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News & Notes

On the shelf

By Times Staff
Published December 6, 2005

The Battle for Social Security

By Nancy Altman

Wiley, 362 pages, $24.95

Nancy Altman has taught about the Social Security program at Harvard, helped to reform its finances in the 1980s and lobbied on issues related to it as chairwoman of the Pension Rights Center. Now she has written a history of the program, as well. The strength of The Battle for Social Security is its knowledge of and feel for the political personalities and legislative crosscurrents that have shaped the program and contributed to its current financial pickle. But the book's relentless Washington focus is also its chief weakness. The book would have benefited from placing Social Security in its broader social, economic and political contexts. In the end, this timely history winds up reading a bit too much like a history of, by and for Washington policy wonks.

ON THE MOVE

Executive comings and goings in the past week:

- Steve Capus, senior vice president of NBC news, as president.

- James Schneider, chief financial officer of Dell, as director of Lockheed Martin.

- David Coulter, former vice chairman of J.P. Morgan, as managing director of Warburg Pincus.

- Roger Hodge, deputy editor of Harper's magazine, as editor.

- Bill Gradison, former Republican congressman from Ohio, as acting chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Out

- Sir John Bond, as chairman of HSBC, after building it into one of the world's largest financial institutions.

- Roberto Lavagna, as Argentina's economy minister, after being fired by President Nestor Kirchner.

- Giovanni Prezioso, as general counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

- Geoffrey Ramsey, as chief executive of Host America, and his sister, Anne Ramsey, an executive, after the SEC launched an investigation of a misleading press release by the food service firm.

- Charles Fote, as chief executive of First Data, for personal reasons.

- Leonard Schaeffer, as chairman of the board of WellPoint Health Networks, following WellPoint's purchase of WellChoice.

- John Alm, as chief executive of Coca-Cola Enterprises, following two years of weak results.

ON THE BRAIN

The term: Cyber Monday

- In retailing, the Monday after Thanksgiving. See also, Black Monday.

- What is quickly becoming the busiest online shopping day of the year.

- The online counterpart to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

- The kickoff to an online holiday season that is expected to log sales of $26-billion this year, up 18 percent from last year.

- After consulting with family members over Thanksgiving, the first opportunity employees have to use the high-speed Internet access at work to get a jump on holiday shopping.

- An as-yet uncalculated drag on U.S. productivity.

- Yet another news peg for the media in its seemingly limitless, and often contradictory, coverage of the holiday shopping season.

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 02:15:34]