Way of the World: Technology, Trade and Fewer Jobs

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech this week confirmed it: The pre-eminent political and economic challenge in the industrialized democracies is how to make capitalism work for the middle class.

There is nothing mysterious about that. The most important fact about the United States in this century is that middle-class incomes are stagnating. The financial crisis has revealed an equally stark structural problem in much of Europe.

Even in a relatively prosperous age — for all of today’s woes, we have left behind the dark, satanic mills and workhouses of the 19th century — this decline of the middle class is more than an economic issue. It is also a political one. The main point of democracy is to deliver positive results for the majority.

All of which is why understanding what is happening to the middle class is urgently important. There is no better place to start than by talking to David Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Autor is one of the leading students of the most striking trend bedeviling the middle class: the polarization of the job market. That is a nice way of saying the economy is being cleaved into high-paying jobs at the top and low-paying jobs at the bottom, while the middle-skill and middle-wage jobs that used to form society’s backbone are being hollowed out.

But when I asked him this week what had gone wrong for the U.S. middle class, he gave a different answer: “The main problem is we’ve just had a decade of incredibly anemic employment growth. All of a sudden, around 2000 and 2001, things just slowed down.”

Academics can usually be counted on to have a confident explanation for everything. That is why I was surprised and impressed by Mr. Autor’s answer when I asked him where the jobs had gone. “No one really understands why that is the case,” he said.

It was a winningly modest reply. But work by Mr. Autor and two colleagues — David Dorn, a visiting professor at Harvard, and Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego — is starting to untangle the two forces that both the conventional wisdom and the academy agree are probably responsible for a lot of what is happening to the middle class.

Those forces are technological change and trade. The easy assumption is that the two go together. After all, trade needs technology — it is hard to imagine outsourcing without the Internet, sophisticated logistics systems and jet travel. Technology is dependent on trade, too: The opportunity for global scale is one reason technological innovation has yielded such outsize rewards.

But in a careful study of local labor markets in the United States, Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson have found that trade and technology had very different consequences for jobs.

“We were surprised at how distinct the two were,” Mr. Autor said. “We found that the trade shock had a very measurable impact on the employment rate. Technology led to job polarization, but its employment effect was minimal.” Trade, at least in the short term, really did ship jobs overseas. Technology did not kill jobs per se, but it did hollow out those essential jobs in the middle.

The big surprise, at least for believers (like me) in the classic liberal economic view that trade benefits both parties, is the strong and negative impact of globalization on U.S. workers — Mr. Autor estimates it accounts for 15 to 20 percent of jobs lost.

“The rise of China was such a huge change. It really did matter,” Mr. Autor said. “First, China is such a huge country. Two, China was 40 or 50 years behind in technology, so it had a lot of catching up to do. Third, it happened so fast.”

What is striking, and frightening, is the extent to which, at least in the U.S.-China trade relationship, the knee-jerk, populist fears intellectuals tend to deride actually turned out to be true.

“U.S.-China trade is almost a one-way street. This trade relationship doesn’t clearly give you the benefit that you can sell a lot of stuff to your trade partner,” Mr. Dorn said. “If you talk to someone who is somehow involved in the promotion of free trade, they may say that maybe the headquarters of Apple benefits. That may be true. But the first-order effect is of job loss.”

The impact of technology is more familiar. Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson found that it did not create fewer jobs overall, but it did hollow out the jobs in the middle.

“Technology has really changed the distribution of occupation. That doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with reduced unemployment, but it creates a more bimodal set of opportunities,” Mr. Autor said. “There is an abundance of work to do in food service and there is an abundance of work in finance, but there are fewer middle-wage, middle-income jobs.”

What is challenging about both of these trends, and what makes the hollowing out of the middle class a political problem as well as an economic one, is how different they look depending on whether you own a company or work for one.

Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss. That profound difference is why politics in the rich democracies are so polarized right now. Capitalism and democracy are at cross-purposes, and no one yet has a clear plan for reconciling them.

Chrystia Freeland is editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.

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Olympian Oscar Pistorius charged with murder

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Paralympic superstar Oscar Pistorius was charged Thursday with the murder of his girlfriend who was shot inside his home in South Africa, a stunning development in the life of a national hero known as the Blade Runner for his high-tech artificial legs.

