COVER: The Culture of Recession (Atlantic and Latin America editions). Contributor Joshua Levine writes that when it comes to popular entertainment, cheap and cheerful is the new manifesto. Now that the entire global economy can be fairly described as grainy, rasping and bleak, filmmakers are reassessing their business and creating more "uplifting" films. In the entertainment business, tough times trigger a return to the familiar and the formulaic. Experimental and downbeat are out; proven and inspirational are in. People need an escape from the reality of recession, so they are fleeing to forms of entertainment that represent the biggest break from their experiences: crime novels, over-the-top Broadway musicals, fantasy films, standard sitcoms and perennially popular operas like "Turandot"--anything that promises laughter and forgetting. Oddly enough, the one entertainment medium likely to get grittier as things get worse may be pop music, as listeners gravitate towards music that speaks to their experience. To figure out where culture goes from here, Levine looks back to the Great Depression.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195097
COVER: Shanghai: The Next Detroit (Asia edition). Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu reports that over last three months running, China has surpassed the U.S. in terms of volume sales of automobiles. No one expected the Middle Kingdom to nab first place in the global auto market from America for at least another decade, but the financial crisis has had a sharp dampening effect on U.S. sales. Beijing's 2009 target is 10 million units, an increase of 10 percent from 2008, and a figure that would cement its position, with an estimated 1 million more unit sales than the U.S. "No one expected China to emerge as the leading volume market this fast," says William Russo, a business consultant who specializes in the automotive sector. "This will give China a huge say in setting the standards and architecture for the entire industry." If Beijing gets it way, the future will be small, green and--of course--made in China. As Liu reports, ultimately, Chinese planners want to create a new Detroit--a leaner, meaner, cleaner global automotive hub.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195095
Sure, Kidnap the Man. Correspondent Tracy McNicoll reports on factory workers in France who, facing pay cuts and layoffs at some of the world's biggest companies, have barricaded executives and human-resources directors in their offices and held them captive for as many as 36 hours at a time. The tactics are working. The penalty for holding your boss hostage is five years in jail, but authorities have yet to prosecute a case. Most companies haven't even pressed charges against the perpetrators. In fact, the companies targeted have yielded new concessions like larger severance packages. Popular sentiment is behind the bossnappers, too. In one poll, 55 percent of those surveyed said "social action that is radical, even violent like factory or road blockades, even sequestering executives or bosses," is "justified." Almost two thirds said these methods shouldn't be punished because "they are often the only means employees have of being heard."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195092
Where Everybody Knows Your Name. White House Correspondent Holly Bailey reports on President Obama's difficult adjustment to his new life inside the White House bubble. He is hardly the first president to complain about the change. But he seems to have had a tougher time adjusting than Bill Clinton or even George W. Bush, in part because he can still remember what it was like to be a normal person. His temperament has also made the adjustment difficult. Though outgoing in public, Obama was an only child and spent a lot of time alone. That hasn't changed. "He likes solitude, where he can just take a moment and collect his thoughts and breathe," says a close Obama friend. "And in this job, there is none of that."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195086
Medvedev's Moscow Spring. Moscow Bureau Chief Owen Matthews and Special Correspondent Anna Nemtsova report that Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, a year after being sworn in, has finally begun to depart from the hardline policies of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. He has begun publicly overturning some of Putin's key policies, rolling back repressive legislation and paying attention to the government's critics rather than trying to silence them. "We all want to believe that our ruler is generous, fair and kind," says journalist and human-rights activist Svetlana Sorokina. "Now we're seeing the first signs that he is." After a decade of being frozen out, activists say they're floored by the recent thaw.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/30166
'I Am Dr. Realist.' Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Lally Weymouth talks to New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who was nicknamed "Dr. Doom" after a 2006 speech in which he said the global bubble was going to burst. "Next year, I believe that the growth rate is going to be 0.5 percent for the U.S. Even if we are technically out of a recession, we are going to feel like we are in a recession. The bottom of the economy is not going to be in three months, but rather toward the beginning or middle of next year."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195053
WORLD VIEW: The Secret of His Success. Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria writes that Barack Obama has faced the steepest learning curve of any president in modern memory. The economy remains weak, yet, by most measures, President Obama's first 100 days have been successful, with him putting forward a series of initiatives to stabilize the capital and housing markets, as well as making adjustments in the key military operations and beginning to change America's image abroad. Obama has been successful not only because of his calm leadership style, his deliberative methods and his tight teamwork, but because he has the read the country and the political moment correctly. Obama understands that America in 2009 is in a very different place now. Polls say the country is more liberal than it was two decades ago.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195079
THE LAST WORD: Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile. Bachelet discusses the criticism of the large gap between Chile's rich and poor. "Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice. There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn't respond to the needs and will of its people."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195098
