At Least 75,000 Jobs To Be Cut:

Caterpillar, the giant maker of giant equipment, expects to layoff one out of eight of its employees, and at least a dozen other major companies around the country are planning large, long term reductions in the number of workers they employee.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U. S. economy has already "shed 2.55 million jobs since the recession began" a year ago, and the current unemployment rate is 7.2 percent as of last month (See Catherine Rampell's "Layoffs Spread to More Sectors of the Economy" in today's New York Times). According to The New York Times, "66,600 retailing jobs were lost in December, the worst period since the late 1930s." (Numerologists will note the three 6s in a row.)

A Personal Note: Train tracks, coal cars, and the dirty back yard of a major city

Images from my past appear in today's New York Times—an endless stream of coal cars moving west to the power plants that provide the electricity for St. Louis, with the Gateway Arch in the background. As I've mentioned before, both of my grandfathers were coal miners whose deaths were at least in part attributable to the effects of mining coal.

As I look at the picture, I remember growing up in a home that was heated with coal, as were most homes in those days, and the endless string of "bad colds" my friends and I suffered through in those years, finding it difficult to breath for weeks at a time. By the time I was discharged from the Army in the late 1960s, much of the region had switched to natural gas for home heating. Suddenly, it seemed, the cure for the common cold had been found. Of course that's not true, but the number of respiratory illnesses dropped dramatically, at least in my family.

Good News for Starbucks:

Swedish and Danish researchers have shown there may be a link between drinking coffee and reducing the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's. The study is reported on in today's New York Times. At this point, it appears that the more you drink, the better. Within limits, of course. The magic number seems to be five cups a day, but the Times' story fails to indicate whether "a cup" is equivalent to one of Aunt Margarette's tea cups or one of those two mug deals you get at the bistro. Also, it isn't clear just how strong the brew was or if it mattered where the beans came from. Does it matter whether the brew was made from fresh ground, or will instant do? At this point, the researchers won't even make a claim for the palative action, calling their study simply an "observation." But I'll bet you're glad to hear our bad habits might have a silver lining.

Rebuking Obama:

David Brooks delivers a veiled rebuke to the new president for his repudiation of the previous administration's method's in his inaugural address, in today's New York Times' Op-Ed section. Brooks cites former Chicago Cubs' second baseman Ryne Sandberg's acceptance speech from his Hall of Fame induction, recalling Sandberg's words about respecting the players that came before him and the organization and the game.

The Bushites are all aflutter over Obama's openly stated rejection of at least some of the Bush policies with the former president sitting only a few feet away. Where, one wonders, was Brooks' rebuke when Bush and Cheney were undermining American traditions of openness for the past eight years?

Conspicuous Consumption:

Back in the late 1960s, the term entered (or perhaps "re-entered") the American lexicon as baby boomers came of age and the hard working, disciplined "greatest generation" began to enjoy the wealth the country was developing after two decades of post world war industry.

Having been one of those boomers, I can tell you that one of the first things my parents did was to open a savings account for me, and as a small child, one of my most prized possessions was a piggy bank.

By the end of the Sixties, I had served my country with sufficient distinction to earn a letter of commendation and had returned to civilian life and the job I'd left after having been drafted to help defeat international communism by playing war games in the Black Forest. One of the first things I did was to buy a new car.

One day shortly thereafter, I stopped in the local diner, and as I was paying my bill before leaving, Mrs. Fox—she and her husband owned the place—asked if the new car parked out front (where everyone was sure to see it and me getting in and out of it) was mine. I nodded, and she arched a brow in the way only the most contemptuous of the elderly can and uttered that phrase, "Conspicuous consumption," while depositing my cash in her till and summarily dismissing me. That hurt.

Naturally, I had sought to be admired. Worse, I was already considerably worried about my ability to pay off the loan I'd taken on the new car, the price of which was about 80 percent of the income I expected to receive that year.

But these were good times, especially if you were young and willing to work hard. As it turned out, I was not only able to keep up with my payments but also to earn at least 20 percent more that year than I'd anticipated. I was helping to build the Interstate highway system, and there was enough work to keep a willing and unfettered young man busy for the next five years. Throughout that period I not only worked steadily but also often 60 to 80 hours per week. This provided me with a good income, and limited my consumption. When you're at work that much, there just isn't much time to shop.

I did manage two more splashy purchases during those years: at one point, I was the proud owner of a 23-foot cabin cruiser and a 40-foot house boat. But after owning these two toys for a year, I realized I wasn't really a waterman, and I sold them, managing to recover most of my investment in both instances.

By 1973, I had managed to save the equivalent of three and a half years of normal income, and I decided to strike out in a new direction. I headed west, and conspicuous consumption was no longer the vogue. By this point, even rich kids were wearing worn out jeans, flannel and the proverbial Tennessee Tux (a colored T-shirt with a pocket). Even owning a car made you suspect as someone who might just value personal possessions too much.

Now flash forward thirty-five years. The boomers and the generation that followed have turned that perspective inside out. Stephen Roach, in today's New York Times, chronicles the shift from a country that produces and saves to one that simply consumes in "Dying of Consumption."

Bush Base Blunders:

Again. Plagiarism is back in the news. Just when Bush puts his foot in his mouth revealing his lack of connection to the rest of us over the price of a gallon of gas, one of his top aids is caught stealing the words of others. Tim Goeglein, one of Bush's top religious right aids, has admitted to stealing large chunks of other people's words in 19 of 38 articles he published over the years since 2000. Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers the story in today's New York Times. Goeglein, a top aid to Karl Rove early in the Bush administration, has left the building, so to speak.

Speaking of lack of awareness: "I thought how proud I am to be standing up beside my dad. Never did it occur to me that he would become the gist for cartoonists." — George W. Bush, Newsweek, Feb. 2000.


A Personal Moment:

Ah, Saturdays! Ya gotta love 'em. Don't you wish there were five Saturdays a week? I mean, you can't do away with Fridays (thank God), because you need a payday, and Sunday has to stay for the sake of pro football and to keep the religious right happy, but I see no reason why we shouldn't have five Saturdays in between.

Defining Victory:

President Bush asked the press core to define victory for him recently—I heard it on NPR, but forgot the context—and added that he wasn't going to allow politics to define it in the case of Iraq, which just makes perfect sense.

Some Vietnam veterans are found of saying the war in South-east Asia could have been won if it hadn't been for the need to have a political solution. That's like saying you could have been baseball's greatest home run hitter if you just hadn't had so much interference from those darn genes.

Face it, the decision to go to war is always a political decision, the decision to remain at war is always a political decision. The only time that a war ends other than for political reasons is when either you are your foe is obliterated and incapable of making a political decision.

The simple fact that the decision to invade Afghanistan was bi-partisan does not keep that war from being political, and unless we wipe the country off the planet, ending that war will be a political one as well.

Here's the definition from The American Heritage Dictionary:

po·lit·i·cal: adj. Abbr. pol., polit. 1. Of, relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state. 2. Relating to, involving, or characteristic of politics, parties, or politicians: “Calling a meeting is a political act in itself” (Daniel Goleman). 3. Having or marked by a definite or organized policy or structure with regard to government: the union's political machine; political pressure. 4. Relating to or involving acts regarded as damaging to a government or state: political crimes.