10 things that won't survive the recession
Tight times, and budgets, will hasten the end for some things
By Mike Elgan
December 23, 2008
The government says we've been in a recession for the past year. Experts say it'll be at least another year before it's over. And everybody says it's the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Nice sound bite. What does that mean?
Who knows? We can be sure that this downturn will differ totally from the Depression, and also different from the many recessions we've suffered every decade or every other decade since the '30s. I'm not an economist or a historian, but it seems to me that this recession will be something unprecedented.
One reason is that that there was no Internet or mobile technology in the 1930s. That means individual people and companies have very low-cost, high-efficiency alternatives for doing a wide range of activities. That will accelerate the demise of those things fated to be replaced anyway.
Here are 10 things that I believe won't survive the recession.
1. Free tech support
The practice still employed by some companies of paying humans to answer phones and solve technical problems with hardware or software purchased for consumers will become a thing of the past. PCs, laptops, and hardware peripherals, as well as application software -- these categories will be purchased like airline tickets, with price becoming the sole criteria for many buyers. In order to compete on price, companies who now offer real tech support will replace it with message boards (users helping users), wikis, wizards, software-based troubleshooting tools, and other unsatisfying alternatives.
2. Wi-Fi you have to pay for
Everyone is going to share the cost of public Wi-Fi because the penny-pinching public will gravitate to places that offer "free" Wi-Fi. Companies that charge extra for Wi-Fi will see their iPhone, BlackBerry, and netbook-toting customers -- i.e., everybody -- taking business elsewhere. The only place you'll pay for Wi-Fi will be on an airplane.
3. Landline phones
Digital phone bundles for homes (where TV, home networking, and landline phone service are offered in a total package) will keep the landline idea alive for a while, but as millions of households drop their cable TV services and as consumers look to cut all needless costs, the trend toward dropping landline service in favor of cell phone service only will accelerate until it's totally mainstream, and only grandma still has a landline phone.
4. Movie rental stores
The idea of retail stores where you drive there, pick a movie, stand in line, and drive home with it will become a quaint relic of the new fin de siecle (look it up!). The new old way to get movies will be discs by mail, and the new, new way will be downloading.
5. Web 2.0 companies without a business plan
The era when Web-based companies could emerge and grow on venture capital, collecting eyeballs and members at a rapid clip and deferring the business plan until later are dead and gone. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Twitter. Sand Hill Road-style venture capital is shrinking toward nothing, and investors in general will be hard to come by. Those few remaining investors will want to see real, solid business plans before the first dollar is wired to any startup's bank.
6. Most companies in Silicon Valley
Tech company failures and mergers will leave the industry with a low two-digit percentage (maybe 25 percent) of the total number of companies now in existence. Like the automobile industry, which had more than 200 car makers in the 1920s and emerged from the Depression with just a few, Silicon Valley is in for some serious contraction. The difference is that the auto industry ended up with the Big Three, whereas the number of tech companies will grow dramatically again during the next boom.
7. Palm Inc.
Elevation Partners, which has among its principals U2 lead singer Bono, pumped a whopping $100 million into the failing Palm Inc. this week.
The idea is to give the company time to release its forthcoming Nova operating system, which will take the cell phone world by storm and give Apple a run for its money. It would have been far more efficient, however, to just flush that money down the toilet. With the iPhone setting the handset interface agenda, BlackBerry maker RIM kicking butt in the businesses market, and Google stirring up trouble with its Android platform, this is no time for a clueless company like Palm to be introducing a new operating system. By this time next year, Palm will be gone. And so might Elevation Partners.
8. Yahoo
Yahoo is another company that can't seem to do anything right. Or, at least, can't compete with Google. Yahoo will be acquired by someone, and its brand will become an empty shell -- used for some inane set of services but appreciated only by armchair historians (joining the ranks of Netscape, Napster, and Commodore).
9. Half of all retail stores
Many retail stores are obsolete and will be replaced by online competitors. Entire malls will become ghost towns. By this time next year, most video game stores, book stores and toy stores -- as well as many other categories -- will simply vanish. Amazon.com will grow and grow.
