ABCDE Business sunday, november 28, 2010 CARPAGES
Such joy has its costs The ride in a 2011 Volvo XC 60 is so smooth you might not notice your speed until the authorities do, Warren Brown writes. l Plus ads for thousands of cars.
SLATE How it came to this
or the pat-down A look inside Rapiscan, an Arlington contractor that manufactures airport scanners. G2
OUTLOOK
Yes, you will drop Miss Black Friday? Don’t worry, retailers will keep you chasing from one sale to the next until your holiday spirit is spent. B2
2010GADGETANDGIFTGUIDE EZRA KLEIN Economic and Domestic Policy
Retirement security on the altar of fiscal responsibility
F
or anyonewhowould like to retire someday, reading the news can be
depressing.There’s the Social Secu-
rity shortfall, of course, and the reports that pensions promised to state employ- ees are terribly
underfunded.The finan- cial crisiswiped out plenty of 401(k)s, andmany families had to borrowagainst —orwithdrawfrom—their retirement savings to stay afloat. Too often, these are three separate
conversations, and they’re frequently lashed to other issues. Social Security is usually discussed in terms of the deficit, andWashington brimswith plans for cutting Social Security
benefits.The con- versation over state pensions usually is really about the sustainability of state
budgets.Andwhenwe talk 401(k)s,we tend to be talking about volatility in the stockmarket. But really, these are all the same con-
versation, about the same problem: re- tirement
security.The late 20th century sawa great shift in risk, inwhich uncer- tainty that had been borne by employers and the governmentwas shunted onto
individuals.And in our efforts to solve our deficit and economic problems,we must be careful not tomake our retire- ment problemworse. Consider the 401(k):WhenCongress
created the provision in 1978, lawmakers didn’t realize theywere going to trans- formtheAmerican pension systemwith- in a generation.But that’swhat hap-
klein continued onG3 A stockingful of options the holiday buying perplexities of yesteryear are giving way to new ones
ROB PEGORARO Fast Forward
tronics industries. Make that, two things. Home computers got a lot less exciting and lesshazard-
A
ous to buy—just intime for suchonce-humble electronic gadgets as televisions and phones to demandmuchmore
researchbefore a purchase. That’swelcomenews if you
need anewlaptop or desktop.But itmayhave youfleeing the store in panic if youwalked inhoping to re-
place your oldTV. All of thismakes this year’sholiday shopping crunchespecially challeng- ing.Of course, some folks got a jump on their technology purchaseswithBlack
Friday promotions.But for otherswho mightmake theirmove onCyberMonday (or the stragglerswhowill be lucky to make Santa’s sleighontime), I offer ad- vice for choosing among costly gadgets— aswell as context abouthowmuchthe groundhasmovedunder consumers’ feet. The computer’s transitionfrominter-
esting, tricky purchase tonear-commodi- ty itemowes credit to a fewtrends. First,PCmanufacturers did the right
thing:By steadily chipping away at the cost of a computer’smajor components— its processor,memory, storage and screen —theymade entry-levelmachinesmore thancapable of everydayhome tasks. Meanwhile, the slowing pace ofup-
MICHELLE SINGLETARY The Color of Money
a red-letter day for charity, too
searching for and giving to a good local charity also became part of this annual ritual? I’mnot suggesting people stop their
A
holiday shoppingmadness. Thatwould be simply un-American. The unfortunate truth is our economy thrives on our wasteful consumption. But howmuch better could this season be ifmore peo- ple diverted some of themoney budget- ed for holiday presents—gifts that, truth be told,many of the recipients don’t need—to nonprofit and charitable organizations? As the businessman and philanthro-
pistAndrewCarnegie said, “I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infi- nitelymore serious and difficult task of wise distribution.” I knowit’s easier to shrug your shoul-
ders and grouse that, of course, the rich can give so generously because they have somuch. But don’t dismiss Carnegie’s largermessage:We all should accumu- late less and givemore. Andmight I suggest that in addition
to supporting the charities you’re famil- iarwith, you consider giving to organiza- tionswhosemissions are to create “sus- tainable” situations for the less fortu- nate. It’s great to provide a Thanksgiving or Christmasmeal to a needy family, but what happens after that? I’mthinking about the Bill andMelin-
daGatesway of giving. They have pledged billions of their personalwealth
color continued onG4
nother national holiday shopping extravaganza officially kicked off with Black Friday. Butwhat if
IMAGES BY CORBIS AND ASSOCIATED PRESS; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY DWUAN JUNE
Make Black Friday
Deciding on a computer these days doesn’t require special expertise, just a sense of what works for the buyer. Electronic gadgets, however, are another story.
