Issue #6
February 2002
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Commentary This issue marks our half-year anniversary. Looking back over prior New York Stringer concerns, we find that the war against terrorism has wound down to a low rumble, except for provocative statements by our commander in chief. Anthrax has largely disappeared from the headlines. The economy, though, is still a lively topic. The current New York Stringer focuses on business issues, from a new way to trade stocks to the dangerous secret the Enron situation has made explicit, with a stop along the way to look at an organization that prepared effectively for disaster, and saw that preparation pay off on 9/11. Even our restaurant review is business-oriented.
This is our first theme issue, but it won't be the last. We plan to intersperse our normal monthly offerings with occasional single-topic issues, and we plan to publish more articles on business and the economy in our multi-topic months. We hope that some of our theme issues will be triggered by letters from our readers, and that more of our readers will become contributors to our pages.
While we are on the topic of business, there seem to be a number of industries that are struggling to retard, or at least manage, fundamental changes to their normal practices and profitability. In all of these cases, the major players in each industry have lost control of their marketplaces, some as a result of technology, some because of political processes, some because of changes in the ethical or philosophical outlook of their customers. These industries include print publishing, music publishing, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, dictatorial regimes, commercial sports, airlines, medical care, hierarchical religion and investment. The common thread to their loss of control is the opening of monopolies, especially monopolies of information and distribution, to the general public, an unintended (or maybe not) consequence of cheap computers and the internet. Some industries are responding creatively and constructively, but most are trying mightily to preserve and enlarge their monopolies. The struggle is interesting to watch and fraught with danger to our liberties and rights. Watch this space for more details.
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