Reeva Steenkamp, a model who spoke out on Twitter against rape and abuse of women, was shot four times in the predawn hours in the house, in a gated community in the capital, Pretoria, police said.

Hours later after undergoing police questioning, Pistorius left a police station accompanied by officers. He looked down as photographers snapped pictures, the hood on his gray workout jacket pulled up, covering most of his face. His court hearing was originally scheduled for Thursday afternoon but has been postponed until Friday to give forensic investigators time to carry out their work, said Medupe Simasiku, a spokesman for the prosecution.

South Africans were shocked at the killing. But while Pistorius captured the nation's attention with his Olympic quest, police said there was a recent history of problems involving him. Police spokeswoman Brigadier Denise Beukes said the incidents included "allegations of a domestic nature."

"I'm not going to elaborate on it but there have been incidents (at Pistorius' home)," Beukes said. Police in South Africa do not name suspects in crimes until they have appeared in court but Beukes said that the 26-year-old Pistorius was at his home at the time of the death of Steenkamp and "there is no other suspect involved."

Pistorius' father, Henke, declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press, only saying "we all pray for guidance and strength for Oscar and the lady's parents."

Neither Pistorius' agent Peet van Zyl nor coach Ampie Louw could be reached while Pistorius' own cellphone went straight to voicemail.

Pistorius' former coach, Andrea Giannini, said he hopes it was "just a tragic accident." Giannini said he believed that Pistorius had been dating Steenkamp for "a few months."

"No matter how bad the situation was, Oscar always stayed calm and positive," Giannini told the AP in Italy. "Whenever he was tired or nervous he was still extremely nice to people. I never saw him violent."

Yet Pistorius had troubles in his personal life. In February 2009, he crashed a speed boat he was piloting on South Africa's Vaal River. Witnesses said he had been drinking before the crash and officers found alcoholic beverages in the wreckage, though they acknowledged at the time they hadn't conducted a blood test on the athlete. Pistorius broke his nose, jaw and several ribs in the crash, as well as damaged his eye socket and required some 180 stitches to his face.

In November, Pistorius also found himself in an altercation with a local coal mining millionaire over a woman, South African media reported. Eventually, the two men involved the South African Police Service's elite Hawks investigative unit before settling the matter.

Pistorius owned firearms and posted a photograph of himself at a shooting range in November 2011 to the social media website Twitter, bragging about his score.

"Had a 96% headshot over 300m from 50shots! Bam!" he tweeted.

Police said that earlier reports that Steenkamp may have been mistaken for a burglar by Pistorius did not come from the police. Several local media outlets initially reported that the shooting may have been accidental.

Capacity Relations, a talent management firm, earlier named model Steenkamp as the victim of the shooting. Police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Katlego Mogale told the AP that officers received a call around 3 a.m. after the shooting.

A 9 mm pistol was recovered and a murder case opened against Pistorius.

Pistorius enjoyed target shooting with his pistol and an online advertisement featuring him for Nike read: "I am a bullet in the chamber." An article in January 2012 in The New York Times Magazine described him talking about how he pulled a pistol to search his home when his alarm went off the night before an interview. At Pistorius' suggestion, he and the journalist went to a nearby target range where they fired at targets with a 9 mm pistol. At one point, Pistorius told the writer: "If you practiced, I think you could be pretty deadly."

Asked how often he went target shooting, Pistorius replied: "Just sometimes when I can't sleep."

Police have still not released the name of the woman, but the publicist for Steenkamp confirmed in a statement that the model was dead.

"We can confirm that Reeva Steenkamp has passed away," Steenkamp's publicist Sarit Tomlinson said. "Our thoughts and prayers go to the Steenkamp family, who have asked to have their privacy respected during this difficult time, everyone is simply devastated. She was the kindest, sweetest human being; an angel on earth and will be sorely missed."

Tomlinson said Steenkamp, known simply as Reeva, was one of FHM's (formerly For Him Magazine) 100 Sexiest Women in the World for two years running, appeared in countless international and national advertisements and was one of the celebrity contestants on the reality show "Tropika Island of Treasure," filmed in Jamaica.

She and Pistorius were first seen publicly together in November at an awards ceremony in Johannesburg. Later, she began mentioning the athlete in public messages on Twitter.

