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1155 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 22, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

As Alps Warm, a Snow-Deprived Ski Resort Sells for $1
BYLINE: By UTA HARNISCHFEGER
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Foreign Desk; ERNEN JOURNAL; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 921 words
DATELINE: ERNEN, Switzerland
Bruno Prior, a British entrepreneur, saw the ad from the Ernen ski-lift company one day as he was sipping coffee and looking through the newspaper in London.

Several months later -- after paying the token sum of one Swiss franc, or about 90 cents -- he is the proud owner of four ski lifts, two trail groomers and a restaurant on 12 miles of ski slopes.

Effectively giving the ski operation away was an act of desperation on the part of Ernen, which, like hundreds of other small Alpine ski stations at medium altitudes, faces dire times. Most customers these days prefer the larger resorts with hundreds of miles of ski runs, apres-ski activities and luxury shopping. As global warming brings less snow, lower-altitude stations rely more on costly snow machines.

''Mr. Prior is our lucky charm,'' said Heinz Seiler, who runs the Ernen ski-lift company, Sportbahnen Erner Galen, now owned by Mr. Prior. ''He spared our 560-soul village from a catastrophe.'' Mr. Seiler's tiny office looks out on the village square, with its 16th-century wooden houses.

''Smaller ski stations like ours have it much harder,'' Mr. Seiler said. ''Tourism is the only proposition here. There is nothing else.''

Last ski season, the ski-lift company lost more than $180,000. In March, the need for $1.4 million more to renew its operating license -- required every couple of decades -- was the last straw. With rising losses and temperatures, and the snowfall becoming less dependable, the village, the majority owner of the company, decided to shut down the lifts.

''We braced ourselves to lose two-thirds of our winter guests,'' Mr. Seiler said.

Since the boom days of the early 1990s, the number of annual overnight stays in Ernen has decreased by almost half, to 90,000 last winter.

''In an act of desperation,'' Mr. Seiler said, the company decided to give away the ski lifts to the person whose idea for resuscitating the resort would provide the most benefit for the village.

The telephone rang for weeks. The village chose Mr. Prior over competing investors from Asia, the United States and the Netherlands because residents liked his concept for restoring the ski business instead of just selling off the property for vacation homes that might not be used much.

After spending more than $450,000 on the current ski season and a feasibility study, Mr. Prior plans to invest as much as $45 million to build two new lifts and hotels, initially with 300 beds.

Mr. Prior, whose family business had just sold off a subsidiary when he saw the ad, decided to invest in ''something fun.''

''As a private company we are free to invest into an unfashionable ski resort,'' he said in a telephone interview. ''We can afford to be patient.''

He hopes that new hotels and modern lifts will draw skiers, and that new, higher-altitude runs will guarantee snow.

Mr. Prior is not the first foreign investor to answer the call of the mountains. The most high-profile case is the Egyptian billionaire entrepreneur Samih Sawiris, who plans to convert a former Alpine military base, Andermatt, into a grand skiing destination by building an 18-hole golf course, 800 apartments, six luxury hotels and lavish leisure facilities.

''The important thing is getting warm beds,'' said Rolf Gruber, who runs a restaurant along the road to Ernen, meaning with people in them. More commonly, investors build chalets to sell as second homes. While they generate quick returns for builders, they often end up as cold beds, rarely used by their owners.

Less snow, fewer skiers and cold beds have meant less work for local residents. Most young people leave Ernen, and if past trends continue, it is only a matter of time until the primary school, with one classroom serving 13 children in first through fourth grades, shuts down.

''Mr. Prior will bring new life and work for those who want to live here, and maybe also new children,'' says Ruedi Schweizer, whose family is part of a commune that works a small farm, runs a small organic-food store and offers mule trekking for tourists.

As the village sought to save itself, he said, dozens of local groups proposed alternatives to skiing, like an artificial lake for ice-skating, none of which were ever put in place. Mr. Schweizer remains torn about the new hotels, which might change the village in ways he would not like. ''But we have no real alternatives,'' he said. ''The village is dead without its tourists.''

