snowdeal.org - conflux

conflux

Salon Den of Thieves
"If size is your thing, just flip through the proxy statements of publicly traded companies that will be arriving in mailboxes over the next month or so. The releases provide shareholders with a fleeting glimpse into the surreal world of executive compensation -- where company boards never let tanking stock prices, paltry earnings or massive worker layoffs get in the way of hefty raises and bonuses. CEO paychecks are swelling like never before.

By 1998, according to Business Week, the average CEO compensation package, including bonuses and stock options, had multiplied to 419 times the average worker's paycheck. And if, when that information is disclosed this month, the 1999 increases are comparable to the 28.5 percent hike of 1998, that figure will reach 538 to 1 by the time this proxy season is over.

Where will it stop? Each year, shareholder activist groups like United for a Fair Economy file resolutions seeking to cap executive pay. And bills currently under review in Congress would limit corporate deductions for bonuses and stock options -- legislation that extends an existing law limiting salary deductions to $1 million. But let's get real. The bills and resolutions have no chance of passing -- at least not as long as the most popular show in television remains "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.""

Wired Geeks Get Inside the Beltway
"Washington's courtship of the computer industry is paying off. A recent report shows technology companies significantly increased their political contributions in 1999. The industry donated around $8 million in soft money to congressional and presidential campaigns last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks campaign finance.

"It's kind of ironic because a couple of years ago the computer industry used to look at Washington with contempt," Bailey said. "But now they're every politician's favorite girlfriend."

Silicon Valley also is recognizing the value of political access. From Internet taxes to work visas, Congress makes decisions on a variety of issues that deeply impact the industry, she said."

Business Week More Visas for High-Tech Workers May Be Inevitable
�High-tech managers desperate to fill vacancies with skilled labor from overseas may soon get relief -- and none too soon, claim most business groups. Prospects are improving for congressional passage this year of a bill that would allow more foreign high-tech workers to take jobs in the U.S. Supporters of the increase in so-called H-1B visas cite declining numbers of engineers and computer programmers graduating from U.S. colleges.

In a step toward relieving the problem, on Mar. 9 a bill sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Senate Immigration subcommittee Chairman Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.) cleared the Judiciary panel by a 16-2 vote. The legislation would nearly double the number of foreign technically skilled immigrant workers allowed to enter the U.S. each year under a special visa. Final Senate action on the measure is expected this year, and the House is working on its own version of the legislation.

Labor unions and America-Firsters adamantly oppose any increase in H-1B visas. They contend that the solution to a high-tech labor shortage in the U.S. isn't to let in skilled immigrants but to improve the U.S. educational system so that Americans are better trained in math, science, and engineering skills."

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“"You're not a designer, you're not a writer, and you're not an editor!"

Well, no, blogger, you're not. And therein lies your gift. Because even if it's true the vast majority of blogs would not be missed by more than a handful of people were the earth to open up and swallow them, and even if the best are still no substitute for the sustained attention of literary or journalistic works, it's also true that sustained attention is not what Web logs are about anyway. At their most interesting they embody something that exceeds attention, and transforms it: They are constructed from and pay implicit tribute to a peculiarly contemporary sort of wonder.

...[T]he Web log reflects our own attempts to assimilate the glut of immaterial data loosed upon us by the "discovery" of the networked world. And there are surely lessons for us in the parallel. For just as the cabinet of wonders took centuries to evolve into the more orderly, logically crystalline museum, so it may be a while before the chaos of the Web submits to any very tidy scheme of organization.”

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