She also tweeted messages urging women to stand up against rape as well as her excitement about Valentine's Day. "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?" she tweeted. "It should be a day of love for everyone."

Pistorius made history in London last year when he became the first double-amputee track athlete to compete in the Olympic Games, propelling him to the status of an athletics superstar.

Having had both his legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday because of a congenital condition, he campaigned for years to be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes. Having initially been banned because of his carbon fiber blades — which critics said gave him an unfair advantage — he was cleared by sport's highest court in 2008 and allowed to run at the top events.

He competed in the 400 meters and on South Africa's 4x400 relay team at the London Games, making history when his selection for South Africa's team was confirmed at the very last minute. He also retained his Paralympic title in the 400 meters in London.

South Africa's Sports Confederation and Olympic committee released a statement on Thursday saying they had been "inundated" with requests for comment but were not in a position to give out any details of the shooting. The International Paralympic Committee also said it wouldn't comment in detail apart from offering its condolences to the victim's family.

South Africa has some of the world's highest murder rates, with nearly 50 people killed each day in the nation of 50 million. It also has high rates of rape, other assaults, robbery and carjackings.

U.N. statistics show South Africa has the second highest rate of shooting deaths in the world, second only to Colombia.

"The question is: Why does this story make the news? Yes, because they are both celebrities, but this is happening on every single day in South Africa," said Adele Kirsten, a member of Gun Free South Africa. "We have thousands of people killed annually by gun violence in our country. So the anger is about that it is preventable."

___

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. Associated Press writer Michelle Faul contributed to this report from Johannesburg.

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Well: Afraid to Speak Up to Medical Power

The slender, weather-beaten, elderly Polish immigrant had been diagnosed with lung cancer nearly a year earlier and was receiving chemotherapy as part of a clinical trial. I was a surgical consultant, called in to help control the fluid that kept accumulating in his lungs.

During one visit, he motioned for me to come closer. His voice was hoarse from a tumor that spread, and the constant hissing from his humidified oxygen mask meant I had to press my face nearly against his to understand his words.

“This is getting harder, doctor,” he rasped. “I’m not sure I’m up to anymore chemo.”

I was not the only doctor that he confided to. But what I quickly learned was that none of us was eager to broach the topic of stopping treatment with his primary cancer doctor.

That doctor was a rising superstar in the world of oncology, a brilliant physician-researcher who had helped discover treatments for other cancers and who had been recruited to lead our hospital’s then lackluster cancer center. Within a few months of the doctor’s arrival, the once sleepy department began offering a dazzling array of experimental drugs. Calls came in from outside doctors eager to send their patients in for treatment, and every patient who was seen was promptly enrolled in one of more than a dozen well-documented treatment protocols.

But now, no doctors felt comfortable suggesting anything but the most cutting-edge, aggressive treatments.

Even the No. 2 doctor in the cancer center, Robin to the chief’s cancer-battling Batman, was momentarily taken aback when I suggested we reconsider the patient’s chemotherapy plan. “I don’t want to tell him,” he said, eyes widening. He reeled off his chief’s vast accomplishments. “I mean, who am I to tell him what to do?”

We stood for a moment in silence before he pointed his index finger at me. “You tell him,” he said with a smile. “You tell him to consider stopping treatment.”

Memories of this conversation came flooding back last week when I read an essay on the problems posed by hierarchies within the medical profession.

For several decades, medical educators and sociologists have documented the existence of hierarchies and an intense awareness of rank among doctors. The bulk of studies have focused on medical education, a process often likened to military and religious training, with elder patriarchs imposing the hair shirt of shame on acolytes unable to incorporate a profession’s accepted values and behaviors. Aspiring doctors quickly learn whose opinions, experiences and voices count, and it is rarely their own. Ask a group of interns who’ve been on the wards for but a week, and they will quickly raise their hands up to the level of their heads to indicate their teachers’ status and importance, then lower them toward their feet to demonstrate their own.

It turns out that this keen awareness of ranking is not limited to students and interns. Other research has shown that fully trained physicians are acutely aware of a tacit professional hierarchy based on specialties, like primary care versus neurosurgery, or even on diseases different specialists might treat, like hemorrhoids and constipation versus heart attacks and certain cancers.

But while such professional preoccupation with privilege can make for interesting sociological fodder, the real issue, warns the author of a courageous essay published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine, is that such an overly developed sense of hierarchy comes at an unacceptable price: good patient care.

