Re: The Chilean Model?3.0.1.32.19980416125346.01117758@pop.cc.columbia.edu l0310280ab15bf8e3b089@[166.84.250.86]
Doug Henwood wrote: In some ways, that's too easy: the "economic" questions are dismissed as trivial in the face of "politics." But what is "politics" in this sense? What would an actual regime do in the face of imperialist hostility? How do you get people housed, clothed, educated, and fed? I don't see the remotest relevance to this. There is NO possibility of any more attempts at 'socialism in one country', so the whole discussion is not just irrelevant, it's merely indicative on a 'one-country' mindset, and that is exactly what I object to. Capitalism may be brutal in Chile, but it "works" in the sense that it can reproduce itself, and that it's convinced most people that there's no alternative. Until it stops working in both senses, and until socialists have answers to just these sorts of questions, capitalism will continue in Chile and everywhere else. Socialism has virtually no credibility anywhere right now. Well, right, Doug. Who in their senses could disagree? But so what? Mark
Re: The Chilean Model?3535C626.F68B5DB6@netcomuk.co.uk l03102808b15bea133482@[166.84.250.86]
Doug Henwood wrote: The point was to refute Mark's rather odd pastoral take on Chilean agri- and aquaculture, which seems to be related to his rather odd but enthusiastic recent participation in American triumphalism. No, Doug. Only one question matters: how to conduct People's War. Isn't it also important to point out, in a time when The Market is revered and Planning is dismissed without a moment's consideration, that some kinds of planning can actually work? I know it's capitalist planning, I know it's historically contingent and all that, and I know all its corruption and destructiveness, but still... But still WHAT? Planning has always been the essence of capitalism. Stalin ABANDONED planning after 1929 (if by socialist planning is meant an ALTERNATIVE to capitalism). This event took the form of a debate between the Teleologists and the Stochastics (I guess the latter includes Leontiev). Stalin settled the debate by shooting the teleologists, and believe me, he had a POINT: war was breaking out. After that, Soviet planning took a strictly capitalist form, albeit perhaps with different intent. In fact all capitalist planning is (a)technically and socially inclusive and (b) stochastic. Teleological planning tends to be anarchic and utopian, per contra. Stalin's plans were objectively all about how to increase the productivity of Soviet labour (for his 50th birthday Gosplan announced that in 1929 Soviet labour productivity increased more than US labour productivity). This means that the central objective of Soviet PLANNING was reintegration into the world MARKET. So there is not much to choose between planning Henwood-style and planning Stalin-style. Either it is going to be ineffective, or draconian. In either case, it debouches into reformist preoccupations with living standards, aka living space per square metre, dishwashers per capita etc. And then it comes back to the world market, globalonism etc. Then the stochasm takes over again, accumulation runs rampant and we get depressions and wars. That is why there is no alternative, historically speaking, between capitalism or ecocidal war on the one hand, and socialism or barbarism on the other. Say, by some unforseen miracle, the world political environment changes, and some revolutionary or "progressive" regimes actually take power in some important countries. Why say that? It is clearly not going to happen again, ever. Say, for example, that Lula became president of Brazil, or the PCP toppled Fujimori. Well, there, see what I mean? Even the PCP don't believe this, and they are fighting and dying. What do you adivse such regimes do? ... All the left anti-communists, local and foreign, who were blowing hard during the cold war didn't have a clue what to do when the USSR fell either, leaving a perfectly clear field for the IMF. Everything you said is logical till now (you just didn't follow out the logic, as usual). But to say none of us had any answers is bizarrely wrong. ALL of us, more or less,with a few honourable exceptions, and they can go right now and get their wintergreen -- ALL of us, including YOU, know perfectly well what needs to happen and what WILL happen. Capitalism and the human population CANNOT grow forever at 2% p.a. and cannot NOT, so a demarche is inevitable. You just have to have the balls to look it in the eye and KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO. So I think it's pretty important to compare the experiences of Latin America and Southeast Asia - not because those are the only available poles of a Hobson's choice, but because they're real world experiences that we can learn from. Yeah? How? Mark
Re: The Chilean Model?
