Growthology

A Few Thoughts on Tyler Cowen's New Book

[Another guest post from Charles Johnson, one of our summer interns.]

Tyler Cowen's new book, Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World is one of the more engaging books I've read recently. It rests comfortably in the niche between books about behavorial economics and social technology. Careful readers of this blog will note that Tyler Cowen was a participant in the Kauffman Economic Bloggers Forum in February. We prepared videos of the participants. You can see him on video discussing blogging here. Cowen is a seasoned blogger at his blog, Marginal Revolution. 

The thesis for Cowen's new book is that technology is allowing many of us to become autistic-like in our processing of information and consumption of entertainment and culture. We've moved into a "bits" culture where we can constantly be orienting and re-orienting our culture. This remix culture is evident in everything from iPods, to blogs, to delicious, and to Facebook. In a way, I took this part of the book as a kind of demonstration that we can all become renaissance men because the costs of such renaissance have plummeted. We don't need Jefferson's library when we have a worldwide web with easy information at our fingertips. 

Cowen's book can be read as an appeal, that, for the sake of society at large and the individuals in particular, we should embrace neurodiversity, or the different ways in which our brain is wired. (You can hear him discuss the book in an interview with John J. Miller of National Review here.)

I was struck by this paragraph about autism and the foundation of companies. We know that dyslexics tend to have high rates of firm creation. (See here for more details). But what about autistics? 

Here Cowen points to the work of Simon Baron-Cohen, who is a researcher of autism at the University of Cambridge. (Simon Baron-Cohen created an AQ test -- or autism quotient -- that you can take here to see if you might have autistic-like tendencies.) Cowen recounts that Baron-Cohen believes that there may be a lot more autistic high achievers than most people realize. On p. 24-25, Cowen writes about some of these high achievers. [The bolding is mine.] 

Craig Newmark, founder of the web forum Craigslist, has written on his blog that his history as a "recovering nerd" is connected to Asperger's. It is perhaps no accident that autistics are known for their attachment to lists as a means of processing, recording, and ordering knowledge. Bram Cohen, creator and former CEO of BitTorrent, also describes himself in terms of Asperger's syndrome. He founded the company at age twenty-nine and BitTorrent has been a pioneer in exchanging digital information over the web; one of his key insights was how BitTorrent could break up files into smaller bits and send through the bits rather than the whole file at once. Cohen mastered three programming languages by the age of sixteen and his work on BitTorrent is regarded as brilliant. The best-known example of an autistic high achiever is Temple Grandin, a woman who has pioneered commonly used improvements in animal treatment and slaughterhouses; her unique cognitive perspective has helped her understand when animals are afraid and how they can be made to feel more secure. 

I've yet to see a scientific paper or serious clinical discussion of the autistics who hold political office, work in Hollywood, start web 2.0 companies, or run major U.S. corporations or hedge funds.

If Baron-Cohen is right that there is the huge reserve of highly successful autistic achievers, I wonder why there hasn't been some kind of online, Craigslist-type sorting website that seeks to place autistic people with the things in which they specialize or some kind of wider texting that seeks to identify and help autistic people find their niches.  

I came upon this idea when I was spending time with my next door neighbor, who has Asperger's. He has an obsession with clocks and with taking them apart and putting them back together. Imagine the societal benefit if he could be placed with a clock making company. 

Indeed, if I could fault Cowen's book for one thing, it's that it doesn't take the ideas he's advocated and move towards policy. Still, perhaps policy is not one of those things for which Dr. Cowen is wired and I ought to respect his neurodiversity. 

Is Journalism Dead?

That was the question heading one of our Kauffman Econ Blogger Forum discussions.  The panel spent most of the time discussing whether newspapers are dead (Scott Jagow's summary is here), which to me seems probable, if not obvious. That they are dying, no one can deny. Is it sad? Yes. Is the end of seeking truth in current events? Hardly.

