated Press, "AOL Cuts 170 Jobs in Utah Call Center," 03/28/03

R.H. Donnelley 190 Jobs Cut The leading phone book publisher is consolidating operations and shutting down a plant.
Source: Reuters, "Publisher R.H. Donnelley to Cut 190 Jobs," 03/26/03

VNU Business Media 37 Jobs Cut Point of Purchase magazine is closing and jobs will be cut from VNU's media trades.
Source: New York Post, "Dutch Publisher VNU Trims Staff at Trade Mags," 03/27/03

Natural Health 27 Jobs Cut American Media is preparing to reposition its newly acquired magazine.
Source: Advertising Age, "Staff Fired as Natural Health Gets New Look," 03/20/03

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia 40 Jobs Cut The company is eliminating 40 of the 90 jobs in its Internet division and other areas.
Source: Newsday, "Martha: It's the Media's Fault," 02/28/03

Red Herring 31 Jobs Cut The pioneering New Economy magazine is shutting down after 10 years of publication.
Source: Dow Jones Business News, "Publisher Decides to Close Red Herring Magazine," 02/28/03

CNNfn ??? Jobs Cut

CNN is trimming its New York-based workforce by less than 2 percent.

Source: Reuters, "CNNfn to Launch New Midday Personal Finance Show," 02/26/03

San Francisco Examiner 40 Jobs Cut The newspaper is laying off most of its staff it plans to become a free daily.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "Examiner Fires Most of Staff; Paper to Become Free Daily," 02/22/03

Reuters 3,000 Jobs Cut Reuters is planning massive job cuts as part of a three-year strategy to revive its fortunes.
Source: Reuters, "Reuters: Record Loss, to Cut 3,000 Jobs," 02/18/03

Christian Index ??? Jobs Cut The nation's oldest religious newspaper is cutting its staff by half.
Source: Savannah Morning News, "Georgia Baptist Newspaper Cuts Staff, Changes Focus," 02/07/03

Terra Lycos 147 Jobs Cut The Spanish Internet media company is cutting jobs in several U.S. offices.
Source: Reuters, "Terra Lycos Cuts More Than 20 Percent of U.S. Staff," 02/05/03

New Architect ??? Jobs Cut The final issue of CMP Media's monthly magazine for technology leaders is March 2003.
Source: New Architect, "New Architect Magazine Is No Longer Being Published," 02/03/03

NWCN 2 Jobs Cut The regional cable news channel is eliminating its entertainment coverage.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "The Ax Falls in NWCN Restructuring," 01/31/03

Weider Publications About 80 Jobs Cut New owner American Media is axing jobs in Weider's executive staff and Internet unit.
Source: New York Post, "Weeding Out Weider," 01/29/03

Federal Paper ??? Jobs Cut The weekly newspaper covering the executive branch is folding.
Source: Washington Business Journal, "Federal Paper Folds After Four Months," 01/28/03

Duluth News Tribune 8 Jobs Cut The daily newspaper missed its 2002 revenue goal by nearly $1 million.
Source: Duluth News Tribune, "News Tribune Cuts Eight Employees," 01/17/03

WTTW 23 Jobs Cut The public TV station reportedly faced a "near mutiny" after the job cuts were announced.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times, "Ch. 11 Bosses Feel Heat Over Firings, Budget Cuts," 01/16/03

CNet Networks 80 Jobs Cut The online tech news firm continues to be impacted by the slump in the tech industry.
Source: Associated Press, "Cnet Networks Lays Off 80 More Employees," 01/13/03

Voter News Service ??? Jobs Cut The election exit poll service is being dissolved and its staffers laid off.
Source: Washington Post, "Election Night Poll Service to Dissolve," 01/13/03

Harcourt "Hundreds" of Jobs Cut The textbook publisher is facing a "difficult business climate" and will cut jobs nationwide.
Source: Associated Press, "Job Cuts Loom at Publisher Harcourt," 01/09/03

KRON About 10 Jobs Cut A news anchor is among the staffers exiting in a shakeup at the San Francisco station.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "TV Station Restructuring Some Key Shows," 01/07/03

KSTC 27 Jobs Cut The 9 p.m. newscast on the Minneapolis-St. Paul station is being dropped.
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Hubbard Cancels Channel 45 Newscast at 9," 01/07/03

CNN ??? Jobs Cut Prominent anchors and correspondents are being laid off as the news network retools.
Source: New York Daily News, "CNN Sacks Big Names," 01/03/03

Clear Channel 5 Jobs Cut The radio giant is letting go the COO and public relations staff of its entertainment division.
Source: New York Post, "Clear Channel Conceals Layoffs of Some Top Execs," 12/27/02

New York Press 5 Jobs Cut The new owners of the free weekly are firing the editor and four other staffers.
Source: New York Times, "New York Press Sold To an Investor Group," 12/24/02

Contents ??? Jobs Cut The style/culture magazine is folding and staffers "are not getting a dime in severance."
Source: New York Post, "Hipster Movie Mag Comes to Scrooge Ending," 12/18/02

WBBM 10 Jobs Cut The Chicago TV station is letting go employees, including two executive producers.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "WBBM Fires 10," 12/13/02

America Online 300 Jobs Cut

AOL is beginning what is expected to be a wave of layoffs as it trims costs.

Source: Reuters, "AOL Confirms It Cut 300 Jobs," 12/12/02

Charter Communications ??? Jobs Cut The nation's third-largest cable TV operator is cutting a "significant" number of jobs.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "Charter to Slash Jobs in Wake of U.S. Probe," 12/11/02

Yahoo ??? Jobs Cut Employees in Yahoo's streaming-media division are being let go.
Source: CNET News.com, "Yahoo Reduces Enterprise Services Staff," 12/10/02

Black Entertainment Television 40 Jobs Cut The network is canceling two of its three news shows to make room for new programming.
Source: Maynard Institute, "BET Cancels 'BET Tonight,' 'Lead Story' in Revamping," 12/04/02

Reuters 300 Jobs Cut Reuters is axing jobs at its U.S. share trading subsidiary.
Source: MediaGuardian.co.uk, "300 Reuters Jobs to Go," 12/04/02

Ads.com 15 Jobs Cut The Web site offering access to 1,500 TV commercials is closing down.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Ads.com Start-Up Goes Out of Business," 12/03/02

Journal Newspapers ??? Jobs Cut The publisher laid off most of the reporters at its two editions in Maryland.
Source: Baltimore Sun [Fifth item], "Newspaper Lays Off Reporters at Two Editions," 12/03/02

Leader Publishing Group 3 Jobs Cut The Atlanta publisher is combining two of its small-business magazines.
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle, "Stand-Alone Business to Business Magazine Gone," 12/02/02

Berkeley Daily Planet ??? Jobs Cut The free Berkeley, Calif., tabloid, suffering from low advertising revenue, is shutting down.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "Berkeley Paper Ends Publication," 11/23/02

Playboy Enterprises 70 Jobs Cut Playboy is cutting jobs across its businesses, including the magazine.
Source: Crain's Chicago Business, "Playboy to Cut 8% of Staff, 25 in Chicago," 11/21/02

Casco Bay Weekly ??? Jobs Cut The Portland weekly is shutting down after losing money for most of its 14-year history.
Source: Associated Press, "Portland Weekly Newspaper Closes After 14 Years," 11/22/02

Electronic News ??? Jobs Cut The print edition will be shut down, but the publication will continue as a Web site.
Source: BtoB, "Reed Business Information Closes Print Edition of Electronic News," 11/20/02

America Online 90 Jobs Cut Staffers are being let go America Online's interactive marketing division.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "America Online Fires 90 People," 11/19/02

WKBD/WWJ ??? Jobs Cut Viacom is shutting down the news operations at its two Detroit TV stations.
Source: Detroit Free Press, "Viacom-WXYZ Deal Made to Cut Costs," 11/20/02

Reuters 210 Jobs Cut About 60 editorial jobs around the world and 150 non-news jobs in North America are cut.
Source: Associated Press, "Reuters Cuts About 60 Editorial Jobs," 11/15/02

VUNet USA 50 Jobs Cut Vivendi Universal is restructuring its online division, which includes RollingStone.com.
Source: Reuters, "Vivendi's VUNET USA Cuts 50 Staff in Restructuring," 11/14/02

XM Satellite Radio 80 Jobs Cut The leading provider of satellite radio programming is "burning $90 million a quarter."
Source: USA Today, "XM Satellite Radio Lays Off 80 Employees," 11/14/02

iVillage 30 Jobs Cut Hit by the ad slump, the women-focused Web site is cutting 10% of its staff.
Source: InternetNews.com, "Online Ad Slump Still Stymies iVillage," 11/13/02

National Geographic Channel About 20 Jobs Cut The hour-long "National Geographic Today" is being reduced to a 30-minute show.
Source: Washington Business Journal, "'National Geographic Today' Cuts Staff By a Third," 11/08/02

Pulse! 19 Jobs Cut Among other cost cuts, Tower Records is shutting down its entertainment magazine.
Source: Sacramento Business Journal, "Tower Cuts 82 Jobs, Closes Magazine," 11/07/02

American City Business Journals ??? Jobs Cut The publisher is closing two titles, Potomac Tech Journal and Front Range TechBiz.
Source: Washington Post, "Potomac Tech Journal Folds," 11/06/02

Business Week 21 Jobs Cut

The McGraw-Hill title is laying off staffers from both the magazine and its online unit.
Source: Mediaweek, "BusinessWeek Cuts Edit Staff," 11/05/02

Forbes About 25 Jobs Cut The business magazine is cutting jobs in its editorial, business and Web staffs.
Source: New York Daily News, "Time Inc. Bullish on Fitness, Biz 2.0," 11/05/02

Tech TV 19 Jobs Cut The tech cable channel will be closing bureaus in New York, Seattle and Silicon Valley.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Tech TV to Close Offices, Cut Jobs," 11/04/02

Dow Jones & Co. 230 Jobs Cut The publisher of the Wall Street Journal is cutting costs due to the advertising slump.
Source: Reuters, "Dow Jones to Cut 230 Jobs," 11/04/02

Washington Business Forward ??? Jobs Cut The struggling local tech title is letting go its six remaining staffers.
Source: Washington Post, "Magazine's Ink Running Out," 11/04/02

TerraLycos 174 Jobs Cut The Internet service is cutting content areas such as travel, health, fashion and careers.
Source: Boston Globe, "TerraLycos lays Off 174 Workers In U.S.," 10/24/02

Rosie Magazine 120 Jobs Cut Gruner + Jahr execs say that no new magazine will replace the soon-to-close title.
Source: New York Times, "Rosie, the Magazine, Lays Off Its Staff," 10/18/02

Sports Illustrated Women ??? Jobs Cut Time Inc. says it will try to find positions for the shuttered magazine's 45 employees.
Source: Press Release, "Time Inc. to Cease Publication of Sports Illustrated Women," 10/16/02

Orange County Register 35 Jobs Cut Under pressure to improve profits, the newspaper is eliminating jobs and will freeze wages.
Source: Associated Press, "Orange County Register to Cut Jobs," 10/15/02

Showtime Networks 25 Jobs Cut The Viacom-owned cable channel is letting employees go in programming and marketing.
Source: Variety, "Showtime Networks Cuts 25 Staffers," 10/13/02

Washington Techway 2 Jobs Cut A division of the Washington Post Co. is shutting down the local tech magazine.
Source: Washington Post, "Washington Techway Magazine To Fold," 10/12/02

Vivendi Universal "Hundreds" of Jobs Cut The job cuts in the New York office alone could number close to 200.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Strapped Vivendi Plans Job Cuts in Bid to Save," 10/11/02

MSNBC 8 Jobs Cut Four of the laid off staffers at the money-losing Microsoft-NBC venture are sports reporters.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "MSNBC Lays Off Eight From Editorial Staff," 10/11/02

National Public Radio 9 Jobs Cut "Flat to declining revenues" are blamed for NPR's latest layoffs.
Source: Washington Post, "NPR Taps Two New Hosts to Consider 'All Things'," 10/10/02

Crown Media Holdings 130 Jobs Cut The owner of the Hallmark Channel and other TV channels is cutting jobs to trim costs.
Source: Reuters, "Crown Media to Cut Jobs 30 Percent," 10/07/02

Mutual Funds ??? Jobs Cut Time Inc. says it will try to find positions for the shuttered magazine's 33 employees.
Source: New York Times, "As Ads Dwindle, Mutual Funds and Upside Magazines Close," 10/07/02

Upside 75 Jobs Cut One of longest-running chroniclers of the digital economy is closing.
Source: New York Times, "As Ads Dwindle, Mutual Funds and Upside Magazines Close," 10/07/02

Forbes ASAP About 8 Jobs Cut One of the first magazines to cover the Internet seriously is shutting down.
Source: New York Times, "Alt-Weekly Titans Swap Markets, Shutter Papers," 10/03/02

Cleveland Free Times / New Times Los Angeles About 160 Jobs Cut Both weekly newspapers are shutting down as part of a market-swap deal by their owners.
Source: New York Post, "Alt-Weekly Titans Swap Markets, Shutter Papers," 10/03/02

Conus Communications About 165 Jobs Cut The company is phasing out its satellite TV services and 24-hour All News Channel.
Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune, "TV Pioneer Conus, Hit By Industry Change, to Go Dark," 09/21/02

Oxygen Media 29 Jobs Cut The content company targeted toward women is cutting original content from its Web site.
Source: Associated Press, "Oxygen.com Plans to Cut 29 Jobs," 08/27/02

Maryland Public Television 32 Jobs Cut

Budget problems are compounded by a failure to draw sponsors for "Wall Street Week."
Source: Baltimore Sun, "MPT Slashing Staff, Salaries, Marketing as It Faces Shortfall," 08/24/02

CNN "Less that 10" Jobs Cut The cable news channel is going to shorten its commercial-free "CNN Student News."
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "CNN Student News Show Being Shortened, Jobs Cut," 08/09/02

Dow Jones & Co. 165 Jobs Cut The publisher says that its staff reduction will be complete by the end of the third quarter.
Source: Crain's New York Business, "Dow Jones Broadens Staff Reduction Plan," 08/09/02

Cablevision ??? Jobs Cut The cable TV company is laying off 7 percent of its staff, among other cost-cutting moves.
Source: Reuters, "Cablevision to Sell Clearview, Cut Jobs," 08/08/02

CMP Media 100 Jobs Cut The publisher of Information Week and other tech titles is making staff cuts.
Source: O'Dwyer's PR Daily, "PR Newswire and CMP Media to Cut Staffers," 08/07/02

Red Herring About 33 Jobs Cut The tech magazine is experiencing its third round of layoffs in the past 12 months.
Source: CNET News.com, "Red Herring Cuts 35 Percent of Staff," 08/06/02

ON24 15 Jobs Cut The streaming media provider is discontinuing its production of original financial news.
Source: CNET News.com, "ON24 Shutters News Unit," 08/02/02

Clear Channel 630 Jobs Cut The company is cutting staffers as a result of its merger restructurings.
Source: Dow Jones Newswires, "Clear Channel Cut 630 Workers In Restructuring on June 30," 08/01/02

Vivendi Universal About 12 Jobs Cut The media giant is planning more job cuts in New York after cutting jobs in recent months.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Vivendi May Cut Staff In Paris and New York," 07/29/02

Gruner + Jahr USA About 24 Jobs Cut The Business Innovator Group, which has laid off staffers since January, is folding.
Source: Mediaweek, "Scott Crystal Out as Head of G+J Business Group," 07/22/02

Burly Bear 60 Jobs Cut The cable TV and new-media company aimed at teens will cease operations.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "Cold Snap Puts Burly Bear Into Permanent Hibernation," 07/09/02

Enews.com About 40 Jobs Cut The leading online retailer of magazine subscriptions is shutting down.
Source: Washington Post, "Enews Joins Ranks of Shuttered E-tailers," 07/08/02

Yahoo! Internet Life 35 Jobs Cut Ziff Davis Media is closing down the Net culture magazine after the August issue.
Source: CNET News.com, "Ziff Davis' Yahoo Internet Life to Fold," 07/02/02

CNet Networks About 190 Jobs Cut The online tech news firm is suffering from the downturn in online advertising.
Source: Reuters, "Cnet Says It Will Cut 10 Percent of Its Work Force," 06/27/02

Yahoo! "Less Than 30" Jobs Cut The money-losing Yahoo FinanceVision and Yahoo Radio will be shut down.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Yahoo Plans to Shut Down Some Broadcast Services," 06/26/02

Reuters 650 Jobs Cut The latest round of job cuts at Reuters will impact senior and middle management.
Source: Financial Times, "Reuters to Cut 650 Senior Management Jobs," 06/20/02

Grid 8 Jobs Cut Reed Elsevier is shutting down the three and a half year old real estate magazine.
Source: New York Post, "Grid's the First Victim at Reed," 06/15/02

Hughes Communications 47 Jobs Cut The Rockford, Ill., trade magazine publisher is shutting down.
Source: Rockford Register Star, "Downtown Magazine Publisher Folds," 06/15/02

KERA 36 Jobs Cut The Dallas-Fort Worth public broadcaster is falling $2 million short of its operating budget.
Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "KERA Slashes Work Force," 06/14/02

CMP Media 30 Jobs Cut The tech trade publisher is laying off more employees and repositioning some of its titles.
Source: Newsday, "CMP Cuts 30 in New Set of Layoffs," 06/11/02

Horvitz Newspapers ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut "A few" out of 300 staffers could be let go due to a merger of two Seattle suburban papers.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Publisher to Merge Eastside, South County Papers," 06/06/02

WTTW 15 Jobs Cut

Employees in several departments are being let go at the Chicago public TV station.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times, "Ch. 11 Fires 15 Staffers to Help Balance Budget," 06/04/02

Eagle-Tribune Publishing 47 Jobs Cut The buyer of Dow Jones' Essex County newspaper group is making staff cuts.
Source: Boston Herald, "Buyers of N. Shore Papers Ax Top Editors," 05/30/02

NewsChannel 8 30 Jobs Cut Staffers will be let go as the D.C. cable news channel merges with ABC affiliate WJLA-TV.
Source: Washington Times, "Channel to Cut 30 in WJLA Merger," 05/30/02

The Net Economy ??? Jobs Cut The May 20 issue is the final edition of the Ziff Davis magazine.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "Ziff's TNE Merges With America's Network," 05/24/02

America Online 120 Jobs Cut Employees in the interactive marketing department are being let go, sources say.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "America Online Lays Off 120 People," 05/20/02

Newsbytes 5 Jobs Cut Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive's Newsbytes and Washtech.com will be combined.
Source: Washington Post, "Post Unit Combines Tech News Operations," 05/17/02

UPN 50 Jobs Cut Citing plans to integrate UPN with CBS operations, Viacom will eliminate jobs.
Source: Dow Jones Newswires, "Viacom Plans to Cut 50 Positions at Three UPN Offices," 05/14/02

Ziff Davis Smart Business 30 Jobs Cut Ziff Davis is folding the business technology magazine.
Source: Mediaweek, "Ziff Davis Folds Smart Business," 05/14/02

Harvard Business School Publishing 14 Jobs Cut The publisher of the Harvard Business Review is making "painful but necessary" staff cuts.
Source: Boston Globe, "Harvard Publishing Division Fires 14," 05/14/02

Maine Times ??? Jobs Cut The environmentally focused alternative weekly is shutting down.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Maine Times Still Kicking ... The Bucket," 05/07/02

Dow Jones & Co. About 100 Jobs Cut Another round of job cuts is expected to trim less than 1% of Dow Jones' 8,000+ payroll.
Source: New York Daily News, "New Set of Job Cuts At WSJ," 05/01/02

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 17 Jobs Cut The newspaper is cutting 15 full-time and two part-time jobs to counter lower ad revenue.
Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, "Newspaper Cuts 17 Jobs," 04/25/02

Us Weekly 8 Jobs Cut New editor Bonnie Fuller is laying off staffers, but is looking to fill some of the positions.
Source: CNET News.com, "Us Weekly Makes Editorial Cuts," 04/24/02

TechTV 50 Jobs Cut The on-air and online network is drastically cutting its live broadcasts.
Source: CNET News.com, "TechTV Lays Off 50, Shuffles Programming," 04/24/02

Microsoft / UltimateTV 200 Jobs To Be Cut Microsoft and its now-shuttered UltimateTV unit may lay off a total of about 200 staffers.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Microsoft Rethinks Interactive TV," 04/24/02

Beliefnet.com 14 Jobs Cut The religion and spirituality Web site and newsletter publisher is filing for Chapter 11.
Source: New York Daily News, "Web Is No Haven For Spiritual Site," 04/23/02

Reuters 300 Jobs Cut The latest round of layoffs will bring the company's total number of staff cuts to 2,100.
Source: Associated Press, "Reuters Announces 300 New Job Cuts," 04/22/02

Bicycling 3 Jobs Cut Rodale is consolidating certain functions of Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines.
Source: Bicycle Retailer, "Rodale Consolidates, Closes Costa Mesa Offices," 04/19/02

Reader's Digest Association 100 Jobs Cut The publisher plans to cut a catalog unit, exit the video business and consolidate units.
Source: Reuters, "Reader's Digest to Cut Jobs, Exit Video Business," 04/18/02

Sports Afield ??? Jobs Cut The 115-year-old outdoor magazine will cease publication with its June issue.
Source: Associated Press, "Sports Afield to Cease Publication," 04/17/02

Canoe/Netgraphe 67 Jobs Cut The parent company of Canadian news site Canoe is cutting staff by more than one-third.
Source: Canadian Press, "Canoe, Netgraphe Cut 67 Jobs," 04/16/02

National Public Radio 47 Jobs Cut

Staffers that are being let go can reapply for 31 new jobs within the reorganized network.
Source: Washington Post, "At NPR, A Sudden Shift In Culture," 04/12/02

KTKA ??? Jobs Cut Topeka's ABC affiliate is planning to terminate its three nightly local newscasts.
Source: Topeka Capital-Journal, "Channel 49 to Eliminate News," 04/11/02

CNN-SI About 130 Jobs Cut Turner Sports says May 15 is the date that the struggling sports network will go off the air.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "CNN-SI Going Off the Air May 15," 04/05/02

General Media 39 Jobs Cut The publisher of Penthouse reveals it let go of staffers in February.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Auditor of Penthouse Publisher Expresses Doubt About Future," 03/30/02

Primedia 65 Jobs Cut Staffers are let go at the b-to-b magazines and the Media Central properties.
Source: Advertising Age, "Primedia Lays Off 65 Staffers," 03/28/02

Tribune Media Services 12 Jobs Cut The Los Angeles Times Syndicate's New York and Salt Lake City offices are closing.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Tribune Media Services To Close 2 Offices," 03/28/02

WBKP 15 Jobs Cut The ABC affiliate in Calumet, Mich., is shutting down its news department.
Source: WBKP-Press Release, "ABC News 10 WBKP/WBUP," 03/28/02

TechTV ??? Jobs Cut The tech network is canceling two shows and axing the shows' staffers.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "TechTV Makes More Changes," 03/27/02

Oxygen Media 20 Jobs Cut The women-focused media company is letting go staffers in its sports department.
Source: Variety, "Low Ratings Lead Oxygen to Cut Events, Staff," 03/26/02

MSNBC About 25 Jobs Cut The cable news channel is cutting its documentary unit as it shifts its focus to live shows.
Source: Reuters, "MSNBC TV Cuts Documentary Unit," 03/25/02

Newspaper Association of America 15-20 Jobs To Be Cut A slide in non-dues revenue is forcing the newspaper trade group to make staff cuts.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "NAA To Cut Workforce By 10%-12%," 03/22/02

Lonely Planet 75 Jobs Cut The guidebook publisher is letting go editors, designers and other staffers.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "Lonely Planet Cuts 15% of Staff After Travel Slump," 03/21/02

Tribune ??? Jobs To Be Cut More staff cuts are expected in Tribune's publishing division.
Source: Reuters, "Tribune Reiterates Q1, Full-Year Outlook," 03/18/02

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia 40 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut in the Internet/direct commerce division as part of an "overall reorganization."
Source: New York Post, "Martha Carve-Up," 03/15/02

East 26 Jobs Cut The magazine for English-speaking Asians is shutting down.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Magazine Stops Publishing As Revenue Heads South," 03/15/02

Dog World 4 Jobs Cut New York staffers are shed after the magazine is purchased and relocated to Irvine, Calif.
Source: New York Post, "Rodale Move Is Not Organic," 03/13/02

Casco Bay Weekly 4 Jobs Cut The Portland, Maine, weekly fired most of its staff in a dispute over cutting costs.
Source: Portland Press Herald, "Losing Money, Owner Fires Staff at Casco Bay Weekly," 03/07/02

New Choices 14 Jobs Cut The Reader's Digest magazine for baby boomers will cease publication.
Source: Advertising Age, "Reader's Digest Folds Baby Boomer Title," 03/06/02

Pioneer Press 8 Jobs Cut The chain of Chicago-area weeklies is laying off both journalists and business staffers.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Pioneer Press Chain Lays Off 8," 03/04/02

Teen About 40 Jobs Cut Primedia is suspending publication of Teen magazine.