Examples of Swiss ski resorts facing economic hardship abound. This year, three mountain villages in the southern canton, or state, of Ticino warded off bankruptcy proceedings after the canton offered interim financing.

Even more exclusive places are not immune. A last-minute bridge loan from its parent company allowed the Madrisa cable-car company in Klosters, a resort known for celebrity visitors like Prince Charles, to open for the winter. But now the company needs $2.7 million more for snow machines.

In Visperterminen, a tiny three-lift ski station 15 miles down the valley from Ernen that was on the verge of shutting down, 14 retirees helped keep it open by working without pay to operate the ski lift.

Given this year's early and abundant snowfalls, there is widespread hope that Mr. Prior's first skiing season will encourage him to invest more.

Mr. Gruber, the chef, hopes to welcome English guests by next season. ''That gives me enough time to translate my menu into English,'' he said. ''But believe me, I will definitely not offer bread pudding.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SKIING FACILITIES (92%); SKIING (94%); SPORTS (92%); RESORTS (90%); MOUNTAINS (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (89%); PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES (78%); FAMILY COMPANIES (78%); COMPANY LOSSES (78%); LUXURY GOODS (75%); GLOBAL WARMING (74%); RESTAURANTS (71%); LICENSES & PERMITS (64%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LONDON, ENGLAND (73%) ALPS (92%) UNITED STATES (79%); ENGLAND (73%); UNITED KINGDOM (73%); EUROPE (51%); NETHERLANDS (69%); ASIA (51%)
LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: While skiers find plenty of powder at spots like Gurschen Glacier, at 9,800 feet, lower-altitude ski stations are struggling. (PHOTOGRAPH BY URS FLUEELER/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY)

Heinz Seiler, who runs the Ernen ski-lift company, with an ad seeking a buyer. (PHOTOGRAPH BY UTA HARNISCHFEGER) MAP: Facing rising financial losses, Ernen was desperate.

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1156 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 22, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Remarks On Reagan Live On
BYLINE: By ADAM NAGOURNEY
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; National Desk; CHECK POINT; Pg. 17
LENGTH: 278 words
In one of their starkest differences in Monday's debate, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that Senator Barack Obama had talked about ''admiring Ronald Reagan'' and that Mr. Obama ''said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote.''

Mr. Obama responded by saying, ''What I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to.''

At issue were remarks Mr. Obama made last week to The Reno Gazette-Journal. While he spoke positively of Reagan and described the Republicans as ''the party of ideas,'' he did not say that he admired Reagan.

''Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not,'' Mr. Obama told the newspaper. ''He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. He tapped into what people were already feeling, which is, we want clarity, we want optimism, we want, you know, a return to that sense of dynamism and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.''

At the debate, Mr. Obama said that Mrs. Clinton had ''provided much more fulsome praise'' of Reagan in Tom Brokaw's new book, ''Boom!,'' in which she is quoted as saying: ''When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES 2008 (91%); US REPUBLICAN PARTY (90%); US DEMOCRATIC PARTY (78%); ARMS CONTROL & DISARMAMENT (62%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (50%)
COMPANY: RENO GAZETTE JOURNAL (56%)
PERSON: RONALD REAGAN (97%); BARACK OBAMA (95%); HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (92%); BILL CLINTON (69%); RICHARD NIXON (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1157 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 21, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

From MySpace To YourSpace
BYLINE: By BRIAN STELTER
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1374 words
Two years ago, Chris DeWolfe, the co-founder and chief executive of MySpace, was talking about international expansion with Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation bought the social networking site in 2005. According to Mr. DeWolfe, an entrepreneur used to moving at Internet velocity, he suggested that MySpace could expand to ''four or five'' countries in the next year.

''What about 13?'' Mr. Murdoch said.