What is likely to happen is that newspapers will evolve, perhaps so swiftly and completely that it will be hard to believe that the future species is related to the gray-paper-o-saurus. But will journalism die? That was a trick question. The answer in my mind is that bloggers are the new journalists. Or at least, some are. (Is Rushbo a journo?). In fact, it seems more accurate to critique the growing bias in newspapers than decry the savages in pajamas.

Insofar as we agree that journalism is the reporting of news in pursuit of objective truth, my belief is that this is a fundamental human motivation, the same spirit driving scientific curiosity. The day journalism dies is the day humanity is extinguished, and I'm still on the optimistic side of projecting neither of those events will occur, present recessions notwithstanding. That schools of journalism have downplayed objective truth exists, and some newspapers have abandoned ancient principles of objectivity, they have hastened the downfall of the daily printed word. But those are quibbles, really.

What's ultimately driving the evolution of journalism is the business model. A grimy gray broadsheet has some tactile appeal, about the same way that riding a horse has its appeal. But compared to the alternatives of jet planes and automobiles, the appeal is nostalgic. But the economics of newspapers (and maybe local news television) is eroding. The recession will accelerate the erosion, perhaps completely. The alternative is what exactly? Free content on YouTube and RealClear? Maybe. Or maybe the spectrum of news is much broader than what you imagine.

Maybe we should think about an infinitely long tail where people will pay, handsomely, for news about interests they deeply care about. The President will probably pay dearly for news about Iranian nukes, and the health of dear leaders in North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. My friend Luis will subscribe to feeds about Star Wars action figures no doubt (and who wouldn't?).

This is all to say, Luis wonders if the business model for journalism won't look a lot like iTunes.

Kindle versus Schumpeter

Spend a little time reading about entrepreneurship, and you soon tire of the phrase "creative destruction." Yes, Schumpeter had a brilliant idea and phrase to describe it, but it can seem like nothing new under the sun has happened since. No wonder entrepreneurship studies are not as prominent as macro stabilization!  Surely, that's not a fair summary, but it's fair enough to make one appreciate analyses of technology that tickle at the notion of non-destructive creation (Amar Bhide's phrase, I believe). 

So David Pogue in the New York Times writes about Kindle 2,

The point everyone is missing is that in Technoland, nothing ever replaces anything. E-book readers won’t replace books. The iPhone won’t replace e-book readers. Everything just splinters. They will all thrive, serving their respective audiences.

So is he right?  Or am was I write to view this as a classic phenomenon of creative destruction, when I predicted the book will be dead in 7 years? I'll admit that paper books will still exist, per se, but that within 15 years the market will be under 10% of current sales, and that this collapse will be halfway along (and universally acknowledged) in 2016.  Anybody want to take that bet?

Kindle is a case study of Creative Destruction

I think I can speak for Bob and Dane in that we are all huge fans of the Kindle 1. I doubt any of us will buy the Kindle 2 just yet, but its launch this week is garnering a great deal of attention and some controversy. The fact is that e-books in general have succeeded, and Kindle's success in particular, is now going to cause real frictions in the market. This is a case study in creative destruction.

A very big, very old (and quite wonderful) industry called book publishing is evolving incrementally, and along comes a breakthrough innovation that will concievably supplant it. The market is sliced in half in a way that was beyond imagination years ago: the whole concept of readership demand has been cleaved away from the physical page. The phenomenon creates a co-joined market in which the older form cannot fight back. Classic.

How will it play out? Perhaps book stores, not publishers, are the new dinosaurs. Perhaps libraries will flourish (readers will still like to browse). Perhaps Amazon will open the largest book store in the world ... like the Mall of America for the printed word. Will the physical/digital book markets co-exist and complement (as Stephen King articulated at the launch event)? Yes ... for a while. But the Kindle is hardly done evolving. As it becomes faster and more flexible (and especially cheaper), it is hard to imagine real books will be supplied for much more than high-end afficianados. Given a world of conspicuous consumption, maybe. But in the regular sense of the word, I give the book 7 years to live.