10. Satellite radio
I'm sorry, Howard Stern. It's over. The newly merged Sirius XM Radio simply cannot sustain its losses. The company is already deeply in debt and would need to dramatically increase subscribers over the next six months in order to meet its debt obligations. Unfortunately, new car sales, where a huge percentage of satellite radios are sold, are in the gutter and stand-alone subscriptions are way down.
Change is hard. But efficiency is good. While boom years gives us radical innovation and improve consumer choice, recessions help us focus on what's really important and accelerate the demise of technologies and companies that are already obsolete.
So say good-bye to these 10 things, and say hello (eventually) to a new economy, a new boom and a new way of doing things.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/12/23/10_things_that_wont_survive_the_recession_1.html
Great Depression witnesses remember
As Americans try to cope with lost jobs and lost homes and deal with the continuing crises in the financial and credit markets that some compare with conditions during the Great Depression, economists say that, so far, the United States has not seen the level of deprivation that marked the 1930s.
Nevertheless, the unfolding collapse in housing values has obliterated an estimated $4 trillion in home equity, which will cause millions of households to lose their homes through foreclosure. The bear market - the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about 40 percent from its peak - has eliminated additional trillions of dollars in stockholders' wealth. Also, last month the unemployment rate reached its highest level (6.7 percent) in more than 15 years.
But by comparison, at its nadir the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 90 percent of its value in the Great Depression, when the unemployment rate peaked at
24.9 percent and economic output declined by 13 percent in a single year. (Even if the gross domestic product plunges by an annual rate of 5 percent during the fourth quarter, GDP will still be 1.2 percent higher in 2008 than it was last year.)
Robert E. Miller, 87; Queen Esther Woodard, 96; and Lillie Deloatch, 88, lived through those hard times, and they shared their Depression-era experiences in conversations at the Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home in Northwest.
Robert E. Miller, 87.
Born in 1921 at Columbia Hospital in the District , Mr. Miller spent the Depression years as a child in the nation's capital.
Robert E. Miller, 87, grew up in the District during the Great Depression with two sisters and three brothers. "We always had some kind of food. My father would eat opossum," he said. (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
Growing up in a home at 23rd and P streets on top of Rock Creek Park, Mr. Miller had two sisters, three brothers and a big German police dog - "and that was all that boys want, a brother and police dog."
His father worked as a night watchman from 7 at night until 7 the next morning, all for $75 a month. "We lived off that, and I don't know how you could say it, but we were a very happy family, eatin' with what we could get, your bread. ... A loaf of bread, white bread, cost five cents," he said.
"You didn't have any electric lights in your house. You had what they call coal oil lamps," he recalled. "We had no electricity at all ... no running water ... had to go down to the corner, pump's on the corner, just mash on the top and the water would come out. You take your bucket and go down there and pump, get your water, come back to the house, and that's the way you got your water."
In the winter time, Mr. Miller and his siblings had only one over coat to share among them. On the way to school, whoever got dressed first got to wear the coat. "The rest didn't have any, so we just walk with shirt sleeves, sweater, no sweater, and we'd walk [24 blocks] to Dunbar [High School]. We would walk that, rain, snow, whatever. . . . Get to school the best way you could, and still we managed to be happy, jovial, playin' all the time, never any fightin' anything," as he tells it.
He and his siblings would wear their shoes until the soles were completely worn out, using newspaper to cover the holes.
"But it was a tough time, I remember. I guess that was the recession then. People didn't have any jobs; they would stand on the corner and sell apples, nickel apiece. They were unemployed, they didn't have nothing else to do," he remembered. "That's the way they made their living."
Those were the days before credit cards, when life was simple. But one could have credit at the corner grocery store and pay it at the end of the month.
The merchant "just had a big ledger. You come in and get $20 worth of stuff. And the end of the month he was expecting you to pay him your $20, which a lot of people didn't do, but that's the way you worked."
At the time, Mr. Miller didn't know about the Depression. As a child , that that's just how things were. Times were hard.
"I thought that was just normal life," he remembers. "We always had some kind of food. My father would eat opossum. We'd go to Rock Creek Park, get a opossum for him, right in the park, bring it home, he'd eat it. I wouldn't eat any of it," he said.
"We always had sufficient food. Meager-type food. It wasn't the best food. We would maybe get some kind of meat, maybe neck bones or something like that. My mother would cook them, my father would eat the neck bones, and we'd eat what now would be thrown away: the greases off the neck bones, that is what we would eat, heat it up and pour it on in a plate, get some bread, and sop that, and we thought we were living good. We were happy with that."
