From the Post-Tribune (here):

U.S. Steel Gary Works will begin treating benzene-laden groundwater leaking into Lake Michigan from north of its coke plant by the end of October.

Plan on shorting X tomorrow at the open and if necessary, once more at upper Resistance [if it can get there] with my stop above Fridays HoD.  Its broke down from a rising wedge [as has XLB], bounced off its 21d EMA and that same 21d is poised to cross below the 200d EMA – very bearish if that were to happen.  Further downside could transform into a H&S top with a target of $32.50.  The overall market has been toppy and based on T2122 I believe we’re in for a market pullback so this seems to be to be the perfect time for this play without risking a lot of capital.  If it makes it through the day, I’ll slap a $3.50 trailing stop [2x ATR] on it and let it run.  Sunday evening overseas markets shows USD strength which will hurt commodity prices and ES_F is down to $1078.00.   Of course anything can happen once the US markets open.

Incidentally I’m also looking to get long DRV which trades over 1mil per day and has been outperforming the other ETFs by a good margin.  Have traded it several times.  Could be for the day or it could be for two.  Have a buy signal with a target b/w $23-29.00  Will judge whether I hold overnight by the market sentiment.  One could also merely short DRN [3x inverse real estate] but never hold overnight.  Very thinly traded and volatile.

Sound organization design implies efficient information flow and fluid adaptability to fluctuating market conditions, while simultaneous protection of internal corporate functions.

An organization should not be designed to accomodate corporate personnel. An organization should be designed to bring the corporation closer to the target market. A company that is in touch with dynamic market conditions will succeed, and will employ !

The right organization (which is composed of the right managers) reenforces positively employee motivation by correlating employee instrumentality to high valence organization objectives. Motivated employees are committed employees and committed employees support corporate objectives even during trying times.

Here’s a nice set of slides on fluid corporate communication !

And here’s a rough, simple proposal for a fluid organization :

A simple and flexible organization model

Any conversation about libraries anywhere in the world would be wholly incomplete with out a detailed analysis of Andrew Carnegie and his efforts. He once said; “There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish born American industrialist who was one of the wealthiest men in the history of the world. Of particular note is that Carnegie started with nothing, educated and lifted himself into the position in which he died. I believe fervently that Carnegie may be the very real first example of the ‘American Dream.’

Commonly referred to as one of the ‘Robber Barons’ alongside the likes of John Jacob Astor, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Clay Frick and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Carnegie amassed great wealth through the great industrialization of the Untied States in the late 19^th century. Today we have grown to think of the massive wealth through the likes of Warren Buffet or Bill Gates at around $50 Billion. In constant dollars accounting for inflation Carnegie’s wealth was in excess of $298.3 Billion according to a 2008 study by Forbes. His wealth only exceeded by John D. Rockefeller who in today’s dollars would have roughly $313 Billion according to the same study.

Carnegie established the Carnegie Steel Company in the 1870’s and by the end of the 1880’s it was the largest and most profitable company on the planet. His efforts in the business world earned him the title as being one of the ‘Captains of Industry.’ Carnegie Steel went onto become U.S. Steel when it was sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901. It was after the sale of his enterprise to Morgan that opened the door for the amazing and far reaching philanthropic activities of Carnegie.

Carnegie created through endowment a number of institutions that is fair to say have shaped the history of the world in the last century. He directly founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York under the mandate of promoting “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.” The endowment has in turn been responsible for the following through its initial investment of $125 Million that in current dollars is approximately $3 Billion;

The National Research Council
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Children’s Television Workshop
Carnegie Institution for Science
Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Melon University

These are but a few of the organizations that through his philanthropic efforts have flourished. Moreover, an argument can clearly be made that through these institutions he has left a fingerprint on the history of the last century and indeed will for the future. Of particular note in his establishment of the CEIP is his belief in 1910 at its founding that its purpose should be “hasten the abolition of international war, the foulest blot upon our civilization.”