The newness of the new technology may obscure its importance. A touch pad screen for a book, along with the capacity to assemble scribbled notes and highlights, has only begun to unfold in application to learning (check out the iRex ILiad, a competitor). What strikes me most is the new reader technology in Kindle 2, which caught me by surprise. I dreamt of innovating a synth reader 15 years ago, and my hunch is that this will be as important a technology as the e-ink. Can you imagine having your spouse's voice reading the news to you? Or President Kennedy? (For me, that would be cool).

Other reactions to the new Kindle are collected below:

Engadget covered the launch event live-blogging.

"It's reading! It actually sounds fairly good -- still very computer-voicey, but totally listenable."

"0.36-inches thick... the iPhone is 0.48!"

TechCrunch compares 1 to 2

NYTimes: "For publishers, Amazon’s e-book efforts could represent a bright future, as the book industry struggles to sell traditional formats. But some worry that Amazon may be assuming too much control over pricing, similar to the influence Apple has established in the music business."

Lance Ulanoff at PC Mag has 10 count review, and concludes strongly positive. Best critique: "Why no touch screen? As I held the Amazon Kindle 2, I had to fight the impulse to touch the screen and navigate and turn pages with gestures. This, too, is something the Sony Reader offers, as does, as noted, the iPod touch and iPhone."

BusinessWeek says "But Amazon is in something of a catch-22. Lowering Kindle's price too much might threaten Amazon's print book business." Already, e-books represent 10 percent of Amazon.com sales.

Final thought: My vision of the near future imagines highly personalized education for all students, and I very much see something like a Kindle in the hands of every child -- replacing heavy textbooks and bookbags, making reading much more expansize and interactive. If you've read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, you know.  I'll end on this, one of my favorite passages:

"The little story went on to include an Excited Elf who was Nibbling Noisily on some Nuts. Then the picture of the Raven came back, with the letters beneath. "Raven. Can you spell raven, Nell?" A hand materialized on the page and pointed to the first letter.

"R," Nell said.

"Very good!  You are a clever girl, Nell, and good with letters," the book said. "What is this letter?" and it pointed to the second one. This one Nell had forgotten. But the book told her a story about and Ape named Albert.

* * *

Update: Some friends and commentor O argue the paperback will never be replaced by the e-book. To me, that is an appealing argument, but on reflection it sounds a lot like a record executive saying the LP will always be with us. Any content - music or writing - is going from a standalone business model to a "razr-blade" or "printer" model. You buy the holding device for a moderate fixed cost, then buy cartridges (blades, laserjet ink, 99 cent iTunes, novels) for a low marginal cost.  When a mini-Kindle costs $30 in ten years ... or are given away as promo devices by RandomHouse ... the cost economics of publishing on paper will have evaporated. It's not that novels will disappear, or authors (they will likely flourish). Just the dead trees.

 

No Creative Destruction in Detroit

President Bush announced a rescue plan for General Motors and Chrysler LLC Friday morning that will make $13.4 billion in federal loans available almost immediately.

What a shame. What a lost opportunity. In the immortal words of Dr. (Garett) Jones: "Creative Destruction, it was fun while it lasted." If you can't count on a lame duck president to do the right thing, what's left?

The bailout has some severe strings attached to it, its defenders will say.  But it is not bankruptcy, so the depth of restructuring will pale next to what is needed to revitalize the American auto industry. That means the answer is, no, I'm not buying it.

UPDATE: This also seems to be a blatant violation of the TARP, which weeks ago the administration was saying would not (and I thought legally could not) be used for industrial policy. So is it Constitutional? It was once fashionable to re-interpret the intent of laws written decades or centuries ago. Now it seems the time horizon for creative interpretation of the law has converged to months.