Sharecropper's daughter Lillie Deloatch, 88, talks about her experiences growing up during the Great Depression: "Yes, indeed, I remember," she says. "When Hoover was in the seat, right? And we couldn't get good flour. ... We were poor, but a lot of love. We all went to church. We were all right." (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
He said, "It was a nice childhood, but it was tough times. It never occurred to you that you were living in hardship.
"I did grow up knowing that you had to look ahead: If you get a dollar, don't spend the whole dollar. Spend maybe 75 cents, but keep a quarter. You're gonna need it one day. And that's the way I lived," he recalled. "I bought my first home like that, puttin' away nickels and dimes.
"I live in two different worlds, the world back then and world we got now, and the world we got now I don't think too much of it, to tell you the truth."
Queen Esther Woodard, 96.
Born on Jan. 26, 1912, Queen Esther Woodard was 18 years old when the stock market crashed Oct. 29, 1929. She is the daughter of a sharecropper.
Queen Esther Woodard, 96, was 18 when the stock market crashed Oct. 29, 1929. The Depression wasn't too hard for her, she recalled, because her father grew everything and they lived off the land. (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
Sitting upright in her wheelchair, Ms. Woodard is alert and full of life in a red sweater and a blue plaid blanket that covers her lap. She is surrounded by messages of faith, posters on the walls, eight Bibles on the shelves, stuffed animals on the bed and old photographs.
The seventh of 14 children , she grew up as a child in Rocky Mount, N.C. She married Oscar Woodard, a carpenter, at age 21.
Working the fields was not just for adults. Everyone who could work did so. Ms. Woodard worked in the fields from age 11, with her brothers and sisters. In the fields for long hours even after school, their labor was needed by their father, who toiled in the fields of peanuts, cabbage, sweet potatoes, collard greens and corn.
Robert E. Miller, 87, spent the Depression years as a child in the District. "We lived off that [$75 a month], and I don't know how you could say it, but we were a very happy family," he said. (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
"When I was a child, we didn't go to school but six months out of the year, and sometimes when we get home from school, we had to change our school clothes because we didn't have but one pair of shoes. Get them shoes off so you wouldn't wear them out too quick and go in the field and go to work," she recalls.
In addition to the hard times of the Depression, the country was also segregated. Her best girlfriend was white, yet they couldn't eat together at a restaurant. "But it didn't change the taste of the food," she says, laughing.
Ms. Woodard said life wasn't too hard for her and her family because her father grew everything, living off the land. Although times were extremely harsh, they were generous. Her father would kill the hogs, take the meat and give it away like he had no mouths to feed. He'd kill six hogs in November and six more in February, and that meat would last.
Taking the lessons and examples of her generous parents and strict religious upbringing during life in the Great Depression, she has given to others in need through the years. "I guess some people think I'm crazy, but you know, I don't value my money that well. I don't value it's so important to me that if you're hungry I couldn't give you a soda and sandwich."
Lillie Deloatch, 88.
Ms. Deloatch was born on May 8, 1920 in Branchville, Va., nearly 10 years before the stock market crash. Today she sits in her room at the Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home in the District, safe, comfortable and far from the farm where she grew up near the North Carolina border. The room is clean, the bed made.
She rests in her wheelchair, and the blinds are open to the street below, with its barren trees marking the winter season as the nation's economy remains in crisis.
Her father was a sharecropper.
"Yes, indeed, I remember," she says. "When Hoover was in the seat, right? And we couldn't get good flour. ... The hogs had died, and we didn't have no meat," she recollects. "We raised our hogs, chickens; we had cows, dogs, cats and eight children. There was a lot of love. We were poor, but a lot of love. We all went to church. We were all right.
"Momma made our clothes. Somehow, I don't know, somehow we made it. My father was a huntsman. He hunted rabbits and squirrels. We ate it."
Even though she lived on a farm, hardships were everywhere; not many were spared. On the farm, she worked in the fields picking cotton.