Source: Advertising Age, "Primedia Suspends Publication of Teen," 03/01/02

Atlanta Journal-Constitution 42 Jobs Cut Part-time truck drivers' jobs are cut after the elimination of the afternoon newspaper.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "AJC Cuts 42 Part-Time Drivers' Jobs," 02/28/02

Pacifica Radio 9 Jobs Cut

The non-commercial broadcaster is dismissing its national news staff.

Source: Washington Post, "Pacifica Fires 9, Drops National News Show," 02/16/02

Reuters 200 Jobs Cut The latest round of layoffs adds to the 1,600 job cuts announced last year.
Source: Associated Press, "Reuters Sheds Another 200 Jobs as 2001 Pretax Profits Fall," 02/12/02

Manhattan Style ??? Jobs Cut The city magazine is shutting down after publishing a mere five issues.
Source: New York Post, "Manhattan Style Folds After 5 Issues," 02/12/02

Advance Magazine Publishers ??? Jobs Cut The magazine group is cutting 20 percent of its human resources departments.
Source: Mediaweek, "Advance Cuts 20 Percent of HR Dept.," 02/07/02

Simon & Schuster 20 Jobs Cut The layoffs include editorial, sales and administrative employees.
Source: New York Times, "Simon & Schuster Says It Laid Off 20 Workers," 02/07/02

Oxygen Media 24 Jobs Cut The cable network for women is reorganizing the newsmagazine show "Pure Oxygen."
Source: Crain's New York Business, "Oxygen Media Cuts," 02/05/02

Associated Press 21 Jobs Cut Administrative positions are being eliminated as part of a restructuring effort.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Associated Press Cuts 21 Jobs," 02/04/02

Jersey Journal About 45 Jobs Cut Unions agree to cut jobs to allow the Jersey Journal to continue publishing.
Source: Newark Star-Ledger, "Tentative Pact Spares the Jersey Journal," 02/02/02

Dennis Interactive 5 Jobs Cut Fifteen staffers remain at Dennis Publishing's interactive unit to wrap up current projects.
Source: Adweek, Dennis Interactive Winds Down Operations," 01/31/02

CitySearch 111 Jobs Cut Losses at the ad-supported community information network are leading to layoffs.
Source: Digital Coast Reporter Daily, "Ticketmaster Earnings Stay Constant," 01/30/02

UPN About 22 Jobs Cut Layoffs are beginning as CBS assumes oversight of UPN.
Source: Variety, "UPN to Lay Off 20% of Staff," 01/30/02

Tribune Co. 22 Jobs Cut Cost-cutting efforts will cut jobs at the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Direct Marketing.
Source: Chicago Tribune, "Tribune Units Lay Off 22," 01/30/02

Zoetrope: All Story 4 Jobs Cut Francis Ford Coppola's magazine is laying off staffers as it relocates to San Francisco.
Source: New York Post, "Zoetrope Going to Frisco," 01/30/02

Reuters ??? Jobs Cut A relocation of back-office functions will lead to "the inevitable loss of jobs."
Source: Newsday, "Symbol, Reuters Trimming Hundreds from LI Payrolls," 01/25/02

Kansas City Star 50 Jobs Cut The newspaper already cut 176 jobs in the last 14 months.
Source: Kansas City Star, "The Star Will Cut 50 More Positions," 01/24/02

STLtoday.com 15 Jobs Cut Owner Pulitzer is considering ways to change the site so it produces more revenue.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "STLtoday.com Chief Resigns; Site Lays Off 15," 01/22/02

UltimateTV More than 150 Jobs Cut A reorganization will eliminate Microsoft's troubled UltimateTV division in Silicon Valley.
Source: San Jose Mercury News, "Microsoft Cuts Jobs in TV Unit," 01/21/02

Talk Magazine About 100 Jobs Cut The high-profile Hearst-Miramax magazine is folding.
Source: Washington Post, "Tina Brown's Talk Magazine Suddenly Silenced," 01/19/02

HomeTown Newspapers ??? Jobs Cut The company is shutting down newspapers in Michigan and Ohio.
Source: Daily Press & Argus, "Newspaper Cuts Several Products," 01/18/02

Fox Sports Net 81 Jobs Cut "National Sports Report" and six editions of "Regional Sports Report" are being canceled.
Source: Associated Press, "Fox Sports Net Overhauls Business," 01/16/02

Add Inc. 60 Jobs Cut The Journal Communications subsidiary is closing weeklies in Wisconsin.
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Appleton-Area Newspapers Close," 01/16/02

WKPT / WAPK 5 Jobs Cut

The two Tennessee stations will stop producing local newscasts.

Source: Associated Press, "Two Tenn TV Stations to End Newscast," 01/15/02

Hearst Interactive About 12 Jobs Cut Hearst's interactive operations are reportedly being shuffled back into magazines.
Source: New York Post, "Sikes Out @ Hearst," 01/11/02

Internet Week ??? Jobs Cut The CMP Media magazine is the latest tech title to shut down.
Source: CNET News.com, "Internet Week Halts Publication," 01/10/02

CNN-Sports Illustrated ??? Jobs To Be Cut CNN is replacing CNN-SI with a new sports network later this year.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Job Cuts Expected at CNN Sports Unit," 01/10/02

ABC Family About 300 Jobs To Be Cut Disney plans to cut about half the staff at its recently acquired channel.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "Disney to Trim Half of Staff at ABC Family," 01/10/02

Forrester Research 126 Jobs Cut The market research firm is cutting jobs as the tech industry malaise lingers.
Source: Internet.com, "Forrester Lays Off 22 Percent," 01/10/02

HomeStyle 34 Jobs Cut Gruner + Jahr is folding the home-and-design magazine.

Source: Mediaweek, "G+J Closes HomeStyle," 01/09/02

King World Productions About 12 Jobs Cut The Viacom-owned TV program syndicator is letting go staffers across the company.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "Layoffs Strike King World," 01/08/02

Daily Camera 17 Jobs Cut The Boulder, Colo., newspaper and a sibling semi-weekly are eliminating jobs.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "'Daily Camera' Cuts 17 Jobs," 01/07/02

Home Shopping Network 115 Jobs Cut The shopping channel says it is "restructuring and consolidating."
Source: Electronic Media, "Home Shopping Cuts 115 Positions," 01/03/02

Omaha World-Herald 40 Jobs Cut The newspaper says the economic slowdown forced it to make job cuts.
Source: Omaha World-Herald, "World-Herald Trims 40 Jobs, Blames Economic Slowdown," 01/03/02

WXLV 35 Jobs Cut Sinclair's ABC affiliate in Winston-Salem, N.C., is cutting its two nightly newscasts.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "More Layoffs at Sinclair," 01/02/02

Cablevision 600 Jobs Cut The multiple system cable operator is cutting jobs throughout the company.
Source: Electronic Media, "Cablevision Cuts 600 Jobs," 12/28/01

New York Daily News 2 Jobs Cut The newspaper is letting go a deputy features editor and a TV critic to cut costs.
Source: New York Post, "Putting Talk in the Black," 12/19/01

Random House About 9 Jobs Cut More layoffs are expected at the largest publisher of general-interest books.
Source: New York Times, "Random House Begins Layoffs," 12/19/01

AdCritic.com ??? Jobs Cut The Web-based aggregator of TV and radio commercials is shutting down.
Source: CNET News.com, "Popularity Forces Adcritic Shutdown," 12/18/01

Drkoop.com ??? Jobs Cut Online health information provider Dr. Koop LifeCare says it will cease operations.
Source: Reuters, "Dr. Koop LifeCare Unplugs Life Support," 12/16/01

Baltimore Sun 140 Jobs Cut Nearly all departments at the newspaper will be affected by job cuts.
Source: Associated Press, "Baltimore's The Sun to Cut 140 Jobs," 12/14/01

The New Republic 9 Jobs Cut The magazine is letting go its entire online, circulation and consumer marketing staffs.
Source: Washington Post, "The Reliable Source," 12/14/01

Manhattan File ??? Jobs Cut The New York social-scene magazine is shutting down.
Source: New York Daily News, "People Mag's Losing Its Luster," 12/14/01

McGraw-Hill Companies 925 Jobs Cut The parent company of Business Week is cutting jobs as part of a restructuring effort.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "McGraw-Hill Cuts 925 Jobs, Revamps," 12/12/01

Octopus ??? Jobs Cut

The Marc Andreessen-backed Web content aggregator is shutting down.

Source: New York Post, "Octopus Is Caught In 'Net; Dies," 12/13/01

MightyWords 23 Jobs Cut The e-publishing venture will cease operations in January.
Source: Associated Press, "Online Publisher Closing," 12/12/01

Viacom ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Layoffs are likely as Viacom consolidates UPN and CBS.
Source: Financial Times, "Viacom Set To Combine CBS and UPN," 12/10/01

CNN 30 Jobs Cut Four shows are canceled and staffers including Roger Cossack and Joie Chen are leaving.
Source: Multichannel News, "CNN Cuts 30 Jobs," 12/07/01

TNT 24 Jobs Cut Employees are let go as the original programming division is folded.
Source: Multichannel News, "TNT Originals Division Downsized," 12/07/01

IPC Media 118 Jobs Cut AOL TW's U.K. magazine publisher is cutting more jobs and may close more titles.
Source: MediaGuardian.co.uk, "IPC Announces Fresh Round of Job Cuts," 12/06/01

AOL Time Warner Up to 1,500 Jobs May Be Cut A restructuring effort could result in job cuts at CNN, Time Warner Cable and elsewhere.
Source: New York Post, "Up to 1,500 More Workers to Face AOL Ax," 12/06/01

Time Warner Trade Publishing 29 Jobs Cut Electronic publisher iPublish.com is shutting down.
Source: Wired News, "IPublish.com: The Latest to Bomb," 12/04/01

Vivendi Universal About 130 Jobs Cut Jobs will be trimmed in a restructuring of the company's U.S.-based online assets.
Source: Variety, "Vivendi Universal Cuts Staff in Net Revamp," 12/04/01

MSNBC.com About 18 Jobs Cut The Microsoft-NBC Internet news unit is laying off 9 percent of its roughly 200 staffers.
Source: Reuters, "MSNBC.com Tightens Purse Strings," 12/03/01

Webnoize ??? Jobs Cut The music news site will "temporarily stop publishing" and is said to be laying off workers.
Source: InternetNews.com, "Will Webnoize Go Quiet?," 12/03/01

Providence Journal 90 Jobs Cut The Belo newspaper is eliminating positions through a voluntary buyout program.
Source: Reuters, "Providence Journal To Cut 90 Jobs Through Buyouts," 11/30/01

Time Inc. ??? Jobs Cut Three magazines are reportedly shutting down: On, Asiaweek and Family Life
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Time Inc. Plans To Shut Down On Magazine, Two Other Titles," 11/28/01

Reuters 45 Jobs Cut Reuters Financial Television, a video feed for traders, is closing down.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "45 Jobs Cut As Reuters Shuts Finance TV Unit," 11/29/01

San Francisco Chronicle About 220 Jobs Cut More than 100 layoffs are expected; the other job cuts will come from employee buyouts.
Source: SF Gate, "Chronicle Announces Staff Cuts," 11/27/01

Chicago Sun-Times 5 Jobs Cut The newspaper is cutting jobs the day before stalled contract negotiations are to resume.
Source: Chicago Tribune, "Sun-Times to Trim 5 Editorial Positions," 11/27/01

CMP Media About 500 Jobs Cut Insiders estimate the company's total number of layoffs this year to be nearly 500.
Source: Newsday, "CMP Freezes Salaries," 11/21/01

Individual Investor ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Layoffs are expected as Individual Investor's online content merges into Investools.com.
Source: New York Post, "Individual Investor Set To Shut Down," 11/20/01

TechTV 130 Jobs Cut The tech TV channel is laying off 25 percent of its staff.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "TechTV Lays Off 130 Workers," 11/19/01

Red Herring 38 Jobs Cut The tech magazine is retreating from the slumping corporate conference business.
Source: Reuters, "Red Herring Drops 27 Percent of Staff," 11/16/01

Hamptons Country 1 Job Cut The lifestyle magazine is suspending publication.

Source: New York Post, "Hamptons Mag Folds, New One To Start," 11/16/01

Yahoo! 400 Jobs To Be Cut

Plans for a long-expected corporate restructuring are announced.

Source: CNET News.com, "Yahoo to Clip Divisions, Lay Off 400," 11/15/01

AOL Time Warner ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut The media giant hints in public filings that it may make additional cuts.
Source: Washington Post, "More Cuts, Restructuring Likely at AOL," 11/15/01

Dow Jones & Co. 5 Jobs Cut Among other cuts, bureaus for The Wall Street Journal Europe will be closed.
Source: Associated Press, "Dow Jones Eliminating 5 Reporting Jobs," 11/15/01

iVillage About 50 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut as part of a streamlining after iVillage's acquisition of Women.com.
Source: Reuters, "iVillage Cuts Staff, Lowers Outlook," 11/14/01

"60 Minutes" ??? Jobs Cut Some of the handful of producers cut from the show may be reassigned at CBS News.
Source: New York Times, "CBS News Asks '60 Minutes' to Cut Back on Producers," 11/12/01

Wenner Media 11 Jobs Cut The magazine publisher is holding its fourth round of cutbacks this year.
Source: New York Post, "Wenner Still Downsizing; Trimming Stone," 11/12/01

Ms. Magazine About 18 Jobs Cut New York staffers are let go as the title relocates to Los Angeles under new ownership.
Source: Newsweek, "Thirty Years, Nine Lives," 11/10/01

Honolulu Star-Bulletin 20 Jobs Cut The newspaper will lay off about 4 percent of its 500-person work force.
Source: KITV, "Star-Bulletin Laying Off 20 Staffers," 11/09/01

E! Entertainment Television About 40 Jobs Cut The network is cutting 9 percent of its staff in a corporate restructuring.
Source: Multichannel News, "E!, Discovery Slash Jobs," 11/09/01

Discovery Communications About 50 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut as part of a restructuring in consumer products and corporate operations.
Source: Multichannel News, "E!, Discovery Slash Jobs," 11/09/01

WWF 39 Jobs Cut The producer of "Smackdown" and other pro wrestling shows is reorganizing.
Source: Financial Times, "WWF Says 9% of Staff to Hit the Canvas," 11/09/01

AOL Time Warner 20 Jobs Cut The company's online unit is laying off employees in its Interactive Marketing Group.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "AOL TW Cuts 20 Workers in Web Marketing Division," 11/09/01

BusinessWeek 39 Jobs Cut Among other cuts, the magazine's Small Biz supplement is closing.
Source: New York Post, "Axe Falls Again at Business Week," 11/08/01

Talk Magazine 4 Jobs Cut Contracts of writers and editors are not being renewed in order to save money.
Source: New York Observer, "Wall St. Journal Is Hometown Paper of South Brunswick," 11/07/01

Cox Interactive Media ??? Jobs Cut Cox Interactive is shutting down its LAinsider.com, a Los Angeles entertainment guide.
Source: New York Post, "LAinsider Out of the Loop," 11/07/01

Philadelphia Inquirer About 50 Jobs Cut Editor Robert J. Rosenthal is resigning amid mandated staff cutbacks.
Source: Associated Press, "Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Resigns," 11/06/01

Conde Nast 25 Jobs Cut The magazine publisher's Internet arm is letting go 22 percent of its staff.
Source: Advertising Age, "CondeNet Lays Off 22% of Workforce," 11/06/01

Walt Disney Internet Group About 125 Jobs Cut The job cuts include about 25 employees at ABCNews.com.
Source: CNET News.com, "Disney Cuts Back Online Staff," 11/06/01

PBS About 56 Jobs Cut As part of a restructuring, PBS is eliminating 10 percent of its 565-person work force.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "PBS Unveils Job Cutbacks," 11/05/01

Ziff Davis Media 75 Jobs Cut Interactive Week will fold into eWeek and Smart Partner will cease publication.
Source: TheDeal.com, "Ziff Davis Merges Two Titles, Kills Third," 11/05/01

Seattle Times 4 Jobs Cut The newspaper is eliminating positions in its suburban photography group.
Source: Puget Sound Business Journal, "Seattle Times Trims Further," 11/02/01

Spokesman-Review 20 Jobs Cut

Fourteen of the laid-off employees are in the Cowles paper's newsroom.

