The New Yorker, 2009-10-21

"The Pay Problem" / David Owen
__ Minor.. had no trouble choosing the best employment contract: it was that of Jack Welch.. "It was the only contract that said the C.E.O could be fired at any time, for any reason. .. What I didn't know - because it didn't have to be disclosed - was that he also had a retirement agreement."

"Program Notes" / Yoni Brenner
__ The theme bubbles and courses through the orchestra, constantly elaborated and ultimately recapitulated in a massive crescendo of horns and trumpets, at which point the flutes are totally drowned out and seem not a little jaded and you have to wonder if they regret having introduced the theme in the first place.

"Inside the Crisis" / Ryan Lizza

• “I remember when I was twelve or thirteen being told with pride about how there had been a Department of Commerce publication called B.C.D., the Business Cycle Digest, and under the influence of my father’s close friend Art Okun it had been renamed Business Conditions Digest, because now, with modern economic policies, there was no inherent business cycle anymore, and what an achievement that was. In retrospect, it was a sort of hubristic moment in the economics profession.
• “They had to get him to turn the thing in pronto, and have his committee pass him, so that they could move forward on the process,” the friend said. “This is a guy who published like a fiend, especially in those days. So why three years to get his Ph.D.? Well, his uncle Paul’s dissertation got Paul the Nobel Prize. And his uncle Kenneth’s dissertation got Kenneth the Nobel Prize. If you’re Larry, it’s pretty hard to turn in that dissertation.”
• (The piece included this observation from Summers: “When I look out the window at my backyard, I can’t think of anything interesting to ask. I mean, it’s green, it’s growing—but nothing occurs to me that any concentrated effort of thought could possibly enlighten. Whereas in economic, statistical, or mathematical kinds of things, I can think of lots of questions.”)

"Not So Fast" / Jill Lepore

• In 1950, the book was made into a film starring Myrna Loy as Boss, which is what Frank called his wife. Lillian disliked and was embarrassed by both the book and the film, not least because they ignore the fact that, during those years, she ran a business, became the first pioneer of scientific management to earn a doctorate, and wrote many books.
• Onstage, Frank was challenged by Emma Goldman. He was pointing to a chart illustrating the hierarchical relationship between the foreman and the worker. “There is nothing in scientific management for the workman,” Goldman shouted. “The only scheme is to have the workman support the loafers on top of him.”
• After reading in a fawning biography how much Taylor loved the workers, Frank Gilbreth scrawled in the margin, “But none came to his funeral, nor to his memorial service.” Brandeis was there, though, and delivered a speech that was later printed in Harper’s under the title “Efficiency by Consent.”
• In 1911, molders at an arsenal in Watertown, Massachusetts, refused to work under the eye of a timekeeper.
• (If you have an island in your kitchen, or a rolling cart, or if you think about a work triangle, you’ve got Lillian Gilbreth to thank.)

<<