However, even before the sale of his company, Carnegie had started, in earnest, on a program of intense philanthropic activities. In fact, as the Carnegie Steel Company began to make massive profits, so too did the United States and indeed the English speaking world, regardless of the colour of their skin, benefit from the ‘Robber Barons’ activities. Starting in 1881 in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland, Carnegie began his funding of the public library system and in fact in many respects is responsible for it today.

In his book, The Gospel of Wealth (which I strongly suggest you read) Carnegie wrote; “surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.” One note that I find particularly interesting is that in the United States South where segregation was still rampant Carnegie would build not one library but two.

Cartoon from Harper's Weekly, April 1903

Carnegie quickly became known as ‘The Patron Saint of Libraries’ and it is easy to understand why when it is understood that he was personally responsible for the building of 2,509 libraries in the English speaking world of which 1679 were in the United States, 650 in Great Britain, 125 in Canada and others built in Australia, Fiji, the Caribbean and Serbia.

Two interesting features of Carnegie Libraries that are of note is that they are not of one architectural style. Moreover, most have a prominent public entrance with stairs and almost all have a lamp out front. I learned when I was at the NYPL at Bryant Park that the reason for these features was that the staircase was a symbolic representation of humanity lifting itself through education and that the lamps were a symbol of enlightenment. Powerful symbols that I am sure many overlook today. When I read this I found myself welling up as it had never occurred to me and I had been in some of the grandest libraries in the world.

Dekalb Library in Brooklyn - A Carnegie Library Built in 1905

Interior of Dekalb - Carnegie built library

Other than the incredible importance of the libraries for what they are and what they represent for humanity – Why all this talk about Carnegie?

As mentioned earlier while I believe that Andrew Carnegie may be the first real example of the ‘American Dream’ so too do I believe that his philanthropic efforts with libraries represent the first real and workable lasting example of Private Public Partnerships (P3’s). Carnegie came up with what has been commonly referred to as ‘The Carnegie Formula’ that was his way of assessing the worth of his philanthropic effort as it related to libraries. He mandated that;

• There had to be a need
• That the town or cities donate the building site
• That the town or city be responsible for 10% of the cost of building the library for continued operation, and
• That it be FREE FOR ALL PEOPLE

In the letter below you will notice that with one swoop of his pen Andrew Carnegie agreed that there existed a need for a public institution for ‘social benefit’ of all the masses. Moreover he says that it is; “a rare privilege to furnish the money as needed for the buildings.” He then comments that it must be some kind of record to be creating 65 libraries at one shot but that; “this is the day of big operations.” You can sense the joy that must have swelled when he issued $5.2 Million to construct the branches at an ‘elevated’ cost of $80,000 per library through the hand written finish of the letter.

A Key Development in the NYPL

Recently, P3’s, have become critical to development both at home and abroad. It is crucial that we find an equivalent to the ‘Carnegie Formula’ if we are to achieve meaningful and lasting international development and accomplish the worthy aims of the Millennium Development Goals. It is with this in mind that my partners and myself at Great Minds Global are working tirelessly to find just that.

In our work we do extensive research to identify projects relevant to the Millennium Development Goals and international development. It is imperative that we acknolwedge that through the application of our collected skill sets and the ownership on the ground in the communities we work with that success while not guaranteed is far more likely. Moreover that through local ownership the projects that we work on are far more likely to be stewarded appropriately and with vigour.

The P3’s that we are working on with our strategic partners represent a shift from the current trend and instead are attempting to return, as stated earlier, to a model similar to that provided by Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie revolutionized the world, as John Gardner, a past president of the Carnegie Corporation, put it; “Wealth is nothing new in the history of the world. Nor is charity. But the idea of using private wealth imaginatively, constructively, and systematically to attack the fundamental problems of mankind is new.” Carnegie and the other “Robber Barons’ ushered in a new era a social responsibility by building what in modern times is a foundation. It is time for Great Minds Global to help usher in the next era of social innovation utilizing the example set over one hundred years ago.