Source: Associated Press, "Spokesman-Review Cutting 20 More Jobs," 11/01/01

MH-18 ??? Jobs Cut Rodale is closing its Men's Health spin-off magazine for teens.
Source: New York Post, "Rodale Closes the Book," 11/01/01

Dallas Morning News 73 Jobs Cut Seventeen of the laid-off employees are in the Belo paper's newsroom.
Source: Dallas Observer, "Buzz," 11/01/01

TiVo 40 Jobs Cut The digital video-recorder service lets go of staffers as it opens a licensing unit.
Source: CNET News.com, "TiVo Lays Off 40, Creates New Unit," 10/31/01

Radio Free Virgin 11 Jobs Cut Richard Branson's L.A.-based Net radio service is cutting its staff nearly in half.
Source: CNET News.com, "Radio Free Virgin Slims Down," 10/31/01

CNBC About 15 Jobs May Be Cut Insiders say CNBC will lay off about staffers in the next two weeks.
Source: Reuters/Variety, "Layoffs Hit CNBC, MSNBC," 10/31/01

KSTP/KSTC About 24 Jobs Cut The Minneapolis TV stations are cutting newscasts in an effort to save money.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "Minneapolis Duopoly Cuts Staff," 10/30/01

MTV Networks About 450 Jobs Cut A major restructuring program will impact VH-1, Nickelodeon and other networks.
Source: Financial Times, "MTV Cuts Jobs In First Restructuring for a Decade," 10/29/01

Conde Nast 9 Jobs Cut The magazine publisher is laying off employees in its database operations.
Source: Advertising Age, "Conde Nast Cuts Staff, Plans to Sublease Space," 10/29/01

WWOR 9 Jobs Cut Staffers are let go as Fox's two New York TV stations combine operations.
Source: New York Daily News, "UPN9 Cuts Staff as It Consolidates With Fox 5," 10/27/01

Jupiter Media Metrix/NetRatings ??? Jobs To Be Cut NetRatings' purchase of Jupiter Media Metrix will result in layoffs, says a spokesperson.
Source: Newsbytes, "Layoffs Likely In NetRatings, Jupiter Merger," 10/26/01

Clear Channel "Dozens" of Jobs To Be Cut The radio giant is dismantling its Internet division.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "Clear Channel to Take Apart Internet Division," 10/26/01

National Association of Television Program Executives About 6 Jobs Cut Cancellations for NATPE's upcoming conference are hitting the group hard.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "Syndie Flight from Confab Leads to NATPE Staff Cuts," 10/26/01

Cox Interactive Media 70 Jobs Cut The operator of 22 Web sites across the country is blaming the weak ad market.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Cox Interactive Media to Cut 70 Jobs," 10/24/01

Advertising Age 3 Jobs Cut The media trade publication is forced to let go of three editors.
Source: New York Post, "Martha Does Europe," 10/24/01

Business Forward Media 4 Jobs Cut Boston Business Forward magazine is shutting down after just four issues.
Source: Washington Post, "Business Forward Media Shuts Boston Magazine," 10/24/01

U.S. News & World Report About 13 Jobs To Be Cut The magazine is cutting salaries as a tradeoff to avoid further job losses.
Source: New York Times, "U.S. News & World Report Cuts Salaries to Avoid More Layoffs," 10/23/01

ABC.com ??? Jobs Cut Roughly 85 percent of the staff is let go in another round of layoffs.
Source: CNET News.com, "ABC.com Completes More Layoffs," 10/22/01

Journal Newspapers 7 Jobs Cut The Washington, D.C., community newspaper publisher is cutting its sales staff.
Source: Washington Business Journal, "Journal Newspapers Cuts Sales Staff in Restructuring," 10/19/01

Time Inc. About 36 Jobs Cut The publisher is letting go its mailroom staff and hiring an outside firm to deliver mail.
Source: Associated Press, "Time Inc. Fires Mailroom Staff," 10/18/01

AOL Time Warner ??? Jobs May Be Cut Additional layoffs are expected in order to help offset a decline in ad revenue.
Source: Washington Post, "More Cuts Planned At AOL Time Warner," 10/18/01

Rodale 148 Jobs To Be Cut

Many of the job cuts are expected to be in Rodale's book publishing division.
Source: Associated Press, "Rodale Inc. to Lay Off 13 Percent of Work Force," 10/18/01

KOMO 22 Jobs Cut Two news anchors are among the staffers laid off at the Seattle TV station.
Source: Seattle Times, "KOMO-TV Pares 22 Jobs; 'People Helper,' Two Anchors Go," 10/18/01

NetRadio ??? Jobs Cut The 100-channel Internet broadcaster is closing and letting go most of its employees.
Source: Newsbytes, "NetRadio Calls It A Day," 10/18/01

AllTrue.com ??? Jobs Cut The online collection of reality-video clips is shutting down.
Source: New York Post, "AllTrue.com Slams Its Freak Box Shut," 10/18/01

VNU Inc. ??? Jobs Cut Five percent of the staff will be cut at Adweek, Mediaweek, Brandweek and E&P.
Source: New York Post, "Register Announces 105 Job Reductions," 10/17/01

Orange County Register 105 Jobs Cut The reductions will be spread among almost every department.
Source: Orange County Register, "Register Announces 105 Job Reductions," 10/17/01

Reuters 500 Jobs To Be Cut The business news provider will make the job cuts over the next two years.
Source: Financial Times, "Reuters Cuts Dividend and More Jobs in Shake-Up," 10/16/01

IFILM 10 Jobs Cut The entertainment portal is shifting its focus and de-emphasizing editorial.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, "IFILM Cuts Jobs As Focus Shifts," 10/16/01

Brill's Content/Inside.com 38 Jobs Cut Brill's Content magazine will close and Inside.com will be scaled back.
Source: Associated Press, "Primedia Buys Inside From Brill," 10/15/01

Volume.com ??? Jobs Cut The HBO-backed urban content company is shutting down.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "HBO Turns Down the Volume.com," 10/15/01

Forbes ??? Jobs To Be Cut A Forbes spokesperson confirms that cutbacks are coming.
Source: New York Post, "It's D-Day for Brill Media," 10/12/01

Primedia About 20 Jobs Cut Staffers are put out of work as four teen titles shift location and publication frequency.
Source: New York Post, "It's D-Day for Brill Media," 10/12/01

Playboy 90 Jobs Cut About half of the job cuts will come from Playboy Online.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Playboy to Cut 90 Jobs," 10/11/01

Expedia Travels ??? Jobs Cut The November issue of the Ziff Davis travel magazine will be its last.
Source: Reuters, "Ziff Davis Media Shuts Down Travel Magazine," 10/11/01

Yahoo! ??? Jobs To Be Cut CEO Terry Semel says that an undisclosed number of workers are expected to be laid off.
Source: MSNBC.com, "Yahoo Posts Net Loss, Expects Layoffs," 10/10/01

Belo 160 Jobs Cut The newspaper publisher and TV station owner is hit by the advertising slump.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Belo to Cut Jobs, Freeze Wages," 10/10/01

Oxygen Media 80 Jobs Cut Oxygen is closing some of its Web sites and focusing on Oxygen.com and Oprah.com.
Source: Reuters, "Oxygen Cuts 80 Employees," 10/10/01

Wenner Media About 6 Jobs Cut Employees in production and back-office operations are let go.
Source: Mediaweek, "Wenner Pares Staff," 10/05/01

CMP Media ??? Jobs Cut Job cuts at the tech publisher could reach as high as a "couple of hundred."
Source: Newsday, "More Job Cuts At CMP Media," 10/03/01

Mademoiselle ??? Jobs Cut Conde Nast says it will try to transfer some of the shuttered magazine's 90 employees.
Source: TheDeal.com, "Au Revoir, Mademoiselle," 10/01/01

Primedia 4 Jobs Cut The specialty publisher is shutting down its venture capital unit.
Source: New York Post, "Primedia Shutters Its Venture Capital Unit," 10/01/01

San Antonio Express-News About 40 Jobs Cut

The newspaper is cutting non-editorial employees through buyouts and layoffs.

Source: Editor & Publisher, "San Antonio Express-News Cuts Staff," 10/01/01

UGO Networks About 35 Jobs Cut The network of male-focused Web sites is cutting roughly half its staff.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "UGO Cuts Staff by Half," 10/01/01

Freedom Forum ??? Jobs Cut The media foundation says it will shut down offices and reduce staff.
Source: Washington Post, "Freedom Forum Scaling Back," 09/29/01

Contentville 15 Jobs Cut The Web site that sells books, articles and transcripts is closing.
Source: New York Post, "Brill Closes Contentville," 09/29/01

KDNL 47 Jobs Cut ABC's St. Louis affiliate is shutting down its news operation.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Channel 30 Will Drop Its Local News Broadcasts," 09/28/01

Upside Media About 100 Jobs Cut At its peak, Upside employed 125 people. Now, just 25 remain at the magazine.
Source: Washington Post, "Foreclosure Gives Upside Magazine To MCG Capital," 09/28/01

Motley Fool About 70 Jobs Cut The personal-finance site is cutting its staff by at least 50 percent.
Source: Reuters, "Layoffs Expected at Motley Fool," 09/27/01

BigPipe.com ??? Jobs Cut The cable news site is responding to "terrifying market conditions."
Source: Multichannel News, "Layoffs Hit BIGPIPE," 09/27/01

About.com 60 Jobs Cut The Primedia Internet unit is also cutting 300 of its 700 contracted site guides.
Source: Newsbytes, "About.com Cuts 60 Employees, 300 Site Guides," 09/26/01

Hoover's ??? Jobs Cut The online business information provider is cutting its staff by 20 percent.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Hoover's To Reduce Work Force By 20%," 09/25/01

Excite@Home 500 Jobs Cut The broadband company may soon file for bankruptcy protection.
Source: CNET News.com, "Excite@Home Flirts With Bankruptcy," 09/25/01

MediaPassage 150 Jobs Cut The e-commerce site for buying and selling print media is closing.
Source: Mediaweek, "MediaPassage Derailed," 09/25/01

Mode Magazine 38 Jobs Cut The fashion monthly for the full-figured woman is shutting down.
Source: PRNewswire-Press Release, "Mode Magazine to Stop Publishing," 09/24/01

New York Daily News ??? Jobs Cut Some of the staffers who worked on the suspended afternoon edition will be retained.
Source: New York Daily News, "News Suspends Its Free Paper," 09/18/01

Radio One About 12 Jobs Cut The largest U.S. broadcaster serving African-American audiences is making cutbacks.
Source: BlackVoices.com, "Radio One Cuts Jobs," 09/17/01

CNN/Sports Illustrated 11 Jobs Cut CNN is eliminating its long-running "Sports Tonight" program.
Source: Multichannel News, "CNN Cancels 'Sports Tonight'," 09/14/01

WWD.com ??? Jobs Cut Up to 25 people worked on Fairchild's WWD.com at its peak.
Source: New York Post, "WWD.com Axes Editors," 09/10/01

Los Angeles Times 18 Jobs Cut The newspaper is closing its three weekly community news sections.
Source: Associated Press, "L.A. Times Closes Weekly Editions," 09/07/01

Red Herring 28 Jobs To Be Cut The bimonthly tech magazine is returning to monthly publication.
Source: CNET News.com, "Red Herring Goes Monthly, Cuts Staff," 09/07/01

Hachette Filipacchi About 50 Jobs To Be Cut The magazine publisher may be planning to cut 50 or more jobs.
Source: New York Daily News, "Publisher Takes Hachette to Staff," 09/07/01

Houston Chronicle 127 Jobs Cut Five percent of the newspaper's work force is being let go.
Source: Associated Press, "Houston Chronicle Cuts 127 Jobs," 09/06/01

FremantleMedia About 10 Jobs Cut

FremantleMedia, formerly Pearson Television, is cutting jobs in its New York office.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, "More Layoffs at FremantleMedia," 09/05/01

Houghton Mifflin 60 Jobs To Be Cut The first significant cuts at the book publisher will take place at its Boston headquarters.
Source: Publishers Weekly, "Vivendi Cuts 60 at HM HQ," 09/03/01

Fisher Communications ??? Jobs To Be Cut The owner of 12 television and 26 radio stations says that layoffs are coming.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Fisher Announces Impending Layoffs," 08/31/01

Penton Media 180 Jobs Cut Ten staffers at Internet World are laid off, following 170 employees who were let go in July.
Source: New York Daily News, "Web Mag Cuts Staff, Shifts to Monthly," 08/30/01

Los Angeles Times About 40 Jobs Cut Editorial staffers are taking early retirement as part of a broad cost-cutting program.
Source: Reuters, "L.A. Times Eliminates 40 Editorial Positions," 08/24/01

DirecTV ??? Jobs To Be Cut The satellite television company is planning to cut an unspecified number of jobs.
Source: Reuters, "DirecTV To Cut Staff, Backs '01 Guidance," 08/23/01

IPC Media 90 Jobs To Be Cut The magazine publisher, bought in July by AOL Time Warner, is closing three Web sites.
Source: Financial Times, "IPC To Shed 90 Jobs As It Closes Three Web Sites," 08/23/01

AOL Time Warner 1,700 Jobs To Be Cut The world's largest media company is cutting jobs as part of a major restructuring.
Source: CBS MarketWatch, "AOL Time Warner To Cut 1,700 Jobs," 08/21/01

iUniverse ??? Jobs Cut The online publishing firm, backed by Hungry Minds and others, is laying off employees.
Source: New York Post, "CitySearch Is Getting a New Look," 08/20/01

Working Woman ??? Jobs Cut The magazine's entire staff will be laid off and the company renamed.
Source: Washington Post, "Working Woman Magazine To Fold," 08/18/01

Creative Planet 25 Jobs Cut The B-to-B site for TV and film and production is holding another round of layoffs.
Source: CNET News.com, "Creative Planet Cuts Staff," 08/17/01

Excite@Home About 200 Jobs Cut The cable Internet access provider and Web portal is "doing a company realignment."
Source: Newsbytes, "Excite At Home Lets Another 200 Workers Go," 08/17/01

Hearst Magazines ??? Jobs Cut Hearst will try to find jobs for some staffers of the shuttered Classic American Home.
Source: Mediaweek, "There's No Place Like Home," 08/17/01

The Industry Standard About 180 Jobs Cut The Internet economy magazine is suspending publication.
Source: Industry Standard, "The Industry Standard Suspends Publication," 08/16/01

Tribune Media Services 52 Jobs Cut The job cuts will eliminate redundancies in editorial, sales and other units.
Source: Multichannel News, "Tribune Cuts Staff in Upstate N.Y.," 08/16/01

ACTV About 125 Jobs Cut The interactive TV firm is cutting almost one-third of its staff.
Source: MSNBC, "Interactive-TV Firm Cuts Staff," 08/16/01

Salon.com 14 Jobs Cut The online magazine must cut staff to satisfy conditions of its new funding.
Source: Industry Standard, "Salon's Newfound Financing Has a 14-Person Price Tag," 08/09/01

Bridge Information Systems 130 Jobs Cut Virtually all of editorial is let go as the news service sells its contracts to Dow Jones.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Bridge to Shed 130 Editorial Staffers," 08/09/01

Artists Television Group 16 Jobs Cut Michael Ovitz's TV production company is cutting its staff nearly in half.
Source: Reuters, "Ovitz TV Group Lays Off Nearly Half of Staff," 08/09/01

Playboy Enterprises 14 Jobs Cut Playboy is laying off sales and marketing employees, mostly from its Web operations.
Source: Mediaweek, "Playboy Trims Staff," 08/08/01

VNU eMedia 14 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut at the Web sites for Adweek, Mediaweek and Editor & Publisher.
Source: Silicon Alley Daily, "VNU eMedia Cuts Staff," 08/07/01

Bangor Daily News 19 Jobs Cut

Nine of the positions eliminated are in editorial.

Source: Bangor Daily News, "News Lays Off 19 Staff Members," 08/07/01

United Business Media 700 Jobs Cut The U.K. publisher owns Internet Week, Information Week and other U.S. business titles.
Source: MediaGuardian.co.uk, "Hollick Admits to Cutting 700 Jobs," 08/03/01

Vibe/Spin Ventures ??? Jobs Cut Now, just two employees maintain Vibe.com and Spin.com.
Source: Newsbytes, "Vibe.com, Spin.com Dump Original Content, Staff," 08/03/01

WEVD ??? Jobs To Be Cut A certain number of staffers "will not be needed under the new arrangements with ABC."
Source: The Forward, "Forward and ABC Announce a Deal To Air Sports Talk On WEVD Radio," 08/03/01

Chris-Craft About 25 Jobs Cut Staffers including GMs are departing as Fox closes its buy of Chris-Craft's TV stations.
Source: Electronic Media, "Fox/Chris-Craft Combo Puts 3 GMs Out of Work," 07/30/01

Los Angeles Times 1,611 Jobs Cut The cuts will affect mostly part-time employees.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "L.A. Times Cutting 1,611 Positions," 07/30/01

PC Magazine 13 Jobs Cut The editor in chief and 12 other staffers are let go at the Ziff Davis title.
Source: New York Post, "More Bad Luck For Axed Ed.," 07/30/01

BusinessWeek 10 Jobs Cut The layoffs account for just under 5 percent of the magazine's editorial staff.
Source: Advertising Age, "Business Week Lays Off 10," 07/26/01

Tribune Interactive ??? Jobs Cut An unspecified number of employees will be let go as part of a restructuring.
Source: Associated Press, "Tribune Interactive Makes Cuts," 07/26/01

Ziff Davis Media 25 Jobs Cut Family PC magazine and streaming video operator Zcast.TV are closing.
Source: New York Post, "Ziff Takes a Hit," 07/26/01

Reader's Digest Association ??? Jobs To Be Cut The company declines to specify how many employees will be laid off.
Source: Reuters, "Reader's Digest Warns on Earnings, to Cut Jobs," 07/25/01

CNET Networks About 300 Jobs To Be Cut The technology news provider will cut its work force by 15 percent.
Source: Associated Press, "CNet Cutting 15 Percent of Workforce," 07/24/01

Reuters 1,340 Jobs To Be Cut The cuts will be spread out over the next two years.
Source: Financial Times, "Glocer Stamps Authority on Reuters with Job Cuts," 07/24/01

iNEXTV ??? Jobs Cut The syndicator of video clips for the Web is going out of business.
Source: New York Post, "Sexy Web Syndicator Shuts Shop, Sheds Staff," 07/21/01

Cahners About 500 Jobs Cut The trade magazine publisher is revealed to have cut about 500 jobs since February 2000.
Source: New York Post, "Axman Gets the Ax," 07/20/01

One Media 44 Jobs Cut The design magazine One and its Web site are closing.
Source: New York Post, "After Just 5 Issues, the Last One," 07/20/01

Ziff Davis Media About 15 Jobs Cut Rumors are swirling that the high-tech publisher's cutbacks have not stopped.
Source: New York Post, "Latina Editor Gets Axed," 07/18/01

Black Entertainment Television ??? Jobs To Be Cut A news alliance with CBS will force the layoffs of about 15 percent of BET's work force.
Source: Multichannel News, "BET to Lay Off Staffers," 07/18/01

The Industry Standard ??? Jobs To Be Cut The magazine is planning to announce a third major round of layoffs.
Source: New York Times, "News Corp. Intends to Shed Its Magazine Unit," 07/18/01

PlanetOut 12 Jobs Cut The gay and lesbian media company is reorganizing.
Source: PlanetOut, "GLBT Company Cuts Staff, Gets New Funding," 07/16/01

WEVV-TV About 40 Jobs Cut The entire news staff at the Evansville, Ind., station is let go.
Source: Evansville Courier & Press, "WEVV Pulls the Plug on Station's News Operations," 07/18/01

Medscape 100 Jobs To Be Cut

The online health information provider is exploring a sale of the company.

Source: Reuters, "Medscape to Cut Jobs, Explore Sale of Co.," 07/13/01

Walking Magazine 14 Jobs Cut The low-impact fitness magazine from Reader's Digest is suspending publication.
Source: Media Life, "Walking Magazine Takes a Hike," 07/13/01

Dow Jones & Co. About 150 Jobs To Be Cut The publisher of The Wall Street Journal plans to announce additional job cuts.
Source: Associated Press, "Dow Jones To Announce More Job Cuts," 07/11/01

AOL Time Warner About 30 Jobs Cut Employees are laid off in the company's online marketing division.
Source: Washington Post, "AOL Time Warner Cuts About 30 Workers," 07/11/01

Wall Street Journal 16 Jobs Cut No additional staff reductions are expected, says a spokesman.
Source: Associated Press, "Wall Street Journal Lays Off 16," 07/09/01

Individual Investor About 60 Jobs Cut The magazine is ceasing publication after 13 years.
Source: Mediaweek, "Individual Investor Folds," 07/09/01

eYada.com 70 Jobs Cut The online talk radio network is shutting down operations.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "eYada Signs Off," 07/09/01

Spokesman-Review 20 Jobs To Be Cut About 11 of the positions will be cut in the Spokane, Wash., paper's newsroom.
Source: Spokesman-Review, "Newspaper Announces Job Cutbacks," 07/04/01

CitySearch 90 Jobs To Be Cut The online guide for cities around the world will cut about 17 percent of its staff.
Source: CNET News.com, "Ticketmaster To Lay Off 90 at CitySearch," 07/03/01

BayTV About 44 Jobs To Be Cut The San Francisco cable channel is shutting down.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "BayTV Channel To Shut Down," 07/03/01

Fast Company 10 Jobs Cut Seven editorial employees and three staffers in events/conferences were affected.
Source: Boston Business Journal, "Fast Company Lays Off 10," 06/25/01

iVillage About 150 Jobs Cut Layoffs will cut the combined iVillage-Women.com staff from about 350 to less than 200.
Source: CNET News.com, "iVillage Slashes Staff," 06/21/01

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 30 Jobs To Be Cut About 2.4 percent of the newspaper's work force will be let go.
Source: Associated Press, "Journal Sentinel Plans Job Cuts," 06/21/01

Time 38 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Unable to get volunteers to reduce its work force by 6 percent, Time turns to cutting jobs.
Source: New York Post, "Time Is Up at Time Mag," 06/21/01

Money.com 8 Jobs Cut The Money magazine site "will continue to operate as normal," says a spokesperson.
Source: New York Post, "23 Are Cut From Staff @ Money," 06/20/01

Belo 388 Jobs Cut Belo reveals it has cut 388 full-time equivalents between December and April.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Belo, Media General Detail Job Cuts," 06/20/01

Media General 400 Jobs Cut Media General says its work force is down about 5 percent from a year ago.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Belo, Media General Detail Job Cuts," 06/20/01

Lee Enterprises ??? Jobs Cut The newspaper publisher says it has cut 2.6 percent of its non-sales positions.
Source: Mediaweek, "Lee Enterprises Announces Staff Cut," 06/19/01

AT&T About 15,000 Jobs Expected To Be Cut The long-distance telephone and cable TV company is preparing to lay off employees.
Source: TheStreet.com, "AT&T to Lay Off 10,000-15,000 Workers, Source Says," 06/18/01

The New York Times Co. About 1,200 Jobs To Be Cut The company will cut jobs as part of a cost-savings plan.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "NY Times Backs Q2 Estimates," 06/18/01

Knight Ridder 1,700 Jobs To Be Cut The newspaper chain is cutting jobs to deal with the tough ad market.
Source: Forbes.com, "Knight Ridder Cuts 1,700 Employees," 06/18/01

Upside Media 65 Jobs Cut

Over the past seven months Upside has whittled down its staff from 110 to 45.
Source: San Jose Mercury News, "Upside Media Looking for Buyout Deal," 06/18/01

Digital Convergence About 160 Jobs Cut The company behind the CueCat scanning device has fired most of its staff.
Source: Dallas Morning News, "CueCat Firm Fires Most Workers, Restructures," 06/16/01

Gruner + Jahr USA 9 Jobs Cut G+J USA will cease publication of its 15 Family Circle special interest titles.
Source: Mediaweek, "G+J Shutters Family Circle Special Interest Titles," 06/15/01

Tribune Co. About 1,500 Jobs To Be Cut The media company plans to reduce its work force through job cuts and buyouts.
Source: Associated Press, "Tribune Announces Job Cuts, Buyouts," 06/14/01

Forbes.com 17 Jobs Cut The job cuts are across the board, in editorial, ad sales, administration and tech support.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Forbes.com Lays Off 17 of 120," 06/14/01

Automatic Media 21 Jobs Cut The parent company of Feed, Suck, Alt.culture and Plastic is going out of business.
Source: New York Post, "Automatic Media Bites The Dust," 06/09/01

Walt Disney Co. 1,000 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Some 1,000 employees will be dismissed to reach a job cutback target of 4,000.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "1,000 Due Pink Slips at Disney," 06/08/01

Business 2.0 ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Most of the magazine's 140 employees are expected to lose their jobs.
Source: New York Times, "AOL Buys Business 2.0 Magazine," 06/08/01

Women.com 70 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Many staffers are expected to be let go after Women.com's acquisition by iVillage.
Source: CNET News.com, "iVillage to Trim Some Women.com Staff," 06/08/01

U.S. News & World Report 45 Jobs Cut The news magazine is shutting down overseas bureaus and laying off employees.
Source: New York Post, "It's a Small U.S. News & World Report, After All," 06/08/01

Comtex News Network 11 Jobs Cut The content company is cutting jobs for the first time in its 20-year history.
Source: Washington Post, "Motley Fool, Comtex News Cut Staffs," 06/08/01

Motley Fool 45 Jobs Cut The personal-finance media company is holding its second round of job cuts this year.
Source: Newsbytes, "Motley Fool Cuts 45 More Jobs," 06/07/01

Pearson Television About 20 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Most of the layoffs are expected to be in administration and marketing.
Source: Variety, "More Layoffs at Pearson," 06/07/01

Reuters About 500 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Layoffs are expected in the coming weeks as CEO Tom Glocer restructures the company.
Source: Financial Times, "Reuters Expected To Lay Off 500 More Staff," 06/06/01

Seattle Times ??? Jobs Cut The newspaper is laying off employees in editorial, operations and circulation.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Layoffs at Seattle Times," 06/06/01

St. Louis Post-Dispatch 22 Jobs Cut Positions are eliminated in the newspaper's production department.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Post-Dispatch Eliminates 22 Jobs," 06/06/01

Creative Planet ??? Jobs Cut The B-to-B site for film and TV production is exploring the sale of its editorial properties.
Source: New York Post, "Creative Planet Is Shaken Up By Massive Layoffs," 06/04/01

Journal Newspapers 20 Jobs Cut The publisher of dailies in the Washington suburbs is consolidating operations.
Source: Washington Post, "Journal Newspapers Cuts Jobs," 06/01/01

Cahners 140 Jobs To Be Cut The leading trade publisher is cutting about 3 percent of its U.S. work force.
Source: New York Post, "Cahners Lopping Off 140 Jobs in U.S.," 05/31/01

Univision.com 33 Jobs Cut The U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster is cutting jobs in its online division.
Source: Reuters/Variety, "Univision Cuts 33 Jobs at Online Division," 05/30/01

Marketwatch.com About 40 Jobs To Be Cut The Internet media company is the latest casualty of the online ad slowdown.
Source: Reuters, "Marketwatch.com to Cut Over 15 Percent of Work Force," 05/30/01

ABC News About 125 Jobs Cut

ABC News is reducing its staff through buyouts and layoffs.

