Wednesday October 21, 2009

Wednesday October 21, 2009 Midnight in New York Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times

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Risks Seen in Many Cancer Screenings vatican bidding to get anglicans to join its fold The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated. It is working on a message, to put on its Web site early next year, to emphasize that screening for breast and prostate cancer and certain other cancers can come with a real risk of overtreating many small cancers while missing cancers that are deadly. “We don’t want people to panic,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the cancer society. “But I’m admitting that American medicine has overpromised when it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated.” Prostate cancer screening has long been problematic. The cancer society does not advocate testing for all men. There has been much less public debate about mammograms. Studies from the 1960s to the 1980s found they reduced the death rate from breast cancer by up to 20 percent. The cancer society’s decision to reconsider its message about the risks as well as potential ben-

efits of screening was spurred in part by an analysis published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Brawley said. In it, researchers report a 40 percent increase in breast cancer diagnoses and a near doubling of early stage cancers, but just a 10 percent decline in cancers that have spread beyond the breast to the lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body. With prostate cancer, the situation is similar. If breast and prostate cancer screening really fulfilled its promise, the researchers note, cancers that once were found late would now be found early, when they could be cured. A large increase in early cancers would be balanced by a commensurate decline in late-stage cancers. That is what happened with screening for colon and cervical cancers. But not with breast and prostate cancer. The new analysis, by Dr. Laura Esserman, a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Carol Frank Buck Breast Care Center there, and Dr. Ian Thompson, professor and chairman of the department

of urology at The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, finds that prostate cancer screening and breast cancer screening are not so different. Both have a problem that goes counter to everything people have been told about cancer: They are finding cancers that don’t need to be found because they would never spread and kill or even be noticed if they were left alone. That has led to a huge increase in cancer diagnoses because, without screening, those innocuous cancers would go undetected. At the same time, both screening tests are not making much of a dent in the number of cancers that are deadly. That may be because many lethal breast cancers grow so fast they spring up between mammograms. And the deadly prostate ones have already spread at the time of cancer screening. The dilemma for breast and prostate screening is that it is not usually clear which tumors need aggressive treatment and which can be left alone. And one reason that is not clear, some say, is that it has not been much of a priority to study it. GINA KOLATA

Volcker Fails to Sell a Strategy to Curb Banks Listen to a top economist in the Obama administration describe Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman. “The guy’s a giant, he’s a genius, he is a great human being,” said Austan D. Goolsbee. “Whenever he has advice, the administration is very interested.” Well, not lately. The aging Volcker (he is 82) has some advice, deeply felt, and he has been repeating it to those around the president. He wants the nation’s banks to be prohibited from owning and trading risky securities, the very practice that got the biggest ones into deep trouble in 2008. And the administration is saying no, it will not separate commercial banking from investment operations. “I am not pounding the desk

all the time, but I am making my point,” Volcker said. Still, he does head the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which makes him the administration’s most prominent outside economic adviser. As Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987, he helped the country weather more than one crisis. And in the campaign last year, he appeared occasionally with Obama, including a town hall meeting in Florida last fall. His towering presence (he is 6-foot-8) offered reassurance that the candidate’s economic policies, in the midst of a crisis, were trustworthy. More subtly, Obama has in Volcker an adviser perceived as standing apart from Wall Street, and critical of its ways, some administration officials say, while Timothy F. Geithner, the Trea-

sury secretary, and Lawrence H. Summers, chief of the National Economic Council, are seen, rightly or wrongly, as more sympathetic to the concerns of investment bankers. Volcker’s proposal would roll back the nation’s commercial banks to an earlier era, when they were restricted to commercial banking and prohibited from engaging in risky Wall Street activities. The Obama team, in contrast, would let the giants survive, but would regulate them extensively. While the administration’s proposal languishes, giants like Goldman Sachs have re-engaged in old trading practices, once again earning big profits and planning big bonuses. LOUIS UCHITELLE

VATICAN CITY — In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican on Tuesday announced it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions. Anglicans would be able “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” said Cardinal William J. Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The announcement seemed a rare opportunity to capitalize on deep divisions within the Anglican Church to attract new members at a time when the Catholic Church has been trying to reinvigorate itself in Europe. The issue has long been close to the heart of Pope Benedict XVI, who for years has worked to build ties to those Anglicans who, like conservative Catholics, spurn the idea of female and gay priests. Catholic and Anglican leaders sought on Tuesday to present the move as a joint effort to aid those seeking conversion. But it appeared that the Vatican had engineered it on its own, presenting it as a fait accompli to the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, only in recent weeks. Some Anglican and Catholic leaders expressed surprise, even shock, at the news. The move could have the deepest impact in England, where large numbers of traditionalist Anglicans have protested the Church of England’s embrace of liberal theological reforms like consecrating female bishops. RACHEL DONADIO and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

International

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Burst of Violence Rattles Brazil’s Olympic City RIO DE JANEIRO — Just over two weeks ago, this striking city landed the 2016 Olympic Games, the first ever in South America, setting off a sweaty, impromptu beach party that lasted most of the weekend. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil sobbed with happiness. Rio’s residents glowed with pride. Then over the weekend, in a chilling outburst of violence, drug traffickers wielding what the police believe was a large-caliber weapon shot down a police helicopter just one mile from Maracana stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic games will be held and the World Cup final will be played two years before the Olympics. Suddenly, the celebration has been overwhelmed by handwringing that Rio’s chronic problem of drug violence, its Achilles heel, is being laid bare before the world, and at a particularly inopportune time. Brazilian leaders

are out touring the world, searching for the outside investments needed to build billions of dollars in urban infrastructure to prepare for the events. The images of the downed police helicopter “really shocked Brazilians, and now everyone is worried about what will happen with the games,” said Nadine Matos, 21, who works at a hair salon a block from Copacabana Beach. “We need to tell the world where we stand so that people outside Brazil understand what measures we are taking and are not so worried when planning to come down here.” For years, the police essentially abandoned the shantytowns, or favelas, that ring the city’s wealthier neighborhoods, following a policy that more resembled containment than enforcement. That allowed drug traffickers to create criminal strongholds where violence is pervasive. And as the downing of the helicopter

illustrated, the police have not done enough to slow the flow of heavy weapons into the favelas. “We never hid our problems during the candidacy process,” Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, said while besieged by reporters in London, where he was on the first leg of a swing in search of investors for the public works projects. “We always said to people that we were still facing problems.” This year the government has tried a community policing approach to stemming the violence and cracking down on the traffickers holding sway over dozens of shantytowns, where about a third of Rio’s six million residents live. But the effort involves only five favelas so far, and the weekend of mayhem has set off a new round of debate here about whether the more militaristic strategy that has long prevailed has been useful.  ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