Job Churn in Georgia

West Point today isn't the same town Ferguson grew up in. Textile company executives used to live here. But when the textile industry collapsed in the 1980s, the victim of foreign competition, they moved away. Thousands of jobs were lost. A few small technology firms took up some of the slack. But the high-tech bust of the late 1990s proved to be another job killer. "We survived without a federal bailout," Ferguson says sarcastically. Now, while much of America wallows in the gloom of a recession, there's great joy in West Point. "West Point will have more economic growth in the next 24 months than anywhere else in the country," Ferguson boasts. And he may be right.

KIA has come to town. The Korean automobile manufacturer is building a huge assembly plant, which will employ 2,900 workers when it begins turning out cars a year from now.

That's a section from Fred Barnes' story about the "other American Auto industry" in the U.S. -- foreign brands or "transplants." The story is filled with interesting anecdotes from the field and some good analysis. But I especially liked this paragraph above which captures three cycles of creative destruction over a short span of time.

Automotive Bailout Poll

Gallup has a poll of U.S. attitudes toward an automotive bailout, dated mid-November. More opposed it than supported a bailout at the time (pre private jet testimony), but opposition shifts if one of the firms would fail without the money.

It would be nice to see this kind of poll now, especially broken out by state or region. You have to wonder if the people of San Diego or Austin like the idea of paying higher taxes to prop up 100-year old companies?

One theory of international trade imagines a role for subsidising "infant industries," but I am not aware of any such theory that justifies subsidizing second-century firms.

Michiganders against the auto bailout

In interviews across the state over the last two weeks, criticism of the automakers’ request surfaced again and again. Many people said they had long watched Michigan’s economy strain and falter — in no few cases causing the collapse of their own employers and loss of their own jobs — and could no longer see why the Big Three should be singled out for rescue.

“How many other, small companies would like a bailout?” said Heather Davison, who lives in Davisburg, less than an hour north of Detroit, and has been unemployed for a year. “It seems to me that the car companies saw the banks getting a bailout and said, ‘Oh, let’s go!’ ”

Read the whole article in the NYT. One point it makes is that no opinion poll has been done on the bailout in Michigan. Why not? Wouldn't it be perfect to see what percentage of people in Michigan would prefer $34 billion in loans to Big Three versus $3400 in tax rebates to every person in the state?

(UPDATE: My original post should have said $3400, not $33,000.)

The Bankruptcy Pledge

Every recession is a critical test of an economy's resilience and flexibility, both in terms of purely operational linkages and more importantly in terms of political tolerance for change. We often hear politicians claim the rhetorical mantle of change, but a cycle of creative destruction is the ultimate litmus test of their credibility. With America's three major domestic automobile brands facing dire conditions that will arguably lead to bankruptcy, the test for America's political economy is as real as it gets.

As a student of Schumpeter and son of Michigan, I am infatuated with the current dilemma of General Motors. And I am hopeful that finally our country has lost its patience with the embarrassing decline of Detroit. There have been too many decades of decline, an industrial sickness that has been a permanent part of the Michigan narrative for the entire lifetime of anyone under 50. The time has come to close this chapter, let the dinosaurs die, and let Michigan's entrepreneurs begin a new chapter.

Look, I love Michigan. If anyone thinks this author is a typical egghead economist with no sympathy for real people, listen up. I was born in Michigan. I vacationed at Wampler's lake last summer. Three of my grandparents are buried under Lansing soil, and the fourth is in a Lansing nursing home. My wife got an MBA from the University of Michigan. I have family in Detroit, Livonia, Grand Rapids, and more. My whole life, I have witnessed the little guy in Michigan facing ever higher taxes and burdens because the state plays favorites with the "Big Three." That model worked when they were oligopolies, before globalization. But that world is passed, and the Big Three fundamentally refused to change with the times.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy is what General Motors faces when Congress turns down its bailout request. Congress might disappoint me, but they also might offer loans only if the companies agree to enter Chapter 11 re-org first.  Or maybe Congress will do the right thing and offer a multi-billion dollar stimulus to the state of Michigan to use as it sees fit -- preferably as a tax rebate directly to the people, instead of sure-fail industrial policy. In a state with 10 million residents, just one billion dollars breaks down to $100 per head.

