Apple's iPhone (as shown at apple.com) has plenty of new competition.

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Cell phones blanket the world. Billions of them. But the next phone in your hand — if it’s not there already, on the road, on the move — really isn’t a phone. It’s a computer.

Mobile computing — with powerful smart phones like the iPhone or the new Droid — is exploding in popularity. Big sales. Zillions of “apps.” Lots of power in your pocket.

New users call it a revelation. Industry watchers have long predicted a revolution. Is it here? Is it on?

This hour, On Point: What does it mean for our lives, work and economy when mobile computing goes to critical mass?

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Austin, Texas, is Omar Gallaga. He writes on technology culture for the Austin American-Statesman and is regular contributor to NPR’s All Tech Considered.

From New York we’re joined by John Abell, New York bureau chief for Wired.com. He directs coverage of business and disruptive media and writes for Wired.com’s Epicenter blog.

And from Los Angeles we’re joined by Jason Calacanis. He’s an Internet entrepreneur who has founded many companies, including Silicon Alley Reporter and Weblogs, Inc. He’s founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a “human-powered” search engine.

The United States Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, seen in August 2009. (AP)

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Apple Inc. reported an incredible 47 percent jump in quarterly profits yesterday, making it — by a long shot — one of the most successful corporations in America.

What Apple is not is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s quit. Pulled out.

The Chamber sounds boring, but it is hot as a pistol right now as an issue in Washington. The biggest lobbying voice in the nation, set dead against much of the Obama agenda. And now, losing high-profile members.

This hour, On Point: The heavyweight battle over the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — and who speaks for American business.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Lisa Lerer, a staff writer at Politico covering the Chamber of Commerce story. Earlier this week she wrote about White House strategy and the Chamber.

Also from Washington, we’re joined by David C. Chavern, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

And from San Francisco we’re joined by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor at Harvard Business School and Chair and Director of the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University. Her book “SuperCorp: How Vangaurd Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good” was published in August. (Read more about it here.)

Multitasking in the park. (Flickr/CarbonNYC)

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Americans love to be horrified by multitasking. Well, some Americans.

For many younger Americans, it’s just life. Especially “media multitasking.” Phoning, texting, reading, tweeting, with a movie on the laptop, a video chat in the corner, IM on the side. And — God forbid — maybe driving, too.

A new study out of Stanford seems to confirm the worst fears about multitasking — that in the midst of all the “multi,” nothing gets done well. This hour, we’ll talk with an author of that study — and with two twenty-somethings who say it’s just life.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Stanford, Calif., is Clifford Nass, professor of communications at Stanford University. He founded and directs the CHIMe Lab for the study of “communication between humans and interactive media.” The results of his multitasking study were published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. You can read it here.

From Pittsburgh, we’re joined by Marcel Just, professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, where he co-directs the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging.

Joining us in our studio is Vivian Ho, a junior at Boston University. She’s editor-in-chief of Boston University’s Daily Free Press.

Also in our studio we’re joined by Jack Lepiarz, a senior at Emerson College in Boston. He’s the news director for WERS, the Emerson College radio station.

Portrait of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Vanderbilt University, Special Collections and University Archives)

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The buccaneering capitalism of America’s first century throws an interesting light on our economic crisis today.

In the age of steamships, railroads, and gold rush, the titan of titans — up by the bootstraps to unimaginable wealth — was Cornelius Vanderbilt, America’s first tycoon. From a boyhood farming on Staten Island, he built out a country and an economy that we still live in.

A new biography takes us through steam engine, jungle, and robber baron years to the roots of our finance system today.

This hour, On Point: Cornelius Vanderbilt, America’s first tycoon.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

T. J. Stiles, an independent historian who focuses on 19th-century America. His new book is “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.” He’s also the author of “Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.”

You can read an excerpt from “The Last Tycoon” at RandomHouse.com. Plus, Stiles’ own website offers a great deal of background on Vanderbilt and the research that went into the book.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic. He’s the author of “Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900″ (2007) and the editor of “Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America” (2001).

Daguerreotype image of Cornelius Vanderbilt from before the Civil War.

On his site, T.J. Stiles offers a long list of “misconceptions,” “falsehoods” and “myths” about Cornelius Vanderbilt that he says his biography corrects. Here’s a sampling (scroll down this page for the full list):

Vanderbilt cheated at cards.

Vanderbilt hated trains.

Vanderbilt was a boor who chewed tobacco, drank heavily, and spat on carpets.

Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew were enemies.