Path to Stability Unclear After Karzai Concession KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai’s concession of the need for a runoff election in Afghanistan appears to have prevented his country from slipping into paralysis, but has created a new landscape of risks and uncertainty. Karzai’s concession was a critical first step toward creating a credible Afghan government, coming after heavy pressure from European and U.S. officials, including veiled threats that his actions could affect pending decisions about troops levels, according to an American official. But diplomats questioned whether a new vote could be orga-

nized before the announced date of Nov. 7, and whether a second round of balloting would have more security or less fraud than the first, in which nearly a quarter of ballots were thrown out by international auditors. “There are huge constraints to delivering in the second round,” said one Western official. “Can you deliver a result that is any different from the one we’ve already got?” The host of uncertainties left open the prospect of what administration officials and their Western allies expect will be three weeks of horse-trading as Karzai and his principal challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, decide whether

they can strike a deal to actually avert a runoff. Diplomats said the efforts to get the two men to join forces would now intensify. Abdullah has hinted he would be open to negotiate, but Karzai, at a news conference here on Tuesday, seemed to rule it out. “The coalition has no legitimacy and is not possible,” he said, standing alongside Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who negotiated with Karzai. Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission certified the vote on Tuesday, saying Karzai had received 49.7 percent of the votes. He needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff. (NYT)

Officials Are Lowering Expectations for Climate Treaty WASHINGTON — With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it now appears that there is little chance that international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December will produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming. The gulf between rich and poor nations, and even among the wealthiest nations, is just too wide.

The United States and many other major pollutant-emitting countries have concluded that it is more useful to take incremental but important steps toward a global agreement rather than to try to jam through a treaty that is either too weak to address the problem or too onerous to be ratified and enforced. Instead, representatives at the Copenhagen meeting are likely to announce a number of interim

steps and agree to keep talking next year. “There isn’t sufficient time to get the whole thing done,” Yvo De Boer, the Dutch diplomat who leads the U.N. climate secretariat and oversees the negotiations, said late last week. “But I hope it will go well beyond simply a declaration of principles. The form I would like it to take is the groundwork for a ratifiable agreement next year.” JOHN M. BRODER

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in brief Scholar Sentenced An Iranian-American scholar who was jailed during the protests following Iran’s disputed presidential election has been sentenced to at least 12 years on charges of acting against national security, Iranian state media reported Tuesday. Kian Tajbaksh, a sociologist and urban planner with a doctorate from Columbia, was arrested July 9 and testified during a mass trial of opposition supporters in August.  (NYT)

Missiles for Poland Poland, smarting after President Barack Obama announced last month that he would scrap plans to deploy an antiballistic missile system in Eastern Europe, will accept an offer to host parts of a new, more mobile missile defense system, Polish officials said Tuesday. The plan for so-called SM-3 missiles, first proposed in Washington last month, will be spelled out in more detail on Wednesday when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds talks with leaders in Warsaw. (NYT)

University Attacked Two suicide attackers struck the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing six people. The attackers’ bombs ripped through a cafeteria for female students, two of whom were among the dead, and destroyed an office in the Shariah and law department. (NYT)

Ruling on Ortega President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua appears to have won the right to seek re-election in 2011. The constitutional commission of the Supreme Court overturned bans on consecutive re-election and on serving more than two terms on Monday. But the president of the Supreme Court refused to recognize the decision.  (AP)

U.S. Aid for Mali The United States is increasing military assistance to Mali to help Mali fight militants in its northern desert.  (Reuters)

national

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Lonely Assignment: Witness to Executions Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has witnessed more than 300 deaths, and many of those were people he had come to know. An Associated Press reporter based in Houston, Graczyk covers death penalty cases in Texas, and since the 1980s, he has attended nearly every execution the state has carried out. Whenever possible, he has also interviewed the condemned killers and their victims’ families. Often, Graczyk produces the only account of the execution. Covering executions was once considered an obligatory part of what a newspaper did, like writing up school board meetings and printing box scores, but such traditions have fallen away. A generation ago, he had plenty of company from other journalists at the prison at Huntsville.

But then shrinking news organizations found it harder to justify the expense of what was, from most parts of the state, a long trip. “There are times when I’m the only person present who doesn’t have a stake in the outcome,” he said. Seeing inmates in the death chamber, strapped to a gurney and moments away from lethal injections, he has heard them greet him by name, confess to their crimes for the first time, sing, pray and, once, spit out a concealed handcuff key. He has stood shoulder to shoulder with other witnesses who stared, wept, fainted, turned their backs or, in one case, exchanged high-fives. No reporter, warden, chaplain or guard has seen nearly as many executions as Graczyk, 59, Texas officials say. In fact, he has probably witnessed more than any other American. He does his job with a low-key, matter-of-fact

lack of sentiment. “The act is very clinical, almost anticlimactic,” Graczyk said. “When we get into the chamber here in Texas, the inmate has already been strapped to the gurney and the needle is already in his arm.” Witnesses stand on the other side of a barrier of plexiglass and bars, able to hear the prisoner through speakers. And the only sound regularly heard during the execution itself, is of all things, snoring. A three-drug cocktail puts the inmate to sleep within seconds, while death takes a few minutes. Before the drugs flow, the inmate is allowed to make a last statement. One inmate “sang ‘Silent Night,’ even though it wasn’t anywhere near Christmas,” Graczyk said. “I can’t hear that song without thinking about it. That one really stuck with me.” RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Court to Hear Case on Release of Detainees WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether federal courts have the power to order prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay to be released into the United States. The court’s decision to hear the case adds a further complication to the Obama administration’s efforts to close the prison at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A measure in Congress that would allow detainees to be admitted to the United States just to face trial had to overcome strong resistance before winning final passage on Tuesday. The administration has met with only fitful success in persuading

foreign allies to accept prisoners cleared for release. The Supreme Court is unlikely to hear arguments in the case before late February, a month after the administration’s deadline of Jan. 22 for closing the prison, though there have been recent signals that the deadline may not be met. The case concerns 13 men from the Uighur region of western China who continue to be held although the government has determined that they pose no threat to the United States. Last October, a federal judge here ordered the men released into the care of supporters in

the United States, initially in the Washington area. But a federal appeals court reversed that ruling in February, saying that judges do not have the power to override immigration laws and force the executive branch to release foreigners into the United States. The appeals-court ruling has tied the hands of judges considering challenges from prisoners. According to the Justice Department, trial judges have granted petitions for writs of habeas corpus from 30 Guantánamo prisoners. Of that group, 10 have been transferred to foreign countries. None have been admitted to the United States. ADAM LIPTAK