"It really was really a hard time. I remember my mother asked my father one day - he was taking a bail of cotton to Branchville: 'Joe, bring me a piece of cloth [so I can] make Lillie a dress to wear to field.' And he bought it, cotton material, and my mother cried. She said, 'Joe, Lillie never wore anything like this in her life.' And I liked it. It was all right for the field."
Ms. Deloatch compared life during the Great Depression to life today. "But back then, in those days, they was good old days. Wasn't like we hatin' one another like they do now. There was more love, you know," she said.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/29/witnesses-to-the-great-depression-remember/
Senior Chinese, Russian military officials hold first-ever talks via direct phone link
BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chen Bingde, chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China and his Russian counterpart Nikolay Makarov held their first-ever conversation via direct phone link on Monday.
Both military leaders hailed the successful launch of the direct phone link.
Chen said the launch of the direct phone link between the two countries' chiefs of general staff is another important measure for deepening pragmatic cooperation between Chinese and Russian militaries and another showcase of the tow countries' mutual political trust and strategic cooperation.
The direct phone link will help the two sides maintain timely communication on significant issues such as the exchange and cooperation between the armies and exchange views and collaborate stances in time on international and regional affairs, so as to promote the exchange and cooperation between the two militaries, Chen added.
For his part, Makarov said the launch of the direct phone link once more showcased the high-level of the China-Russia strategic partnership and the two countries' military ties.
He expressed his willingness to work with the Chinese side to keep frequent exchanges on the two armies' cooperation and other important issues in order to push forward their military ties.
The two leaders also exchanged views on international and regional situation, bilateral relations, and other issues of common concern.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/29/content_10575726.htm
Squatters: The latest real-estate menace
Vacant properties across the country are being seized by a new breed of squatters. They’re organized and often armed with fake paperwork, and it can take months to get them out.
When he moved in, David Dobbs did the same things most people would do when they set up in a new house. He unpacked his belongings, hooked up cable, transferred utilities, filled the swimming pool and watered the lawn, which was withering under the hot California sunshine.
"It was like he had just moved in and was a proud new owner," says Prudential California real-estate agent Tom Tennant, who listed the Corona, Calif., property.
The problem was, Dobbs had no right to move into the house: He was a squatter. The vacant house he occupied on affluent Star Canyon Drive was a foreclosed property owned by a bank, and it was in escrow to a new owner.
Dobbs is part of a troubling new breed of trespassers and con artists moving into vacant foreclosures across the country. Unlike most squatters, these people aren't derelict and living on the streets, and they don't move on once discovered by police or sheriff’s officers. It can take months to get them out, agents and attorneys say.
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law," says Michigan real-estate broker Ralph Roberts, author of "Protect Yourself from Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud." "You can call the police, but the police aren't necessarily going to move them out."
That's because some squatters successfully confuse police by claiming they have a right to be there, often showing bogus leases, as Dobbs did, to put off being evicted.
The scams
Squatting schemes can take a few different forms, police say. In some, individuals will gain access to a lockbox code on a property, open the door and start moving in. No breaking or entering is involved.
Or a con artist will hire an unscrupulous locksmith to change the locks on a property so he can place ads and rent it out to people.
What's your home worth?
In this scenario, the individual passing himself off as a landlord will collect first and last month's rent — sometimes from several unsuspecting people — before disappearing, says Detective Mike Wood of the Sacramento Police Department's real-estate fraud unit. Criminals also can lift information about a house off of legitimate real-estate listings and then put out their own ad on Craigslist to lure renters, he says.
But oftentimes, the squatters will knowingly produce phony leases or other documents that cloud the issue, and send the matter to the court system for a formal eviction, which can take as long as several months.
The woman accused of providing Dobbs with the bogus paperwork, Gwendolyn Johnson, is reported to have filed about a dozen deed transfers at the county recorder's office for houses where she planned to move squatters. She told the local newspaper that she seizes possession of these properties and leases them out to tenants for a one-time fee of several hundred dollars. (Johnson was recently arrested on a felony charge of falsifying documents and is out on bail awaiting her court date.)
But, attorneys say, even without legitimate-looking paperwork, it can be hard to evict squatting tenants once they've moved in and claim a verbal month-to-month agreement.
"A verbal agreement is just as binding" if it's real, says Los Angeles eviction attorney Dennis Block.
"They (the officials) have to decide who's telling the truth."
Squatters’ rights?