That was one of Mr. DeWolfe's first lessons in just how fast business is done inside the News Corporation. MySpace ended up adding 15 local versions in the year. It is now up to 24 -- ''we just launched in Brazil,'' Mr. DeWolfe said in one of his first interviews since signing a new two-year contract with the News Corporation in October.

In addition to expanding, MySpace is evolving. While it is introducing new musicians and playing host to amateur filmmakers, it is also signing artists to its own record label and developing online video series. It introduced a content guide, MySpace Celebrity, last week.

The world's largest social networking site, MySpace has grown far past being merely ''a place for friends,'' as its slogan states. With an estimated 110 million monthly active users, MySpace is undeniably a powerful tool for advertisers who seek reach and efficiency.

Richard Greenfield, a media analyst for Pali Research, called MySpace a fantastic acquisition from a return-on-investment standpoint. The site was sold for $580 million; Mr. Greenfield said it was expected to have around $800 million in revenue in fiscal 2008, mostly through advertising.

''Rupert made an important bet,'' said Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, which signed a $900 million advertising deal with MySpace's parent, Fox Interactive Media, in August 2006. ''He may find that this is the single best investment he has ever made.''

But MySpace has challenges, especially from Facebook, which has leapt ahead of MySpace in technology and has been accumulating users at a faster rate. Facebook, with its cleaner interface and higher demographic profile, is also seen by some advertisers as a better bet. By comparison, the reputation of MySpace -- with its cluttered and often sexually tinged personal pages and lingering privacy concerns -- has suffered.

''It's definitely not the sexy pick anymore,'' said Adam Kasper, a senior vice president at Media Contacts, the interactive division of Havas.

So MySpace has changed tack. What was seen as a competitor to traditional media platforms is starting to resemble one.

''Some people still perceive MySpace like it was in early 2004, as a niche place for scenesters in New York and Los Angeles. That's how it started, but it's become very mainstream,'' Mr. DeWolfe, 41, said. ''It's about consuming content and discovering pop culture.''

As a result, the MySpace site resembles a portal like Yahoo or AOL as much as a social networking site. Peter F. Chernin, the president and chief operating officer of the News Corporation, called MySpace a ''contemporary media platform'' and said the site existed to ''create content and connect people to one another.''

Fox Interactive ''clearly envisioned them as a portal,'' said Alan Rambam, a senior vice president at the ad agency Fleishman Hillard. ''I thought they would be much further along with that today.''

The original content may draw advertisers who are wary of placing a marketing message next to a messy profile page, but it is unclear whether the users who make MySpace the most-viewed Web site in America will want to watch TV episodes and chat with friends on the same site.

Making this transformation work falls to Mr. DeWolfe, the business face of the company, and co-founder Tom Anderson, 37, the product specialist. Both recently signed new contracts at salaries reported to be $7.5 million a year, which would make them two of the highest-paid employees at the News Corporation.

Mr. DeWolfe did not enter MySpace with a media background. He led two companies, now defunct, specializing in data storage and Internet marketing, but he had long envisioned a community-based Web site. In 1997, while in graduate school at the University of Southern California, he developed a business plan for the idea, which he called SiteGeist (he received an A-).

Surprising some observers, the News Corporation -- one of the largest media conglomerations -- has remained relatively hands-off. Mr. DeWolfe said Mr. Murdoch visited MySpace's headquarters in Los Angeles about once a month -- ''He's definitely in tune with the different features on the site, and he's very aware of the product road map'' -- but the two founders are still in control of the site.

''Some of the first words out of Rupert's mouth were about how important he felt it was to protect what Tom and I had built and to preserve the user experience at all costs,'' Mr. DeWolfe said. ''He said the single most important thing the company could do is to empower MySpace with the autonomy and resources it needed to continue giving the users what they want.'' He added, ''It was incredibly reassuring.''

But as MySpace expands beyond its origins, its executives struggle as they try to give users and advertisers what they both want. There is a big contrast between the chaos that is comfortable to many MySpace residents and the neatness that appeals to consumer product companies.