dates fromMicrosoft andApple, com- binedwithanincreasing reliance on Web-based applications,has blunted the industry’s traditional “Upgrade your computernow!” prod. Computer vendors also largely stan-
dardized ondesignelements that once set theirhardware apart. I can’t think of anyhome laptops that don’t includeWiFi and
awebcam.Aside fromApple’s cheap- estmodels, anynewmachinewillhave an SDcard slot and threeUSBports. Insome cases, though,PCmanufactur-
ers abandonedworthy opportunities to set themselves
apart.They’ve chosento settle onthe samemediocre lineup of preinstalled, third-party software and al- mostuniversally switched to the 64-bit versionofWindows 7, eventhoughmany homeuserswill discernits existence only whenit refuses to runanolder program. Many of the remaining judgment calls
incomputing don’t require any special forward continued onG4
The hot new video games . . . are a bunch of old reliables. From shoot-’em-ups to cartoons, 2010 is the year of the sequel. BY MIKEMUSGROVE Special to The Washington Post F
or holiday shoppers who feel out of place in a video game store but need to shop for the gamer in their life, there’s a simple enough solution: Fig-
ure out which title got the most atten- tion from that loved one in recent months, then go out and buy this year’s version.
Seriously. The video game indus-
try is sequel-driven, and so it goes again this year. Say hello to “Rock Band 3” or “Fable III,” for example. In “Super Mario Galaxy 2,” Princess Peach has been kidnapped, again, and is in need of rescue by an Italian plumber. Mario has been at this for 25 years. Few titles that seem destined for the bestseller lists this year are entirely new.
(If it’s innovation you’re after, try the Microsoft Kinect or the PlayStation’s new Move controllers. See sidebar.) But if the gamers in your life liked last year’s versions, they are unlikely to com- plain about receiving the next in- stallment. Here’s a sampling of the video
game console titles likely to make the gamer’s wish list this season:
ColdWar story with missions ranging from an attemptonFidel Castro’s life to
1 ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ NINTENDO
Nintendo’s Kirby returns for more adventures.
one in Vietnam, where the protagonist is sent to look for evidence of a Soviet presence. Or something like that. Many of this game’s biggest fans will ignore that solo-player story line in favor of going online and blowing up friends and strangers with its exhaustive arsenal of
games continued onG5 This shoot-’em-up offers a gadgets for the wish list
Feeling the pressure to thrill your tech-savvy loved ones with just the right gift? Apple, of course, offers a few ideas. But there’s lots more and something for everyone—whether you’re buying for a reader or a gamer or even a the guy who simply wants to surf theWeb from his sofa. G4
9
Also, with the new Xbox 360 add-on Kinect, “Games are going to be one-hundred percent more awesome from now on,” according to one analyst, age 9. G5
funny thinghap-
pened ontheway to the conver- gence of the com- puting and elec-
As innovation slows in computers and takes off in gadgets, MARKETS
Caution in Ireland’s wake U.S. stocks drop for the week on fears that the bailout will not contain Europe’s debt crisis. G6
YTD: Dow NASDAQ S&P 500 +6.37% +11.70% +6.66% G EZ
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