And that can be difficult. Police who are called out to a house don't want to arrest someone who has a legitimate right to be there, or was duped into renting a place from a bogus landlord. Most police and sheriff's officers don't want to face a lawsuit for acting too quickly.
"No one wants to get sued throwing someone out who's an actual victim" of a scam, Wood says.
Block says most police officers don't feel qualified to judge the merits of either side's arguments, so they simply tell real-estate asset managers to get an attorney to start the eviction process.
"The police are really there to keep the peace and make sure no laws are being violated," Block says. "They have to make a sure a crime existed before they make any arrest."
The eviction process, which starts with a five-day notice to vacate and ends with an order for the sheriff's department to remove the squatter, can take months if it is contested in court.
Real-estate agent Tennant, who was managing the Star Canyon property and had its utilities in his name, tried to get the squatter out himself, by persuading the city to cut off water to the property, a large Spanish-style home in a gated community, after Dobbs transferred it to his name along with electricity and gas.
In the weeks leading up to the order for his eviction, Dobbs broke the water meter repeatedly and even tried to tap into the water line illegally, sending water down the street and an officer to the house to arrest him on a misdemeanor charge of theft of utilities, Corona police confirmed.
Tennant says there is now an order for Dobbs to be evicted from the house. The one-time buyer of the property has since moved on, to look at other communities and other houses after a contractual clause let him out of the purchase because the house wasn't vacant.
Move-outs for money
Not all squatters are as tenacious as Dobbs. Some only want to stick around long enough to get a payoff from the lender to evacuate.
Banks, in order to speed up the eviction process and avoid legal action, are paying these occupants as much as several thousand dollars to get them out quickly, a strategy known as "cash for keys."
This practice, real-estate agents and law enforcement officials say, has encouraged all kinds of ne'er-do-wells to break into vacant foreclosure properties in hopes of earning a little extra cash.
"They get a place to live for a couple of months rent-free and the banks will give them a couple thousand in moving expenses," Wood says.
Some are pulling this scam repeatedly in a number of properties once they find out which lenders are paying.
If someone knows, for instance, that a particular lender is paying $3,000 for people to move out of their vacant properties, Roberts says, they have more incentive to target several of its properties for squatting.
"It's like they're letting people walk into the vault and take money," Roberts says.
Often, the same real-estate firm or lender keeps the same code for its lockboxes, making it easier for trespassers to move in once they get a code or combination.
Neighbors band together
Because these squatters have been so hard to evict, neighbors in many high-foreclosure communities have been forced to take matters into their own hands.
After squatters moved into several houses in Scott Elliot's 1,100-home gated community in Riverside County, Calif., he and other neighbors banded together to make life difficult for the squatters that police refused to throw out and to try to prevent new ones from moving in.
They tipped off the local news channel about these occupants to get news crews out filming them, and they formed a neighborhood watch of all of Victoria Grove's empty houses. They collected phone numbers for the local police as well as for the real-estate asset managers of all the vacant properties, and the neighbors called whenever they saw suspicious activity.
"In 15 to 20 minutes, we can have 30 people there standing outside. It's a show of force," says Elliot, a retired attorney who heads the community maintenance association.
In one case, these neighbors called the authorities early enough to get a new set of squatters out, who had pulled up to a house a half-hour after the last ones had been evicted, Elliot says.
"We are learning as we go," Elliot says. "We have succeeded in getting five groups of squatters out. I think we have the upper hand now, and our community is really together for the first time."
Agents, too, have had to step up their own surveillance of properties they are listing and take proactive measures to prevent them from being occupied, such as taking out all the toilets from a home or turning off utilities.
"I have my properties inspected once a week," Tennant says. "But most of the time access is being gained in the evenings or weekends."
Not just the bank's problem
Agents say the problem of squatting is only going to get worse as the unprecedented wave of foreclosures works its way through the system. Bill Collins, a real-estate broker with ERA Queen Realty in South Orange, N.J., says it is becoming a much bigger problem in his area.
"A lot of properties that were in very good condition are winding up falling through the cracks and being inhabited by squatters," Collins says. That's bad for the safety and value of the surrounding community, he says. And, it puts more strain on everyone; not only agents, but also police and sheriff's officers who are being repeatedly called out to these properties.