Dr. Ranjana Srivastava, a medical oncologist at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Australia, recalls a patient she helped to care for who died after an operation. Before the surgery, Dr. Srivastava had been hesitant to voice her concerns, assuming that the patient’s surgeon must be “unequivocally right, unassailable, or simply not worth antagonizing.” When she confesses her earlier uncertainty to the surgeon after the patient’s death, Dr. Srivastava learns that the surgeon had been just as loath to question her expertise and had assumed that her silence before the surgery meant she agreed with his plan to operate.

“Each of us was trying our best to help a patient, but we were also respecting the boundaries and hierarchy imposed by our professional culture,” Dr. Srivastava said. “The tragedy was that the patient died, when speaking up would have made all the difference.”

Compounding the problem is an increasing sense of self-doubt among many doctors. With rapid advances in treatment, there is often no single correct “answer” for a patient’s problem, and doctors, struggling to stay up-to-date in their own particular specialty niches, are more tentative about making suggestions that cross over to other doctors’ “turf.” Even as some clinicians attempt to compensate by organizing multidisciplinary meetings, inviting doctors from all specialties to discuss a patient’s therapeutic options, “there will inevitably be a hierarchy at those meetings of who is speaking,” Dr. Srivastava noted. “And it won’t always be the ones who know the most about the patient who will be taking the lead.”

It is the potentially disastrous repercussions for patients that make this overly developed awareness of rank and boundaries a critical issue in medicine. Recent efforts to raise safety standards and improve patient care have shown that teams are a critical ingredient for success. But simply organizing multidisciplinary lineups of clinicians isn’t enough. What is required are teams that recognize the importance of all voices and encourage active and open debate.

Since their patient’s death, Dr. Srivastava and the surgeon have worked together to discuss patient cases, articulate questions and describe their own uncertainties to each other and in patients’ notes. “We have tried to remain cognizant of the fact that we are susceptible to thinking about hierarchy,” Dr. Srivastava said. “We have tried to remember that sometimes, despite our best intentions, we do not speak up for our patients because we are fearful of the consequences.”

That was certainly true for my lung cancer patient. Like all the other doctors involved in his care, I hesitated to talk to the chief medical oncologist. I questioned my own credentials, my lack of expertise in this particular area of oncology and even my own clinical judgment. When the patient appeared to fare better, requiring less oxygen and joking and laughing more than I had ever seen in the past, I took his improvement to be yet another sign that my attempt to talk about holding back chemotherapy was surely some surgical folly.

But a couple of days later, the humidified oxygen mask came back on. And not long after that, the patient again asked for me to come close.

This time he said: “I’m tired. I want to stop the chemo.”

Just before he died, a little over a week later, he was off all treatment except for what might make him comfortable. He thanked me and the other doctors for our care, but really, we should have thanked him and apologized. Because he had pushed us out of our comfortable, well-delineated professional zones. He had prodded us to talk to one another. And he showed us how to work as a team in order to do, at last, what we should have done weeks earlier.

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DealBook: Anheuser-Busch InBev Revises Grupo Modelo Deal

11:38 a.m. | Updated

LONDON – Anheuser-Busch InBev moved on Thursday to rescue its $20.1 billion proposed takeover of Grupo Modelo of Mexico, the maker of Corona beer, by making concessions aimed at persuading American antitrust authorities to let the deal proceed.

Under the revised terms, Anheuser-Busch InBev offered to sell the rights to Corona and other Grupo Modelo brands in the United States to Constellation Brands, the world’s largest wine company, for $2.9 billion.

The agreement also would include the sale of a brewery close to the United States-Mexico border currently owned by Grupo Modelo, as well as the perpetual licensing rights to Grupo Modelo’s brands in the United States. If the revised deal goes through, Anheuser-Busch InBev will gain greater access to emerging markets like Mexico.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s decision to sell Compañía Cervecera de Coahuila, the Mexican brewery that produces Corona, Corona Light and Modelo Especial, is an effort to satisfy regulators after the Justice Department sued last month to block the deal.

United States authorities had said the original merger proposal would increase Anheuser-Busch InBev’s control of the American beer market, enabling it to raise prices while reducing choice for local consumers.