Vanderbilt’s only maneuver on Wall Street was the corner.

Vanderbilt was a corrupt chief executive who hurt his own stockholders to make personal profits.

Vanderbilt was an unfeeling brute who abused his family, especially his epileptic son Cornelius Jeremiah.

Vanderbilt contracted syphilis in 1839, began to suffer dementia in 1868, and was used as an uncomprehending puppet by his son William H. for the rest of his life.

Here are some more historical images from Stiles’ site.

General Motors Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner listens as President Barack Obama, not pictured, speaks about the economy in Washington on March 12, 2009. GM confirmed on Monday that Wagoner will step down immediately at the request of the White House, and new directors will make up the majority of GM's board. (AP)

Rick Wagoner, chairman and CEO of General Motors, is out of a job. Directed to go by the Obama administration as new billions in federal aid are weighed for GM.

And more change is coming. President Obama is speaking today on the fate of the American automotive industry, and what Washington will require to keep pumping in support. Chrysler: told to pair up with Italy’s Fiat to stay in the game. Bankruptcies in Detroit: not out of the question. The warranty on your American-made car may be backed by Uncle Sam.

In this hour, we will listen to the President’s speech on this country’s auto-making future, and weigh the measures the President is prescribing — and the stakes.

This hour, On Point: President Obama speaks on the future of Detroit.

You can join the conversation. Are you ready to see GM and Chrysler go down? To pour in what resources to save them? With what conditions?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Ann Arbor, Michigan, is Micheline Maynard, senior business correspondent for The New York Times. She writes about Rick Wagoner, GM’s outgoing CEO, in today’s paper.

And from Hanover, New Hampshire, we’re joined by Matthew Slaughter, associate dean and professor of international economics at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business.

SEIU members and workers from other unions inWashington, DC on Feb. 4, 2009, as SEIU launched efforts to deliver 1.5 million post cards supporting the Employee Free Choice Act to lawmakers. (Photo © 2009 Kate Thomas/SEIU - Flickr)

American labor union membership is at historic lows. Union leaders, and no small number of economists, say that’s part of the reason American wealth has become so heavily tilted to the top — part of the reason for the Gilded Age and economic bust cycle were suffering today.

Now, unions are pushing hard for new legislation that would make it easier for employees to unionize. It’s called the Employee Free Choice Act — better known as “card check.” It would allow workers to unionize without a secret ballot, and would force companies to negotiate quickly with those unions or face government intervention.

Employers are fighting back very hard on Capitol Hill. A tiny swing vote in the U.S. Senate is poised to decide the issue. It’s a battle royal.

This hour, On Point: Unions, “card check,” and the battle over American labor.

You can join the conversation. Which side are you lining up on? Stronger unions, or status quo? Have you seen problems with how it works now? At this economic moment, does America need a union surge? Would “card check” bring it?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Steven Greenhouse, labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times and author of “The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker.” He has recently written about what the Employee Free Choice Act means for the American labor movement. 

From Washington, we’re joined by Steven Law, general counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He was deputy secretary of labor under President George W. Bush. See the Chamber’s position on the “card check” bill.

Also from Washington is Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO. Read its position on the “card check” bill.

Employees of a nanomanufacturing technology company play volleyball before a backdrop of office towers which house several information technology companies at the International Tech Park in Bangalore, India, the capital of Indian outsourcing. (AP)

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The parents came to America, out of India, for opportunity. The son went back to India, to see what the old country has become. To stare at a miracle — at what has changed, and what has not.

In a single generation, India has gone from economic backwater to sizzling global player. It was famous for temples and bureaucracy. Now it’s famous for economic growth and offshore software.

Shining India. But it’s also the India of Mumbai terror, of ethnic tension, of millions still locked in poverty.

This hour, On Point: An Indian-American goes back to India.

You can join the conversation. Have you gone back to where your family came from? Back to India? Is the opportunity there now? Or still here, in the USA?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Anand Giridharadas joins us from Goa, India. His column “Letter from India” appears twice a month in the International Herald Tribune. From 2005 to 2008 he was South Asia correspondent for the paper, based in Mumbai. The American-born child of Indian immigrants, he moved to India in 2003 to work at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He now lives in the village of Verla and is writing a book about social change in modern India.

His recent essay in The New York Times, “India Calling,” discussed his return to the country.  He wrote about the Mumbai terror attacks one week later.