Kerik, Former Police Commissioner, Is Sent to Jail Bernard B. Kerik, New York City’s former police commissioner, was sent to jail Tuesday by a federal judge who said Kerik had leaked sealed information from his upcoming criminal trial as part of an attempt to generate public sympathy. Judge Stephen C. Robinson, of U.S. District Court in White Plains, revoked Kerik’s $500,000 bail and delivered a withering criticism of him from the bench,

describing him as a “toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance.” “He sees the court’s rulings as an inconvenience, something to be ignored, and an obstacle to be circumvented,” the judge said. Kerik, 54, who was once President Bush’s top choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, faces three criminal trials in federal court. Jury selection in the first trial — in which he faces

corruption, conspiracy and tax fraud charges — is to begin on Monday. Robinson said Kerik had violated the terms of his bail in providing the sealed information to a New Jersey lawyer. The lawyer, Anthony K. Modafferi III, e-mailed the material to The Washington Times in an effort to generate coverage that would disparage prosecutors, Robinson said.  (NYT)

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in brief College Costs Rise The price of a college education rose substantially last year, despite a 2.1 percent decline in inflation from July 2008 to July 2009. Four-year public colleges raised tuition and fees by an average of 6.5 percent last year. Prices at private colleges rose 4.4 percent, according to a report by the College Board. With room and board, the average cost of attendance at a public four-year college is now $15,213, the report found. At private nonprofit colleges, which enroll about one in five students, the average total cost of attendance is now $35,636. (NYT)

Inquiry on Physicist Federal agents have seized computers and files from a Los Alamos, N.M., physicist, P. Leonardo Mascheroni. He said he was told that the seizures were part of an investigation into possible nuclear espionage. Mascheroni declared his innocence. He was laid off from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1988 and has ever since championed a type of laser fusion. The secrets of hydrogen bombs and laser fusion can be similar, and the inquiry appears to center on whether he broke rules in discussing his proposed laser with a man who called himself a representative of Venezuela.  (NYT)

No Medicare ‘Fix’ Democrats backed down Tuesday from their effort to increase Medicare payments to doctors. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, had hoped to whisk the Medicare bill through the Senate this week, but Republicans had other ideas, and so did some moderate and conservative Democrats. They said they could not swallow the Medicare bill because it would cost $247 billion over 10 years and none of the cost would be offset or paid for. Reid said the bill would “fix” a formula that threatens to cut Medicare payments to doctors by 21 percent in 2010. If such cuts occurred, he said, fewer doctors would accept Medicare patients.  (NYT)

business DJIA NASDAQ

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

10,041.48

D 50.71

Dollar/YEN

2,163.47

D 12.85

10-yr treasury 3.34% D 0.05

90.74 U 0.09

gold (ny) $1,055.20 D 9.00 crude oil

$79.09 D 0.52

Credit Suisse Overhauls Compensation As Wall Street looks forward to a new era of blowout bonuses, the unthinkable is happening, at least at Credit Suisse, the big Swiss bank. It said Tuesday that it would radically change the way it paid its employees. In a break with longstanding industry practices, Credit Suisse intends to alter the mix of salaries and bonuses for its top employees, tie the bonuses to a specific financial measure and effectively claw back the payouts if the bank’s fortunes dim. The move will not necessarily reduce compensation at Credit Suisse, which is moving aggressively to compete with American banks on Wall Street. But the shift nonetheless brings Credit Suisse in line with pay practices endorsed in September by the Group of 20

nations and puts the bank ahead of resurgent rivals like Goldman Sachs, some of which are contemplating similar changes but have yet to make their plans public. Goldman, for its part, announced new pay principles in May, which it says embrace best practices on compensation. A year after Washington rescued the financial industry, bonuses are once again front and center as some big banks roar back in profitability. Goldman, for instance, is on track to award bonuses that could rival the record payouts it made at the height of the boom. But the likelihood that Wall Street will enjoy big paydays as many ordinary Americans are struggling has angered some policy makers and created a pub-

lic relations headache for banks. Many are struggling to defuse the resentment directed at the industry. The Credit Suisse plan will cover roughly 2,000 employees in the United States. Top executives will receive a greater portion of their total compensation in the form of their monthly cash salaries, while bonuses will be split evenly between cash and stock. The stock will vest over four years, and the cash portion will pay out in three. But both components will be adjusted based on the bank’s performance over that period, with a particular emphasis on its return on equity, a closely watched financial measure. The performance of an executive’s business will also be taken into account.  GRAHAM BOWLEY

In Insider Trading Case, Trade That Lost Millions Raj Rajaratnam, the authorities say, masterminded one of the biggest insider-trading schemes in a generation. But if Rajaratnam was trading on insider information, apparently he wasn’t a very good at it. A close examination of the trades that led to his arrest last week reveals a startling fact: In all, Rajaratnam lost millions from what prosecutors characterize as illegal trading. One bad trade, in the shares of the chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, cost his hedge fund, the Galleon Group, $30 million. That loss more than wiped out the profits that prosecutors claim

Rajaratnam and his accomplices reaped with their scheme. Prosecutors highlighted the winning trades in a case that they say stretched from the secretive world of hedge funds to some of the country’s biggest technology companies. They did not mention the losers. Profitable or not, insider trading is insider trading. And Rajaratnam, who maintains he is innocent, may have broken the law even if he lost money on his trades. But the fact that some of the investments soured, and that, in all, Rajaratnam lost money, could be powerful evidence for defendants. Inside information is, by defini-

tion, information that is material to investors, and thus could cause a company’s stock to move in a direction that will be obvious in advance. For example, if a company’s stock is trading at $75 and someone learns that the company will be taken over for $100 a share, that information would be material. But routine corporate news is not considered material. The fact that Rajaratnam lost money on the trades could mean he and other defendants will receive a short sentence even if they are convicted, said Steven D. Feldman, a partner in the law firm Herrick, Feinstein.  ALEX BERENSON

Fans of E-Books Keep Up Enthusiasm for Format The publishing industry has been under a dark cloud recently. Sales are down this year, despite prominent books by Dan Brown and Edward M. Kennedy. WalMart and Amazon are locked in a war for e-commerce dominance, creating new worries among publishers and authors about dwindling profits. But amid the gloom, some sellers and owners of electronic reading devices are making the case that people are reading more because of e-books.