Source: Los Angeles Times, "Job Cuts Latest Blow at ABC News," 05/25/01

The Industry Standard ??? Jobs Cut In another round of layoffs, the editorial staff is reduced by less than 10 percent.
Source: CNET News.com, "Industry Standard Trims Staff Again," 05/24/01

Reuters 50 Jobs To Be Cut Reuters will cut management posts as part of a major restructuring.
Source: MediaGuardian.co.uk, "Top Jobs To Go in New Reuters Regime," 05/24/01

CNN 20 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut in CNN's interactive unit in the United States and internationally.
Source: Reuters, "CNN Cuts 20 Jobs in Interactive Units," 05/24/01

Sesame Workshop About 70 Jobs Cut The producer of "Sesame Street" is laying off 20 percent of its work force.
Source: New York Post, "Massacre on Sesame Street," 05/24/01

Time Inc. ??? Jobs Cut A series of rolling cutbacks are under way at a number of Time Inc. magazines.
Source: New York Post, "Time Runs Out For Long-Timers," 05/21/01

Univision Communications 42 Jobs Cut TV newscasters are among the workers leaving the Spanish-language broadcaster.
Source: Los Angeles Times, "Univision Trims Work Force by 2.2 Percent," 05/19/01

Tallahassee Democrat 25 Jobs Cut The newspaper is also folding a free weekly entertainment tabloid.
Source: Tallahassee Democrat, "Democrat cutbacks Include Layoffs," 05/19/01

Contra Costa Times 87 Jobs To Be Cut The Knight Ridder newspaper plans to cut 7 percent of its work force.
Source: Associated Press, "Knight Ridder Paper to Cut Staff," 05/18/01

Red Herring 54 Jobs Cut Today's job cuts follow two rounds made last year in which 57 positions were eliminated.
Source: Reuters, "Red Herring Lays Off More Employees," 05/17/01

Miami Herald 180 Jobs To Be Cut Layoffs may be next if there aren't enough voluntary buyouts.
Source: Associated Press, "Miami Herald to Cut 180 Jobs," 05/17/01

New Urban Entertainment 35 Jobs Cut The cable network is laying off its entire news and programming staff.
Source: Washington Post, "Cable Network NUE Fires Staff, Seeks Money," 05/17/01

San Jose Mercury News 120 Jobs To Be Cut Layoffs may occur if fewer than 120 people accept the voluntary buyout offers.
Source: San Jose Mercury News, "Mercury News Offers Buyouts To Cut Staff," 05/15/01

USA Today ??? Jobs Cut The newspaper is cutting staff in its newsroom, in circulation and at its Web site.
Source: Associated Press, "Two Major Newspapers Cutting Staff," 05/15/01

Sun Media 300 Jobs To Be Cut The company publishes newspapers and specialty publications in Canada and Florida.
Source: Associated Press, "Sun Media Cutting 300 Jobs," 05/14/01

Philadelphia Newspapers 200 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Jobs may be eliminated at Philadelphia's Inquirer and Daily News.
Source: Associated Press, "Philadelphia Newspapers To Cut 200 Jobs," 05/12/01

StarMedia Network About 200 Jobs To Be Cut The Net company for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking audiences is cutting its staff.
Source: TheStandard.com, "StarMedia Has Good and Bad News," 05/10/01

Wired Digital About 35 Jobs Cut Wired News is cutting its work force as part of TerraLycos' company-wide layoffs.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "Account of Online Community (second item)," 05/10/01

CNN.com About 2 or 3 Jobs To Be Cut CNN's European Web operation will lay off a "handful" of its 25 employees.
Source: Reuters, "CNN Europe Web Operations To Lay Off 'Handful' of Staff," 05/10/01

St. Paul Pioneer Press About 84 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Execs say they plan to cut about 10 percent of the newspaper's staff.
Source: Associated Press, "Newspaper to Cut 10 Percent of Jobs," 05/10/01

Business Week ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Up to a dozen positions are expected to be cut.
Source: New York Post, "Vogue, Harper's Beat Around the Bush (second item)," 05/09/01

New York Daily News 36 Jobs Cut

The number of employees let go is higher than anticipated.

Source: New York Post, "The Silence of the Damned," 05/07/01

Brill Media Ventures 8 To 12 Jobs To Be Cut The frequency of Brill's Content will be scaled back as Inside magazine disappears.
Source: Associated Press, "Brill Drops Content Plan," 05/04/01

Ziff Davis Media 50 Jobs Cut The publisher will cut about 5 percent of its work force of 1,000 people.
Source: New York Post, "Ziff Davis Media Gives 50 Walking Papers," 05/04/01

Working Woman ??? Jobs Cut Most of the employees are said to be gone at WorkingWoman.com.
Source: New York Post, "Koplovitz & Her Working Women Put Out of Work," 05/03/01

Kansas City Star 125 Jobs To Be Cut The cuts will affect 6.7 percent of the Knight Ridder paper's 1,869 employees.
Source: Associated Press, "Kansas City Star Will Cut 125 Jobs," 05/02/01

New York Times Regional Newspaper Group About 100 Jobs Cut The layoffs will affect roughly 3 percent of the paper's regional newspaper group.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "New York Times Cuts Newspaper Jobs," 05/01/01

Imagine Media About 30 Jobs Cut Imagine Media's Daily Radar gaming site and Computing Network are shutting down.
Source: Inside, "Game Over at 2 Imagine Media Sites," 05/01/01

Wenner Media 18 Jobs Cut Business and editorial staffers are cut from Rolling Stone, Men's Journal and Us Weekly.
Source: Inside, "Wenner Media Fires Now To Avoid Firing Later," 05/01/01

LocalBusiness.com About 75 Jobs Cut The online business news company is going out of business.
Source: InternetNews.com, "Online News Agency LocalBusiness.com Shuts Down," 04/30/01

Excite@Home 380 Jobs Cut The majority of the layoffs are confined to the company's content properties.
Source: CNET News.com, "Excite@Home Lays Off 13 Percent of Staff," 04/30/01

Jupiter Media Metrix About 160 Jobs Cut The Internet research company is letting go 18 percent of its staff.
Source: Newsbytes, "Jupiter Media Metrix Fires 18%, Reports Q1 Loss," 04/26/01

VerticalNet 300 Jobs Cut The Net B2B marketplace creator will cut a quarter of its staff.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Microsoft Gives VerticalNet $40 Million," 04/26/01

Cincinnati Post 20 Jobs Cut Eighteen percent of the newspaper's work force is cut.
Source: Cincinnati CityBeat, "Porkopolis," 04/26/01

Comedy World ??? Jobs Cut The syndicator of humorous radio content is going out of business.
Source: New York Post, "End of ComedyWorld.com No Laughing Matter," 04/26/01

AvantGo 50 Jobs Cut The mobile Internet content provider is cutting 15 percent of its staff.
Source: CNET News.com, "AvantGo Eliminates 15 Percent of Staff," 04/25/01

iBeam Broadcasting About 140 Jobs Cut The Internet broadcasting company is letting go 25 percent of its work force.
Source: Bloomberg News, "iBeam Lays Off 25 Percent of Staff," 04/24/01

CNBC.com ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Layoffs are expected at CNBC.com after it merges with MSN MoneyCentral.
Source: TheStandard.com, "CNBC.com To Merge With MSN MoneyCentral," 04/23/01

Time Inc. ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Significant staff cuts are expected at Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.
Source: New York Times, "Time Inc. Staff Adjusts Warily to Life Within AOL," 04/23/01

Seattle Times About 300 Jobs Cut The newspaper eliminated positions following the strike that ended in January.
Source: Associated Press, "Seattle Times Cuts 300 Jobs," 04/21/01

Walt Disney Co. ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Disney's MrShowbiz and WallofSound sites will be consolidated into a site for US Weekly.
Source: Reuters/Variety, "Disney Closing 2 Dot-coms," 04/20/01

The New York Times Co. 47 Jobs Cut Two-thirds of the company's layoffs are at Abuzz and at Winetoday.com.
Source: New York Times, "Digital Unit at Times Co. Cuts More Jobs," 04/19/01

Newsday 30 To 50 Jobs Could Be Cut

Newsday's publisher says that jobs may be eliminated due to the advertising downturn.
Source: Newsday, "A Caution at Newsday," 04/19/01

Tribune Co. ??? Jobs To Be Cut Unspecified staff reductions will continue throughout 2001, say Tribune Co. execs.
Source: Associated Press, "Tribune Co. Reports 1st Quarter Decline," 04/19/01

Bertelsmann 40 Jobs Cut Bertelsmann's CDnow unit is laying off 10 percent of its staff.
Source: Dow Jones, "CDnow Cuts More Staff," 04/19/01

Quokka Sports 220 Jobs To Be Cut The NBC-backed sports site is closing shop and filing for bankruptcy.
Source: TheStandard.com, "Final Buzzer Sounds at Quokka," 04/18/01

iVillage 30 Jobs Cut The online women's network is cutting about 9.5 percent of its work force.
Source: Reuters, "iVillage Cuts 30 Jobs, Reaffirms Q1 Revenue Guidance," 04/18/01

SportsLine.com About 92 Jobs To Be Cut CBS SportsLine.com's publisher plans to cut up to 20 percent of its domestic work force.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "SportsLine To Cut 20% of Work Force," 04/18/01

H&S Media 15 Jobs Cut The Bannockburn, Ill.-based publisher is folding teen magazine Hot and Pojo's Pokemon.
Source: Folio: First Day, "H&S Media Cuts Staff, Folds Two Magazines," 04/18/01

Snowball.com 55 Jobs Cut The teen content site is cutting about 33 percent of its work force.
Source: Bloomberg News, "Snowball Cuts 55 From Staff," 04/17/01

Scholastic About 100 Jobs To Be Cut Harry Potter's U.S. publisher plans to cut about 100 editorial and support jobs.
Source: Reuters, "Scholastic Ceases Publication of Textbook Program," 04/17/01

Cincinnati Post ??? Jobs Cut The Scripps newspaper is cutting its staff by 18 percent.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Scripps Trims Staff at Cincinnati, Knoxville Papers," 04/16/01

Knoxville News-Sentinel 9 Jobs Cut The Scripps newspaper is cutting its staff by 1.5 percent.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Scripps Trims Staff at Cincinnati, Knoxville Papers," 04/16/01

San Jose Mercury News 15 Jobs To Be Cut Employees in classified, marketing and production are to be laid off.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Layoffs Set at San Jose Mercury News," 04/16/01

Akron Beacon Journal 15 Jobs Cut Seven news staffers are among the 15 people let go.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Layoffs Set at San Jose Mercury News," 04/16/01

Seattle Times ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut The newspaper is considering layoffs as it struggles with the effects of a recent strike.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Seattle Times Considers Layoffs, Other Cost Savings," 04/13/01

The New York Times Co. ??? Jobs To Be Cut The New York Times Co. plans to make an unspecified number of staff cuts.
Source: Associated Press, "N.Y. Times To Make Staff Cuts," 04/12/01

Dow Jones & Co. 202 Jobs Cut The Wall Street Journal's publisher is laying off about 2 percent of its work force.
Source: Associated Press, "Dow Jones Laying Off 202 Workers," 04/12/01

Yahoo! About 400 Jobs Cut Yahoo! plans to lay off 12 percent of its 3,510 employees in an attempt to cut costs.
Source: CNET News.com, "Yahoo to Cut About 400 Jobs," 04/11/01

Los Angeles Times ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Rumors of layoffs come in the midst of a major restructuring of the editorial department.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Layoffs May Be Pending at L.A. Times," 04/11/01

Rival Networks About 80 Jobs Cut The network of sports content publishers will be shut down.
Source: Seattle Times, "Sports Web Site Rivals.com Calls It Quits," 04/11/01

Borders.com 70 Jobs Cut Borders is cutting all jobs at Borders.com due to an online bookselling deal with Amazon.
Source: Reuters, "Borders Cutting All Borders.com Jobs in Amazon Deal," 04/11/01

iSyndicate About 87 Jobs Cut The content syndicator, which is backed by NBC and Primedia, is cutting its staff in half.
Source: Newsbytes, "iSyndicate.com Fires 50 Percent of Staff," 04/10/01

NBC Internet About 300 Jobs Cut

NBC's Internet unit is shutting down and its assets will be absorbed back into NBC.
Source: Associated Press, "NBC To Shut Down Internet Subsidiary," 04/09/01

New York Post 6 Jobs Cut The 10-month-old New York Post Sports Week publication is folding
Source: New York Daily News, "N.Y. Post's Sports Weekly Strikes Out," 04/07/01

Office.com 90 Jobs Cut The small business portal, backed by WinStar and CBS, is laying off half of its staff.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "Office.com Burned by Winstar Cuts; Lays off 50 Percent," 04/06/01

TiVo 80 Jobs Cut The personalized TV service is letting go of about a quarter of its work force.
Source: ZDNet, "TiVo Revamps Business Plan, Sheds Workers," 04/05/01

WinStar 2,000 Jobs Cut The telecommunications firm and Office.com publisher is laying off 2,000 employees.
Source: Reuters, "WinStar Communications Cuts 2,000 Jobs," 04/05/01

Pearson 40 Jobs Cut The owner of the Financial Times will let go of about 11.4 percent of its online unit.
Source: Associated Press, "Pearson Cuts 40 Online Jobs," 04/05/01

Dow Jones & Co. 200 Jobs Cut Dow Jones has let go 2 percent of its staff over the past month, with more layoffs to come.
Source: Reuters, "Dow Jones Lays Off 2 Pct of Work Force - Sources," 04/04/01

CBSNews.com 20 Jobs Cut The Internet unit of CBS News is cutting about one-fourth of its full-time work force.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "CBSNews.com Lays Off Staff Members," 04/04/01

TheStreet.com 40 Jobs Cut The struggling financial news site is laying off 20 percent of its staff.
Source: Associated Press, "TheStreet.com Lays Off 40 People," 04/04/01

MTVi ??? Jobs Cut MTVi Group's SonicNet will lay off a "small number" of employees.
Source: CNET News.com, "MTV Internet Site To Trim Staff," 04/03/01

Brill Media Ventures 50 Jobs Cut At least 50 employees will be let go in the Brill Media-Powerful Media union.
Source: New York Post, "Brill's Bloodbath," 04/03/01

Advertising Age 10 Jobs Cut Advertising Age is laying off about 7 percent of its total staff.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Ad Age Cuts Staff As Advertising Slows," 04/02/01

Internet.com 50 Jobs Cut The online Internet trade publisher will cut 15 percent of its staff.
Source: Reuters, "Internet.com to Cut 15 Percent of Work Force," 04/02/01

Oxygen Media 35 Jobs Cut Oxygen is handing out pink slips to employees in its online division.
Source: TheStandard.com, "More Pink Slips at Oxygen," 03/29/01

WSJ.com ??? Jobs To Be Cut The Wall St. Journal's news site will lay off an undetermined number of its 300 employees.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "WSJ.com to Lay Off Some Staff," 03/29/01

Dallas Morning News ??? Jobs Expected To Be Cut Managers reportedly have been asked to prepare names of folks who will get pink-slipped.
Source: Dallas Observer, "Brave New World [third item]," 03/29/01

Time Inc. 7 Jobs To Be Cut Time Inc.'s eCompany Now is letting go of about 10 percent of its staff.
Source: New York Post, "Media Ink [second item]," 03/28/01

Walt Disney Co. 4,000 Jobs To Be Cut Disney plans to cut about 3 percent of its global workforce.
Source: Reuters, "Disney to Cut 4,000 Jobs in Weak Economy," 03/27/01

Chemical Week Associates About 20 Jobs Cut The B-to-B newsletter and magazine publisher is folding several titles.
Source: Folio: First Day, "Chemical Week Restructures, Eliminates Jobs," 03/27/01

Creative Planet 70 Jobs Cut The B-to-B site for the film and TV production industry is again reducing its staff.
Source: Inside, "Third Round of Cuts at Creative Planet Slices 70, Leaving 150," 03/27/01

Time Inc. 30 Jobs To Be Cut Fortune and Fortune Small Business are planning to eliminate 30 jobs.
Source: New York Post, "30 Jobs Are Running Out of Time," 03/26/01

Nextstar Communications ??? Jobs Cut

Nextstar's NBC affiliate in Shreveport, La., KTAL, is cutting most of its on-air news team.
Source: Mediaweek, "Stations Trim Staffs," 03/26/01

Albritton Communications 13 Jobs Cut Albritton's Little Rock, Ark., ABC affiliate, KATV, is reducing its staff.
Source: Mediaweek, "Stations Trim Staffs," 03/26/01

Media General 13 Jobs Cut Media General's WHLT, a CBS affiliate in Hattiesburg, Miss., is eliminating jobs.
Source: Mediaweek, "Stations Trim Staffs," 03/26/01

Raycom Media 15 Jobs Cut Raycom's jointly operated Cleveland stations, WOIO and WUAB, are letting go of staffers.
Source: Mediaweek, "Stations Trim Staffs," 03/26/01

WNCF-TV 8 Jobs Cut WNCF, an independently owned ABC affiliate in Montgomery, Ala., is making cuts.
Source: Mediaweek, "Stations Trim Staffs," 03/26/01

Meredith Broadcasting 29 Jobs Cut Meredith, owner of 12 television stations, eliminated 29 station positions in February.
Source: Mediaweek, "Stations Trim Staffs," 03/26/01

Nickelodeon About 30 Jobs Cut Nickelodeon is laying off about 30 staffers as part of a cost-cutting effort.
Source: Variety, "Viacom's Nick Unit Trims Staff," 03/25/01

Bill Communications 15 Jobs Cut Three travel agent business magazines will cease publication.
Source: Folio: First Day, "Bill Folds Three Travel Titles," 03/23/01

Christian Broadcasting Network 50 Jobs Cut The Christian Broadcasting Network will lay off 5 percent of its work force.
Source: Associated Press, "Christian Network To Lay Off 50," 03/23/01

Boca Raton News 22 Jobs Cut Sources say the paper fired 22 staffers last week, and eight more will be let go March 23.
Source: Palm Beach Post, "22 Fired at Boca 'News', Sources Say," 03/21/01

Access Magazine 21 Jobs Cut The weekly magazine's parent company has laid off about 25 percent of its staff.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Access Magazine Scales Back Web Site," 03/21/01

Meredith Corp. 6 Jobs Cut Meredith and Sears will close the custom-published Mature Outlook magazine.
Source: Mediaweek, "Meredith, Sears Close Mature Outlook," 03/20/01

New York Magazine & MetroChannels About 10 Jobs Cut A New York Magazine-MetroChannels Web project about New York City is scaling back.
Source: New York Daily News, "N.Y. Mag Supersite Hit By Super Cuts," 03/20/01

CMP Media 33 Jobs Cut CMP Media says it will restructure TechWeb, its online news site.
Source: CNET News.com, "TechWeb Parent To Lose 33 Employees," 03/19/01

Black Entertainment Television 40 to 50 Jobs Cut About 40 to 50 employees are let go from the African-American-targeted network.
Source: Multichannel News, "Viacom Cuts BET Staff," 03/19/01

Primedia 160 Jobs Cut The jobs will be cut at Primedia's B-to-B units Intertec and IndustryClick.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "Primedia Cuts 160 Following About.com Merger," 03/16/01

360HipHop.com ??? Jobs Cut An undisclosed number of jobs are cut at the hip-hop content site.
Source: Silicon Alley Daily, "BET Trims Staff at 360HipHop," 03/16/01

PBS 60 Jobs Cut The job cuts, implemented companywide, represent about 9 percent of PBS' total staff.
Source: Mediaweek, "PBS Reorganization Cuts 60 Jobs," 03/16/01

Emmis Communications 120 Jobs Cut The diversified media company is cutting jobs from its 15-station television division.
Source: Reuters, "Emmis Communications Says To Cut 120 Jobs From TV Unit," 03/15/01

TechTV ??? Jobs Cut The on-air and online network is reducing staff as it reorganizes its Web site operations.
Source: CNET News.com, "TechTV Reorganizes, Lays Off Employees," 03/15/01

Express Newspapers 145 Jobs Expected To Be Cut The U.K.'s Express Newspapers is cutting a quarter of its editorial workforce.
Source: Financial Times, "Express To Cut 25 Percent of Staff," 03/14/01

Grassroots.com About 13 Jobs Cut

The political destination site is transforming into a provider of online software.