When Carnegie died, true to his word, the last $30 Million of his estate was given away to philanthropic activities as he believed that a; “man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community – the man of wealth thus becoming the trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”

I yield further to the words of Carnegie himself;

“No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.”

“I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.”

“Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

“The man who dies rich dies disgraced”

The New Currency
SDM

   Baxter International Inc. a finalizat testarea si evaluarea virusului AH1N1 si a inceput productia la scara comerciala a unui vaccin folosind tehnologia culturii de celule Vero. Compania a primit o tulpina AH1N1 de la the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (un centru ce colaboreaza cu Organizatia Mondiala a Sanatatii) la inceputul lui mai si lucreaza de zor pentru a livra primele doze pana la inceputul lui iulie.

   Vaccinul va fi numit Celvapan si a primit aprobarea European Medicines Agency.

   Trebuie insa mentionat ca cea care lucreza actualmente in colaborare cu Organizatia Mondiala a Sanatatii (WHO – World Health Organization) pentru gasirea unui vaccin specific actualului tip de gripa porcina, Baxter International, este tocmai companie implicata in cateva mega scandaluri, ultimul legat de contaminarea unor vaccinuri (zic ei accidental) distribuite in 18 tari, cu celebrul virus aviar H5N1. Proportiile dezastrului ar fi fost dramatice daca cehii n-ar fi testat in prealabil primul lot pe dihori. Ca urmare a faptului ca toate bietele animale au murit, s-a cercetat si s-a descoperit ticalosia, insa dupa cum se vede, fara rezultate. Aceiasi nemernici se ocupa de … sanatatea noastra.  

   Tot ei sunt implicati in colaborari cu diferite guverne pentru gasirea de vaccinuri necesare in eventualitatea unor atacuri “bio-teroriste”.

   Cititi va rog si articolul:

Franta va incepe in toamna VACCINAREA OBLIGATORIE anti GRIPA PORCINA (AH1N1) pentru pentru toti cetatenii de la varsta de 3 luni in sus

   Nu mai reiau aici si alte detalii esentiale legate scopul isteriei gripei porcine: vaccinarea in masa si tatonarea posibilitatilor de declarare a legii martiale. Iar cand spunem vaccinare trebuie inteles eugenie, adica exterminare. Cititi va rog si articolele:

Se pregateste vaccinarea intregii populatii in SUA. Primul val: copii

GRIPA PORCINA: in caz de pandemie, se va declara legea martiala? Ce va insemna acesta?

I must confess that I’ve only ever tuned in to the Big Ten Network to see Penn State football and basketball … but apparently they’ve got some non-sports programming as well. Case in point: a roundtable discussion called “The Economy and the Graduate,” which airs tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 7 p.m.

The one-hour show was taped at University Park about two weeks ago before an audience of Penn State students. It features three execs talking partly about what’s going on with the economy in the short run, and partly about advice they’d offer to students and recent grads who are job-hunting in these tough times.

All three of the panelists have Penn State connections:

—Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, Inc., has a daughter who attended the Smeal College of Business.

—Karen Peetz ’77, senior executive VP for the Bank of New York Mellon, is a Health and Human Development grad (she was Karen Bretherick as a student).

—John Surma ’76, CEO of U.S. Steel, is a Smeal College grad.

You can watch a preview of tomorrow night’s show below. (Think of it this way: If “The Economy and the Graduate” were a movie opening in theaters, this would be the trailer.)

Tina Hay, editor

The global stock markets are now trading on words coming out the mouths of politicians, Obama tried the ‘buy US stocks now they are cheap!‘. Gordon Brown waffled out the ‘we can come together and solve this’ jibbrish, now China’s Premier Wen announcing (rumored) a huge 2nd round of Chinese fiscal stimulus. Of course one can’t discount the market euphoria is based on hysteria. China with an artificially low currency may now become a new type of protectionist on a huge scale. An attempt to produce and consumer their own products, not to mention selling US treasuries to fund it’s own consumption. Very scary. Oh yeah, China will try and buy as much stakes in commodity producing countries (private companies). If that is the case the West will definitely need China to revalue it’s Yuan, otherwise it’s ‘buy American’. Protectionism is on the table again.