Doug Henwood wrote: How can you be so sure that industrial development in Chile would necessarily "decant poverty, rural distress and latifundism elsewhere in the 3rd world"? If it didn't, then soemthing wholly new an unprecedented in the history of capitalism would have happened and I would pay my dues to the Cato Institute. But it won't, because of the law of combined and uneven development. I'm no fan of elites, enlightened or benighted. I'm talking about different strategies of economic development, looking within existing capitalism for hints of a better post-capitalism. This is an old Marxist tradition, no? No, it exactly isn't: it's a USURPATION of Marxist tradition, is what it is. Marx believed in revolution, not reform. Now I know quite well that you can't just separate "models" from real societies, with all their political, cultural, and historical details. But if we're trying to do political economy, we do have to try to isolate some general principles of how capitalist economies work - otherwise, we might as well stop talking about capitalism at all, and throw it on the junk heap as another discarded master narrative. I look at the experience of Asia, compare it with Latin America, and conclude that you need a strong state, with strong controls over foreign trade and capital flows, to accomplish anything like economic development - whether you're using hardheaded standards (like growth and investment levels) or soft ones (like real wage growth, literacy and health indicators, and poverty reduction). Of course, since it's capitalism, it's still brutal, exploitative, and unstable. But tell me, Mark, would you rather be an autoworker in Korea or a berry-picker in Chile? Doug, tell me as a Marxist: is it better for the world if people pick strawberries or make 4x4's? This is a dilemma I have you to say you address. Mark
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
Dennis R Redmond wrote: If Japan really did what Wall Street says, namely raised interest rates and cut domestic spending, you'd see a global credit and GDP holocaust which would make the breakup of the Soviet economy look like a success story. No, Wall Street doesn't want that. Wall Street wants Japan to do some kind of Keynesian stimulus - big tax cuts preferably. Yeah, sure they'd save a lot of it, but they'd probably spend more of it than they save. Summers and Rubin would never sound off about a Japanese stimulus program if Wall Street didn't approve. Speaking of the adminstration Wall Street, Tom Schlesinger - who's putting Fed transcripts up on the Financial Markets Center website soon! - told me today that the Treasury's top bank regulator, Comptroller of the Currency whathisname, has been the most industry-friendly in at least 30 years. Doug
Re: The Chilean Model?
Boddy, You owned a 70s MG??? What was it, V8 BGT? Mark
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Doug Henwood wrote concerning Japanese austerity: No, Wall Street doesn't want that. Wall Street wants Japan to do some kind of Keynesian stimulus - big tax cuts preferably. Yeah, sure they'd save a lot of it, but they'd probably spend more of it than they save. Summers and Rubin would never sound off about a Japanese stimulus program if Wall Street didn't approve. Rubin actually said this? Oh, yeah, the G-7 thing, I'd forgotten about that... the idea of Wall Street talking up other people's deficit spending is kind of amazing, though consistent with the logic of the whole Asian bailout, which was mostly done with Japanese/European money. This probably explains why the Nikkei Weekly, putative voice of Japan's deeply wounded but ever hopeful proto-rentier class, has been sounding off for awhile now about the necessity for cutting taxes on the rich. Tom Schlesinger - who's putting Fed transcripts up on the Financial Markets Center website What's the URL on this? I spidered for this and came up empty. -- Dennis
Re: Australian Update #6: The Wharf
Just a quickie I've just been listening to IR Minister Peter Reith. There's a new tone in his voice. This operation is not coming off quite as he might have hoped. One government line ship, apparently originally diverted to a Patrick dock by the government, has now been rediverted, probably at the panic-stricken request of Toyota, to the unionised PO dock instead. Reith is pushing the 'MUA putting other jobs at risk' line, but the Toyota unionists, the very people who Reith was framing as the MUA's victims, have promptly resolved to support the MUA - in fact all the hints I get out in the world are that this operation is uniting rather than dividing working class Australia. Even farmers are ringing in to express distaste at the involvement of their own peak body, the National Farmers Federation. And John Howard copped a bit of rotten fruit and a few polite tips to 'fuck off you little bastard!' on his way into a Hunter Valley speech engagement this