Source: TheStandard.com, "Grassroots.com Trims Staff by 25 Percent," 03/14/01

Britannica.com 68 Jobs Cut The Encyclopedia Britannica's Internet arm has announced 152 layoffs since November.
Source: Associated Press, "Britannica.com Eliminating 68 Jobs," 03/14/01

Salon.com At Least 3 Jobs Cut The online magazine has cut at least three people from its yet-to-be-launched radio show.
Source: CNET News.com, "Salon.com Shaves Pay, Pauses Audio Plans," 03/13/01

Work.com 113 Jobs Cut Dow Jones and ExciteAtHome are closing their business news and information Web site.
Source: Associated Press, "Dow Jones Shuts Down Work.com," 03/09/01

Online Partners 29 Jobs Cut Online Partners let go of staff members at both PlanetOut and Gay.com.
Source: CNET News.com, "Gay Portals Cut Staff Before Merger," 03/07/01

Dow Jones & Co. ??? Jobs To Be Cut The company will lay off some employees due to an ad decline at The Wall Street Journal.
Source: TheStandard.com, "Bad News at the Wall Street Journal," 03/07/01

CondeNet 18 Jobs Cut Conde Nast's Internet arm is letting go 18 of its 147 employees.
Source: Inside, "With Fewer Magazines to Tend Online, CondeNet Cuts Staff," 03/06/01

Adweek Magazines 16 Jobs Cut BPI Communications' Adweek Magazines last week laid off 7 percent of its total staff.
Source: Folio: First Day, "Tough Ad Climate Forces Adweek Group To Cut Staff," 03/06/01

Knight Ridder ??? Jobs May Be Cut The leading newspaper publisher says layoffs may be necessary at its papers this year.
Source: Dow Jones, "Knight Ridder: Will Try Attrition, Buyouts First," 03/06/01

UGO Networks 40 Jobs Cut The network of content sites aimed at young males cut its staff of 130 by 30 percent.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "UGO Networks Raises $23 Million and Cuts 30 Percent of Staff," 03/05/01

MySanAntonio.com 9 Jobs Cut The Belo-Hearst venture laid off nine of its 40 full-time employees.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Online Newspapers Regroup, Reconsider," 03/05/01

Contentville 4 Jobs Cut Contentville is cutting back on producing original content.

Source: Inside, "Contentville Lops Some Experts and Staff Off the Payroll," 03/02/01

Sinclair Broadcast Group 147 Jobs Cut Due to the softening ad market, Sinclair cut 147 jobs recently at several of its stations.
Source: Baltimore Sun, "Sinclair's Chief of TV Division Leaving," 02/28/01

Walt Disney Co. 135 Jobs Cut Disney Internet's second round of layoffs targets ABCNEWS.com and ABC.com.
Source: Associated Press, "Disney Net Unit Cuts 135 Employees," 02/26/01

JuniorNet 80 Jobs Cut The Boston-based provider of online children's content is going out of business.
Source: InternetNews.com, "JuniorNet to Close," 02/23/01

Oxygen Media 30 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Oxygen's latest dismissals are a result of retrenchment at its teen show "Trackers."
Source: New York Daily News, "New Round of Job Cuts at Oxygen," 02/23/01

Enews.com 65 Jobs Cut The magazine subscription site last week laid off half of its staff of 130.
Source: Folio: First Day, "Subscription Web Site Cuts 50 Percent of Staff," 02/22/01

Upside Media 30 Jobs Cut Upside magazine's publisher has pared its staff from 120 to about 90 since November.
Source: Associated Press, "Tech Magazines Facing Tough Times," 02/22/01

Industry Standard 69 Jobs Cut This second round of layoffs will affect about 17 percent of the company's work force.
Source: CNET News.com, "Industry Standard Trims Staff By 17 Percent," 02/21/01

Future Network 350 Jobs Cut The owner of Business 2.0 will close five Web sites and sell or close 20 magazines.
Source: Financial Times, "Future Network Sheds Titles," 02/16/01

NBC 85 Jobs Cut Jobs are eliminated at CNBC, CNBC.com and the NBC Burbank studios.
Source: Associated Press, "NBC Cuts Jobs at CNBC, Studio Unit," 02/16/01

Broadband Sports 160 Jobs Cut

The network of sports-content Web sites is closing shop.

Source: CNET News.com, "Online Sports Network Shutters Sites," 02/16/01

Sesame Workshop 60 Jobs Cut Three magazines will fold and Sesame Street Magazine will be handed over to Time Inc.
Source: New York Post, "Massacre on Sesame Street," 02/14/01

Meredith Corp. 24 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Family Money magazine is ending regular publication.
Source: New York Post, "Family Money Ends Regular Publication," 02/13/01

Quokka Sports 217 Jobs Cut Quokka produced NBC's site for the Sydney Summer Olympics.
Source: TheStandard.com, "Quokka Cuts Staff by Almost 60 Percent," 02/12/01

Business.com 37 Jobs Cut The company's investors include the Financial Times, Cahners and Mort Zuckerman.
Source: TheStandard.com, "Business.com Cuts Staff by 25 Percent," 02/09/01

The Motley Fool 115 Jobs Cut Motley Fool will lay off about 30 percent of its staff.
Source: CNET News.com, "Motley Fool Cuts Staff," 02/08/01

eCountries 50 Jobs Cut The U.K.-based news and business services site will be closed.
Source: Financial Times, "Ecountries Confirms Closure," 02/08/01

Gruner + Jahr USA 37 Jobs Cut Inc. magazine's online staff will be reduced from 53 to 16 employees.
Source: Boston Globe, "Inc.com Changing Focus, 37 Laid Off, IPO Canceled," 02/07/01

CNET Networks 190 Jobs Cut CNET will cut 10 percent of its work force.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "CNET Lowers Revenue Guidance," 02/06/01

Voter.com 45 Jobs Cut The political communications site is shutting down.

Source: Business 2.0, "Voter.com Closes," 02/06/01

Akron Beacon Journal ??? Jobs To Be Cut The newspaper plans to lay off as many as 10 newsroom employees.
Source: Akron Beacon Journal, "Beacon Journal Announces Plans To Lay Off Employees," 02/02/01

Bertelsmann 55 Jobs Cut CDnow's ad sales force is eliminated as part of a restructuring.

Source: InternetNews.com, "CDNow Eliminates Ad Sales Staff; 55 Laid Off," 02/01/01

Walt Disney Co. 400 Jobs Cut Disney will close Go.com and fold its Internet efforts back into its core businesses.
Source: ZDNet News, "It's Official: Disney To Close Go.com," 01/30/01

Wenner Media 20 to 30 Jobs Cut Employees are let go at Rolling Stone and Men's Journal.
Source: New York Post, "Up to 30 Fired at Wenner Mags," 01/28/01

Time Inc. 40 Jobs Expected To Be Cut Today's Homeowner, Senior Golfer and Outdoor Explorer magazines are closing.
Source: New York Post, "Time Inc. Folding 3 Magazines," 01/25/01

AOL Time Warner 3,800 Jobs Expected To Be Cut AOL TW says it intends to close or sell all 130 Warner Brothers retail outlets.
Source: New York Post, "The Body Count Rises," 01/25/01

Hungry Minds 130 Jobs Cut The publisher of the "For Dummies" series will cut its staff by nearly 20 percent.
Source: Reuters, "'For Dummies' Publisher Cuts Staff in Restructuring," 01/24/01

MTV Networks 125 Jobs Cut Jobs are cut as MTV Networks relocates TNN from Nashville to New York.
Source: Variety, "Slashing Nashville," 01/24/01

AOL Time Warner 2,000 Jobs Cut Two weeks after the AOL TW merger is completed, cutbacks are announced.
Source: TheStandard.com, "AOL Cuts for Consolidation," 01/23/01

CNN 400 Jobs Cut About a third of the cuts will come from CNN's online staff.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "A Leaner, 'Scrappier' CNN," 01/18/01

NBCi 150 Jobs Cut This second round of layoffs will affect about 30 percent of the company's work force. Source: CNET
News.com, "NBCi Lays Off 150, Cites Online-Advertising Slowdown," 01/18/01

Jupiter Media Metrix 80 Jobs Cut

The market intelligence and research firm is cutting about 8 percent of its staff.
Source: InternetNews.com, "Jupiter Cuts 80 Staff, Reduces Revenue Forecast," 01/17/01

Drkoop.com 45 Jobs Cut Drkoop.com is closing its Austin, Texas, headquarters.

Source: Upside Today, "Dotcom Layoffs Feed Traffic to Job Boards," 01/17/01

NBC Up to 560 Jobs Expected To Be Cut NBC plans to cut between 280 and 560 of its work force of 5,600.
Source: CNNfn, "NBC to Pare Work Force," 01/12/01

The New York Times Co. 69 Jobs Cut The New York Times will cut 17 percent of its Times Digital staff.
Source: Associated Press, "NY Times Cuts Jobs at Net Division," 01/08/01

Industry Standard 36 Jobs Cut The Industry Standard is dismissing 7 percent of its staff.
Source: CNET News.com, "The Standard Cuts Staff," 01/08/01

Hachette Filipacchi 39 Jobs Cut George magazine, founded by the late John F. Kennedy Jr., is closing.
Source: Associated Press, "George Magazine to Fold," 01/06/01

News Corp. 200 Jobs Cut News Corp. will consolidate its digital media unit with Fox Television.
Source: InternetNews.com, "News Corp Shuts Down Digital Media Group," 01/05/01

EarthWeb 100 Jobs Cut EarthWeb will sell 14 Web sites and 18 e-mail newsletters to Internet.com.
Source: Bloomberg, "Internet.com Buys EarthWeb Sites," 12/26/00

Salon.com 25 Jobs Cut The online magazine is eliminating 20 percent of its staff.
Source: TheStandard.com, "Salon Suffers More Staff Cuts," 12/22/00

Creative Planet 70 Jobs Cut The B-to-B site for the film and TV production industry is reducing its staff.
Source: LocalBusiness.com, "Creative Planet Cuts Staff by 70 People," 12/13/00

Red Herring 22 Jobs Cut Several Internet magazines, including Red Herring, are feeling the dot-com pinch.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "Dot-Com Downturn Taking a Toll on Trade Publications," 12/12/00

Women.com 85 Jobs Cut The Internet company is cutting about 25 percent of its work force.
Source: ZDNet News, "Women.com Cuts 85 Jobs," 12/06/00

Oxygen Media 65 Jobs Cut The cable and Internet company will lay off 65 employees.
Source: TheStandard.com, "$100 Million Can't Stop Layoffs at Oxygen," 12/05/00

Knight Ridder 68 Jobs Cut Knight Ridder will lay off 16 percent of its Web staff as part of a restructuring.
Source: CBS.MarketWatch.com, "Knight Ridder Web Group to Lay Off 68," 12/04/00

TheStreet.com 110 Jobs Cut TheStreet.com will shut down its U.K. operations and end a New York Times venture.
Source: Bloomberg, "TheStreet.com Cuts More Than 100 Jobs," 11/16/00

Voter.com "In the Teens" Jobs Cut Voter.com is trimming its staff by more than 10 percent.
Source: CNET News.com, "Voter.com Cuts Staff, Reorganizes," 11/15/00

Discovery Communications 80 Jobs Cut Discovery is dismissing 40 percent of the 200 full-time workers at Discovery.com.
Source: Washington Post, "Discovery.com Layoffs Official," 11/13/00

Urban Box Office 300 Jobs Cut The hip-hop site is declaring bankruptcy.
Source: TheStandard.com, "Urban Box Office Declares Bankruptcy," 11/02/00

Los Angeles Times 24 Jobs Cut The Los Angeles Times will cut about 24 business-side jobs.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "More Job Cuts at L.A. Times," 10/20/00

Tribune Co. 34 Jobs Cut The Tribune Co. will slash new-media operations by 12 percent.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "Tribune Interactive Cuts Workforce By 12 Percent," 10/12/00

DrDrew.com 14 Jobs Cut The advice site will lay off 14 of 20 remaining workers.
Source: Associated Press, "DrDrew.com Lays Off Workers," 10/02/00

Kibu.com 65 Jobs Cut

The site for teen girls has announced plans to shut down.
Source: CNET News.com, "Kibu.com To Shut Down," 09/30/00

Space.com 22 Jobs Cut The company started by former CNNfn president Lou Dobbs will be reorganized.
Source: InternetNews.com, "Net Fallout Reaches Space.com," 09/29/00

MTVi 105 Jobs Cut MTVi is laying off about a quarter of its staff.
Source: Associated Press, "MTVi Cuts 105 Jobs, Delays IPO," 09/28/00

Pseudo.com 175 Jobs Cut Pseudo.com, which had built a major presence at the political conventions, is closing.
Source: PBS.org, "Pseudo.com Shuts Down," 09/19/00

Los Angeles Times 125 Jobs Cut The newspaper will cease publishing 14 community news sections.
Source: Editor & Publisher, "L.A. Times Cuts 125 Jobs," 09/13/00

NBCi 170 Jobs Cut NBCi is cutting 20 percent of its 850-person work force.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Dotcom Layoff: NBC Internet Cuts 20 Percent of Staff," 08/09/00

APBNews.com 140 Jobs Cut The crime news site says it has run out of money.
Source: AtNewYork.com, "APBNews.com Fires Staff, Asks for Volunteers," 06/06/00

CBS.com 24 Jobs Cut Nearly one-third of the CBS Internet Group staff is let go.
Source: Industry Standard, "CBS.com Cleans House," 06/01/00

Greenspan: End of Housing Boom Inevitable

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167229,00.html JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming U.S. home prices could fall as the housing boom "inevitably" slows, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (search) said on Saturday as he cast doubt on central banks' ability to sway such asset values. Greenspan offered the warning about the U.S. housing market in concluding remarks to an annual Kansas City Fed symposium (search), his last as Fed chairman and one focused this year on a retrospective of his 18-year tenure.

In unusually explicit terms, the central bank chief gave his reading of challenges he sees facing his still-unknown successor and laid out his own views on issues such as inflation targeting, fiscal policy and economic imbalances. "The housing boom (search) will inevitably simmer down," Greenspan said in the prepared remarks. "As part of that process, house turnover will decline from currently historic levels, while home price increases will slow and prices could even decrease." Greenspan said while he expects continuing debate over whether the Fed could and should use its power over interest rates to try to influence prices for assets such as stocks and homes, he did not think it was feasible to do so. "The configuration of asset prices is already an integral part of our evaluation of the large array of forces that influence financial stability and economic growth," he said. "But given our current state of knowledge, I find it difficult to envision central banks successfully targeting asset prices any time soon." He said he would not rule out the possibility that better knowledge of how asset prices behave could in the future affect the conduct of monetary policy. Home prices have surged by double-digit percentages in some U.S. regions, especially along the coasts. Nationwide, average prices are up 50.5 percent over the past five years. And despite the pain it will cause many Americans, Greenspan implied the slowing in home price gains could yield some benefits for the broader economy. "The surprisingly high correlation between increases in home equity extraction and the current account deficit suggests that an end to the housing boom could induce a significant rise in the personal savings rate, a decline in imports and a corresponding improvement in the current account deficit," the Fed chief said. Greenspan said the degree to which these changes are "wrenching" depends on whether the United States and its key trading partners maintain flexible economic policies that allow needed trade and other adjustments. The large gap in the U.S. current account, the broadest measure of trade since it includes investment flows, has many in Congress worried. The Fed chief has long warned that trade protectionism, including tariffs and other barriers to the global flow of goods, are a threat to world economic stability. In what could be seen as a parting shot at those who maintain the U.S. central bank should adopt specific and openly stated targets for inflation similar to those at many of the world's major central banks Greenspan reiterated his steadfast opposition. "I remain unpersuaded that explicit numerical inflation targets are a key characteristic that distinguishes behavior among the world's central banks," he said, adding that the Fed, and most others, already pursue price stability as a goal. "That said, I am certain this will remain a topic of lively discussion here and at other monetary forums in years to come," said Greenspan.

While the White House has not yet chosen a successor to the 79-year-old Fed chief, at least one of those cited as a potential heir former Fed board governor and current Bush administration economic adviser Ben Bernanke is a staunch proponent of inflation targets.

California Sues 39 Drug Makers for Bilking Medicaid

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166912,00.html
LOS ANGELES California's attorney general said on Thursday the state has filed a lawsuit accusing 39 pharmaceutical companies of bilking the state's Medicaid program of hundreds of millions of dollars by inflating drug prices. Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he has added companies including Amgen Inc. (AMGN) and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) to a previous complaint accusing Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and Wyeth (WYE) of hiding the true costs of their drugs so that payments from Medi-Cal (search) California's health insurance program for the poor would be artificially inflated. Medi-Cal is the name for California's Medicaid program for the indigent, which is financed by the state and federal government. "We're dragging these drug companies into the court of law because they're gouging the public on basic life necessities," Lockyer said. The action was prompted by a whistle-blower lawsuit filed in California by a small pharmacy, VenA-Care, alleging that pharmaceutical manufacturers provided false and misleading drug pricing information. By defrauding the state into paying higher reimbursement rates, the drug makers created a financial incentive for doctors and pharmacists to use their products, the lawsuit alleges. "Usually, prices go down when there is market competition, but our evidence is just the opposite," Lockyer said. He explained that the most egregious price inflation occurred when companies wanted to provide an inducement to sell their product and gain market share from other drugs. The attorney general estimated that each company named in the lawsuit could be liable for up to $40 million. About a dozen other states have filed similar lawsuits, and the cases have been consolidated at a federal court in Boston, Lockyer said. Steve Brozak, an analyst with WBB Securities (search), said the California probe could prompt the federal government to broaden and intensify its own ongoing probes of whether drugmakers are overcharging for drugs taken by Medicaid patients. He noted that the federal government next year will begin reimbursing patients for prescription drugs taken by patients in the separate Medicare insurance program for seniors and the disabled. "The California action increases the perception that drugmakers are gouging the government, even as the federal government prepares next year to become the single biggest payer for drugs in the country's history," Brozak said. "The danger is that perception could eventually energize the U.S. government to protect itself by imposing price controls on prescription drugs."

Lawyers: Nearly 5,000 Vioxx Cases

August 25, 2005 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166895,00.html

NEW ORLEANS The tally of lawsuits against Merck & Co. (MRK) in state and federal court over its painkiller Vioxx (search) is nearly 5,000 and growing, lawyers said in federal court here Thursday, less than a week after the drug maker suffered a stinging defeat in a state court in Texas. The implications of the loss in the first of the case to be tried against Merck are still playing out. But at a routine monthly meeting here lawyers and U.S. District Court Judge Eldon Fallon made it clear they expect the number of cases against Merck will grow. In federal court alone some 1,800 cases have already been filed and Fallon suggested that number could eventually double, or even triple. Federal cases have been filed all over the country, but have been consolidated here because of Fallon's expertise in dealing with complicated, large-scale court fights. Fallon reiterated his straightforward strategy for attacking this mass of litigation. He's asking the lawyers on both sides to pick representative cases from four categories of complainants including, potentially, stroke and short-term users of Vioxx. The first of the plaintiffs has already been chosen: a heart-attack victim from Florida, Richard Irvin Jr. (search) , who died in May 2001, one month after he began taking Vioxx for back pain. The Irvin case starts here Nov. 28, and it will be followed by trials on Feb. 13, March 13, and April 10, 2006, Fallon said. Before the first federal case, however, Merck must weather a trial in New Jersey state court next month and possibly one in Texas in October. Analysts have already criticized Merck's strategy in the Texas case, where a jury awarded $253.4 million in damages to the widow of Bob Ernst (search), who died in 2001 of irregular heart beat, or arrhythmia, after taking Vioxx for eight months. Observers said Merck's case was potentially strong no evidence has so far linked Vioxx to arrhythmia but that during the trial the company relied too heavily on scientific arguments, neglecting human ones. Merck plans to appeal that verdict, which is certain to be reduced. But it is unclear what lessons, if any, will be drawn from it for the Irvin case. "Our strategy here is to defend the case on the issue of causation," Merck lawyer Phillip Wittmann said Thursday, after the hearing. "We believe the science will carry the day," Wittmann said. He suggested that the tone in the courtroom, as well as some of the evidence allowed, will likely differ considerably from the Texas case. "Some of the evidence we saw in Ernst, we won't see here," Wittmann said, citing what he said was "hearsay" and "spontaneous outbursts" in the Texas case. Fallon has been praised for keeping tight deadlines and wanting to move the cases along. Merck shares fell one cent to $27.82 on the New York Stock Exchange (search).