A home owned by Bernard Madoff in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Dec. 15, 2008. (AP)

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The Federal Reserve Bank cutting interest rates to near zero is the big headline today. But the eye of the world is still fixated on the $50 billion scandal, the alleged swindle, the Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff.

It’s the stuff of children’s rhymes: Bernie Madoff, made off with the money. It’s the stuff of tragedy, for the families and charities ruined in the scam. It’s the stuff of blind greed, and astounding oversight failures at the S.E.C.

A century ago, Chesterton said: “There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.” Now, a not-so-small mob of investors is in big trouble. And the S.E.C — and American system — have a huge black eye. And it’s still unfolding.

This hour, On Point: The apparent crime of the century, and what it means. The Madoff scandal.

You can join the conversation. Did you, or your rich uncle, lose a bundle with Madoff? Are you seeing the ripple-effect of the crime of the century? How could this happen?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Amir Efrati, staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He’s one of the lead reporters on this unfolding story.

Also from New York, we’re joined by Jesse Eisinger, a senior writer for Portfolio magazine covering finance and Wall Street.

And with us in our studio is Mitchell Zuckoff, professor of journalism at Boston University and author of “Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend.”

Michael Porter

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The election’s over, the economy’s back, and everybody wants a bailout. Detroit has its hand out. Insurer AIG just got billions more. China is cranking up its own billions in stimulus.

“Job one” for the new president will be the U.S. economy. But my guest today, Harvard Business School giant Michael Porter, says crisis management will not be enough for Barack Obama or anybody else in the years ahead. America’s fundamental competitiveness, he says, is in trouble. A real comeback is going to take more than bailouts. It’s going to take a serious strategy. He doesn’t see it yet.

This hour, On Point: Michael Porter on a long-term competitive strategy for the U.S. economy, beyond the bailouts.

You can join the conversation. Where do you see America’s greatest competitive strength today? Where do you see its weakness? What should it do to bounce back and stay on top?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us in our studio is Michael Porter. He’s a world-renowned expert on how companies and nations strategize and compete. He is director of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, where he is a University Professor. His article “Why America Needs an Economic Strategy?” is the cover story in the Nov. 10 issue of BusinessWeek magazine.

Front cover detail from BizzWords by Gregory Bergman.

Every walk of life has its lingo. Its buzzwords and catchphrases. American business has its own colorful menagerie of slang, and always has — from bulls and bears, to bootstraps, and 800-pound gorillas, and fish in a barrel.

But buzzwords and catchphrases change. They turn over and make way for newcomers.

And when they do, in American business, they may tell us something about where we and our economy are headed.

This hour, On Point: Matadors, multi-slacking, yottabytes and frazzing. We’re looking at the latest in American business buzzwords.

- Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

• Gregory Bergman is author of “BizzWords: From Ad Creep to Zero Drag, a Guide to Today’s Emerging Vocabulary”

• Paul Hemp is senior editor at the Harvard Business Review

• Kara Swisher is technology columnist and co-host of D: All Things Digital for The Wall Street Journal.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Photo: Voice of America

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia. Multi-billionaire. Oil-rich oligarch. No saint, but no worse a sinner, maybe, than many other Russian oligarchs.

Then he crossed Vladimir Putin. Ended up in a cage, on trial, and then in a prison in Siberia. Gilded life — gone.

Now, an American attorney is fighting to free Khodorkovsky. He says it’s Russia on trial here — and whether or not a now oil-rich Kremlin believes in the rule of law.

His story is a legal thriller where losers can end up in Siberia, or dead. And the answers ripple well beyond Russia.

This hour, On Point: Russia, riches, and the law.

-Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Robert Amsterdam, lead legal strategist in the campaign to free Mikhail Khodorkovsky, he’s an attorney specializing in “cause lawyering” and property rights in emerging markets and author of a blog on global politics and business.

Christopher Stewart, contributing editor at Portfolio magazine and author of the recent profile of Robert Amsterdam, “Enemy of the State,” in the magazine’s August issue.

Marshall Goldman, professor of economics emeritus at Wellesley College and author of “Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia.”

But they’re not. With a major deal last week, ownership of Anheuser-Busch is headed overseas, to Belgium. Coors’ ownership is already gone — to Canada. Miller, to South Africa. And that’s just in beer.

Across the American economy, a weak dollar and struggling U.S. markets have made America a bargain-basement for foreign buyers, who are snatching up American assets at a record clip.

This hour, On Point: American assets, foreign owned, and what that means for Americans.

-Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Jeremiah McWilliams, business reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Matthew Slaughter, associate dean and professor of international economics at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Robert Scott, senior international economist and director of international programs at the Economic Policy Institute.