Grupo Modelo is currently the third-largest beer company in the United States. Anheuser-Busch InBev is the largest, ahead of MillerCoors.

Analysts say that Anheuser-Busch InBev hopes the moves will address the antitrust issues raised by American authorities.

“We decided to restructure the transaction to address the concerns from the Justice Department,” Anheuser-Busch InBev’s chief executive, Carlos Brito, said in an interview with DealBook. “We are focused on getting this to the finish line.”

Mr. Brito declined to comment on the continuing negotiations with the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the company’s efforts to reduce its operations in the United States, though she added that authorities would give any proposal serious consideration. “At the same time, we would continue to prepare for litigation,” she added.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, which is the world’s largest brewing company, was itself created in 2008 through the $52 billion merger of Anheuser-Busch and the Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev. The proposed $20.1 billion deal for Grupo Modelo would rank as the second-largest takeover in the beer industry after that merger, according to figures from the data provider Thomson Reuters.

In the last five years, Anheuser-Busch InBev also has announced more than 15 additional takeovers, according to the data provider Capital IQ. In a series of multibillion-dollar deals in the beer and liquor sector, a small number of companies like SABMiller and Diageo have gained control over many of top brands.

The move by the Justice Department to block the proposed takeover of Grupo Modelo is the first time in more than a decade that American regulators have tried to slow consolidation in the global beer industry.

The government’s lawsuit, announced last month, quoted internal company documents from Anheuser-Busch InBev to demonstrate that the company’s prices had been undercut by Grupo Modelo. Authorities contend that the proposed deal for Grupo Modelo would eliminate competition from the domestic beer market.

“This is the sort of product that matters to consumers,” William J. Baer, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, told reporters on Jan. 31. “If you have a very slight price increase that happens because of this deal, it could mean that consumers will pay billions of dollars more.”

The concessions also maintain Anheuser-Busch InBev’s focus on gaining access to the fast-growing Mexican market, which could help offset a slowdown in more mature markets like the United States and Western Europe.

“The quick settlement is no doubt surprising, but also shows practicality from the Anheuser-Busch InBev side,” Pablo Zuanic, an analyst at Liberum Capital, wrote in a note to investors on Thursday.

Anheuser-Busch InBev also said it had increased its projected annual cost savings from the Grupo Modelo deal by 66 percent, to $1 billion, from estimates provided when the deal was first announced last year. The terms of the original deal for Grupo Modelo remain unchanged, according to a company statement.

The brewing giant’s shares rose more than 6 percent in afternoon trading in Brussels on Thursday, while Constellation Brands’ stock price jumped almost 36 percent in trading in New York on Thursday morning.

For Constellation Brands, the agreement will give it greater access to the American beer market.

As part of the original terms of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s proposed takeover of Grupo Modelo, Constellation had agreed to pay $1.85 billion for the 50 percent stake that it did not already own in Crown Imports, a joint venture with the Mexican brewer.

Constellation would now gain control of the Corona brand across the United States, and plans to invest $400 million in the brewery that is being sold by Grupo Modelo to expand its business in the United States.

“This is a transformational acquisition,” Constellation’s chief executive, Robert S. Sands, said in a statement.

Lazard is advising Anheuser-Busch InBev on the deal, while Morgan Stanley is advising Grupo Modelo.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 13

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IOC President Rogge to meet with wrestling leader

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — IOC President Jacques Rogge will meet with the head of wrestling's governing body to discuss ways the sport can fight to save its place in the 2020 Olympics.

The IOC executive board removed wrestling from the program of the 2020 Games on Tuesday, cutting it from the list of 26 sports at last year's London Olympics.

The decision, which still must be ratified by the full IOC in September, has been widely criticized by wrestling organizations around the world.

Rogge said Wednesday he's been contacted by Raphael Martinetti, the president of international wrestling federation FILA, and was encouraged by the sport's determination to remain in the games.

"We agreed we would meet at the first opportunity to have discussions," Rogge said at a news conference at the close of a two-day board meeting. "I should say FILA reacted well to this disheartening news for them.

"They vowed to adapt the sport and vowed to fight to be eventually included in the 2020 slot."

Wrestling, which remains on the program for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, still has a chance to stay on the list for 2020 — if it manages to convince the IOC to reverse the board's decision.