Michigan: Consumer Optimism Weakens

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166997,00.html

NEW YORK U.S. consumer sentiment fell more than expected in August from July due to record gasoline prices at the height of the summer driving season, a report said Friday. The University of Michigan (search) said its reading on consumer confidence at the end of August was 89.1, down from a 96.5 final reading for July, according to a source who saw the subscription-only report. The final August figure was below an initial reading of 92.7, which was what analysts had also expected for the final reading. "The obvious culprit here is gasoline prices. This is a sign that tharting to come from the labor market," said Ryan Wang, an economist at HSBC (search). Retail gasoline prices hit a record nationwide average of $2.61 per gallon last week, up 6.2 cents from the prior week, as a result of high demand and tight supply, the Energy Information Administration (search) said Monday. The survey's expectations component finished at 76.9, down from a final July reading of 85.5. The gauge on consumers' views of their current economic conditions ended at 108.2, down from 113.5 in July. "This seems to have more impact on people's expectations than current conditions. What changed was the price of gasoline, and people know that that can eventually lead to some kind of slowdown," said Kevin Logan, an economist at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in New York. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity and has been vital to growth in this economic cycle. Other recent surveys suggest that sky-high gasoline prices are hurting consumer confidence. The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index fell to -9 in the week ended Aug. 21 from -7 prior week. The relationship between consumer confidence and retail spending has been tenuous in recent years. Consumers in surveys have been saying they worried about the economy, but their purchases of big-ticket items like cars and homes have been hovering at record levels.

BUCILLA CORP.: A Hazleton area factory that endured an 80 percent reduction in its work force in the last decade, now is relocating to Georgia. Bucilla Corp., which makes counted and stamped cross-stitch kits, is relocating its manufacturing and distribution centers at the Humboldt Industrial Park to the parent corporation's headquarters in Atlanta. The consolidation is expected to be complete by November. Plaid Enterprises, a craft company, bought Bucilla in 1996 and moved its marketing and sales functions to Georgia in 2000. The 55 workers who will be idled by the consolidation will receive health insurance for two months after their employment ends. 8/8 TERADYNE INC.: Teradyne Inc., the world's biggest maker of semiconductor-testing equipment, plans to cut 400 jobs by the end of the year to reduce costs, the company said in a filing with the

Securities and Exchange Commission. Job cuts will occur across the company's U.S. locations, including at facilities in Fridley; Boston and North Reading, Mass., and Agoura Hills and San Jose, Calif., one spokesman said. Boston-based Teradyne notified the affected workers, all from the company's Semiconductor Test Division, of the recent move, the filing said. Teradyne did not break out the number of jobs to be cut at each location. 8/8 JK HARRIS: JK Harris, a North Charleston firm that offers tax- and debt-resolution services nationwide, is laying off about 100 employees, all of them out of state, in a restructuring of its debt-negotiation business. The biggest hit will be felt at the Baltimore headquarters of JKH Financial Recovery Systems, which negotiates clients' unpaid debt with their creditors. About 60 people will be let go gradually in Baltimore by the time the office closes. The rest of the cuts will come from the layoffs of outside consultants and staff at the unit's Florida call center, which is phasing out a little less than half its 70 jobs. The cuts will equate to about one-sixth of JK Harris' total national work force of about 600. But the North Charleston headquarters stands to gain as a result of the restructuring, as about 30 positions are expected to be moved here. 8/8 NATIONAL DAIRY HOLDINGS L.P.: 160 workers are losing their jobs in a major shake-up at National Dairy Holdings L.P., parent company of Valley Rich Dairy. The Roanoke milk processing plant, distributor and bottler will close soon. Company officials, citing competition in the industry, told workers that it was closing 15 of its 17 distribution plants in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. Workers will get separation packages, and they will be considered for openings at other NDH plants. A spokesman in Dallas would not disclose the financial terms. 8/8 LONGABERGER COMPANY: The Longaberger Co. said recently that it will lay off about 450 workers, mostly from its manufacturing division, because of excess inventory at the nation's largest handmade basketmaker. The job cuts are the second round this year, with Longaberger laying off 360 workers in April. The company has eliminated more than 4,000 jobs since 2000, when it employed about 8,300 people. Newarkbased Longaberger, founded in 1973, sells handmade baskets, pottery and other home products through 70,000 individual consultants who sell the products from their homes. Longaberger has expanded its product line, and baskets now make up only 48 percent of total sales. Other home products such as pottery, candles and wrought-iron decorations are a growing portion of the company's sales. 8/8

LOUISVILLE LADDER GROUP: Louisville Ladder Group has announced plans to close its Smyrna plant and move production of wooden attic ladders to Monterrey, Mexico. The company blamed the closure, which will eliminate 110 jobs, on "the increasingly competitive North American ladder business." The 20-year-old Smyrna plant is the last of the company's U.S. manufacturing facilities. The company's Louisville, Ky., manufacturing moved to Monterrey in 2002. The plant is scheduled to close soon, and the warehouse and customer service operations, also in Smyrna, will close soon. Warehouse functions will be handled at a new distribution center in Louisville. It's uncertain where the customer service office will go. 8/8 BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION: Bank of America Corp. will acquire MBNA Corp. in a $35 billion cash and stock deal that will eliminate 6,000 jobs and transform the nation's third-largest bank into one of the world's largest credit card issuers. Bank of America said the acquisition is an opportunity to grow a business that has proven to be one of its fastest growing segments. After the deal is completed, Bank of America said it will be one of the leading worldwide paymentsservices companies and issuers of credit, debit and prepaid cards based on total purchase volume. 8/1 FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF KANSAS CITY: About 60 people will lose their jobs at the Oklahoma City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City when cash-processing operations are moved to Dallas, the agency announced recently. The Federal Reserve will contract with a third party, usually an armored carrier, to establish a cash depot to collect the cash deposits of area banks and credit unions. Those deposits will be taken to the Dallas Federal Reserve to be counted and examined for counterfeiting and wear. The depot also distributes currency orders that depository institutions have placed with the reserve bank. The Federal Reserve said its consolidation of check processing is prompted by a decrease in consumer check-writing. 8/1 HARTFORD LIFE, INC.: The Hartford laid off 50 employees recently after at least some were accidentally tipped off, and the company said another 50 or fewer workers will be cut later this year from a different information technology area. The IT employees laid off recently worked in the Investment Products Technology group of Hartford Life, mostly in Windsor, but some in Woodbury, Minn. The layoffs are part of a reorganization of the technology unit that will also move some people into different jobs. The layoffs affected a range of positions, including application developers, quality assurance, business analysts

and managers, and leave Investment Products Technology with 392 employees. The company said it is outsourcing the work of 15 of the affected employees to vendors Satyam, an Indian company, or Cognizant. 8/1 DIEBOLD, INC.: Diebold Inc., one of the nation's largest makers of automatic teller machines, slashed its profit outlook for the second quarter and the year recently because of low demand in North America and said it will reduce costs by cutting 300 jobs. Regional banks have been slow to upgrade and replace old Diebold products, leading to lower-than-expected North American revenue. Diebold said results were further hurt by the strengthening of the dollar against the euro and costs associated with a global restructuring effort. Along with its ATM business, Diebold makes security systems and electronic-payment cards. 8/1 CROTTY CORPORATION: Crotty Corp. will close its automotive sun visor plant in Celina, Tenn., eliminating 259 jobs. The Quincy, Mass., company lost its contract to provide sun visors to Nissan North America and General Motors Corp.'s Saturn division. The company makes sun visors for several automakers, with GM as its largest customer. Work for customers other than Nissan and Saturn will be transferred to the company's Massachusetts plant. 8/1 BIOMARIN PHARMACEUTICAL INC.: BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. has eliminated 58 positions, of which 52 were held by personnel responsible for the sale of Orapred(R). As a result, the company expects to reduce operating expenses by approximately $3 million in 2005 and by approximately $9 million on an annualized basis. In addition, BioMarin has revised its FY05 product revenue guidance. Sales guidance for Aldurazyme for mucopolysaccharidosis I has been revised from a range of $60 million to $66 million to a range of $70 million to $75 million. Initial sales guidance for Naglazyme for MPS VI, an enzymereplacement therapy approved by the FDA on May 31, 2005, is in the range of $4 million to $6 million. Sales guidance for all Orapred products has been revised from a range of $15 million to $20 million to a range of $8 million to $10 million. 8/1 SBC COMMUNICATIONS: SBC Communications plans to cut 37 jobs by closing a Springfield dispatch center and moving the work to a larger center in Michigan by the end of the year. The dispatch center handles coordination of repair and installation technicians for the company's Illinois territory. The Michigan center is a "multistate" facility for the SBC Midwest region, which includes Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin

and Indiana. SBC also announced this week it planned to cut 235 jobs at a customer-service center in the Chicago suburb of Hoffmann Estates by early next year. The work of handling customer orders and repairs is being moved to a regional center in Brecksville, Ohio. 8/1 CROMPTON CORPORATION: Specialty chemicals company Crompton Corp. said it will cut its work force by 8 percent and take mergerrelated and other charges of $221 million to $241 million. The Middlebury-based company, which recently completed its $2 billion merger with Indianapolis-based specialty chemicals company Great Lakes Chemical Corp. and will change its name to Chemtura Corp., said it will cut about 600 people from its 7,300-person work force over the next year. 8/1 CIT GROUP INC.: The CIT Group said recently that it agreed to sell nearly $1 billion of corporate aircraft leases and loans to General Electric as part of its efforts to streamline its businesses and focus on growth segments. CIT, one of America's largest commercial lenders and consumer finance companies, also said it planned to cut about 200 jobs in North America and incur a charge of $25 million in the second quarter as it looked to consolidate its units and technology systems. 8/1 FIRST FINANCIAL BANCORP: Hamilton's First Financial Bancorp expects to eliminate about 150 jobs, or 8 percent of its 1,800 employees, over the rest of this year as part of strategic restructuring announced in March to boost revenue and profits. Most of the cuts would occur in non-sales and operation support functions at its affiliates in Indiana and elsewhere in Ohio, but not in Hamilton. 8/1 CHEF SOLUTIONS, INC.: Chef Solutions Inc. plans to move salad production from its Delphos factory in the next four to five months, eliminating 80 of 650 jobs at the plant. The Delphos factory will continue to make side dishes, such as mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy. Production of salads, such as Yoder's potato salad, will be moved to a company factory in Wheeling, Ill. 8/1 BURNER SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL: Burner Systems International is closing former Harper-Wyman plant, due to the declining sales after Harper-Wyman bankruptcy. There will be 116 employees laid off. Burner parts and equipment will shift to five other BSI plants. 8/1 BERTELSMANN AG: In the final bloodbath at Gruner + Jahr USA, 75 people were handed pink slips as the Bertelsmann subsidiary sounded

its final retreat before handing the keys to its former American magazine empire to new owners. Meredith Corp. shelled out $350 million for G+J's four women's magazines, Family Circle, Fitness, Parents and Child. The president of Meredith's publishing division, said the deal will make the Des Moines, Iowa-based media giant the No.2 magazine publisher in America in terms of total circulation, behind Time Inc. 8/1 PURDUE PHARMA L.P.: Purdue Pharma is laying off 825 employees, or 38 percent of its work force, after losing a patent case that paves the way for sales of a generic version of its powerful painkiller OxyContin, company officials said recently. OxyContin, which accounted for more than 75 percent of the company's revenue, was initially hailed as a breakthrough in the treatment of severe chronic pain when it was introduced in 1996. Abuse of the drug, however, has become a problem in recent years after users discovered that crushing the timerelease tablets and snorting or injecting the powder yields an immediate, heroin-like high. Purdue Pharma has been named in hundreds of lawsuits for its marketing of OxyContin, but many have been dismissed. The company also is the focus of a federal investigation into the marketing of the prescription drug. 8/1 FORD MOTOR COMPANY: Ford Motor Co., reeling from costs and weaknesses in its North American operations, is cutting another 1,700 salaried positions and reducing its full-year profit outlook for the second time in two months. Ford also said it was taking new steps to reduce costs related to salaried employees this year. The company will cut salaried positions at its North American operations by 5 percent, or about 1,700, and reduce the use of agency and purchased services by 10 percent. The new cuts come atop 1,000 salaried job cuts also announced in April. Dearborn-based Ford also will eliminate bonuses this year for salaried management employees, and suspend the matching company portion in its 401(k) plans for salaried employees effective July 1. 7/18 INTERSTATE BAKERIES CORPORATION: Interstate Bakeries Inc. said recently it will consolidate its southern California sales operations and cut about 350 jobs as part of the bankrupt company's continuing efforts to reduce costs. The Kansas City-based company, whose products include Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies, said it will continue to operate its six bakeries in the region. Interstate Bakeries previously has announced cuts elsewhere in the country that included closing some bakeries and involved about 3,650 jobs. Previously, Interstate Bakeries announced plans to close bakeries in Miami,

Charlotte, N.C., New Bedford, Mass., and San Francisco. It also is consolidating production, routes, depots and thrift stores in its Florida, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Northern California regions. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, citing low sales and high fixed operating costs. 7/18 WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, INC.: Monolith Productions, a Kirkland computer and video-game developer, said recently it would lay off 80 employees after transferring two of its game titles to Sony Online Entertainment. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which owns Monolith, announced recently it had sold "The Matrix Online," a game based on the "Matrix" movie series, to Sony Online Entertainment. In addition, the companies signed licensing agreements allowing Sony Online Entertainment to develop a game based on characters from the Warner Bros.-owned DC Comics universe. Monolith is exiting the massively multiplayer business, and will no longer need some positions it had devoted to online games, such as its customer-support team. 7/18 APPLERA CORPORATION: Applera Corp. Applied Biosystems Group, a maker of life sciences research equipment, said recently that it will cut about 250 jobs and record a substantial fourth-quarter charge as it restructures its operations. The unit of Applera Corp. said the layoffs and associated facility closures will cost between $20 million and $22 million in the April-June quarter, before taxes. The job cuts will primarily be in research and development, marketing and operations. 7/18 WINN-DIXIE STORES, INC.: Supermarket chain Winn-Dixie plans to close more than a third of its stores and cut 22,000 people from its work force as it tries to emerge from bankruptcy. Winn Dixie recently said it will close or sell 326 of its 913 stores in the coming months. It will cut 22,000 of 78,000 positions and an additional 500 workers will lose their jobs in the company's corporate headquarters in Jacksonville. Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. also will cease operations in four states, Tennessee, Virginia and North and South Carolina, and will trim operations in its five remaining states, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. It also has stores in the Bahamas. WinnDixie is leaving a number of larger markets, including Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah in Georgia; Charleston, Columbia and GreenvilleSpartanburg in South Carolina; Charlotte, Greensboro-High Point and Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Columbus, Tupelo and Jackson in Mississippi and Alexandria, La. 7/18

NISOURCE INC.: NiSource Inc. announced recently it would cut 445 jobs nationwide as part of a $1.6 billion deal with IBM for it to take over some business support services. NiSource has 8,500 employees in 14 states. NiSource and its subsidiaries, including Northern Indiana Public Service Co., deliver electricity and natural gas to 3.7 million customers from the Gulf Coast to New England. 7/18 PEPSIAMERICAS, INC.: PepsiAmericas Inc. intends to cut 89 employees as part of its move from Gurnee to a new building in Wisconsin. In a recent letter to village officials, All 89 of the Gurnee workers are targeted for layoffs. Their jobs include drivers, merchandisers, sales representatives and warehouse laborers. PepsiAmericas bills itself as the second-largest Pepsi-Cola anchor bottler in the world. 7/18 GENERAL CABLE CORPORATION: General Cable Corp. plans to close plants in Texas and Connecticut, eliminating about 200 jobs and reducing its second-quarter earnings. The Highland Heights-based maker of wire and cable products said it will shut down its copper telephone cable plant in Bonham, Texas, which employs about 170 people, and its fiber-optic cable plant in Dayville, Conn., which has 30 workers. General Cable expects to close both plants this year. The company said it was closing the plants because the demand for their products had declined over the past four to five years and the company no longer needs their production capacity. Some of the production at the Texas plant will be moved to other unspecified General Cable plants. Production from the fiber-optic plant will be moved to Franklin, Mass. The closings will leave General Cable with 25 plants globally, of which 17 are in North America. General Cable now employs about 6,300 people, including about 270 in Northern Kentucky. 7/18 PURDUE PHARMA L.P.: Purdue Pharma L.P. of Stamford, Conn., announced a wrenching restructuring recently that would eliminate more than 1,000 jobs, half the companywide staff, and shut down its Greenburgh research lab. The reason was a federal court decision this month upholding last year's successful challenge to Purdue's patent on OxyContin, a powerful painkiller that is a mainstay of the company's drug portfolio. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. of Israel received permission to produce a cheaper generic version of OxyContin, which made up 75 percent of Purdue's revenues. The company said it will cut 119 of the 150 jobs in Greenburgh and assign the remaining staff to Purdue operations in New Jersey and at its headquarters. 7/18

BON-TON STORES, INC.: Bon-Ton Stores Inc. shares rallied recently, after the department store operator said it has agreed to sell its credit card business to HSBC Retail Services, which will administer the business and pay Bon-Ton a portion of revenue generated from future credit card sales. Bon-Ton also said it will shut down its corporate credit center and eliminate nearly all the jobs in that department, a decision that will affect 84 workers. Bon-Ton operates 139 department stores and two furniture stores in 16 states. Bon-Ton said the agreement with HSBC would add to its profitability and improve its financial position. 7/18/2005 SARA LEE CORPORATION: Consumer goods giant Sara Lee Corp. is to eliminate 775 jobs in the United States, Mexico and Canada in the last phase of its global company reorganization review. The Chicago-based firm, makes a range of consumer products from pantyhose to cheesecake. Sara Lee's current brands includes US-based Playtex and Hanes, French lingerie group Dim, Aoste packaged meats in Europe and Jimmy Dean sausage in the US. 8/8/2005 ACXIOM CORP.: Business-software maker Acxiom Corp., which is embroiled in a takeover fight, announced recently that its first quarter profits would fall short of expectations and that it will lay off 250 employees as part of a larger plan to cut annual costs by some $60 million. The Little Rock-based company also plans to sell or close some operations. Acxiom, whose software is used in marketing and government security work, cut 230 jobs a little over a year ago, leaving roughly 6,000 workers in the U.S. and overseas. About 100 of the new job cuts will be in Arkansas, another 100 at assorted U.S. sites and the rest in other countries. About 4 percent of Acxiom's work force is being let go, a move the company said would save $16 million per year. The company, in addition to government-related work, analyzes data fields for credit card issuers, banks, auto manufacturers, telecommunications companies and retailers. 8/8 HUSKY INJECTION MOLDING SYSTEMS LTD.: Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd. will close the smaller of two plants it operates in Milton, meaning 69 jobs will be cut or moved to Canada, where the company is based. A spokesman for the Bolton-Ontario-based company said it will continue to operate its larger plant and planned no immediate reductions in the 350-member workforce there. But the smaller plant, which has operated in a local industrial park, will close soon. Husky makes molds and machines for the plastics industry. It moved its control manufacturing facility into the industrial park in 2003, but now plans to move that operation back to Ontario. The control cabinet

parts manufactured in Milton are shipped to Bolton so they can be assembled as part of injection molding machines. Employees in the affected division will be given severance packages and will be expected to assist in the transition to Bolton. 8/8 TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON: Swedish wireless telephone equipment manufacturer Ericsson plans to cut 300 jobs in Montreal between now and the end of the year, Montreal La Presse reported recently. The cuts eliminate 15 per cent of the firm's workforce in Canada, which will drop to 1,500 from the current 1,800. The layoffs will affect engineers and research and development technicians working on the CDMA technology for wireless phones. Analysts say the move comes because of Ericsson's inability to exploit the giant American market with its products. 8/8 JONES APPAREL GROUP, INC.: Jones Apparel Group says it will lay off 3,500 workers when it closes its laundry, assembly and distribution operations in San Luis, Mexico. All manufacturing will be consolidated into existing operations in Durango and Torreon, Mexico. 8/8 GST AUTOLEATHER, INC.: GST AutoLeather Inc., a maker of automotive seating leather, will end more than a century of U.S. production when it lays off the last 400 manufacturing workers at its plant near Williamsport. The Western Maryland plant will be closed soon. GST, with headquarters in nearby Hagerstown and Southfield, Mich., has moved much of its production to Mexico and China since being acquired by Citicorp Venture Capital in 2000. 8/8 ELECTROLUX AB: About 800 of the 2,700 people employed at an Electrolux AB refrigerator plant scheduled to close early next year will be laid off soon, a company spokesman said. It will be the first major round of job cuts at the plant since the appliance maker announced its closing 18 months earlier. The most recent hires will be the first to go, with layoffs hitting some assembly and support feeder lines for sideby-side Frigidaire refrigerators. Meanwhile, Electrolux opened its massive, new refrigerator plant in Juarez, Mexico, with an initial work force of 800. 8/8 PLAYTEX PRODUCTS, INC.: Playtex says it will cut 85 jobs in the restructuring of its Canadian and U.S. Banana Boat Sun Care Direct Sales Delivery operations. PYX's Arnprior, Ontario Canada facility will begin a phased shut down, with a targeted completion date of Q106. 8/8