''The challenge for MySpace in the future is making it more of a well-lighted environment for the big brand advertisers -- the Procter & Gambles and Unilevers,'' said David Cohen, the United States director for digital communication for the media buying agency Universal McCann.

Sitting in his Boston office, Mr. Kasper of Havas counted 10 advertising units on the main page of MySpace Music. He said that some appeared to have been placed by third-party networks, creating a cluttered environment.

''I think it's too much,'' Mr. Kasper said. ''It's just not as valuable to the advertiser, and it's certainly not as good from a consumer experience standpoint.''

The site suffers, at least in some circles, from an image problem. The prevalence of unwanted friend requests, spam and sexually suggestive material has driven some users away, even giving rise to the term ''MySpace refugee.'' It still has more page views than any other Web site in the world -- more than 1.3 billion a day -- although that figure dipped for the first time in December 2007, according to comScore. (MySpace executives said improvements to the site's structure were at fault.)

Mr. DeWolfe does not seem especially concerned about the perception. He points to what he sees as MySpace's growth potential and new security and customization features. Users will soon be able to tailor their profile for subsets of friends, ''so my colleagues will see a much different page than my college buddies,'' Mr. DeWolfe said.

New features for mobile devices are being added, as well as new social applications. And in response to concerns about child predators, MySpace unveiled an accord last week with 49 states to tighten privacy restrictions.

To burnish MySpace's media credentials, Mr. DeWolfe is leaning on his friends in Hollywood. At the Sundance Film Festival this week, he is playing host to industry parties with the band Maroon 5 and the rapper 50 Cent. MySpaceTV has been the launching pad for a number of Web video series, and it is second to YouTube among Internet video sites.

Mr. DeWolfe is nurturing another project that promises to help MySpace grow: an incubator that will form new companies and function like a start-up. The company, tentatively named Slingshot Labs, will be financed by the News Corporation but exist as a separate company. Mr. DeWolfe anticipates that it will nurture four or five consumer Web sites at a given time.

''We firmly believe that it's very hard to create a disruptive technology within a larger organization,'' he said.

Mr. Chernin said he was not surprised that Mr. DeWolfe and Mr. Anderson had decided to stay with the company they created.

''Think about the size and the scale of MySpace and the opportunity to affect people and the opportunity to play a role in the culture,'' he said. ''There's really nothing like it.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING (92%); INTERVIEWS (78%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); INTERNET VIDEO (77%); INTERACTIVE MARKETING & ADVERTISING (77%); MUSIC INDUSTRY (75%); CELEBRITIES (73%); MOVIES & SOUND RECORDING SECTOR PERFORMANCE (72%); FILM (72%); MARKETING & ADVERTISING EXPENDITURE (70%); RETURN ON INVESTMENT (69%); POPULATION & DEMOGRAPHICS (65%); PRIVACY RIGHTS (60%); MARKET DEMOGRAPHICS (50%); SINGERS & MUSICIANS (53%)
COMPANY: NEWS CORP (93%); MYSPACE.COM (92%); FOX INTERACTIVE MEDIA (65%); GOOGLE INC (53%); FACEBOOK INC (52%); HAVAS SA (53%)
TICKER: NWS (NYSE) (94%); NCRA (LSE) (94%); GOOG (NASDAQ) (53%); GGEA (LSE) (53%); HAVS (NASDAQ) (51%); HAV (PAR) (53%); NWS (ASX) (93%); NWS (NASDAQ) (93%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS518112 WEB SEARCH PORTALS (53%); SIC8999 SERVICES, NEC (53%); SIC7375 INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SERVICES (53%); NAICS541830 MEDIA BUYING AGENCIES (54%); NAICS541810 ADVERTISING AGENCIES (54%); NAICS541613 MARKETING CONSULTING SERVICES (54%); SIC8742 MANAGEMENT CONSULTING SERVICES (54%); SIC7319 ADVERTISING, NEC (54%); SIC7311 ADVERTISING AGENCIES (54%); NAICS519130 INTERNET PUBLISHING & BROADCASTING & WEB SEARCH PORTALS (53%)
PERSON: KEITH RUPERT MURDOCH (92%); ERIC E SCHMIDT (53%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LOS ANGELES, CA, USA (79%); NEW YORK, NY, USA (64%) NEW YORK, USA (79%); CALIFORNIA, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (79%); BRAZIL (79%)
LOAD-DATE: January 21, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Chris DeWolfe, left, chief at MySpace, says Rupert Murdoch is knowledgeable about the Web site but gives it autonomy. (PHOTOGRAPH BY KIMBERLY WHITE/REUTERS) (pg.C1)