* * *

Closing Segment:

Understanding Short Selling

Short sellers are driving down stocks. But are they good for the economy?

Guest: Jesse Eisinger, senior writer for Portfolio magazine.

Warren Bennis has made a big name for himself over the years as a business management guru. He’s been an advisor to Fortune 500 companies and to presidents. Along the way, he’s thought a lot about leadership — what makes a great CEO, general, president.

Lately he’s decided that it all comes down to judgment. Courage, vision, experience are all fine, but in the end, good judgment is what makes the difference.

As we elect a new president, will we choose judgment over experience? And how do we know the difference?

This hour, On Point: Business guru Warren Bennis on leadership.

-James Hattori

Guests:

Warren Bennis, distinguished professor of business administration at the University of Southern California and author of the new book, “Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls.”

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

Auden Schendler is true-blue green, a life-long environmentalist, a climate crusader, says Time magazine.

Schendler believed, with every fiber of his being, that American corporations could save the planet and reap profits at the same time. But when he put that faith to the test, he found turning green into greenbacks is harder than he thought.

Now, he’s come forward to tell it how it really is, trying to go green in corporate America.

This hour, On Point: American business and the bottom line realities of going green.

-Sheilah Kast

Guests:

Auden Schendler, executive director of community and environmental responsibility at the Aspen Ski Company.

Adam Werbach, former president of the Sierra Club, he’s founder and CEO of Act Now, a sustainability consulting company based in San Francisco.

Bestselling writer Ben Mezrich has made his name and fortune tracking young hot shots chasing big money on the edge. He did it in “Bringing Down the House” and in “Busting Vegas,” where fast cars and fast women and casino life were the currency.

Now he’s doing it in the world of oil: oil traders, the young hot shots who juggle black gold billions, drag-race Ferraris in the desert, and drive fast fortunes from New York to Dubai.

His new book is called “Rigged.” With oil at $93 dollars a barrel, the whole world is watching.

This hour, On Point: inside the megabucks trading world of oil.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Ben Mezrich, author of the best-seller “Bringing Down the House” and of the new book “Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai.”

John D’Agostino, former vice president at the New York Mercantile Exchange and now president of Dagger, LLC, an energy-trading consulting firm.

Back in the day, American business schools had a tough time fighting their way onto American university campuses. Academics didn’t see what they taught as a serious profession worthy of a spot.

B-schools made their case, arguing they had a science of management and the nation’s greater good at heart. And a million M.B.A.s were born.

Now, a top B-school professor is arguing that business schools have failed in their promise; that they are turning out hedge fund hotshots who don’t build companies but tear them down.

This hour, On Point: B-school backlash, and what’s going into America’s M.B.A.s.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Rakesh Khurana, associate professor in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School and author of “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession.”

Edward Roberts, professor of at MIT’s Sloan School of Business and founder and chair of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center.

As workers hit 55, 60, 65, many aren’t losing sleep over the big move to Florida, but instead over the big presentation a week away.

So much for retirement! Some can’t afford it. Others just aren’t ready.

As for their employers, there are companies that think it’s great — the AARP just named its top 50 employers for people over 50. Other companies wonder when they can throw the goodbye party for their growing ranks of senior citizens. And the average retirement age is only creeping up.

This hour, On Point: what it means when older workers hang on.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Deborah Russell, AARP’s manager of economic security.

Alicia Munnell, Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Gayle Kosterman, Executive vice president of world wide human resources, S.C. Johnson, named by the AARP as the No. 1 employer this year for workers over 50.

Marilyn Potts, marketing specialist, Mercy Health System, a health care network of more than 30 facilities in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Well, nobody’s talking about the almighty dollar anymore. Driven by American debt and deficits, the once-mighty US greenback is now at parity with the once-laughable Canadian dollar for the first time in three decades. It’s a pipsqueak next to the Euro.

If the fall is good or bad, it depends on where you stand, and how far the dollar sinks. American travelers abroad are already the new first-world paupers. European visitors here feel rich. Warren Buffet has made a bundle betting against the greenback.

This hour, On Point: the incredible shrinking dollar, and what it’s telling us about the USA and the world.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Peter Coy, economics editor for Business Week.

Catherine Mann, professor of economics at Brandeis University and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Roger G. Ibbotson, finance professor at the Yale School of Management.

James Mallon, Canadian expat living in the U.S..

Catherine Butterworth, American expat living in Greece.