Amazon for example, says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device. That factor is up from 2.7 in December 2008, when the company last provided the statistic. “You are going to see very significant industry growth rates as a result of the convenience of this kind of reading,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon. Sony, maker of the Reader family of devices, says that its e-book customers, on average, download

about eight books a month from its online library. That is far more than the approximately 6.7 books than the average American book buyer purchased for the entire year in 2008, according to Bowker, a publishing industry tracking firm. Fans of the reading devices suggest that the convenience of using digital reading devices, which offer a sense of control and customization, has sparked a greater interest in books.  BRAD STONE

nikkei ftse 100

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10,336.84 U 100.33 5,243.40 D 38.14

N.Y.S.E. Most Active Issues Vol. (100s) Last Chg. Citigrp SPDR BkofAm FannieMae BostonSci FredMac SPDR Fncl GenElec Pfizer RegionsFn

5082562 1624672 1610527 1597666 1334728 1141649 1051199 990431 863931 812622

4.43 109.21 17.01 1.12 8.57 1.24 15.17 15.58 17.93 5.81

Nasdaq Actives Vol. (100s) PwShs QQQ 837556 Intel 641720 ETrade 630074 Microsoft 515477 Cisco 514989 Apple Inc 383167 Oracle 347693 DryShips 342973 Yahoo 290717 FifthThird 269787

Bid 43.22 20.18 1.67 26.37 24.11 198.76 22.19 7.37 17.17 10.58

Amex Actives Vol. (100s) Last EldorGld g DenisnM g CelSci CardiumTh VantageDrl Oilsands g GoldStr g NovaGld g GrtBasG g Sinovac Hemisphrx

55617 51446 48655 38201 36748 32374 25028 24218 24140 21604 21261

– – – – – – – – – +

0.11 0.58 0.15 0.02 1.59 0.11 0.12 0.26 0.05 0.11

Chg. + – – + – + – + – +

0.01 0.23 0.07 0.01 0.14 8.90 0.23 0.30 0.05 0.44

Chg.

11.98 – 0.18 1.80 + 0.10 1.38 – 0.02 1.02 – 0.01 1.98 + 0.08 1.26 – 0.03 3.52 – 0.08 5.30 – 0.26 1.64 – 0.02 7.64 – 0.45 1.81 unch.

Foreign Exchange Fgn. currency Dollars in in dollars fgn.currency Tue. Mon. Tue. Mon. Australia .9223 .9278 Bahrain 2.6528 2.6525 Brazil .5723 .5831 Britain 1.6359 1.6370 Canada .9519 .9720 China .1465 .1465 Denmark .2005 .2007 Dominican .0277 .0277 Egypt .1827 .1827 Europe 1.4928 1.4944 Hong Kong .1290 .1290 Japan .01102 .01103 Mexico .07712 .07642 Norway .1787 .1798 Singapore .7165 .7197 So. Africa .1356 .1369 So. Korea .00085 .00085 Sweden .1436 .1443 Switzerlnd .9872 .9870

1.0843 1.0778 .3770 .3770 1.7475 1.7150 .6113 .6109 1.0505 1.0288 6.8276 6.8278 4.9875 4.9826 36.12 36.10 5.4726 5.4741 .6699 .6692 7.7500 7.7502 90.74 90.65 12.966 13.085 5.5944 5.5607 1.3957 1.3894 7.3765 7.3060 1168.0 1175.0 6.9638 6.9300 1.0129 1.0131

California Sues Bank California charged the State Street Corp. with fraud, accusing the bank of cheating the state’s two largest pension funds of at least $56.6 million by overcharging them for a series of foreign exchange trades. The lawsuit, unsealed on Tuesday, contends that the bank consistently overcharged the two state pension funds, Calpers and Calstrs. (NYT)

Business

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Public Spending Habits Are Straining Japan TOKYO — How much debt can an industrialized country carry before the nation’s economy and its currency bow, then break? The question looms large in the United States, as a surging budget deficit pushes government debt to nearly 98 percent of the gross domestic product. But it looms even larger in Japan. Here, years of stimulus spending on expensive dams and roads have inflated the country’s gross public debt to twice the size of its $5 trillion economy — by far the highest debt-to-G.D.P. ratio in recent memory. Just paying the interest on its debt consumed a fifth of Japan’s budget for 2008, compared with debt payments that compose about a tenth of the United States budget. Yet, the finance minister, Hirohisa Fujii, said Tuesday that the government would sell 50 trillion yen, about $550 billion, in new bonds — or more.

For jittery investors, Japan’s rising sea of debt is the stuff of nightmares: the possibility of an eventual sovereign debt crisis, where the country would be unable to pay some holders of its bonds, or a destabilizing collapse in the value of the yen. In the immediate term, Fujii’s remarks prompted concerns of a supply glut in bond markets, sending prices on 10-year Japanese government bonds down 0.087 yen, to 99.56 yen, and yields to their highest point in six weeks. The Obama administration insists that it understands the risks posed by deficits and increasing debt. Its critics are doubtful. But as Washington runs up a trilliondollar deficit this year, with trillions in debt for years to come, it need look no farther than Tokyo to see how overspending can ravage an economy. Tokyo’s new government, which won a landslide victory on

an ambitious (and expensive) social agenda, is set to issue a record amount of debt, borrowing more in government bonds than it will receive in tax receipts for the first time since the years after World War II. “Public sector finances are spinning out of control — fast,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics in a recent note to clients. “We believe a fiscal crisis is imminent.” One of the lessons of Japan’s experience is that a government saddled with debt can quickly run out of room to maneuver. “Japan will keep on selling more bonds this year and next, but that won’t work in three to five years,” said Akito Fukunaga, a Tokyo-based fixedincome strategist at Credit Suisse. “If you ask me what Japan can resort to after that, my answer would be ‘not very much.’ ”  HIROKO TABUCHI

F.D.A. to Clarify Standards for Front of Food Labels The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it would seek to clear up the confusion caused by a surge of upbeat nutritional claims — for everything from Froot Loops to mayonnaise — that manufacturers have begun to make on packaged food labels. By early next year, officials said, the agency will issue proposed standards that companies must follow in creating nutrition labels that go on the front of food packaging.

That could force manufacturers to deliver the bad news with the good, putting an end to a common practice in which manufacturers boast on package fronts about some components, such as vitamins or fiber, while ignoring less appealing ingredients, like added sugar or unhealthy fats. The F.D.A.’s move could present a challenge to the Smart Choices program, a nutrition labeling campaign begun this summer with much fanfare by some of the nation’s largest food companies.