Tom Anderson, left, and Chris DeWolfe, co-founders of MySpace, recently signed new contracts. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS) (pg.C3)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1158 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 21, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

Debunking the Reagan Myth
BYLINE: By PAUL KRUGMAN
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; OP-ED COLUMNIST; Pg. 19
LENGTH: 808 words
Historical narratives matter. That's why conservatives are still writing books denouncing F.D.R. and the New Deal; they understand that the way Americans perceive bygone eras, even eras from the seemingly distant past, affects politics today.

And it's also why the furor over Barack Obama's praise for Ronald Reagan is not, as some think, overblown. The fact is that how we talk about the Reagan era still matters immensely for American politics.

Bill Clinton knew that in 1991, when he began his presidential campaign. ''The Reagan-Bush years,'' he declared, ''have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.''

Contrast that with Mr. Obama's recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a ''sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.''

Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan's political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?

For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before -- and the poverty rate had actually risen.

When the inevitable recession arrived, people felt betrayed -- a sense of betrayal that Mr. Clinton was able to ride into the White House.

Given that reality, what was Mr. Obama talking about? Some good things did eventually happen to the U.S. economy -- but not on Reagan's watch.

For example, I'm not sure what ''dynamism'' means, but if it means productivity growth, there wasn't any resurgence in the Reagan years. Eventually productivity did take off -- but even the Bush administration's own Council of Economic Advisers dates the beginning of that takeoff to 1995.

Similarly, if a sense of entrepreneurship means having confidence in the talents of American business leaders, that didn't happen in the 1980s, when all the business books seemed to have samurai warriors on their covers. Like productivity, American business prestige didn't stage a comeback until the mid-1990s, when the U.S. began to reassert its technological and economic leadership.

I understand why conservatives want to rewrite history and pretend that these good things happened while a Republican was in office -- or claim, implausibly, that the 1981 Reagan tax cut somehow deserves credit for positive economic developments that didn't happen until 14 or more years had passed. (Does Richard Nixon get credit for ''Morning in America''?)

But why would a self-proclaimed progressive say anything that lends credibility to this rewriting of history -- particularly right now, when Reaganomics has just failed all over again?

Like Ronald Reagan, President Bush began his term in office with big tax cuts for the rich and promises that the benefits would trickle down to the middle class. Like Reagan, he also began his term with an economic slump, then claimed that the recovery from that slump proved the success of his policies.

And like Reaganomics -- but more quickly -- Bushonomics has ended in grief. The public mood today is as grim as it was in 1992. Wages are lagging behind inflation. Employment growth in the Bush years has been pathetic compared with job creation in the Clinton era. Even if we don't have a formal recession -- and the odds now are that we will -- the optimism of the 1990s has evaporated.

This is, in short, a time when progressives ought to be driving home the idea that the right's ideas don't work, and never have.

It's not just a matter of what happens in the next election. Mr. Clinton won his elections, but -- as Mr. Obama correctly pointed out -- he didn't change America's trajectory the way Reagan did. Why?

Well, I'd say that the great failure of the Clinton administration -- more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related -- was the fact that it didn't change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan.

Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won't be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.

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