Rating agencies have had a big slap on the wrist for completely stuffing up credit ratings for the MBS/CDO’s and other junk from the US subprime/mortgage meltdown.

So now they are gonna play hardball (to gain some respect, as Obama will regulate the F*** out of the rating agencies). Get ready for the downgrades, on everything…

U.S. Steel Corp. announced Tuesday that it would further scale back operations, affecting about 1,500 workers.

In the next month, the Pittsburgh-based company (NYSE: X) will idle its finishing and coking operations at Hamilton Works and the steelmaking and finishing operations at Lake Erie Works, both in Ontario. Coking production, the baking of coal to create the steel ingredient coke, will continue at Lake Erie Works, the company said.

U.S. Steel will continue to concentrate production at its Mon Valley Works outside of Pittsburgh; Gary Works in Gary, Ind.; and Fairfield Works near Birmingham, Ala., the company said.

Source: Dayton Business Journal

Peace,

There has been much discussion around President Obama’s plan to use Green Jobs as a catalyst in restoring the bleak job picture that many economists are forecasting.  This weekend, I’m headed to Powershift (www.powershift09.org) to learn more about the possibilities of connecting green politics with poor Black, Brown, Yellow & Red communities & I’ll give a report when I get back.  In the meantime, please check out a article on www.cnn.com about the struggle to turn green into green in Philadelphia. Below is a snippet:

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) — At the Bright Hope Baptist Church, dinner is served on tables with neat, white tablecloths. A vase with a plastic flower is the centerpiece.

The welcoming mood masks the grim reality.

The salad, garlic bread and spaghetti dinner is a lifeline to the 100 to 125 people who visit the inner-city Philadelphia church’s soup kitchen. The growing demand outpaces supplies from area food banks, and the church more and more relies on donated canned goods from its congregants to help those struggling just to eat.

These are trying times in a city and state once defined by the steel factories that supplied the spine of America’s industrial revolution and a proud blue-collar spirit.

Just outside the city sits a sprawling complex abandoned years ago by US Steel. Not long ago, it was a brownfield, the soil contaminated and the massive industrial buildings rusting alongside the railway tracks that once brought in the ore and carried out steel beams and rolls.

Now, it is an incubator in the so-called “Green Economy” that President Obama and others hold out as both the answer to America’s industrial decline and its dependence on foreign oil.

Jim Bauer was a US Steel maintenance worker at the site when the company abruptly closed its operations here. Now, he is a team leader for Gamesa, a Spanish company that manufacturers giant wind turbines in the very building where Bauer once worked for US Steel.

“We are still blue-collar guys at heart, but green-collar relative to the machines and what we are making,” Bauer told us during a break on the factory floor. “We like it. We want to keep people working.”

The U.S. Steel corporation was founded on February 25th, 1901. Businessmen J.P. Morgan, Elbert Gary and Andrew Carnegie combined smaller steel companies into one large firm.

A patent on this date in 1836 for another well-known name in business: Inventor Samuel Colt received the patent for the Colt Revolver.

Cassius Clay was armed with powerful weapons — his fists — when he went into the ring with heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston at Miami on February 25th, 1964. After six rounds, Liston had had enough, and Clay became the surprise champ by TKO. Clay declared himself “the greatest,” and became known as Muhammad Ali.

U.S. Steel Corp. has notified workers at its Minntac[,MN] mine that it will cut production in the next two to three weeks. As a result, about 50 percent of the work force — 500 union and 90 salaried management employees — will be indefinitely laid off.

Minntac, near Mountain Iron, employs about 1,100 union workers and about 180 people in salaried management positions. The mine has five taconite processing lines, but just four are operating. In the coming weeks, the number of operating lines will be cut to two.