That program has drawn fire because it gives a nutritional seal of approval to many foods, including sugary cereals and high-fat mayonnaise, that many nutritionists consider to be unhealthy. “We believe in the science behind the Smart Choices program,” Mike Hughes, the program’s chairman, said in a statement. “We also look forward to the opportunity to participate in F.D.A.’s initiatives on front-ofpackage labeling.”  WILLIAM NEUMAN

5

in brief Producer Prices Fall Even as investors were bidding up the prices of commodities like oil and gold last month, wholesale prices in the United States were falling, reflecting weak demand at home. The government’s Producer Price Index fell 0.6 percent in September after rising by 1.7 percent a month earlier, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The figures show that, despite a weakening dollar, inflation remains a remote concern. (NYT)

United Loss Narrows The UAL Corp., the parent company of United Airlines, reported a quarterly loss on Tuesday but said it was beginning to see signs that business travel could pick. UAL lost $57 million and revenue fell 20.3 percent, to $4.43 billion. But the profit loss was smaller than analysts expected, and much smaller than the $792 million loss during the same period last year.  (AP)

Sun Cutting Jobs Sun Microsystems, waiting for European regulators to approve its acquisition by the Oracle Corp., plans to cut as many as 3,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of the work force, to pare expenses over the next 12 months. The cuts will occur around the world, Sun said Tuesday in a regulatory filing. European approval is among the final hurdles in the $7.4 billion acquisition.  (Bloomberg)

Automobile Brand Loyalty, Once Taken for Granted, Is Relic of Past DETROIT — To sell a car in the 1980s, dealers had to do little more than open their doors, and loyal buyers would show up to trade in their Chevrolet for a new Chevrolet, or their Toyota for another Toyota. Nearly four in five Americans were repeat buyers back then, staunchly faithful to brands that they knew, trusted and were part of their self-image. The allegiance often continued through generations of families, like party affiliations in politics. Now, partly as a result of increasingly fickle consumer

tastes and the industry turmoil in Detroit, that hard-won loyalty is largely gone. So far this year, only about 20 percent of car shoppers stayed with the same brand when they purchased a new vehicle, according to a study by the Oregon-based firm CNW Marketing Research. As a result, the industry is seeing the kind of churn it hasn’t witnessed since Japanese manufacturers began making inroads in the American market more than 30 years ago. “The days when people bought a Toyota car or a General Mo-

tors product for 25 years are over,” said Art Spinella, CNW’s president. “There really isn’t any brand loyalty any more.” Chris Allen is a case in point. Allen, 24, grew up near Detroit. His father works for an auto supplier, and his family’s garage was always full of G.M. products. After graduating from college, Allen moved to Los Angeles, where he works for a market research firm. And when he bought his first car, he chose a Volkswagen GTI. “If G.M. produced a vehicle I wanted, it would have been at the top of my list,” he said. “But

they don’t.” Each percentage-point movement represents tens of thousands of sales, and underscores how car buyers, armed with reams of data from the Internet, are comparison shopping as never before. And because most cars have become more reliable, choice becomes more a matter of taste. “Brand loyalty has shrunk because of widespread improvements in the products,’’ said James Farley, Ford’s head of marketing. “The ‘trust factor’ is more or less the same for most cars.” BILL VLASIC

journal

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

6

Lifting the Lid on the Lavish Russian Art of Gift-Giving MOSCOW — Until recently, Aleksandr Y. Khochinsky occupied a special niche in this capital, known as much for its corruption as for its wealth. He was an antiquarian who specialized in providing high-class grease for the best-connected palms in the government and other high-level circles. Harried businessmen would rush in off the streets to his gallery here, Bogema, and think nothing of spending tens of thousands of dollars for the right item to delight the powerful, whether a set of dueling pistols, a suit of armor, antique Rolex watches or a $2 million seascape by the Russian artist Ivan Aivazovsky.

crossword

Khochinsky prided himself on his talent for finding the perfect gift. “Tell me only a few details about the man,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “Is he a hunter, a fisherman, does he chase women? I can find a gift.” Normally, the world Khochinsky navigated so successfully is hidden from view. But now, after a very delicate transaction that he says went horribly wrong and left him accused of blackmail by a powerful figure, Khochinsky has decided to lift the veil on the cozy world he knows so well. There is little chance that the dispute that has embroiled Khochinsky and forced him to leave the country will be resolved; high-level

Edited By Will Shortz

spats like this seldom are in Russia. But the deal, as described by Khochinsky, illuminates an aspect of life here for people at the intersection of business and politics at the highest levels, including the most powerful politician of them all: Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. The current entanglement began with the purchase, in 2006 at a Sotheby’s auction in Paris, of 26 letters written by Voltaire to Catherine the Great, dating from 1768 to 1777. Khochinsky said he bought them for $869,000 — a world record for 18th century handwritten texts, according to Sotheby’s — for a Russian billionaire who had made his money in banking and real estate. Handing a little something to a bureaucrat is an old tradition in Russia — popularly known as giving “greyhound puppies,” a reference to a Nikolai Gogol character who accepted only puppies as gifts. Sergei V. Bobovnikov, a dealer in late imperial and Soviet-era decorative art, said artwork and antiquities make fine gifts for bureaucrats today, either to keep or to donate to museums. Bureaucrats, he said, “are buried in these gifts on their birthdays, anniversaries and so on.” Khochinsky’s client wanted to give them to Putin, who was then president, with the idea that he could then donate them to a Russian library. In this, the billionaire was following a more recent tradition of currying favor in the Kremlin by returning cultural and historic artifacts to Russia. Khochinsky said he saw special value in the letters as a gift to Putin. Voltaire, though critical of the 18th-century French monarchy, had famously praised Catherine the Great as an enlightened despot. But now, Khochinsky says, the letters have vanished and he is out the $869,000 purchase price. He says the letters disappeared sometime after he gave them to Russia’s Channel One, a state television outlet, to arrange a televised handover of the documents to Putin. While it is doubtful anyone will ever know what happened to the letters, one thing seems certain: Khochinsky’s line of work, if not Khochinsky himself, will continue to play an important role in Russia. ANDREW E. KRAMER