Wrestling now joins seven other sports in applying for one opening on the 2020 program: a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and the martial art of wushu.

The IOC executive board will meet in May in St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to propose for 2020 inclusion. The final vote will be made at the IOC general assembly in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

IOC officials said it's possible the board could decide to put forward three sports for consideration, including wrestling.

"The vote of yesterday is not an elimination of wrestling from the Olympic Games," Rogge said. "Wrestling will participate in the games in Rio de Janeiro. To the athletes who train now, I say, 'Continue training for your participation in Rio. Your federation is working for the inclusion in the 2020 Games.'"

Rogge was asked whether Tuesday's decision marked an end to wrestling in the Olympics.

"I cannot look into a crystal ball into the future," he said. "We have established a fair process by which the sport that would not be included in the core has a chance to compete with the seven other sports for the slot on the 2020 Games."

Rogge said he was fully aware of the backlash to the decision against wrestling, a sport which dates back to the ancient Olympics and featured in the inaugural modern games in 1896.

The head of the Russian Olympic Committee said Wednesday he would write to Rogge to appeal the IOC board's decision. Wrestling has been one of Russia's strongest sports: Soviet and Russian wrestlers have won 77 gold medals.

"We knew even before the decision was taken whatever sport would not be included in the core program would lead to criticism from the supporters of that sport," Rogge said.

The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission that analyzed 39 criteria, including TV ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board may have included political and sentimental factors.

Modern pentathlon — a five-sport discipline dating back to the 1912 Games — had been widely expected to face removal from the program but lobbied successfully to save its status.

Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC president, is a vice president of the International Modern Pentathlon Union and a member of the IOC board.

FILA said Tuesday it was "greatly astonished" by the decision, adding that the federation "will take all necessary measures to convince the IOC executive board and IOC members of the aberration of such decision against one of the founding sports of the ancient and modern Olympic Games."

The last sports removed from the Olympics were baseball and softball, voted out by the IOC in 2005 and off the program since the 2008 Beijing Games. Golf and rugby will be joining the program at the 2016 Games in Rio.

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Phys Ed: Getting the Right Dose of Exercise

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

A common concern about exercise is that if you don’t do it almost every day, you won’t achieve much health benefit. But a commendable new study suggests otherwise, showing that a fairly leisurely approach to scheduling workouts may actually be more beneficial than working out almost daily.

For the new study, published this month in Exercise & Science in Sports & Medicine, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham gathered 72 older, sedentary women and randomly assigned them to one of three exercise groups.

One group began lifting weights once a week and performing an endurance-style workout, like jogging or bike riding, on another day.

Another group lifted weights twice a week and jogged or rode an exercise bike twice a week.

The final group, as you may have guessed, completed three weight-lifting and three endurance sessions, or six weekly workouts.

The exercise, which was supervised by researchers, was easy at first and meant to elicit changes in both muscles and endurance. Over the course of four months, the intensity and duration gradually increased, until the women were jogging moderately for 40 minutes and lifting weights for about the same amount of time.

The researchers were hoping to find out which number of weekly workouts would be, Goldilocks-like, just right for increasing the women’s fitness and overall weekly energy expenditure.

Some previous studies had suggested that working out only once or twice a week produced few gains in fitness, while exercising vigorously almost every day sometimes led people to become less physically active, over all, than those formally exercising less. Researchers theorized that the more grueling workout schedule caused the central nervous system to respond as if people were overdoing things, sending out physiological signals that, in an unconscious internal reaction, prompted them to feel tired or lethargic and stop moving so much.

To determine if either of these possibilities held true among their volunteers, the researchers in the current study tracked the women’s blood levels of cytokines, a substance related to stress that is thought to be one of the signals the nervous system uses to determine if someone is overdoing things physically. They also measured the women’s changing aerobic capacities, muscle strength, body fat, moods and, using sophisticated calorimetry techniques, energy expenditure over the course of each week.

By the end of the four-month experiment, all of the women had gained endurance and strength and shed body fat, although weight loss was not the point of the study. The scientists had not asked the women to change their eating habits.

There were, remarkably, almost no differences in fitness gains among the groups. The women working out twice a week had become as powerful and aerobically fit as those who had worked out six times a week. There were no discernible differences in cytokine levels among the groups, either.