Source: Duluth News Tribune

Even though we believe that layoffs should be used as a last resort, and have the published research to support it, there do come times when it’s necessary to lay off employees.  That’s why it was good to see Simon Constable in the Wall Street Journal recently recommend several ways in which to do it properly that fit with our findings and recommendations we made a decade ago in the MIT Sloan Management Review.  This includes our counterintuitive but important recommendation not to fire people on a Friday:

Don’t fire people on a Friday.

Don’t fire people late in the day.

Don’t make any layoff announcement until everyone affected has been informed.

Do offer to provide a good reference.

Fire people before Thanksgiving or after New Years, but not between.

Don’t piece-meal your chopping.

Don’t fire anyone by email.

We have an article in this spring’s issue of MIT Sloan Management Review that reflects upon and updates our article we published a decade ago:  “How do Downsize Your Company without Downsizing Morale.”  For  additional ideas and case studies on how to downsize or lay off people properly, be sure to read our book, Trust is Everything.

If you’d like a copy of our previous MIT Sloan Management Review article, Preserving Employee Morale During Downsizing, please contact us.

Aneil

Below is a listing of downsizings that I have been keeping track of over the past several months, using data published by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.  The list does not include the 2,000 job cuts that GM announced today as well.  It is by no means an exhaustive list, but it gives an idea of the horrific toll that downsizing is having in the U.S. and abroad:

The symbol on the Steeler’s helmet is the symbol of US Steel, three hypocycloids inside a circle. Here’s the full history if you’re into that kind of thing.

My father is a steelworker and has been for 30+ years, as such, I’ve seen this symbol almost every day of my life. Steel paid for my college education and it runs through my veins. Most of us from anywhere near Western Pennsylvania love this team. So I’m not only happy that they made it to the Super Bowl because it gives me a reason to care about the game this year, but also because this team brings joy to my hometown. The demise of the American steel industry has hit my hometown hard and frankly, I like to see these people excited about something. And we’re all pretty damn excited about this.

Here we go Steelers, here we go. Fire up the kielbasa and pierogis, Daddy, we’re goin’ downtown!

   Andrew Carnegie

   Andrew Carnegie ( 1835 – 1919 ), magnatul Carnegie Steel Company , cumparata in 1901 de J.P. Morgan si transformata in colosul US Steel cu ramificatii pana in Europa centrala . Dupa tranzactie se retrage din afaceri .

   Fondatorul in 1910 al institutiilor care ii poarta numele . Printre personalitatile ce le-au condus : David Rockefeller , Alger Hiss , John Foster Dulles , Dwight D. Eisenhower , fondatorul IBM Thomas J. Watson , Elihu Root ( 1845 – 1937 ) presedinte Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1910 – 1925 un apropiat al lui Andrew Carnegie .

U.S. Steel to idle Granite City Works steel mill

Lower demand for steel used in the automotive and construction industries is leading United States Steel Corp. to temporarily idle the Granite City Works steel mill and two others, the company said late Tuesday afternoon.

As of mid-November, the Granite City plant employed more than 2,100 hourly workers and salaried employees. U.S. Steel would not say Tuesday how many of the area workers would be laid off but said about 3,500 workers across the three plants would be affected.

(h/t Kevin over at CapFax; emphasis added)

I’ve posted twice before (one, two) asking why the heck conservative partisans are blaming unions for Detroit’s economic woes; even noting that cons are using very fuzzy math to promote their partisan spin. Others have been calling the GOP out for its baloney on the issue as well. All indications are that it is completely management’s hands — unions made major concessions, even some mid-contract, and have been advocating for better, more efficient cars for literally decades.

When the execs at HQ decide to push SUVs instead of more fuel-efficient vehicles and use plastic clips instead of metal ones … the unions have no control over those matters.