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opinion

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

editorials of the timeS

thomas l. friedman

Karzai Relents

New Untouchables

Before Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, acceded to a runoff election on Tuesday, you could almost hear his arm being twisted. And it took a lot of top-level talent to do it. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, all insisted that Karzai accept an international audit that found that nearly one-third of his first-round votes were stolen — driving his final count to below 50 percent. Even then it took a five-day marathon of negotiations with Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to get Karzai to do what was necessary. And that was the easy part. To ensure that the runoff is fair and credible, it’s going to take a lot more effort and high-level attention — and even more armtwisting. And there are less than three weeks before the Nov. 7 vote. A fair election is essential. But if Karzai wins, it won’t turn him into the credible leader that the Afghan people deserve and the credible partner that the United States needs if there is any hope of holding off the Taliban. Karzai’s challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, talks a better game but is untested. The next Afghan government has no hope at all unless it is truly committed to rooting out corruption (Karzai will have to start with his own brother, who U.S. officials charge is deeply involved in the drug trade) and delivering basic services and security to its people. President Obama may still be undecided about future United States troop levels, but he should be delivering this message to Afghanistan’s leaders — and the U.S. military and dip-

lomats — right now. Planning for the Afghan election was well along before President Obama took office. But he and his aides should have taken a lot more care to ensure that Karzai and his challengers understood that wholesale fraud would be a disaster — in Afghanistan and in the United States, where support for the war is fast evaporating. The Afghan government must immediately dismiss any election officials implicated in the fraud. The United Nations, which sponsored the independent audit, will have to play a more robust role in overseeing the preparations for the vote, monitoring polls and the count. The United States and NATO must get ready to provide security for voters and monitors. To have any chance of producing a legitimate result, both candidates must make clear that, this time, they are not encouraging and will not tolerate ballot-box stuffing and phantom voting. While Karzai’s supporters accounted for nearly a million tainted ballots, some 200,000 votes cast for Abdullah were also thrown out. Meanwhile, there is talk of a possible political deal between Karzai and Abdullah that might obviate the new election. That should not be anyone’s first choice. If it is unavoidable, it must be done constitutionally, and it must produce a functional government that is committed to a responsible agenda. We have watched as American officials debate military strategy for Afghanistan. They need to devote at least as much attention to coming up with an effective political strategy. The lesson of the stolen election is clear: Nothing in Afghanistan can be taken for granted.

Justice for the Mentally Disabled After eight years of the Bush administration using the power of the Justice Department to undermine civil rights laws, it is good to see the department applying one of those laws, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. It has started a timely new initiative aimed at full enforcement of that law, which forbids unjustified isolation of the mentally disabled and requires that they be integrated into the wider community where appropriate. The initiative is having its coming-out party in New York where Justice Department lawyers are seeking to intervene in a closely watched federal lawsuit involving thousands of mentally ill people being held in privately run adult homes. A federal judge recently described them as “even more restrictive or ‘institutional’ than psychiatric hospitals” that they were intended to replace. In a ruling last month, Judge Nicholas Garaufis of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn painted a dismaying picture of adult “homes” that in no way complied with federal law and that were more like jails than houses. In these

places, mentally ill people who did not present a danger to themselves or to others had little of the privacy, freedom or enriching activities that would help them develop full, independent lives. That thousands of New Yorkers were still confined in this way is striking since the state already knows the right way to do it. New York is known nationally for vibrant, innovative housing developments where mentally ill people live successfully and independently while receiving mental health and other services from community-based groups. The judge has already required the state to produce a plan for correcting this egregious situation with the warehousing of the mentally disabled. But in the letter announcing its intent to intervene, the Justice Department said this matter was “a great concern’’ to the federal government. It said it wanted a role in the process because the remedy designed in New York might serve as a national model for dealing with this problem. The onus is now on the state to come up with that remedy.

7

Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of public schools in Washington. Just before the session began, a man came up, introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about — our struggling public schools — was actually a critical reason for the Great Recession. There’s something to that. The subprime mortgage mess coincided with an education breakdown on Main Street. “Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.” A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. Lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just wasn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables. Those who are waiting for someone to hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables will thrive. As the Harvard labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly.” High school grads in construction or manufacturing have been clobbered, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.” Our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving basic skills, but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.

sports

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sabathia and Rodriguez Power the Yankees ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Yankees are one game away from the World Series, one win away from the stage they abandoned five years ago in an epic playoff collapse. Their best players are playing their best when it matters the most. C.C. Sabathia and Alex Rodriguez powered the Yankees to a 10-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Championship Series on Tuesday at Angel Stadium. The Yankees lead the series, three games to one, and can clinch their 40th pennant in Game 5 on Thursday. They have not been to the World Series since 2003, when they lost to Florida in six games and reacted by trading for Rodriguez, the reigning most valuable player who wilted the next four Octobers. When they missed the playoffs last year, the Yankees

responded by signing Sabathia, the most coveted free agent. Working on three days’ rest Tuesday, Sabathia repeated his Game 1 performance, allowing one run in eight innings. It was Sabathia’s first start on three days’ rest since last year’s division series, when he could not complete four innings for Milwaukee. Rodriguez had the best game of his scintillating postseason, with a homer, a single, a double, a stolen base and three runs scored. Sabathia allowed a Kendry Morales homer on Tuesday and just four other hits, striking out five and throwing 95 miles per hour in the eighth inning. He is 3-0 with a 1.19 earned run average in three postseason starts. Rodriguez is batting .407 (11 for 27) with five homers, 11 runs batted in and nine runs in the playoffs. The Yankees had little trouble

Tuesday with Scott Kazmir, the left-hander the Angels acquired from Tampa Bay in August. Kazmir had humbled most of the Yankees while pitching for the Rays, but past results do not often mean much against a hot team. Angels Manager Mike Scioscia pulled Kazmir before he could face Rodriguez in the fifth, with the Yankees leading 3-0. After a leadoff single by Mark Teixeira, he summoned Jason Bulger, who had fanned Rodriguez in Game 1. Bulger had no such luck this time. Rodriguez turned on his second pitch and launched it out to left for his fifth home run in the playoffs. Only one Yankee, Bernie Williams in 1996, has ever hit more homers in a postseason, with six. Williams played 15 games that postseason; Rodriguez has played seven. TYLER KEPNER

N.B.A. Reaches a Deal With the Referees Union Negotiators for the N.B.A. and its referees union agreed Tuesday on a new contract, making it likely that the league’s regular officials will be on the court when the regular season begins next week. The contract must be ratified by a majority of the union’s 57 referees, with a vote scheduled for Friday. A person with direct knowledge of the negotiations predicted the deal would be approved, ending a lockout that began Sept. 18. “It’s highly likely the referees will be back on the court in time for the season,’’ said the person, who requested anonymity while

discussing private negotiations. Spokesmen for the N.B.A. and the National Basketball Referees Association declined to comment. Both sides have reason for caution. Negotiators thought they had an agreement in late September before the union’s executive board suddenly reversed itself. With board members split, the referees overwhelmingly rejected the proposal by a 43-14 vote. However, the new agreement, reached during a meeting at the N.B.A.’s Midtown Manhattan offices, was apparently designed to meet the referees’ remaining

WEATHER

High/low temperatures for the 20 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) for the 18 hours ended at 2 p.m. yesterday. Expected conditions for today and tomorrow. Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PCpartly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SSsnow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.