However, the women exercising four times per week were now expending far more energy, over all, than the women in either of the other two groups. They were burning about 225 additional calories each day, beyond what they expended while exercising, compared to their calorie burning at the start of the experiment.

The twice-a-week exercisers also were using more energy each day than they had been at first, burning almost 100 calories more daily, in addition to the calories used during workouts.

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

“We think that the women in the twice-a-week and four-times-a-week groups felt more energized and physically capable” after several months of training than they had at the start of the study, says Gary Hunter, a U.A.B. professor who led the experiment. Based on conversations with the women, he says he thinks they began opting for stairs over escalators and walking for pleasure.

The women working out six times a week, though, reacted very differently. “They complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time,” Dr. Hunter says. They did not report feeling fatigued or physically droopy. Their bodies were not producing excessive levels of cytokines, sending invisible messages to the body to slow down.

Rather, they felt pressed for time and reacted, it seems, by making choices like driving instead of walking and impatiently avoiding the stairs.

Despite the cautionary note, those who insist on working out six times per week need not feel discouraged. As long as you consciously monitor your activity level, the findings suggest, you won’t necessarily and unconsciously wind up moving less over all.

But the more fundamental finding of this study, Dr. Hunter says, is that “less may be more,” a message that most likely resonates with far more of us. The women exercising four times a week “had the greatest overall increase in energy expenditure,” he says. But those working out only twice a week “weren’t far behind.”

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Deal Professor: Unusual Moves in Confronting Apple's Huge Pile of Cash

The fight over Apple’s $140 billion cash pile is proving the adage that money can make people do strange things.

And it is not just Apple that is doing things it would not have done before. The hedge fund manager David Einhorn, famous for shorting stocks like Lehman Brothers, has gone long on Apple, betting heavily that Apple’s stock is undervalued — and blaming that eye-popping mountain of money.

While most of us would think that having tens of billions would be wonderful, it’s actually a problem for Apple. The money just sits there, not earning much in an environment of extremely low interest rates. And the problem is only getting worse. Apple is accumulating money at an enormous rate — more than $23 billion in the last quarter alone.

It was a more manageable issue when Apple was a rapidly growing stock, but since September Apple’s share price has fallen to roughly $470, from over $700.

According to Mr. Einhorn, roughly $145 of that share price represents Apple’s cash mountain. This means that the market is assigning a low multiple, about seven times earnings, to the rest of Apple’s business.

Multiples for Google are almost three times as much. Apple’s multiple is even less than Microsoft’s — a company whose revenue largely comes from PC operating software, which some people worry is a melting iceberg.

When it came to the buildup of cash, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former chief executive, simply ignored a problem he had helped create. Mindful of Apple’s past financial difficulties before his return in 1997, he wanted a fortress of cash to protect the company. So he drew a line in the sand, saying no to dividends. After his death, Apple caved a little, announcing a dividend and share repurchase program worth $45 billion.

It’s still not enough for shareholders who want to increase Apple’s multiple and stock price. The fundamental idea is that shareholders could put this money to better use than Apple can, and that its stock would trade higher without the cash.

The problem is that even if Apple wanted to return all its cash to shareholders, it can’t. Much of the cash is held abroad in foreign subsidiaries. If the company repatriates it to return to shareholders, it would have to pay taxes on it. Instead, the company is letting the cash sit there in the apparent expectation that there will be federal tax relief.

It’s here that Mr. Einhorn enters the picture. He has been buying Apple shares for a few years, and his fund owns more than 1.3 million shares. The hedge fund magnate wants Apple’s stock to earn a higher multiple by dealing with the cash problem.

But Mr. Einhorn is also impatient and unwilling to wait for federal tax relief. Instead, he has a clever idea. At an investment conference last May, Mr. Einhorn proposed that Apple issue $500 billion of perpetual preferred stock free to all shareholders. The preferred stock would yield 4 percent and be freely tradable.

So, how will this increase the value of the company? It’s financial wizardry. If Apple issued debt, the market would be expected to subtract this value from Apple’s worth. But the preferred stock would not be treated as debt, for accounting purposes at least.

The only change would be that Apple’s income would be reduced by the amount of the interest paid on $500 billion, or $20 billion a year. If Apple stays at the same multiple, it would give the company a net worth of $300 billion or so. But now the $500 billion in preferred stock would be added, making the company worth $800 billion.