afternoon. Politics here hasn't been this bracing for twenty years - class politics had been much diluted under 13 years of Labor, but it's picking up nicely under a crass Tory outfit whose ideological zeal outweighs any capacity for subtlety. Victorian Tory premier Jeff Kennet is talking violence and mass jailings now - but the police are themselves engaged in industrial tensions, have been witness to several scab outrages against pickets, and are finding it increasingly difficult to draw a line between 'keeping the peace' and union busting. NSW soc-dem premier Bob Carr, answers that he is now 'terrified for Australia' and is demanding the reinstatement of people sacked 'for no other reason but that they belong to a trade union'. This constitutes the strongest support any ALP politician has yet proffered. Not much yet, but a sign the socdems may be sniffing a change in the wind. No containers are moving off wharves as I type. Ever larger proportions of pickets are made up of sympathisers off the street (and here I am in Australia's only major *inland* city ... ). And the High Court has just cleared the way for the Federal Court to look into MUA charges of conspiracy and breach of contract, naming the government, the NFF and Patrick. It's all getting faster and faster - but some of it is going our way now. Cheers, Rob.
Trade with Latin America
Roberto: Una nota sobrelo que se negociara en Santiago; buenos datos sobre bloques comerciales al final. Tom - Leaving Big Brother's Shadow: Latin Nations Confront U.S. as Equals at Americas' Summit By Anthony Faiola and Steven Pearlstein Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, April 16, 1998; Page A01 As President Clinton lands today in Santiago, Chile, for the second Summit of the Americas, he'll be in a decidedly different position from that of previous visiting U.S. presidents. Suddenly, not only is Uncle Sam speaking softly in these parts, but he's carrying a small stick. More than any other issue on the table here this weekend, the quest to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego by 2005 underscores the new, more equal relationship forming between the United States and Latin America. In developing a format for talks aimed at creating the world's largest free-trading bloc -- the details of which, including meeting dates and interim deadlines are to be announced this weekend -- the United States has granted significant concessions to its negotiating partners. In essence, to keep the process moving, Washington bowed to a number of demands made by the Latin nations, especially Brazil, an industrial powerhouse with an economy larger than Russia's. The event that brought this about -- congressional rejection of "fast track" legislation that would have granted Clinton sweeping powers to negotiate free-trade agreements -- may have given an important psychological boost to the idea of hemispheric free trade, analysts say. Latin Americans, who historically had felt bullied or ignored by the powerful United States, realized that U.S. officials would be coming to the negotiating table in a significantly weakened position -- one that could be turned to their advantage. "Latin America is unifying and strengthening, and there is a sense they will no longer allow themselves to be forced into anything" by the United States, said Jan Heirman, an official with the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago. "They feel they are coming at this from a position of strength." The format for the 33-nation summit reflects that reality. No longer are the countries of Latin America lining up, in effect, to negotiate individually with the United States about joining Canada and Mexico in an enlarged North American Free Trade Agreement. Instead, these talks will be multilateral, with the United States just one player and other countries free to participate individually or as blocs. In one noteworthy concession, the United States also dropped its insistence that any agreements reached early in the process be locked up in preliminary treaties, even as broader talks continue on more difficult issues. Instead, the entire agreement must be considered as a single package -- a formula that the Latin Americans believe will give them greater leverage in the final stages of negotiations. The United States also agreed to formation of a committee to deal strictly with agriculture, something it opposed in the past. The result, although still only a framework for negotiations, illustrates an extraordinary maturing of U.S.