U.S. CITIES Yesterday Today Tomorrow Atlanta 68/ 41 0 73/ 46 S 72/ 53 PC Albuquerque 71/ 54 0 55/ 45 C 64/ 39 S Boise 60/ 41 0 62/ 41 PC 63/ 43 C Boston 65/ 37 0 62/ 50 PC 69/ 51 PC Buffalo 56/ 48 0 62/ 51 C 62/ 53 C Charlotte 70/ 34 0 78/ 38 S 76/ 43 PC Chicago 61/ 48 0 66/ 52 PC 55/ 50 Sh Cleveland 65/ 48 0 70/ 49 PC 64/ 51 PC Dallas-Ft. Worth 79/ 59 0 75/ 63 T 64/ 60 C Denver 51/ 39 0 45/ 31 C 51/ 27 PC Detroit 65/ 45 0 71/ 50 PC 55/ 53 C

Houston Kansas City Los Angeles Miami Mpls.-St. Paul New York City Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Salt Lake City San Francisco Seattle St. Louis Washington

81/ 61 73/ 55 74/ 59 85/ 66 54/ 46 65/ 45 81/ 57 68/ 39 83/ 70 55/ 46 64/ 57 53/ 43 76/ 52 68/ 41

0 0.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.42 0.24 0 0 0

concerns. The meeting took place with all of the leading principals at the table, including Commissioner David Stern and the union’s lead negotiator Lamell McMorris, who had both withdrawn from the process during particularly contentious episodes. There was increased urgency for all parties, with the regular season fast approaching. The first games will be played Tuesday night. The referees have missed two paychecks. The N.B.A. has not used replacement referees for a regular-season game since 1995.  HOWARD BECK 80/ 68 T 69/ 59 Sh 85/ 60 S 86/ 75 PC 46/ 44 R 68/ 54 PC 85/ 65 PC 71/ 49 S 84/ 61 S 61/ 41 PC 68/ 55 PC 57/ 50 Sh 73/ 55 PC 72/ 49 S

77/ 72 T 49/ 46 Sh 86/ 59 S 87/ 77 PC 47/ 36 PC 73/ 55 PC 87/ 69 PC 75/ 50 PC 88/ 61 S 60/ 41 PC 68/ 55 PC 58/ 49 C 63/ 57 T 76/ 53 PC

FOREIGN CITIES Acapulco Athens Beijing Berlin Buenos Aires Cairo

Yesterday Today Tomorrow 94/ 77 0 86/ 77 PC 88/ 77 PC 75/ 57 0 73/ 55 S 73/ 57 PC 71/ 39 0 66/ 45 S 68/ 52 S 47/ 34 0 50/ 36 PC 46/ 39 Sh 75/ 46 0 63/ 50 R 72/ 46 PC 93/ 75 0 88/ 73 PC 82/ 70 S

Cape Town Dublin Geneva Hong Kong Kingston Lima London Madrid Mexico City Montreal Moscow Nassau Paris Prague Rio de Janeiro Rome Santiago Stockholm Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vancouver Warsaw

8

in brief Little College Profit Fewer than 25 percent of all major college athletic departments made money in 2007-8, according to the N.C.A.A., which surveyed all 119 Football Bowl Subdivision members. Of those, 25 reported overall profits for the fiscal year ending June 2008, up from 19 in 2006. More than half of all football and men’s basketball programs finished in the black. Only one women’s basketball team made a profit.  (AP)

Not So Irrelevant Kansas City kicker Ryan Succop, who was Mr. Irrelevant in the April draft as the last player chosen, was seemingly the only relevant player on the field Sunday in the Chiefs’ 14-6 victory over Washington. He was 4 for 4 on his field-goal attempts, scoring 12 of the Chiefs’ 14 points.  (NYT)

Extension for Cutler CHICAGO — The Chicago Bears and quarterback Jay Cutler have agreed on a two-year contract extension that runs through the 2013 season. Acquired in a blockbuster trade from Denver in the offseason, Cutler has lead Chicago to a 3-2 record. (AP)

NHL scores MONDAY’S LATE GAMES Edmonton 2, Vancouver 1 TUESDAY Pittsburgh 5, St. Louis 1 Montreal 2, Atlanta 1, SO 80/ 57 0 58/ 50 0 51/ 28 0 82/ 75 0.01 90/ 79 0 68/ 61 Tr 60/ 41 Tr 61/ 55 0 74/ 52 0 57/ 43 0 45/ 28 0 81/ 75 0 61/ 36 0.01 40/ 32 0 82/ 70 2.24 61/ 37 0 75/ 48 0 45/ 34 0 79/ 59 0 81/ 66 0 61/ 52 0 55/ 48 0 41/ 30 Tr

73/ 55 S 57/ 50 R 64/ 50 Sh 79/ 73 R 84/ 77 T 68/ 62 C 63/ 54 C 54/ 50 C 77/ 50 C 49/ 34 PC 46/ 37 C 88/ 75 S 61/ 54 R 52/ 34 PC 84/ 66 C 73/ 57 C 75/ 45 C 46/ 36 PC 91/ 61 PC 70/ 59 PC 58/ 52 C 57/ 48 R 43/ 36 Sh

82/ 55 S 59/ 50 R 61/ 45 C 82/ 75 PC 86/ 77 T 68/ 62 C 61/ 54 C 61/ 52 Sh 79/ 50 PC 57/ 32 R 46/ 41 R 90/ 75 S 63/ 50 PC 52/ 43 Sh 79/ 68 Sh 72/ 59 R 77/ 48 PC 46/ 39 C 75/ 61 C 72/ 57 PC 55/ 36 C 57/ 46 C 46/ 39 C

