Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (080406)

Free Links:

• The Skeptical Optimist thinks GDP growth is accelerating.

• Mark Ames at AlterNet explains it all (NOT) — The Safeway employee in Denver who, back in late June, shot killed one coworker, wounded four others, and was himself killed by the police did it all because of ….. well, just read this (HT Amy Ridenour; Ames’ original piece appeared at the UK Guardian’s Comment Is Free) –
  

  What changed in the US workplace isn’t a sudden influx of guns on the market, or an influx of psychos in the workplace, but rather the most obvious and powerful cultural force of all: Reaganomics.

  The shooter was 4 years old when Reagan left office. I’d love to hear the argument that he wouldn’t have been so violent if he had instead grown up in a Carter economy of double-digit inflation, mortgages, and unemployment.

• Ho-hum Jobs News from North Carolina — “In one of the largest economic development announcements in Wake County history, Fidelity Investments on Wednesday confirmed plans to build a Research Triangle Park facility that will bring 2,000 new jobs to the area.”

• Insecure Security Software –
  

  A code execution vulnerability in software products sold by Internet security vendor McAfee could put millions at risk of computer takeover attacks, according to a warning from eEye Digital Security.

  The flaw affects fully patched versions of all McAfee consumer security products, including the company’s flagship McAfee Internet Security Suite 2006.

• Update on Governments Telling Apple How to Run Its iTunes/iPod Business — Norway is trying to bully Apple into enabling iTunes songs to work on any music player. I think the company has a decent response:
  

  ….. the two sides still disagree on the crucial point - the ability to download music files to other players than iPod.

  Apple said that limits posed by iTunes to the choice of players were not ” unreasonable” because “users can burn music to compact discs” and then use these freely.

  “They have the freedom of choice and the mechanism does not violate competition laws,” Apple’s letter also said.

  Apple has shown “both the will to make a change and have a dialogue, but there is yet a long way to go before an agreement is reached on all the points,” the Norwegian agency said.

  While it might be “nice” if Apple’s songs were all-player-enabled digitally and instantly, it’s the company’s call. It also remains to be seen if Apple is making long-run mistakes with iTunes and iPod similar to those it made with the Macintosh back in the 1980s that ultimately led to the Mac OS’s current under-5% market share.

• An interesting critique of “climate change” news coverage — from of all places, a British Labour Party think tank:
  

  Media attacked for ‘climate porn’

  The apocalyptic vision of climate change used by newspapers, environmental groups and the UK government amounts to “climate porn”.

  That is the conclusion of a report from Labour-leaning think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

  It says that the over-use of alarming images is a “counsel of despair”, making people feel helpless.

  Someone forgot to tell the think-tankers that making people feel helpless, so that the government can “make things better” by taking over more of the economy and dictating the conduct of the part they don’t take over, is the whole point.