So if we're talking $25 billion (their request last month), that equates to $10,000 for a family of four. If we're talking $34 billion (the total request as of Tuesday's Congressional hearings with GM, Ford, and Chrysler executives), it equals $10,000 for a family of three. Do you really think Rich Wagoner can spend that money more wisely than my Aunt Molly? Aunt Sheila? Aunt Judy? Aunt Loretta? When it comes to efficiency, that CEO couldn't touch a one of 'em. I think the people of Michigan could somehow make it through the "Winter of Bankruptcy" with that kind of cash. Maybe a couple winters.

Speaking of credibility, the CEOs have been quick to wrap themselves in the flag, emphasizing how important their survival is to the national economy. Despite the fact that I believe the opposite to be true - the bankruptcy of GM would help America's long term economic growth - what is most disturbing about their patriotic argument is its hypocrisy. Bankruptcy is probable at this point. The patriotic thing to do would be for this giant firm to prepare for as soft a landing as possible. Instead, it seems that GM refuses to plan for the worst. "No Plan B" is Wagoner's motto. So, GM is threatening to destroy itself and its supply chain if deficit money isn't shoveled to them. 

Because of its refusal to make plans for a bankruptcy, GM is "courting a Lehman-like situation," said a person familiar with the matter. Lehman Brothers, the storied investment bank, collapsed into a court-protected reorganization unprepared to remain in business. "They are on the train tracks and won't get off them," the person said.

It is time for the executives in Detroit to sharpen their pencils, and get ready for plan B. Let's not forget that GM lost $4.2 billion last quarter. It cannot sell enough cars. Funny thing is, the last line of defense is that if they (GM or Chrysler) go into bankruptcy, they won't be able to sell enough cars. According to the WSJ:

Both companies have said they don't see bankruptcy as a viable option for any auto maker. They believe customers would stop buying cars and the company would be forced to liquidate.

This line of argument is critical to the dinosaur business model. It has been parroted by the UAW, and the reason is that bankruptcy will revolutionize the insane labor policies that haunt Michigan. But it is not true that customers won't buy from a bankrupt company.  Happens all the time. So I have been thinking of some way to put a nail in the "won't buy cars from a bankrupt company" claim.

Here is my pledge: I will buy a new vehicle from the first American auto company to enter bankruptcy. I will buy it within six months of the date of entry, on the condition that it has to be a real bankruptcy, and the company must follow through with real restructuring. This is not an easy pledge to make, and my wife may kill me. But nothing could be more valuable for my country's economy than for one of these companies to re-organize. I could have hope for my state again, which is worth a lot more than the price of a car to me.

Who else will take this pledge? (I think I can get you a discount!) Send an email to kanepledge@gmail.com and I will add your name to the list.

(UPDATE: I made an error in the original post -- 1 b divided by 10 m is not $100,000 per person, but $10,000. My apologies for the error.)

Detroit Bailout - Best Links

The latest and greatest links on the looming bailout of Detroit:

• Allan Sloan asks "What is an American Car?"
• NYT's Dealbook says they are shedding their corporate jets after the DC debacle.
• Matt Slaughter's op-ed (WSJ) sees an insourced auto industry that retreats from its "5.3 million Americans" on payroll with $364 billion in compensation.
• FORTUNE's Alex Taylor III asks hard questions about GM's future, and notes the shortcoming in Wagoner's recent efforts.
• Compensation comparison chart (via Carpe Diem and RCM)
• Kevin Hassett observes the politics and paybacks of wealthy auto workers.
• And, best for last, a smart solution from Harvard's Professor Ed Glaeser ...

"Should we be using tax dollars to keep workers from heading to more productive companies? It would have been madness a century ago to tax Henry Ford and Ransom Olds to prop up the declining horse-and-buggy industry.