sports journal

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Baseball’s A-List Has Room for the Phillies PHILADELPHIA — For the Rollins has seen to that. On Monlast nine days, my in-box has day, in the bottom of the ninth been flooded by angry e-mail of Game 4, Rollins, the Phillies’ messages, mostly from fans of shortstop, doubled in the tying the Philadelphia Phillies who oband winning runs as Philadeljected to my contention phia pushed the Dodgers Sports that a Dodgers-Yankees to the brink of eliminaOf World Series is what tion with a 5-4 victory. The Times baseball needs and what So much for Yankeesnetwork executives priDodgers nostalgia. William C. vately want. The great thing Rhoden A couple of them even about these playoffs informed me that a host on WIP is that coaches’ polls and comradio in Philadelphia gave me puter rankings don’t factor in. the honor of being his weasel of It doesn’t matter what you or I the week. want, or what network execuThe arguments were familiar. tives want. The Dodgers are soft, aloof and The only thing that matters is Hollywood. The Yankees are what unfolded at 11:52 Monday arrogant, spoiled and overpaid. night when Rollins succeeded The Phillies, on the other hand, and Dodgers closer Jonathan work hard, play harder, play fair Broxton failed. and care more about the game. Despite the snubs, PhiladelThe no-respect theme is a faphia plays on, forcing television miliar lament in Philadelphia, networks to take note. and in the case of the Phillies this Ryan Howard, the Phillies’ season, the lament is justified. slugger, sat in the middle of the Despite being the defending clubhouse early Tuesday talkWorld Series champions, the ing about his team, the national Phillies are treated like stepnews media and the notion that children by the networks, somethe Phillies are not being retimes relegated to afternoon spected. or late-night games, while the “There’s only one thing you Yankees-Red Sox-Dodgers trican do, and that’s go out there umvirate receives top billing. and win,” Howard said. “WhethThe Dodgers part of the equaer they want to respect it or not, tion is becoming moot; Jimmy doesn’t matter. We’ve got the

trophy; you’ve got to respect the trophy.” Howard has heard the Dodgers-Yankees talk. Last year, he heard the same talk about the desirability of a Red Sox-Dodgers World Series. Instead, Philadelphia played Tampa Bay. “I don’t think it was the matchup that people really expected or wanted to see,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you want. Who’s ever there at the end is there at the end, whether it’s Yankees and Phillies, DodgersYankees, Phillies-Angels. You’ve got to respect whoever’s there and whoever wins.” Can the Dodgers force this series back to Los Angeles? Of course they can. Will they? Probably not. With an opening win in Game 1, an 11-0 rout in Game 3 and a spirit-breaking victory in Game 4, the Phillies have effectively set up shop inside the Dodgers’ heads. Rollins made the point throughout the season, and he made it again Monday night: the greatest difference between last year’s run and this year’s is that this season’s opponents expect Philadelphia to win as much as the Phillies themselves expect to win.

9

n.h.l. standings EASTERN CONFERENCE

Atlantic

W L OT Pts GF GA

Pittsburgh Rangers Devils Phila. Islanders

8 7 4 3 0

Northeast

W L OT Pts GF GA

Ottawa Buffalo Boston Montreal Toronto

5 4 3 3 0

Southeast

W L OT Pts GF GA

Wash. Atlanta Tampa Carolina Florida

4 4 2 2 2

1 2 3 2 3 2 1 4 5 6 2 1 3 4 4

0 16 33 19 0 14 35 22 0 8 18 19 1 7 21 19 3 3 13 23 0 10 22 16 1 9 18 12 0 6 20 23 0 6 17 25 1 1 14 32 2 10 29 24 1 9 21 15 2 6 17 27 1 5 15 22 0 4 14 22

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Central

W L OT Pts GF GA

Chicago Columbus St. Louis Detroit Nashville

5 5 3 3 2

Northwest

W L OT Pts GF GA

Colorado Calgary Edmonton Vancou. Minnesota

6 5 5 3 1

Pacific

W L OT Pts GF GA

San Jose Phoenix L.A. Dallas Anaheim

5 5 5 3 3

2 1 3 3 4 1 2 2 5 6 3 2 4 2 3

1 11 29 23 0 10 18 12 1 7 20 20 1 7 22 25 1 5 10 23 1 13 28 18 1 11 30 28 1 11 30 22 0 6 23 25 0 2 15 25 1 11 32 26 0 10 18 10 0 10 28 29 3 9 25 24 1 7 16 21

Complex Patterns Block N.F.L. Deadline Deals

Manny Being Manny

Tuesday was the N.F.L.’s annual trading deadline. Little was expected to occur, and little did. The blockbuster deals in baseball and the salary swaps of the N.B.A. have few counterparts at the N.F.L.’s deadline. Football teams are reluctant to shake up rosters once the season has begun; most teams still harbor postseason hopes after Week 6, when the deadline arrives each season. And the salary-cap ramifications of dealing or acquiring a player at that point make it hard for either side to consummate a trade. So while talk swirled in recent weeks that the Cleveland Browns would move quarterback Brady Quinn or returner Josh Cribbs or that the Buffalo Bills would send Terrell Owens to a contender before the 4 p.m. deadline, those players will spend Week 7 in the same uniforms they wore in Week 6.

PHILADELPHIA — Manny Ramirez reclined in a chair at his locker on Tuesday, calmly answering questions about the dire situation his team was facing. If he was nervous that his Los Angeles Dodgers are only one loss from elimination, there was scant evidence. And if he was agitated by the Dodgers’ loss in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series the night before, when they gave up a ninth-inning lead, he did not show it then, either. When Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins came to the plate in the ninth inning Monday with the game hanging in the balance, Ramirez was not on the field or even in the dugout watching. “Actually, I was in the shower,” he casually remarked, thus introducing a new entrant into the Manny-Being-Manny honor roll. “I only saw the highlight.”  (NYT)

“It’s too early for teams to start jettisoning players because it’s still early in the year,” the former Kansas City Chiefs executive Carl Peterson said in a telephone interview last week. Peterson ran the Chiefs from 1989 until 2008. Last season, with Kansas City headed toward a rebuilding period and off to a 1-5 start, he began to get phone calls about the Pro Bowl tight end Tony Gonzalez. The Green Bay Packers came closest to making a deal before the trade deadline, Peterson said, but their best offer — a third-round pick for a likely Hall of Famer — came with conditions about givebacks that he called “onerous.” Other teams were merely bargain hunting; one offered a sixth-round pick, another a seventh rounder. “Am I going to do that for Tony Gonzalez?” Peterson said. “I think they would have hung me in

Kansas City.” Peterson passed on the offers, and the Chiefs found a better one after the season. Days before the draft, their new general manager, Scott Pioli, traded Gonzalez to the Atlanta Falcons for a secondround pick in 2010. The Falcons’ president, Rich McKay, who previously served as the general manager for both Atlanta and Tampa Bay, said the lack of activity at the trading deadline could be traced to a simple fact: N.F.L. teams run complex, one-of-a-kind systems. That explains why the Bears, after acquiring defensive end Gaines Adams last week, did not bother to activate him for Sunday’s game. “In baseball, you can trade for a left fielder and he can start for you that night,” McKay said in an e-mail message Monday. “In football, that is simply not the case.” ANDREW DAS