When the execs at banks and lenders decide to use their newly deregulated options (thanks to Republican Senators in the late 90s) to push ever riskier loans, even falsifying loan docs to ram through more loans, with little fear or forethought of the consequences … the auto unions have no control over those matters.

That said, I do favor limited, highly supervised (ie, “regulated”) bailout options for the Big Three. I was also ok with bailing out the white collar folks at the banks — albeit with the same push for tight scrutiny, which unfortunately has absolutely not happened.

Detroit is looking for bridge loans to make it through tough times. The laissez-faire, let-the-market-decide approach advocated by modern conservatives will have the unfortunate and very direct effect (as seen by US Steel’s action, above) of pushing our year-old Recession even deeper.

We’ve been through this before in this country. When Pres. Hoover was overseeing the Great Depression nearly three-quarters of a century ago his own laissez-faire, let-the-market-decide policies led to long lines at the soup kitchen for out of work Americans. When FDR took over, his progressive, hands-on approach improved things literally overnight … and it wasn’t until he grew overconfident and pulled back the reins a bit that the economy’s improvements actually (again, almost literally overnight) began reverting backwards.

Despite the conservatives anti-union rants and false economic spin, a progressive approach — taking a direct, all-hands-on-deck view of economic policy — is exactly what we need.

…And you can ask those 3,500 families who rely on a job at U.S. Steel why.

(For the record: Yes, it should be regulated. The Bush/Paulson free-for-all clearly hasn’t been working since Congress approved the $700 billion national lottery for bank execs.)

(source : AFP 03/11/08)

WASHINGTON (AFP)–Le groupe sidérurgique américain US Steel a annoncé mardi qu’il allait faire tourner au ralenti trois des ses centres aux Etats-Unis en mettant au chômage technique près de 3.500 personnes afin d’adapter sa production au ralentissement de la demande.
“Les installations qui tourneront au ralenti au cours des prochaines semaines sont celles de Keetac”, mine de fer et usine de bouletage dans le Minnesota (nord), et ses hauts fourneaux de Great Lake Works dans le Michigan (nord) et Granite City Works dans le Montana (nord-ouest), écrit le groupe dans un communiqué.
“Environ 3.500 employés seront touchés” par ces mesures, ajoute le texte, précisant en avoir averti les syndicats.
“Nous pensons que cette décision difficile de stabilisation temporaire de notre production est une réponse rendue nécessaire par les conditions actuelles du marché”, écrit le groupe.
Les producteurs d’acier, regroupés au sein de la World Steel Association (WSA), avaient revu en baisse en octobre leur estimation de la croissance de la demande mondiale d’acier pour 2008 (à +5,5% par rapport à 2007) et s’étaient avérés incapables de prédire le niveau de la demande pour 2009 du fait des incertitudes économiques.

A portrait of one Gary neighborhood through the eyes of one resident.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Eugene’s Gary is a portrait of one Gary, Indiana neighborhood through the eyes of Eugene Pawlak. Pawlak, who fixes up houses and is a life-long Gary resident, is the kind of guy you want as your neighbor. He looks out for kids riding bikes in the middle of the street, helps octogenarians carry in their groceries and knows everyone on the block.

But Pawlak’s happy-go-lucky disposition belies a starker past. As he joshes with his neighbors, slowly a portrait of Eugene himself emerges. A freak, on-the-job accident at U.S. Steel left him physically and emotionally broken; only by channeling his energy through his children was he able to find his footing again.

Produced in the style of cinema verite using complex but subtle on-site field recordings, (local birds, bicycle bells, the slow rumble of a passing train) the sparse but purposeful use of sound in Eugene’s Gary highlights and supports the unique timbre of each character’s voice.

This series was originally recorded and aired on Vocalo.org during several live broadcasts in August of 2007.

Eugene’s Gary won 3rd place in the category of Best Use of Sound from the Indiana Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists.

Photo, Row 7, Pinwheel by Eric Allix Rogers.

Lease Eugene’s Gary for broadcast through the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).