So what happened to Theodore? Promoted, given new projects, made a product spokesman like GM’s Bob Lutz? Theodore was, as they say, “eased out.” Making great cars, even making great cars that make money, are not qualifications for longevity in Ford’s corporate community. Break the rules and you’re out the door.
Monthly Archives: April 2006
The Ghost of Tax Day Future
Closing the spending gap shown us by the Ghost of Tax Day Future with tax increases would eventually require all taxes on average to increase by more than 50%. Such a tax increase is not simply a larger check made out to “U.S. Treasury.” Economic research suggests that larger governments are associated, all else equal, with slower economic growth because of the tax and regulatory burdens associated with a larger state. Using the estimate of Eric Engen of the Federal Reserve Board and Jonathan Skinner of Dartmouth College, meeting our entitlement spending wave through tax increases would ultimately depress our annual rate of economic growth by about a full percentage point.
That such tax increases would build up over many years does not dull the observation that tax increases of this magnitude would carry serious consequences for our future living standards. Their sheer size would restrain incentives for innovation and flexibility, and the entrepreneurship and productivity growth that have characterized relatively strong U.S. economic performance. Indeed, the “tax increase” shadow could ultimately crowd out about as much of the rate of growth as the productivity growth boom of the past decade has contributed.
Group: Yahoo Assisted China a 3rd Time
Yahoo Inc. turned over a draft e-mail from one of its users to Chinese authorities, who used the information to jail the man on subversion charges, according to the verdict from his 2003 trial released Wednesday by a rights group.
It was the third time the U.S.-based Internet company has been accused of helping put a Chinese user in prison.
Jiang Lijun, 39, was sentenced to four years in prison in November 2003 for subversive activities aimed at overthrowing the ruling Communist Party.
Hong Kong-based Yahoo Holdings Ltd., a unit of Yahoo Inc., gave authorities a draft e-mail that had been saved on Jiang’s account, Reporters Without Borders said, citing the verdict by the Beijing No. 2 People’s Court. The Paris-based group provided a copy of the verdict, which it said it obtained this week
Chihuly Victimized by His Own Success
But at age 64, he’s where he never wanted to be, in court. He’s suing two glass blowers for copyright infringement, contending they’re imitating his work. They’re threatening to sue him back, questioning whether Chihuly is the creative intelligence behind the art bearing his signature. And a former dealer is attacking him with a gusto rare in the art world. If that’s not enough, his feet hurt.
Emotionally, he has been through the wringer.
Since 2001, a significant number of the people closest to him have died, some without warning. Partially because both his brother and father died in quick succession in his teens, he tends to experience each death as a blow to the body.
Last year he sank into a depression from which he is now recovering. Friends who haven’t seen him in many months are being invited over for dinner.
Chihuly’s work lights up the Kohl Center’s entrance – adding color to an emotionless sea of grey.
Steal this Newspaper
ABOUT a month ago, The Star Tribune in Minneapolis let it be known that, as a cost-cutting effort, free copies of the newspaper would no longer be broadly available around the newsroom.
Instead, the staff was offered an electronic edition of the paper — “an exact digital reproduction of the printed version,” no less — that they could access online. Those who insisted on seeing the fruits of the their labors in its physical form were told that they could purchase copies for 25 cents, half the retail cost, from boxes around the office. (This change in policy was first reported by City Pages in Minneapolis.)
So far, so weird. Journalism is not jammed with perks — well, not at most newspapers, anyway — but it was always assumed that you could grab a gratis sports section on the way to lunch.
Judge Presses Companies that Cut Off Legal Fees
Federal judges are beginning to question why companies are cutting off legal fees to their executives when they become caught up in criminal investigations.
The judge in the tax-shelter trial of former tax professionals at KPMG last week ordered a hearing to determine whether prosecutors had improperly put pressure on the accounting firm to stop paying the defendants’ legal bills. Last month, a federal judge in New Hampshire granted five former executives of Enterasys Networks a three-month reprieve in their trial after he questioned whether there was undue influence to cut off their legal payments. (The company has since restored them.)
The questions have emerged as other companies, including Symbol Technologies and HealthSouth, have stopped paying former executives’ bills for lawyers.
Low Payroll and High Hopes for the Brewers
Murray Chass likes the Brewers chances:
TOM HICKS and Mark Attanasio have conducted business deals with each other, but it is a deal Hicks did on his own for which Attanasio owes Hicks a large thank-you. Hicks, the Texas Rangers’ owner, fired Doug Melvin as his general manager in 2001, three and a half years after Hicks bought the team. Melvin became the general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers in September 2002 and was in that position when Attanasio bought the Brewers in January 2005.
While Hicks’s Rangers continue to flail and founder in a sea of uncertain leadership, Attanasio’s Brewers are headed in the right direction. After a franchise-record 12 consecutive losing seasons, the Brewers last year won as many games as they lost. This season, they won their first five games before losing three of four.
“We’re more settled and we have more stability than we’ve had in the past,” Melvin said. “We know our players better. Two, three years ago, we weren’t sure. I think we have a club that has a chance to grow on the fans. I feel we have enough experience to contend.”
A City of Great Magnitude
In April 1906, 70 years before my own first visit, Enrico Caruso also thought he was lucky to be here. The famed Italian tenor was supposed to be in Naples, but Mt. Vesuvius had erupted two weeks before, and Caruso thought he would be safer in San Francisco , where, after all, there are no volcanoes. “God has sent me here,” the singer declared before he went to bed the night of April 17. When he was shaken from that bed the following dawn, Caruso changed his opinion of the Almighty’s intent. “We are all doomed to die!” he shouted at his valet.
Jeanne Cooper chronicles the great quakes from 1906 to 2006.
Easter
Richard Davis’s Birthday Party: Audio / Video
Often in life, the best things are free. Thanks, Richard and friends! |
Richard Davis’s Friday night Birthday Bash (Richard mentioned that his birthday is actually tax day, April 15) seemed an appropriate way to wrap up a beautiful Madison week, with temperatures reaching into the 70’s. The bash was held Friday night at Mills Hall and included participants from the Bass Conference Faculty.
Audio / Video:
Conference pictures are available here. |