Tennant and others are pressing for more arrests in this "grand theft house." Police "need to react swiftly and harshly to this," Tennant says. "They need to send the message to someone with an organized criminal background that this isn't acceptable."
8 ways to avoid falling victim to a squatting scam
Squatting is a problem that can hurt renters as well as neighboring homeowners. Here's what you need to know to protect yourself.
Homeowners
1. Keep a list
If your neighborhood has a lot of vacant properties, keep a list of them as well as phone numbers for the real-estate agent or asset manager in charge of them, and local law enforcement contacts. Pass them out to your neighbors, so if anyone sees something suspicious, you can get someone out there to handle it quickly.
2. Catch them in the act
Try to catch squatters in the act of moving in. It's easier to get them out of the house before all the utilities are in their name, police officials say.
3. Organize a neighborhood watch
Most real-estate agents drive by their foreclosure properties regularly to make sure they're not being vandalized. But they mostly do this during the day and in the middle of the week. Squatters typically move in at night or on the weekend. If vacant houses are a problem in your community, sit down with neighbors and schedule times to patrol these properties at night or on weekends and call police if you see suspicious activity. It shouldn't be your responsibility, but ultimately, securing these houses protects your community's real-estate values and safety.
Renters
Some squatters are posing as landlords to lure people into paying them “rent.” Here are five ways to avoid being duped.
1. Do your research
Run an Internet search on the name of the person who's listing the house, as well as his e-mail address, phone number and anything you else you know about him, Woods and Roberts say. Often it can turn up complaints, arrests or other unflattering information about the fake landlord, or it can provide information that contradicts his story.
2. Say cheese
Most scam artists won't want to get their picture taken. So if you are leasing a place, suggest a picture to commemorate the special occasion of you finding a great new place. If they're shady, they'll most likely decline the snapshot, Roberts says.
3. Beware of the cash deal
If a landlord is asking for first and last month's rent in cash or a cashier's check, be a little skeptical, Roberts says. And don't do business with someone you haven't seen who just leaves a key and asks for payment to be wired because he's out of town.
4. Sign papers in an office, not on the hood of a car.
Just about anyone can pass as a landlord or property manager, armed with a set of keys and some boilerplate rental agreements. But it's typically safer to rent a place through a professional property manager, and it doesn't cost the renter any extra, as the owner is the one paying the fees.
5. If the rent is too good to be true, it probably is.
One of the ways con artists are able to entice renters into these vacant properties is with rents that are priced just below the market, police say. A low, low price makes many people willing to move quickly to fork over a deposit and not spend too much time thinking about the landlord.
Then, says Roberts, you become the problem in the community. "A tenant can pay real money to a bad guy and then be considered a bad guy."
http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=15819672
Show off, or better put showing off for the world. Just trying to draw attention.
Medvedev’s assertiveness troubles Putin
Published: December 30 2008 17:51 | Last updated: December 30 2008 17:51
It was an innocuous sounding comment in what appeared to be a routine television interview. But in the six days since Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, described his feelings about taking the oath of office in May, the corridors of power have been buzzing.
“The final responsibility for what happens in the country and for the important decisions taken would rest on my shoulders alone and I would not be able to share this responsibility with anyone,” Mr Medvedev told an interviewer.
For a normal president in a normal country, such a remark would have been a statement of the obvious. But to a select few, it was a “dog whistle”, a message audible only to those Mr Medvedev wanted to hear.
Usually when discussing such matters he stresses his “consultation” with Vladimir Putin, the prime minister and former president, who all but installed Mr Medvedev in his job and is thought to take most of the big decisions. But this time Mr Medvedev stressed that he was the single constitutionally empowered decision-maker.
Kremlin watchers say this assertiveness seems to be part of a new pattern, with Mr Medvedev appearing frustrated that, in spite of his constitutional power as commander in chief, he is stuck in a subordinate role.
“An apprehension is growing on both sides, particularly the Putin side,” said Dmitry Simes, head of the Nixon Centre in Washington, who spent last week in Moscow.
“No one is quoting Putin as saying anything . . . But several of Putin’s associates are uneasy about his [Medvedev’s] new assertiveness.”
Mr Simes said Mr Medvedev had summoned cabinet members and given instructions. “Clearly it was Medvedev reaching out to members of the cabinet on economic issues which normally would be considered Putin’s prerogative.”