TOWER AUTOMOTIVE, INC.: Tower Automotive Inc. has cut an additional 190 jobs at its north side plant. The workers, who made about $20 an hour plus benefits, were laid off recently after turning out the last Milwaukee-made frames for the Dodge Ram. DaimlerChrysler is moving production of the truck frames to a Toweraffiliated company in Mexico. Tower, based in Novi, Mich., has been cutting jobs in Milwaukee since it bought the automotive components business of A.O. Smith Corp. in 1997. 8/8 EGL, INC.: EGL Eagle Global Logistics blames slowing growth in airfreight volume, higher fuel prices and operating losses in Europe for a 2 percent drop in first-quarter profit and a subsequent announcement of 350 layoffs. The Houston-based forwarder and logistics provider said jobs will be eliminated across its international operations, a field that EGL entered in 2001 with the acquisition of Circle International. Two stations may be closed, the company's Washington office and possibly a European site. 8/1 FISHER BAY SEAFOOD LTD: Soon will be the last day of work for as many as 250 workers in Ucluelet who are being laid off because of a truckers strike at the Port of Vancouver and Fraser Port on the mainland. The workers, representing the bulk of the Wholey Plant staff of Fisher Bay Seafood Ltd., include everyone from boat operators, to truck drivers and fish plant employees. The strike means some 2,700 containers a day are in limbo, as the truckers have stopped moving goods to and from Vancouver's ports. The lack of packaging means there is no work for about 150 employees who work in the division that sends filleted pacific hake to North American markets. The other 100 employees work in exporting hake to South Asia and Europe. Those shipments are transported in containers by truck. Because of the strike, they're sitting in storage at the plant, or in containers at the port with no way of moving until the strike is over. 8/1 ALCOA INC.: Alcoa Inc., the world's largest aluminum producer, recently said it will eliminate about 6,500 jobs globally during the second quarter as part of a restructuring aimed at saving the company $150 million a year. The Pittsburgh-based company said it will record after-tax charges of between $220 million to $250 million, or 25 cents to 28 cents per share, as part of its plans to streamline the company. The charges encompass layoffs, plant closings and consolidations, and will be implemented over the next 12 months. 7/18 KRUGER: Following the decision by the Quebec Superior Court

granting the Betsiamites Innu a Safeguard Order that temporarily forbids Kruger Inc. to perform harvesting and forest management activities on Ile RenDe-Levasseur, the Company is forced to layoff 153 workers on the North Shore. Thus, the company will gradually let go 91 jobs in the forest, and one work shift each at the Manic sawmill in Ragueneau, the HCN sawmill in Forestville, and the Longue Rive dressing and drying plant, for as long as the Order remains in effect. Kruger is a major pulp and paper company engaged in the manufacturing and sale of newsprint, specialty grades, lightweight coated paper, directory paper, tissue, recycled linerboard, corrugated containers, lumber and wood products. It has operations in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Kruger employs more than 10,500 people. 7/18 EGL, INC.: Transportation company EGL Inc. recently forecast secondquarter earnings between 24 cents to 26 cents per share, and said it plans to cut 350 jobs in the United States and Europe to improve its financial performance. EGL, which provides airfreight and ocean freight forwarding and related logistics services, said the forecast excludes a $2 million pretax restructuring charge for the job cuts. 7/18/2005

Corporate Announcements, Mergers, Bankruptcies CB RICHARD ELLIS: TALK OF TRAMMELL CROW MERGER HEATS UP Speculation about a merger of CB Richard Ellis Inc. and Trammell Crow Co. has gained renewed momentum since an English real estate magazine reported recently that the two American real estate service firms were in talks. London-based Property Week, citing real estate industry sources, said Los Angeles-based CB would acquire its Dallas-based rival in a $1 billion deal. CB has a market capitalization of almost $3.4 billion, compared to Trammell Crow's $925 million. Adding fuel to the speculation is that Trammell Crow's ordinarily slow-moving stock price has risen more than $2 since July 26. But rival real estate magazine Estates Gazette reported on its Web site that CB's European staff had been told in an internal memorandum to "ignore" rumors of a merger with Trammell Crow. Representatives at both companies declined to comment on the talks, which could not be independently confirmed. 8/10 TYSON TO COMBINE PLANTS Tyson announced plans to consolidate its two poultry plants recently, a move that will eliminate 300 jobs, but cause no layoffs according to company officials. Expected to be complete by early 2006, the move will expand and renovate the former Choctaw Maid, or old Sarah Lee plant, known as Tyson 2 and close the original Tyson plant on Cleveland St. known as Tyson 1. Area poultry and feed producers who supply Tyson should not be affected by the change as officials say production levels will remain the same throughout and after the consolidation. After the consolidation Tyson expects to employ about 1,400 people, down 300 from its current total. Officials said recently layoffs will not

be necessary, however, explaining that normal attrition will account for the loss in jobs. While the cost of the project was not disclosed by the company, it is reportedly in the millions and will not only add processing lines to the Tyson 2 plant, but modernize the facility. Changes to the former Choctaw Maid plant will include more product lines, which will enable the plant to increase its production of processed and marinated chicken. It will also make improvements to the plant's roofing, flooring and refrigeration systems. Tyson officials chose to upgrade the former Choctaw plant because it is newer and provides room for growth. It opened approximately four years ago and covers approximately 325,000 sq.ft. The plant Tyson will be vacating began operations in 1957 and covers 140,000 sq.ft. Tyson emphasized that while they work towards consolidation that production levels would not suffer and suppliers would not be affected. 8/3 IBM ACQUIRES DATA INTEGRATION COMPANY Big Blue announced recently it plans to acquire customer data integration software maker DWL, in move aimed at bolstering its information management group. IBM has dramatically increased its acquisitions in information management in the past year, with DWL representing the 5th such deal. Over the past 4 years, Big Blue has acquired 9 companies in this market. DWL develops middleware that pulls together records about a single customer, or prospective customer, from a number of data areas within a company in realtime. DWL previously served as a strategic partner to IBM and will now be folded into IBM's information management group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ascential Software, which IBM bought early this year, made data integration products that help companies transport and format data files. Information integration is becoming a high priority for corporate America, as companies seek to combine info from a variety of sources, or systems to monitor how the organization is running. 8/3 KELLWOOD WILL RESTRUCTURE, SELL UNITS Kellwood Co. plans to drop several divs. and clothing lines to focus on increasing its penetration of stronger-

growth, higher-margin lifestyle brands. The Chesterfield MO-based apparel maker recently also revised its earnings estimates and said it would use up to $75 million cash to buy back up to 10% of its stock to show confidence in the company. Annual sales of the businesses Kellwood is leaving are about $335M, or 14% of the company's total sales. Those businesses include private-label menswear, intimate apparel and Kellwood New England. Kellwood said it's reviewing options for each of those businesses and would consider selling some or all of them. 8/3 SAPPI CLOSING MICHIGAN PAPER MACHINE Sappi Fine Paper North America announced it will shut down one of its paper machines at the Muskegon MI mill. The machine is the highest cost and oldest printing and writing paper machine in North America. It also plans to suspend operation of the Muskegon pulp mill indefinitely and will cease operations by Sept. Another paper machine at Muskegon will continue to operate and produce a variety of coated free sheet papers to meet changing customer needs. 8/3 RUBBERMAID TO CLOSE GOODYEAR AZ PLANT FURLOUGH 260 Rubbermaid recently announced plans to close its Valley manufacturing facility and lay off 260 employees. High oil prices are putting pressure on Rubbermaid's raw material costs, the company said. The Goodyear plant was a victim in efforts to boost profits by streamlining the company. Rubbermaid, maker of products like laundry baskets, bins, totes and trashcans, has phased out some older, underperforming items over the past year. Rubbermaid's attempt to bring the business in line also stems from increasing competition from imported and cheaper products. Rubbermaid manufactures products domestically and plans to transfer some of Goodyear's work to other facilities across the country, it said. The 1st wave of local layoffs will occur soon. Rubbermaid, part of Newell Rubbermaid Inc., plans to finish the layoffs in 60 days. Employees will be offered severance pay and job-placement assistance. 8/3

NAVIGANT ACQUIRES A.W. HUTCHISON Navigant Consulting Inc., a provider of management consulting services, recently said it has acquired A.W. Hutchison & Associates LLC for about $23 million. A.W. Hutchison, a provider of construction management and dispute resolution, last year saw revenue of about $18.6 million, and pro forma operating income of $4.3M. Navigant said it expects the deal to boost its earnings in 2005. The transaction, which includes a team of 57 billable consultants based primarily in Atlanta and LA, is expected to further Navigant's reach into the Southeast U.S. market and in Southern California. 7/27 CGI TO BUY REAL ESTATE SCHOOL ONLINE CGI Holding Corp., owner of Internet marketing company Websourced, recently said it acquired Real Estate School Online Inc for $4.4 million in cash and CGI common stock. Under the deal, CGI of Northbrook purchased all of Real Estate School's stock with $2.2 million cash and $2.2 million in CGI common shares. CGI said it will also pay former shareholders of the online school up to $500,000 if the pretax earnings of Real Estate School surpass specific targets in the next 12 quarters. The acquisition will immediately boost earnings, it said. The Miami-based Real Estate School, which offers online real estate licensing and continuing education classes, is expected to generate over $1.6M in income before taxes in 12 months. CGI also owns KeywordRanking.com and ProRanking.com, Web sites that help clients improve their position in Internet search engine results. The company is seeking shareholder approval to change its name to Think Partnership Inc. In March, it changed its stock ticker symbol to THK. CGI Holding shares rose 8, or 3.9%, to $2.11 on the AMEX. 7/27 HEWITT LANDS BPO DEAL WITH MERVYNS Lincolnshire-based Hewitt Associates Inc. has inked a deal to provide outsourcing and consulting services to Mervyns, the CA-based retail chain sold by Target in 2004. The 7-year arrangement calls for Hewitt to provide HR, payroll, retirement plan and health benefit services to Mervyns 29,000+ employees. In Mervyns

statement, it said Hewitts services were necessary to help the former Target unit become an independent company. BPO agreements involve both consulting and outsourcing, and therefore generate more fees than individual consulting or outsourcing deals. However, because BPO arrangements require outsourcing firms, like Hewitt, to take on large capital expenses, like building and running call centers, they tend to offer lower profit margins than simple consulting arrangements. While Hewitt saw outsourcing revenues increase 41% in the 2nd-Q, due largely to its 2004 acquisition of Exult Inc., its outsourcing segments income fell 28%, to $48.2 million. 7/27 NBC UNIVERSAL, DREAMWORKS TALK, REPORTS SAY NBC Universal is in talks to buy the privately held liveaction film studio DreamWorks SKG, according to news reports recently. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Universal was considering acquiring the studio founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The board of General Electric Co., which owns NBC Universal, is scheduled to meet, but it's unclear how much the company would be willing to pay for DreamWorks. Calls to both DreamWorks and NBC Universal were not immediately returned. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., the animation studio that was spun off last year, is reportedly not a part of the discussions, but Universal would have the right to distribute future cartoon titles from the company that created "Shrek," the Journal reported. DreamWorks has created such movies as "American Beauty" and "Gladiator," but the studio has scaled back its plans over the years. It abandoned plans to build a high-tech studio lot in Los Angeles in 1999, sold its music division in 2004 and has curtailed its TV production.

Universal, along with Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, is considering a possible breakup of United International Pictures, the overseas movie distribution apparatus they jointly own. UIP also distributes DreamWorks SKG's films overseas. Dismantling the company would allow both studios to establish their own international distribution operations, which is considered an important source of revenue. 7/27

Top Employer Branding and Retention WHEN IT RAINS IT BRANDS: WEATHER CHANNEL BRINGS GOOD THINGS TO LIFE Not since Morton began branding salt has a marketer sought to wrap its name around a more ubiquitous and everyday product, but beginning this summer and leading up to the start of the 2005-06 TV season, The Weather Channel will break an advertising and promotion effort designed to brand, what else, the weather. But the tagline used in the upcoming campaign is more reminiscent of General Electric's than the well-known salt brand: "Bringing Weather To Life." The marketing effort is part of an ongoing progression by TWC to differentiate itself from the deluge of generic local weather services, and other nationally branded national TV and online weather Web portals that it competes with. The effort also is a key part of TWC's upfront sales strategy for Madison Avenue, reminding advertisers and media buyers that the channel is more than just information about weather patterns, but is a media environment that has an emotional connection with its viewers.

The executive vice president of marketing at TWC said The Weather Channel is a unique and distinctive brand, but even strong brands must evolve. He said when people think of weather, they think of The Weather Channel. He said theyre building on their trusted heritage to expand the bounds of how they present weather information. The initiative centers on a core group of viewers and Web site users TWC has defined as "the Vitalists," people who are passionate, have a deep sense of curiosity and "thrive on the search for useful, unusual and inspiring information that will enrich their lives." He said their goal is to move beyond the functional aspects of what their brand delivers to capture all of the emotional territory that consumers have surrounding weather and the role it plays in their lives. The marketing program will complement a new programming initiative that seeks to expand TWC eve further beyond conventional weather news and information than it has in the past, emphasizing the "dramatic" nature weather related programming. One new show, Weekend View, offers weather and lifestyle information and If It Happens Tomorrow, presents "what if" scenarios for natural disasters. And in a nod to Casey Kasem, the Weather Top 10s will countdown which cities are the sunniest, coldest, rainiest, etc. The company held its upfront presentation in both Quebec and New York City. The effort was grounded in The Weather Channel's attempt to rebrand itself, along with new logo, under the new tagline "Bringing Weather to Life, a Weather Channel spokeswoman said. In addition, the network took the opportunity to reveal its strategic alliance with Subaru of America, which is sponsoring a program of "profiles of weather courage"

called Heroes of the Storm. 3/9 Top Media and Advertising PAPERS UNVEIL SYSTEM FOR TARGETING DRUG ADS The Newspaper National Network (NNN) recently launched a new system for targeting pharmaceutical ads based on the geographic reach of newspapers. The media planning tool, dubbed the GeoTargeting model, utilizes data about pharmaceutical prescriptions, geographic skews, and demographics from a variety of sources, including IMS Health, Scarborough, and NNN's own newspaper databases. The new NNN database is the most recent in what is expected to be a series of more sophisticated media planning tools for targeting pharmaceutical and healthcare related products and services, a sector that is expected to be one of the fastest growing advertising columns due to a confluence of factors including the aging of the Baby Boom generation, and increased R&D in prescription drugs. Recently, VNU, the world's largest marketing research supplier unveiled details of its acquisition of IMS Health, the largest provider of health industry research, including a plan that would seamlessly integrate it with VNU's Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen units. The company said the acquisition would create new products and consulting services that run the gamut of communications planning, from product development to media buying, and would become a major part of VNU's future. The timing of both announcements comes as regulators are scrutinizing the role of marketing in general and advertising in particular in the direct-toconsumer prescription drug industry, and as the major pharmaceutical companies are adopting new guidelines that call for greater restraint. Yet new marketing and media research is making

pharmaceutical marketing incredibly effective and efficient. For example, among the new tools available from the NNN's GeoTargetign system is a method for analyzing the reach of medications based on the distribution of medical savings accounts. The CEO of the NNN said it's in everyone's interest for pharmaceutical advertising to provide relevant info clearly to consumers, and for the industry to think carefully about how they use direct-to-consumer advertising. And print is an incredibly effective medium for communicating complex information. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had called on pharmaceutical companies to observe a twoyear moratorium on direct-to-consumer advertising during a drug's first two years on the market. Frist also called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) oversight of prescription drug activities, and the pharmaceutical industry's spending on advertising. Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd proposed the Food and Drug Administration Safety Act this year, which mandates that advertisements for drugs that have been on the market for less than two years and drugs with a known safety risk be reviewed by the FDA before the advertisements air to the public. The NNN was formed in 1994 as a collaboration between various newspaper companies by a crossindustry effort to reverse a long-term decline in national advertising in newspapers. 8/10 CONSUMER ADVOCATES: FCC RULING WILL LIMIT BROADBAND ACCESS Three organizations, Consumer Advocates Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America, and media reform group Free Press, are calling on Congress to reverse the recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that telephone companies need not lease DSL lines to competitors, as well as June's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cable

companies don't have to share their broadband lines with rivals. The two recent rulings, taken together, create the potential for duopolies where consumers' broadband choices will be limited to either one cable provider or one telecom DSL carrier, said Free Press Communications Director. "Where competition exists, it has been facilitated by federal requirements that incumbent telecommunications service providers offer 'open access' to competitors," the group stated in the report, "Broadband Reality Check," issued Wednesday. The report concluded that if neither telecoms nor cable companies are required to share their lines, the result will be a duopoly that "ensures higher prices, slower connection speeds and poorer customer service." The groups also challenged a recent report by the FCC that found high-speed Web access in the United States surged by 34 percent last year to 37.9 million lines, up from 28.2 million in 2003. The Broadband Reality Check took issue with the FCC's defining high-speed as 200 kpbs, stating that such a rate "is barely enough to users to receive low-quality streaming video" and "certainly insufficient for users to originate high-quality video." 8/10 JUPITER RESEARCH: INTERNET AD SPEND TO REACH $18.9 BILLION BY 2010 Online ad spending will surge to $18.9 billion by 2010, up about 59 percent from an estimated $11.9 billion this year, according to a report released recently by Jupiter Research. But despite the uptick in online revenues, Web advertising will account for just 7 percent of all ad spending in 2010, compared to 5.6 percent this year, according to the report, "U.S. Online Advertising Forecast, 2005-2010." With its latest forecast, Jupiter Research joins other researchers to predict continued strength in online advertising. In May, Forrester Research estimated that

ad spending would climb to $14.7 billion this year and $26 billion by 2010. Research firm eMarketer forecast a total online ad market of $12.9 billion this year, while financial company Goldman Sachs pegged this year's Web ad spend at $12.3 billion. Expansion is likely to occur at an even keel in the next five years, Jupiter Research predicted. Jupiter Research also forecast that in 2010, spending on search will account for $7.5 billion, surpassing that year's estimated $7.1 billion spend on display advertising. Additionally, marketers will spend $4.5 billion on streaming and rich media, and $4.1 billion on classified advertising in 2010. This year, by contrast, online marketers will spend an estimated $5.1 billion on display advertising, $4.2 billion on search, and $2.6 billion on classifieds. The researchers propose that one of the reasons for the growth in search advertising will be a recognition that search can be used for branding purposes. As search advertising gains in popularity, so too will pay-for-performance pricing models, predicted Jupiter Research. While 40 percent of online ads currently are purchased on a cost-per-thousand impression basis, Jupiter Research predicts that just 28 percent of Web ads will be priced on a CPM basis in 2010. At the same time, by 2010, 54 percent of Internet ads will be purchased on a cost-per-action basis--up from 43 percent this year. In the near future, look for marketers to cut back on their use of banner ads, while increasing their use of streaming media, behavioral targeting, and mobile ads. Sixty-eight percent of 464 advertisers surveyed in February reported that they had used banner ads in the last 12 months, but just 58 percent said they planned to use such formats this year. When asked about their use of streaming formats, 13 percent of surveyed advertisers said they had used streaming media in the last year, while 26 percent

plan to this year. Behavioral targeting was employed by just 7 percent of surveyed advertisers in the last year, but almost double that figure, 13 percent, plan to incorporate behavioral targeting in their campaigns this year. Only 5 percent of marketers sent ads to mobile phones last year, while 9 percent said they expect to this year. But the report also warns that marketers should tread carefully when it comes to cell phone advertising. Forty-two percent of 2,200 consumers surveyed in May said they don't want mobile ads, according to the report. Jupiter Research also reported that consumers between the ages of 25 and 44 spend more time online than watching television. A June survey of more than 4,000 people revealed that consumers between the ages of 25 and 34 spend 14 hours a week online, compared to 10 hours a week watching TV, while consumers ages 35-44 spent 14 hours a week online and 12 hours a week watching television. Surveyed consumers also indicated they were responding to Web ads. Almost one in three, 31 percent, said they made purchases online as a result of viewing an Internet ad, while 22 percent said that online ads spurred offline purchases. 8/10 UNIVISION ONLINE SIGNS WITH GOOGLE Univision Online, a div. of Spanish-language media company Univision, entered a multiyear pact with Google for the search engine to provide Univision.com's search results and to distribute ads. The president of Univision Online said Google is going to bring not only search expertise, but focus to the Hispanic market for its advertisers. Choice of English or Spanish Under the deal, Google provides content and ad results in a users choice of Spanish or English. Google also delivers results within Univision.com. The ad deal is a revenue-sharing agreement between Google and