"Moreover, the car companies may well quickly burn through another $25 billion of public aid and be back for more. The Big Three have hefty obligations to their workers and dealers that seem too large relative to their ability to sell cars. Surely these companies need to shed countless dealers and product lines before, not after, they receive public largesse."

Creative Destruction for GM

I have been trying to think of the number of ways of interpreting federal dollars that will be used to rescure General Motors.  Here are a handful:

A. Bad capitalism (e.g. the worst kind of state-corporate collusion).
B. A bailout of the UAW's ridiculous contracts.
C. Another slap in the face of the small business community of Michigan.
D. A plan to keep America's automobile industry from ever REALLY recovering.

Despite the hype, a bailout for GM is not about protecting the economy. All the workers that will be supposeduly saved by keeping GM afloat should talk to the airline workers of the last three decades, where company after company has gone bankrupt. If we want to keep automative jobs in the U.S., then we have to let GM get reorganized, even if that means chopped up into pieces so that new entrpreneurial firms can rise from the ashes. And don't try telling us that now is the worst time to lose all these jobs. Please. That's an excuse to never act. A recession is when these things happen.

If Congress really cared about Michigan or the automotive industry in America, it would let GM face the music. The business model is flawed, and every year that a flawed automotive industry is propped up, it is another year lost. Do you think Toyota or Honda want to see GM saved?  Yes!  They would love nothing more than to keep that kind of competitor around indefinitely.

A revolution in the U.S. auto industry -- real change -- can happen, but it requires real change. No more zombies in Detroit. I think Michigan has suffered enough from the corporate-labor cabal, and it's long overdue to let the free market work a turnaround. David Brooks makes a number of similar points in this column today, as if Joseph Schumpeter himself were writing:

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America.

As for President-elect Obama, this is a serious test of what kind of capitalist he really is. A "good" capitalist that supports little guys (taxpayers, future generations, small businesses) or a "bad" capitalist that supports special interests (big business, organized labor, anyone with a lobbyist). I have high hopes for the Obama presidency, but his team has to understand that it literally won't get any easier to do the right thing than it is right now.  Every month that goes by, political concerns for the 2010 mid-terms and 2012 re-election will weigh more heavily (not just on him, his team, or his allies in Congress, but on the whole system). Now is the time for the nation to take its medicine. So if Obama opts for the easy, short-term things now, there is no turning back.

The best thing Washington could do in this situation is this. Nothing.

Warsh on America's economic soul

David Warsh has an elegant essay that focuses on what I might call America's economic soul. The essay touches on the Easterlin paradox, the history of economic thought, and American literature, all wrapped around a book review of Still the New World: American Literature in a Culture of Creative Destruction, by Philip Fisher:

But what does he know about economics?  The answer, of course, is plenty.  Being a sharp observer can take you a long way in a field that has relatively little instinct for introspection.

* * *

Turner [originator of the idea that the closing of the frontier would change America into a quasi-European state--Kane edit] was wrong, Fisher says.  The unmistakable newness of America in the nineteenth century made it possible for its authors to sketch a philosophy for living permanently with newness, in the form of competitive technological capitalism.  It was in those years that “America became a culture willing to pay the deep costs of obsolescence and lost towns as part of what might be called the bargain of invention,” he writes. And in a series of chapters on the Charles River Bridge decision, on Emerson and Whitman, on Melville and slavery, on Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells and the rise of professionalism, on regionalism and realism in literature, he produces one compelling insight after another from the cornucopia of American literature, none more dazzling than the gloss he puts on the famous episode in which Tom Sawyer paints his Aunt Sally’s fence.

Speaking of Jobs …

We don’t ordinarily promote Kauffman-funded or originated work on our blog, But in light of recent concerns about rising unemployment and Tim’s own recent blogging about jobs of the future, a recent report by John Haltiwanger, Steve Davis and Ron Jarmin about the continued churning in our job market is well worth reading.