A Putin adviser said Mr Medvedev’s remarks in the interview demonstrated a “cavalier” attitude. Mr Simes said: “Medvedev sounded very self-confident. He was not very deferential.”
Personal relations between the two men are warm, but most attempts by Mr Medvedev to pursue independent policies have been thwarted. Anti-corruption measures he championed were changed by Russia’s usually supine parliament in October. According to Russian press reports, plans by Mr Medvedev to appoint independent judges were thwarted by Putin allies.
Mr Medvedev’s big legislative success has been a constitutional change to lengthen the presidential term from four to six years, which has sailed through the approval process. The reason? “Everyone understood that this was Putin’s idea,” said the Russian-language version of Newsweek
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre think-tank, said: “I don’t think he [Medvedev] is amused that. . . he is regarded as a junior partner.”
However, the economic crisis could test both men. Lilya Shevtsova of the Carnegie Centre said: “They both understand that the. . . system of power depends on them getting along.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cfa5d788-d697-11dd-9bf7-000077b07658.html
The speaker produced a stick with a lot of nails driven into it and said that it was meant to represent a life full of sin. Each nail represented a sin, and there were so many nails that not very much of the stick was to be seen.Mormons prepared for hard times They may be among the best able to weather an economic downturn.
SALT LAKE CITY - Bishop's Storehouse looks like any other grocery store at first glance: The shelves are neatly lined with canned goods and the smell of fresh bread wafts through the aisles.
But there are no cash registers. The fruits and vegetables, just-made cheeses and milk are free — a safety net for those in need provided by the 13 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"We like to call it the best food money can't buy," said Jim Goodrich, who oversees the storehouse and other facilities on the church's 13-plus-acre Welfare Square.
Mormons may be among the country's best prepared to weather the current economic hard times. Since the Great Depression, church leaders have preached a doctrine of self-reliance and selflessness, calling on members to plan for their own future while tending to the needs of others."It's a critical component of our theology," said Bishop David Burton, a senior church administrator who oversees the faith's worldwide welfare and humanitarian services programs.
Year's supply of emergency food
Members are encouraged to squirrel away a few months' worth of living expenses and stock a one-year supply of emergency food. Church handouts, classes and a Web site describe how to prepare, store and cook with emergency food supplies so nothing goes to waste.
Each month, members skip two meals and give the money they would have spent on food to church welfare programs, paying for the commodities, clothing, job training and other services made available to the needy.
The church also works in partnership with other faith traditions and local social service agencies to share surplus commodities and support services.
Goodrich's Welfare Square is the heart of the program. Founded in the 1930s, the square is home to a cannery and milk- and cheese-processing facility; a 16 million-pound grain elevator; and a bakery, storehouse, thrift store and employment center, all of which are run mostly by volunteers serving church missions.
Over the years, the safety net has extended worldwide to include farms, orchards, dairies and cattle ranches that provide the raw material for the commodities harvested, processed and packaged at church facilities.
Each product carries the "Deseret" label — a Book of Mormon word that is a synonym for honeybee and a metaphor for the industriousness of church members.
"What we see today is the product of 60 years of inspired leadership and a lot of hard work," Burton said. "I can't tell you the cumulative investment, but it's minor in terms of the cumulative effort on the part of thousands and thousands."
Commodities first
Church members seek out their local congregation leader, called a bishop, to access the system. Bishops — there are 27,000 worldwide — also have a pool of cash to pay for housing, medical needs or keep the utilities on, although the church prefers to provide commodities first, Burton said.
Assistance comes with the expectation of reciprocal service, whether it's a few hours of volunteer work on the square stocking shelves or some other form of service.
Jennifer Williams was hesitant to accept help. Fresh out of college and in the middle of a difficult divorce, she was struggling to find a career that matched her skills — fluency in Russian and a political science education.
"One of the things that makes it so hard is that you think it's just for people who don't have a job, not for someone like me, working, middle-class and educated," said Williams, 29, now of Washington, D.C. "But, you know, needing help is OK."
Without money to buy a gallon of milk, she temporarily stocked her pantry with church commodities and used the training she got in an executive job search program to land a job with a defense contractor.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28392743/
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