Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ Links (030806)

Free Links:

• Google Says “Never Mind” — Yesterday, it advised investors to disregard an internal financial forecast it “mistakenly posted.” What was posted included a reference to “management’s concerns about the online search engine leader’s profits narrowing amid tougher competition.”It seems to me that the concerns may be justified:

  

• It isn’t true that half of us are head cases — Okay, that’s not exactly what the article says. What it DOES say is that “alarming statistics about depression, sexual dysfunction, anxiety disorders or drug and alcohol abuse are exaggerations,” and that (I am so NOT surprised) “Pharmaceutical companies have capitalized on the fuzzy statistics, with commercials that focus on sadness, loneliness, exhaustion and anxiety that are common among normal people.’”There’s more:
  

  The two researchers also faulted the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and other groups for benefiting from survey statistics, with “belief that if they can convince politicians that mental illnesses are widespread, they can gain more funding for mental health services.” Allocating resources to the “distressed but not disordered” could backfire, however. “Erasing the distinction between normal and disordered conditions and calling both mental disorders may harm the truly disabled,” the authors concluded.

  I feel better already.

• GM announced pension reductions for salaried employees, and a move away from defined-benefit formulas (”traditional” pensions, where you get a fixed benefit per month after retirement) towards defined-contribution arrangements (where you accumulate a balance, but it’s up to you to make it last after you retire). USA Today calls it a “freeze” (perhaps inaccurately), and notes that it will save the company $420 million in 2007, and reduce its long-term pension liability by $1.6 billion. Although the move was undoubtedly necessary at this point, it continues the unfortunate tradition in Detroit of sticking it to salaried workers in lieu of getting real with the UAW. Then management will wonder why the talent pool is so thin.
• In contrast to much of the rest of the world, productivity is chugging along nicely in the US. Willisms has the details, and as usual they are presented in a graphically pleasing style.