The authors are three of the nation’s best experts on productivity and the labor market. They highlight the important, if not well appreciated fact, that in a dynamic economy, there will also be lots of “churn” – growing businesses that are adding workers, declining or struggling businesses that are shedding them. Indeed, one of the reasons for America’s strong productivity performance over the last 15 years (until recently) is that our labor market is so flexible.

To be sure, this is not to dismiss concerns about cyclically rising unemployment. There is and should be no joy in that. One of the more amazing things about the recent financial/economic turmoil is how quickly both the Fed and the Congress/Administration reacted to the initial signs of weakening in the economy. While such swift action may not avert a recession – the economic indicators seem to get worse each day – it surely already has moderated the slowdown.

The longer run challenge for Washington policy makers is not to adopt policies aimed at slowing the churning process (turning back the clock on trade policy, is one example) that is inherent in a growing economy. Stop churn, and you stop or slow growth.

Better that more attention is paid to policies -- like wage insurance -- that facilitate and indeed encourage workers’ transition from one job to another.

Farewell, Peter Carlson

After 12 years, Peter Carlson is leaving his job as a journalist covering magazine culture, and taking the buyout offer from the Washington Post.  This is my update on the print media's metamorphosis.  Peter's farewell article, with some self-referential irony, describes creative destruction in the industry:

In the magazine business, as in nature, life is a Darwinian struggle that is frequently nasty, brutish and short. Every year, more than 500 magazines are born and nearly as many die. During the past 12 years, Life died. So did Civilization, My Generation, Spy, George, Talk, Brill's Content, Punk Planet, Doubletake and Mademoiselle, plus Lingua Franca, a smart, funny magazine about academia, Gadfly, a lively pop culture magazine and recently, the music magazines Harp and No Depression.

Replacing the dead on newsstands was a crop of newborns -- Maxim, Portfolio, Real Simple, the Week, Blender, the American Conservative, Hallmark, Found, Mental Floss and a fine literary mag called the Believer. Meanwhile, the Oxford American, a magazine of Southern culture, died and was reborn. And Radar, a snarky pop culture mag, died, was reborn, died again and was reborn yet again.

Joel Achenbach's blog covers the story, and tipped me off to Howard Kurz solid article covering the early-retirement plan's impact: 100 journalists out the door.  Still, I dislike the snarky "we get the media we deserve" whine that "the next generation blew us off in favor of Xbox and Wii and full-length movies on their iPods."  It's anecdotal.  Sure, you can point to some youngster who watches YouTube and scoffs at newspapers, but that person is an idiot.  What about the other million youngsters who are compulsively RSSing the news, and are deep into the long tail on foreign affairs, climatology, or gee, the U.S. presidential election? Kurz precedes his anecdote with this:

In one sense, the Web is a blessing. Daily circulation for the newsprint Post, now 673,000, may be down from 813,000 in 2000, but we are drawing an eye-opening 9.4 million unique visitors online each month, 85 percent of them from outside the D.C. circulation area.

My guess is that the online readers simply ain't linking to the Health or Business or Style sections. The Post is a powerhouse in political (Capitol Hill) and military (Pentagon) coverage, and that is probably where the paper will have to focus its reporting.  Bigger question (and keep in mind that I am ignorant of the WaPo's particulars, so this comment is general in nature, not aimed at the Post):

Is a company downsizing via early-retirement the best way to handle financial distress?  Would you rather lose your least productive 100 employees or your 100 employees who have the best outside options?  Yes, RIFs are better for morale than layoffs.  Or are they?  When the Air Force had a RIF, my morale was hurt by the departure of the top mentors and role models. I submit that it hurts any organization deeply when it reduces staff by effectively carroting out its most entrepreneurial people.  Maybe Jack Welch should become an editor?

The silver lining, perhaps, is that lost entrepreneurs may be lost to the organization, but not to society!  The fact that they leave and start new businesses is a net plus, right?  Indeed, Kurz points to Politico.com, founded by ex-WaPo staffers.