Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Newsweek has published an article on “The End of the Mall.” Author Tony Dokoupil tells of the delayed opening of a new $2.3 billion mall in New Jersey. This facility, modestly named “Xanadu,” had been scheduled to open this fall, with 200 tenants. How many takers are there for 200 spaces in Xanadu? Nine.

Few would argue that New Jersey really needs another mall, but Xanadu is not an isolated case. Mr. Dokoupil cites evidence that the “stately pleasure-dome” is in trouble nationwide:

“Last year was the first in half a century that a new indoor mall didn’t open somewhere in the country—a precipitous decline since the mid-1990s when they rose at a rate of 140 a year, according to Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, coauthor of the forthcoming book “Retrofitting Suburbia,” which focuses on the decline of malls and other commercial strips. Today, nearly a fifth of the country’s largest 2,000 regional malls are failing, she says…”

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According to George Monbiot (in Heat), among others, the one technology for which there’s no fix for its effects on global warming is jet air travel.

So, take a look at the new British Airways ad campaign for the controversial Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport. The print ad, (e.g. Atlantic, Nov. 2008, p. 27) with manta rays swimming through the new terminal’s automatic check-in stands, is pretty funny. But the website is hysterical.

I’ve come across two articles on the credit crisis I found worth printing and reading slowly – twice.

The first is by Donald MacKenzie: “End-of-the-World Trade,” London Review of Books, May 8, 2008.

A number of articles I’ve seen have called attention to the origins of our word ”credit.” It comes from the Latin for to entrust or believe.

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On October 29, the Global Network Initiative announced new communications industry guidelines to protect privacy and free speech. The Initiative is a joint effort by human rights groups, academics, investment firms (including KLD), and major internet and media companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo.

Defenders of free speech have faulted all three internet giants for censoring user content at the request of Chinese authorities. Many criticized Yahoo in particular, The Guardian explains, “after it handed the Chinese government details that led to the imprisonment of dissident journalist Shi Tao in 2004.”

Individual companies are always vulnerable to pressure from governments that regulate them. The Initiative is an attempt to seek safety in numbers, as explained by its press release:

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In response to recent economic events, the media have struggled to convey the complexity and scale of what’s at stake in Washington, and on Wall Street. In an attempt to give this problem a human face, the popular press has focused on the top executives of major financial firms. Some leaders made tens of millions of dollars in good times, but could they still profit when taxpayers bail out their companies?

To help answer this crucial question, KLD Research Data Manager Eric Benjamin has researched compensation at the biggest bailed-out firm (so far): AIG. Compensation is a key corporate governance issue, and Eric is well-versed in the topic, having co-authored United for a Fair Economy’s 2006 report on pay inequality, Executive Excess.

The Fate of Executives at AIG

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Is everyone a socially responsible investor yet?

Of course not, but in 2006, when money management giant TIAA-CREF surveyed its investors’ views on socially responsible investing (SRI), 67 percent of all respondents agreed with this statement:

“When making investment decisions, what is most important to me is ensuring that my investment decisions reflect my personal values about social and environmental impacts.”

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Today’s business page – at least I think it was today’s, if only because I found it on my lawn this morning – tells a cautionary tale about undead, web-sourced news. Old newspapers turn yellow and disintegrate, but six-year-old Chicago Tribune stories can rise again to stalk (in this case) the share price of United Airlines.

United’s stock briefly fell 75% yesterday after Bloomberg posted an article about the airline’s impending bankruptcy. As the Tribune explains today, the story was actually written in 2002. That didn’t stop an automated search “bot” from finding the piece, which was posted on the South Florida Sun-Sentinel web site without a date. A financial news search service sent that link to Bloomberg, who posted it among Monday’s other headlines.

Nasdaq temporarily halted trading after the mistake was discovered, and United issued a statement debunking the claim. Still, the company’s stock didn’t fully recover before trading closed.

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