How can one plus one equal four? It depends on whether the market thinks that the $500 billion is not debt and never has to be repaid. If so, then this amount will not be deducted from Apple’s worth. It’s something that may work in theory in our sometimes puzzling financial markets, but no company has ever tried it.

Some experts are skeptical. Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University, has called the plan financial alchemy and written that it would “not add value to the company, not one cent.” When asked to comment, Mr. Einhorn said, “Professor Damodaran’s analysis brings to memory the old joke about the economist who refused to pick up a $100 bill on the street because in an efficient economy, there can’t be $100 bills lying around.”

Apple’s response to Mr. Einhorn has been equally clever. One would think that the maker of the iPad would just sit above the fray and do what it has traditionally done — ignore its shareholders. But with a declining stock price, that may no longer be a luxury Apple can afford. So, it has engaged with Mr. Einhorn to discuss his proposal. And the notoriously shareholder-unfriendly company has turned strangely in favor of good corporate governance.

In its latest proxy statement, Apple proposes to amend its charter to allow for election of directors only by a majority of shareholders. It also proposes to eliminate a provision called “blank check preferred,” which allows a company to issue preferred shares in unlimited number and type. Almost every company has this provision, but shareholder activists hate it because it can be used as a takeover defense, allowing a company to issue preferred stocks with significant voting rights to a friendly party.

While the proposal to eliminate the preferred shares appears worthy and has been endorsed by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the giant pension fund, this proposal is really about Mr. Einhorn.

The amendment has the convenient effect of eliminating the board’s ability to adopt the hedge fund magnate’s plan. Apple says that it just wants to be a good corporate citizen and shareholders can still vote to adopt Mr. Einhorn’s plan. But let’s face it, Apple would be one of the few companies in the United States to ever abolish its blank check preferred provision.

Apple has not been a paragon of corporate governance. That may not be surprising, given that its board has directors like Millard S. Drexler of J. Crew, who surreptitiously took his company private. And Apple has received negative marks in recent years from proxy advisory firms like Institutional Shareholder Services for giving its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, almost $400 million in stock options in one year.

It’s an odd state of events.

By all accounts, it would appear to be a topsy-turvy world. Apple has turned defensive, while Mr. Einhorn is picking a public fight with a company he is betting on, instead of betting against.

Perhaps this column should have instead started with an adage from the movie “Wall Street” that money “makes you do things you don’t want to do.”

Yet Apple is not doing itself any favors by trying to do an end run around Mr. Einhorn.

He has sued Apple, claiming that the company’s proposal violates the securities laws, but the dispute is “a silly sideshow,” as Mr. Cook put it on Tuesday. Even if Mr. Einhorn wins, it would only force Apple to have a separate vote on the preferred share issue, something it is likely to win.

Even so, it might be better if Apple simply addressed Mr. Einhorn’s proposal head-on. After all, his proposal is clever, but untested. It may work, but it may not. Why should the world’s most valuable company be run as an experiment in finance?

Still, the world is changing. Apple may be a highflier, but its growth prospects are not as exciting as they seemed to be a year ago. Its stock may simply be deflating from an overheated place.

And that’s the oddest thing of all. Despite Apple’s growing cash pile, the company’s value is shrinking. But instead of focusing on making Apple an even better business, shareholders are trying to rescue their bubblelike bets with financial gimmickry, and Apple is engaging in its own gimmicks to defeat them. Even Apple can be consumed by the strange world of Wall Street.

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A version of this article appeared in print on 02/13/2013, on page B7 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Unusual Moves in Confronting Apple’s Mountain of Cash.

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Nats' Gonzalez looking beyond PED allegations

VIERA, Fla. (AP) — Washington Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez says he has cooperated with a Major League Baseball investigation surrounding a Miami clinic where his name was reported to have shown up in records for performance-enhancing drugs.

He reiterated he's never taken them.

Gonzalez spoke Tuesday about the allegations after reporting to the Nationals' spring training facility in Viera, Fla., saying he feels confident he'll be exonerated.

He says he's been given no timetable from baseball about when the results of the investigation will be completed, but added he doesn't want it to be a distraction for his team following its first playoff appearance.

Gonzalez says he's shifted his focus to the upcoming World Baseball Classic after his recent selection to pitch for Team USA.

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