Maven: Unusual Bedfellows

For anyone who wants a corroborating opinion as to why this stirs such good cheer in The Business Press Maven, check out this article in Barron's.

An interesting factoid: "While manufacturing has been in decline as a percentage of total employment and total output measured in dollars, real manufacturing output has lately been growing at a year-over-year rate of 4.4%, and at a 10-year annualized rate of 3.7% -- a bit above the long-term rate of GDP growth."

More importantly, as far as the world's economic outlook stands, manufacturing's influence on the world economy has not fallen under its own weight but been overtaken by the service economy.

You want better long-term prospects? Pick that service-based economy behind door No. 1 over that flawed old manufacturing economy everyone's pining for behind door No. 2.

The latest from the story that keeps on giving? The Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote) spying was more extensive and more supervised than previously stated, reports The New York Times. A reporter may have been followed.

A detective tried to put software in the computer of another reporter, and even a company spokesman became a target. At various times, questions about the legality of the snooping were brought up and then shrugged off. A listening bug was put in one of The Business Press Maven's filings (just kidding, I hope).

But the lesson? When a story seems too weird for words, it will have legs, going in as-yet-unimagined directions. There will, by the end, be a lot of words written.

Interestingly enough, The Business Press Maven put himself in contention for his own "Back of the Hand" award this week, by reporting matter of factly that Patricia Dunn was, as I put it with smug cleverness, "done" as the company's chairwoman.

Sure, the company made her stand down as chairwoman because of her involvement in degenerate corporate activity, but the real issue -- and the one I missed -- was that because she remains on the company's board, her "firing" was little more than a hollow gesture.

The reckoning was delayed -- only more evidence that the sordid story would drag on.