Univision Online, the most-trafficked Spanish-language site. Univision Online had been using Yahoo Search Marketing to provide search results on the site. The head of sales strategy at Google said looking at the numbers that Hispanics represent in the U.S. population, it is a percentage that demands a set of ad results unique to their needs. Hispanics represent 14% of the U.S. population. Avid Internet users Hispanic consumers are more avid Internet users than the U.S. general population, according to the third annual AOL/Roper Hispanic Cyberstudy. In the last six months, 14% of Hispanic online consumers installed an Internet connection at home, compared with just 7% of the general population. And Hispanic respondents spend more time online at home, 9.2 hours a week compared with 8.5 hours for the general population. When advertisers realize that Univision is part of the Hispanic package, it will bring a lot of credibility to the sector said the president of Univision Online. Univision.com is visited by more people of Hispanic origin than any other Spanish-language site, according to Nielsen-NetRatings. #2 is AOL Latino, followed by MSN Latino, then MiGente.com. 8/3 MONSTER LAUNCHES EMPLOYMENT INDEX FOR EUROPE Monster Worldwide, Inc announced the launch of the Monster Employment Index Europe, a measurement of European and country-specific online job demand in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The monthly findings of the Monster Employment Index Europe are based on job posting data collected from Monster and more than 1,400 carefully selected websites, believed to be representative of employer activity within the five European countries with the largest working populations. The index is based on the companies own US Monster Employment Index. Launched in April 2004 with data

collected since October 2003, the US Monster Employment Index is an analysis of US online job demand conducted by Monster Worldwide, Inc. Based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from more than 1,500 websites, including a variety of corporate career sites, job boards and Monster, the Monster Employment Index presents a snapshot of employer online recruitment activity across the US. 8/3 ASK JEEVES LAUNCHES KEYWORD-BASED ADS Ask Jeeves Inc. launched a new keyword-based advertising program for its search service, in a move that can provide both additional advertising revenue and more independence from rival Google Inc., which currently provides ads for Jeeves search-results pages. The Web search operator, which was recently acquired by IAC/InteractiveCorp, began selling advertisers the top three sponsored-link positions on its search-results pages using an automated auction system. The new advertising program, called "Ask Jeeves Sponsored Listings,'' replaces its "Premier Listings'' service. Such systems have produced booming businesses for Google and Yahoo. Despite the change, Ask Jeeves's relationship with Google seems unlikely to be affected for now, as the Jeeves ads will supplement those from Google. Today, Ask Jeeves gets about 70% of its revenue from Google, under a contract that runs through 2007. According to advertisers, Ask Jeeves will only display its own ads in the top spots, or above ads provided by Google, if they are more lucrative than Google's ads. That value will be determined by both the advertisers' bid price for keywords and the rate at which consumers click on their ads. This system for efficiently "monetizing" keyword ads is similar Google's approach, while Yahoo runs straight auction where the highest price gets the best position. As with Yahoo and Google ads, marketers pay their bid price only when users click on the ads. Ask Jeeves' plan to supplement Google ads with higher revenue producing ads of its own should help it manage the considerable barriers to getting into the ad-serving business. Indeed, Jeeves is in a bit of a conundrum in

that, by forming a partnership with Google, it is helping support its largest competitor, even if it is benefiting handsomely also. Jeeves's position would be improved by having its own relationships with advertisers. Marketers said its premier listings program wasn't able to attract many advertisers because it didn't have the features or flexibility that Google's and Yahoo's programs offer. Moreover, it didn't scale well because sales were handled by people, rather than being automated. Changing that seems particularly useful now that Jeeves is part of IAC, which owns a slew of popular Web properties with content pages that display keyword-generated ads that are also now provided by Google. 8/3 ZENITHOPTIMEDIA REDUCES AD FORECAST Publicis Groupe's ZenithOptimedia pared back its forecast for 2005 global ad spending. The firm expects global ad expenditures to grow 4.7% to about $404 billion, down from the 5.4% it had called for previously. Zenith cited pressure on broadcast TV in the U.S., Japan and the U.K., while increasing its prediction for Internet ad-spending growth. The firm's revised forecast reduces its estimate for traditional media spending but raises its estimate for Internet advertising. TV ad spending's been downgraded, largely due to advertisers in both the U.S. and Japan redeploying some of their TV spending elsewhere. 7/27 GOING OUTSIDE, BEYOND THE BILLBOARD Out-of-home advertising, long considered a backwater on Madison Ave., is getting tougher to ignore as it branches out beyond the old-fashioned billboard. New technologies are transforming out-of-home ads, a sector that includes roadside billboards, ads on buses and trains and now even coasters in bars. As advertisers find it harder to reach consumers thru TV and radio, the increasing array of out-of-home ads is looking more attractive. In a sign of growing interest in the medium, the out-of-home media-buying units of Mediaedge:cia and MindShare, both part of WPP Group, recently began sharing Manhattan offices with Poster Publicity, a leading international player in

outdoor advertising. The firms are part of a joint venture called Kinetic formed earlier this year by WPP and Poster aimed at grabbing a bigger share of the global out-of-home business. The venture has been up and running in London since June and is billing itself as the largest out-of-home company in North America. The formerly managing partner for out-of-home advertising at Mediaedge:cia who is heading the North American operations of Kinetic said the business has changed dramatically. He entered the advertising business as an outdoor specialist in 1965, when roadside billboards were the primary option offered advertisers in the out-of-home segment. He counts at least 200 out-of-home formats in use today. In May, the advertising agency R/GA helped create an interactive display for Nike on a 23-story digital billboard in Times Square. Passersby could temporarily control the billboard and design their own shoes on the huge screen by communicating thru their cellphones. The VP of technology at R/GA said now it's very practical to think about outdoor almost exactly as you think about online. Advertisers are trying all sorts of new venues. Starcom USA, a Publicis Groupe unit, is in talks with the city officials in Chicago about attaching ads to manhole covers to promote a local museum exhibit that features a German submarine. Out-ofhome media Dir. at Starcom said the world is our canvas. As a result, outdoor advertising is growing faster than most other media segments. TNS Media Intelligence estimates outdoor-ad spending made up only 2.3% of the overall advertising pie in 2004. TNS forecasts that the segment itself will expand 5.5% this year, a faster clip than newspapers, network TV and radio. Industry execs see out-of-home as one of the hottest advertising media this year, according to a recent survey by the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies, behind only online and the placement of brands within entertainment programming. New York City's packed streets can see even more advertising before too long. Officials in the next few weeks plan to award an outdoor-advertising company a 20-year contract to put ads on the city's newsstands, bus shelters and public toilets. Some have estimated the deal could generate $1 billion in ad revenue. Through

Kinetic, WPP and Poster hope to get a bigger share of the fast-growing genre. Kinetic will have 50 employees spread across offices in NY, Miami and the West Coast by year's end. Eventually Kinetic will have a global staff of more than 300 professionals in 35 countries. 7/27 TV GUIDE CONSIDERS CUT TO CIRCULATION GUARANTEES TV Guide is considering cutting circulation guarantees it provides advertisers by at least 1/3, media buyers say, a sign of how the venerable magazine is being affected by changes in TV-viewing habits. TV Guide, owned by Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc, guarantees advertisers a circulation of 9 million. The reduction in the magazine's guaranteed circulation follows a steady decline in TV Guide's circulation over many years, as people use electronic program listings and newspaper listings. At the same time, Gemstar, that is roughly 40% owned by News Corp., is working on a revamp of the magazine, considering enlarging the pocket-size title into a more standard-size magazine focused on celebrity lifestyle and culture. A spokeswoman for Gemstar-TV Guide said they are considering a number of different concepts and options for the magazine, and they certainly have been testing a number of different options. Still, she says, the company hasn't made any final decision. 7/27 TOTALJOBS GROUP LAUNCHES NEW RECRUITMENT WEBSIT FOR SALES INDUSTRY Totaljobs Group, the company responsible for many of the UKs leading brands in online recruitment, have announced the launch of Salestarget.co.uk, a new recruitment website for sales professionals. The launch of this specialist sales site follows the ongoing success of generalist recruitment site Totaljobs.com and industry specific sites: Caterer.com, Catererglobal.com, Retailchoice.com and IT recruitment website CWJobs.co.uk. Salestarget.co.uk is a bespoke website created by sales professionals for sales professionals seeking new

employment. The site will advertise jobs in all key sales functions across all sectors. Key industries include FMCG, pharmaceutical and medical, IT &T and media and business services. The site launched with over 5000 available vacancies from blue chip companies and specialist consultancies. The commercial director for Salestarget.co.uk said that the dynamism and high turnover rate of the sales industry makes it a natural market for Totaljobs Group to target. The sales function is an integral part of any businesses' success, and they are perfectly placed to provide experienced candidates for the best sales jobs. The marketing director for Totaljobs Group commented: "Salestarget.co.uk will draw on the wealth of experience and industry knowledge of Totaljobs Group. Our strategy of providing industryspecific recruitment sites in addition to generalist job websites enables us to best meet recruiter's needs and tap into a wider talent pool. This latest offering from Totaljobs Group further consolidates our position as a UK online recruitment market leader". 7/27

RISING HEALTH COSTS MAY AFFECT HIRING, PAY

BNA Inc. Health care costs per employee have risen by an average of 12% over the past year, according to a July 18 survey of large companies' CFOs, who projected another increase of 11.1% over the next 12 months if no changes are made in health care plans. The survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers said large companies based in the United States are considering a number of ways to deal with rising health insurance costs, including asking workers to pay a larger share, lowering wage increases for employees, and slowing down hiring of permanent employees for the upcoming year. 3/4 of companies surveyed said they may ask employees to pay a larger share of health insurance costs to deal with the expected increases. One-quarter said rising costs could force them to lower wage increases for employees, and one in 5 said they expect to slow hiring next year for permanent employees, the consulting firm said in a press statement. Though a majority of companies appear to support making employees pay a larger share of health care costs, 20% said that doing so would do very little to reduce their company's overall health care burden. Also, many executives fear that shifting more costs onto employees may cause employees to defer needed care and risk long-term health problems, or else opt out of employee health care programs altogether, the survey said. The survey was based responses from 150 top executives at large U.S.-based multinational companies.

GAS HIKES PUSHING UP OTHER PRICES

Skyrocketing crude-oil prices are hitting Americans in the wallet in ways they might not imagine, increasing the price of everything from pizza delivery to patching a leaky roof. This week gasoline costs about $2.37 a gallon on average, reflecting global crude-oil prices that soared past $64 a barrel. A year ago, oil cost $44 a barrel and gasoline $1.89 per gallon. Many U.S. companies are passing on their rising fuel costs to their customers. Most large airlines charge per-ticket fuel surcharges of $20 to $87 for international travel, and many domestic fares have jumped more than $100. Oddly enough, pizza makers are doing it too. Major chains have added a $1 fuel surcharge in most major markets. Few businesses depend more on surcharges than package-delivery companies, such as some shipping/packaging companies, which have seen higher costs for jet fuel for

its planes and diesel fuel for its trucks. Fuel surcharges were first imposed in 2001. While unpopular, they allow those who ship to factor for fuel-price volatility. Higher fuel prices eat away at American incomes in less obvious ways, too. Take one roofer in Kansas City, Mo. The asphalt he uses to patch leaking roofs and as a sealant under tiles and shingles is a byproduct of refining oil into gasoline. Soaring gas prices forced him to restructure how he gets work. He said he never paid attention to the price of a gallon in his whole life. But he does now. To save on fuel, he lets bid requests build up for two days or more before driving to visit several potential clients at once. Contractors who pave driveways, parking lots and roads also are raising rates to pass along rising prices for asphalt and other materials. For state and local governments, pricier asphalt forces an unpleasant choice: Scale back road building and repairs, or raise taxes. When oil prices rose sharply in the past, prices of related products followed, driving up inflation, the measure of rising prices across the entire economy. Inflation erodes consumers' buying power. Inflation fears spiked early this year as crude oil surged above $50 a barrel, but the U.S. economy has proved flexible; consumer-price inflation was a manageable 2.5 percent from June 2004 to June 2005, according to the latest available data.

NEW MORTGAGE FUND COURTS CONTROVERSY

The state of Illinois is launching a new program to expand home loans to undocumented immigrants. The initiative, modeled on a similar WI program that generated opposition from advocates of tougher immigration law enforcement, will begin in Sept. The Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA), a state agency financing affordable housing, is setting aside $15M for a pilot program to provide mortgages to low-income people unable to get conventional credit. Loans will be available to undocumented workers who have a taxpayer identification number issued by the IRS. Normally, home loan borrowers need a Social Security number to qualify for a mortgage, but undocumented workers can't get Social Security cards. IHDA plans to provide the loans through 4 or 5 banks that already are lending to undocumented workers. The banks will approve loans using standards set by IHDA, which will hold the 30-yr, fixed-rate mortgages on its books. The IHDA expects to select banks for the pilot after finalizing the lending criteria. The program is sure to provoke controversy, as it has in WI, where bills are pending in the state legislature to abolish the WI Housing & Economic Development Authority's 15-mo.-old mortgage program. The Executive Director says part of the IHDA's job is to help give immigrants, legal or not, access to affordable homes. The group is lobbying against the WI program and will do the same in IL, she says. IHDAs Executive Director says her agency's job is to help give low-income people access to homes at reasonable prices. Immigrants, whether in the country legally or not, are just another population

that needs the help, she says. At least 10 Illinois banks now make mortgages to undocumented immigrants, says the community affairs officer in Chicago for the FDIC. Metro Chicago Information Center, a local research group, estimates local mortgage markets for undocumented workers is worth at least $3.8 B. At Second Federal, about $90 million, 1/3 of its total loans, are mortgages to undocumented immigrants. The CEO figures the market would be bigger but for the refusal to date of large national mortgage buyers like Fannie Mae to purchase the mortgages.

HOTEL RATES RISE SHARPLY

Hotel room prices are rising again in Chicago amid the first signs of a pickup in the city's convention business since the post-9/11 travel slump. According to the most recent figures available from the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, room rates in downtown Chicago climbed $23 to an average of $183.70 in May, up 14% from May 2004, when hotel prices for the city's 3rd-biggest convention month hit their lowest level in nearly a decade. The average rate is the highest ever for May, the biggest jump since rates collapsed in 2001 and the 5th straight monthly rise. The Managing Dir. at the Hyatt Regency Chicago said its been a buyers' market for 3 years and that is definitely no longer the case. Occupancy rates at downtown hotels started recovering over a year ago from '02's rock-bottom levels. In May, occupancy averaged 79.2%, up from 75.3% last May and 68.2% in May '02. Despite increased demand, low prices lingered in part because Chicago hotels are so dependent on conventions, which negotiate room prices years in advance and locked in the lower rates of 2002 and 2003, says an Elmhurst-based hotel consultant. Group business accounts for about 55% of downtown hotel bookings, he says. Chicago's convention industry has suffered not only from the post-9/11 downturn but also from the loss of large gatherings, like the splintered National Hardware Show, to other cities. But recent data from the Tourism Bureau suggests attendance at the shows that remain may rise next year. As of April, convention visitors had booked 1.9 million hotel rooms for 2006. That's well ahead of the 1.8M rooms booked by April 1999 for conventions in 2000, when conventioneers purchased a record 2.1 million hotel rooms in Chicago. For now, individual business and leisure travelers are bearing the brunt of the price hikes.

More Drivers Use Credit Cards to Cushion Gas Pain

NEW YORK U.S. drivers are relying more on credit cards to cushion the pain of high gasoline prices than they have in the past, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores (search). Convenience stores, which sell about three-quarters of all gasoline sold in the nation, have seen the use of credit card purchases for motor fuel rise to 70 percent from about 54 percent last year, according to the industry group. And drivers are seen reaching into their pockets for plastic more often as they try to stretch their budgets. "Consumers are trying to displace the pain for a few weeks," said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the group which includes stores owned by oil companies. U.S. gasoline prices (search) continue to reach new heights as crude oil prices climb on strong demand and U.S. refineries are running flat out to make enough gasoline to keep gas tanks topped off. According to travel club AAA (search), the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline hit a record of $2.614 a gallon Monday, up from the $1.881 a year ago. And with a credit card, that $2.60 plus a gallon can easily morph into $3.00 a gallon if the consumer doesn't pay off all charges immediately and finance and interest charges start to accrue. High gasoline prices have also caused many drivers to trade down in the fuel they use to fill up their vehicles. Sales of premium and mid-octane gasoline have tanked over the past few years as use of regular unleaded has risen, a trend which shows no sign of abating as prices continue to rise. In 1998, one in every three gallons sold in 1998 was high octane. In 2003, this was down to one in five, according to convenience story group. But some relief is in sight: The end of summer not only means fewer drivers but also less expensive gasoline, as the specifications change to make cheaper winter grade gasoline. The savings? About five cents a gallon, Lenard says.

Corporate Layoffs Create Security Havoc For IT Pros

July 2, 2002 By Sharon Gaudin
Big corporate layoffs are creating a nightmare of security risks as IT workers scramble to close down network connections and plug up dangerous holes as employees are walked out the door. For companies like bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. and now financially embarrassed WorldCom Inc., laying off thousands of employees means there simply

may be too many security holes to patch up before employees are given their pink slips. And that means there are many ways back into the company's network for any disgruntled employee who would like some revenge to help make up for a lost job and possibly squandered retirement funds and stock options. "In my view, it's got to be nearly impossible to fill that many gaps in network access," says Dan Woolley, a vice president at Reston, Va.-based SilentRunner Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon. "Even when you layoff one or two people, there's so much work to do. You need to close down user names, passwords, remote access, shut down VPNs and collect security ID cards. And if the person was IT, you need to change route accesses and network accesses. It's a huge job. Try multiplying that by thousands of workers." Woolley and other security analysts say companies fraught with financial troubles may be digging themselves a deeper hole if they don't fill up security gaps that strings of layoffs leave behind. A worker -- who would have more knowledge of the system and critical business information than a hacker ever would -- could destroy information or crash systems. They also could copy financial files, marketing or research plans and customer information that they could take to their next job or that they could sell to a competitor. "If IT gets a couple hours or even a couple of days notice, can they get things shut down before their people get to them?" asks Woolley. "But if there are rumors...if people know it's coming, you just don't have time to protect yourself." And if the company is perceived to have mislead employees about the state of its financial health, that's only going to increase employees' frustrations and anger -and make them more likely to take advantage of any security vulnerabilities and strike out against the company. Devastated And Disgruntled "If I had joined WorldCom when the stock was $62 and now it's down to 40 cents, and I've lost my retirement, maybe my kids' college education fund...and I believed the company was being straight when they said it was turning around, and now I'm laid off, I would have to believe we'd all be disgruntled," says Woolley. "The risks there are significant." That scene at WorldCom, which has announced plans to layoff about 17,000 workers after divulging that executives had cooked the books to the tune of about $4 billion, has been played out a lot in recent months. About 4,000 workers at Enron were shown the door just after Thanksgiving last year. Arthur Anderson, which has been dragged down in the mire surrounding Enron, is supposedly laying off 7,000 employees. And over at the new Hewlett-Packard Co., about 15,000 employees are expected to be let go in the wake of HP's merger with Compaq Computer. But the layoffs don't have to be high-profile or come amid bad publicity and financial investigations to cause network vulnerabilities, warn analysts. "There's always going to be the person who thinks, 'If they let me go, I'm going to make them pay,'" warns Charles Kolodgy, research manager of Internet Security

Software at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC. "If he knows the company is in trouble, he could plant a Trojan or leave some malicious time bomb that could go off when his name appears on a layoff list. There have been a number of cases of people doing just that." Mike Rasmussen, director of research and information security at Giga Information Group, says if thousands of workers are being laid off, it could take weeks to secure the network. That figure will multiple if IT hasn't kept complete documentation of each worker's individual access rights, passwords, user names, biometrics specifications and security cards. Rasmussen says any company preparing for a layoff should start working on that documentation immediately. Woolley of SilentRunner, however, says that documentation needs to begin the day a worker is hired. Keep it up-to-date and complete as the worker progresses through the company. "It's scary to be laid off," says Kolodgy. "It's a very disconcerting concept and it could compel people to do things they normally wouldn't do. That evil little guy in the back of your head says, 'Do this. Do that.' And if you feel like you've got nothing to lose, you might listen to him." A big part of the effort to protect a network then, is balanced on how the workers are treated during and after their termination. A worker who is brought in to meet with her manager face-to-face to receive the news, and is offered a severance package and is given outplacement references and counseling options is, obviously, less likely to feel the need to harm the company. Layoffs Are Traumatic "Being laid off is among the top five stresses -- right up with there with the death of a loved one and divorce," says Bill Sala, vice president and managing director of Innis Co., a human resources consultant based in Houston, Texas. "It's a separation, or a break in a bond, that is as strong in many cases as that with a family member. When that bond is broken, there is trauma." There have been reports that workers at both Enron and Arthur Anderson received notice of their termination from an email message or on their voicemail. Sala says he has heard the same but couldn't verify it personally. If it did happen, that would be a clear recipe for building an employee with motive for revenge. Analysts recommend a list of things to do if a company is about to have layoffs:

WHY DID HURRICANE KATRINA HAPPEN AND WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR GODS WRATH POURED OUT ON AMERICA? THIS IS A PREVIEW OF THE TRIBULATIONS COMING ATTRACTIONS and if you want to view why the PRIDE OF MAN has been brought low, this list, in addition to Volume I should tell the story as to the Hurricanes that the NYSE caused in America when American business leaders betrayed our country through foreign investments. Due to the greed and pride of many leaders in politics and religion, they are now forced to pay off more people than the numbers of those they hurt through layoffs and fraud. We can thank God for the Churches opening up their doors; for the charities and organizations who are helping Hurricane Katrina victims; for all the volunteers and leaders who have rescued and saved lives during this disaster. This disaster also shows how dependent upon THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM we have all become. Democrats can point the middle finger at Republicans all they want, but Democrats are responsible for why America suffers Gods Wrath as they promote gay marriages, gay rights, the taking down of the Ten Commandments from our schools, courts, and governments; for supporting and receiving support from the Playboy foundation; from the ACLU; and for violating Gods Will by committing acts of fraud, corruption and deceit in order to promote an anti-Christ NEW AGE agenda. If anybody brought a Hurricane against America its the Democratic party and people like Bill Clinton, Ellen Degenneris and all those who promote anti-Christ principles. Their donations, although generous, cannot atone for their wickedness unless they humble themselves and repent of their sinful attitudes against Jesus and against Biblical doctrine. THE WHOLE FINANCIAL SYSTEM can work to save peoples lives and it takes a whole lot of contributions, EVERYTHING THAT AMERICA HAS, to rebuild peoples lives. Have we depended on money and the bank more than we have depended on Jesus Christs system? Jesus Christs system has come alive through the sacrifices of Americans who gave more than just money to help out. People are donating themselves to save lives, to care for each other and love each other. The rich will be on the same level as the poor in the last days and if you want to know why God may one day remove His protection from America, as He did during Hurricane Katrina, those who are truly responsible for the aftermath have been named and I dont expect most of these people to acknowledge or worship the God of Israel anytime soon. Disasters just seem to add the fuel to the fire. People in need are forced to accept help from the government as they have nowhere else to go or turn to. We cant blame politicians or leaders for what happened AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA but we can blame them ALL for what happened BEFORE this disaster. Before the TRIBULATION disasters unfold, God has judged those who have destroyed the earth and will come to

earth to speak on behalf of the poor, the needy and the destitute all those whom educated people despised, rejected and turned down in order to cradle the beasts system. The beasts system will be judged by God and all those who are rich in this present world will be put to shame and disgrace, as they have always been throughout every generation, even in the 21st Century. ZEPHANIAH 1:18 SAYS NEITHER THEIR SILVER NOR THEIR GOLD WILL BE ABLE TO SAVE THEM ON THE DAY OF THE LORDS WRATH. IN THE FIRE OF HIS JEALOUSY THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE CONSUMED, FOR HE WILL MAKE A SUDDEN END OF ALL WHO LIVE ON EARTH.