-Latin relations through the prism of free trade, analysts say. Symbolically, it brings a respite to the perception of Uncle Sam as Big Brother to this part of the world. "The situation is obviously different now" than at the first Americas summit in Miami, Chilean President Eduardo Frei said in an interview this week. He suggested that Latin America would proceed toward economic integration with or without the United States. "We are going to launch the movement to reach this accord by 2005," Frei said. "And we are agreeing with the Clinton administration to advance [the process in talks with the United States], but their domestic problem [of fast track] is going to have to be resolved along the way. Regardless, the integration process is now practically impossible to stop." U.S. officials maintain that they have yet to give in to the Latin Americans on anything concrete and that procedural concessions were necessary to win acquiescence for creation of a special study group to consider social, environmental and labor issues. Those issues are at the heart of opposition to free trade among congressional Democrats and were the sentiments that derailed fast track on Capitol Hill late last year. U.S. trade officials say that without ensuring some mechanism for interjecting those issues into the trade talks -- even one as nebulous as a study group -- there was little chance that Congress would endorse a hemispheric free-trade pact. "We have a moment to establish a general partnership based on mutual trust and respect," Thomas "Mack" McLarty, the White House special envoy for the Americas, said of the pending talks. But "at some point, you certainly need to shape it and advocate U.S. interests." The United States and Latin America are moving
A South Korean bellwether?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 18:20:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Cyber Rights To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: cr Arrest for political material online in South Korea Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Introduction from moderator: I saw this on another list. It's not particularly formal and doesn't give direct instructions for taking action, but I thought it should be publicized. Apparently, things that are legal in South Korean print publications are illegal online.--Andy) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 17:58:02 +0900 From: Jie-Hyun Lim Organization: HanYang Univ. Subject: Jiehyun's SOS message Dear Friends, I am in need of your help. The day before yesterday (April 13) South Korean authority arrested my student(Senior year/Dept. of History/Hanyang Univ. Seoul, Korea) whose name is Youngjoon Ha. He is one of the most intelligent and promising students. The authority issued a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Ha on the ground that he sent a series of summarized reports of the published articles in some Korean progressive journals and British Trotskist journals to the discussion group in the computer net. He was sentenced to eighteen months in prison with a stay of execution for three years in 1996, November for being a member of International Socialist-Korean Trotskite group. It means that he has been placed on probation. In recent past he stopped being an political activist and studied very hard for the graduate school. I cannot endorse that former democratic dissident Kim Daejung's government did that nasty thing. As a way of fighting against the anti-humanitarian oppression of the freedom of thought, I am appealing to friends who understand the human rights and social justice. How on earth does any democratic government arrest a person who expressed his opinion by citing and summarizing the legally published materials? Please inform the political oppression and the violation of human rights of the so-called democratic South Korean government to the National Committees of Amnesty and Human Right's Movement Group in your countries. Please organize the protest movement against the South Korean government. For the freedom of thought and international solidarity! Fraternally, Jie-Hyun Lim ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/ Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ -- End of CYBER-RIGHTS Digest 593 **
BLS Daily Reportboundary=---- =_NextPart_000_01BD6A0E.C4801D30
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. -- =_NextPart_000_01BD6A0E.C4801D30 BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1998 Import prices fell 1 percent in March, the fifth straight monthly decline, as petroleum prices continued their nose dive, BLS reports. Export prices were off 0.2 percent in March, the fourth consecutive monthly decline (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Business inventories advanced 0.6 percent in February, buoyed by a surge in wholesale stocks, and sales jumped 0.8 percent, the Commerce Department reports (Daily Labor Report, page A-10; New York Times, page D22). Inventories grew 0.6 percent in February, the biggest increase in five months, in part because they may be stockpiling cheap Asian imports .The Labor Department said import prices, excluding fuels, fell 0.2 percent in March, the sixth consecutive monthly decline. Prices for imports from the financially troubled Asian countries continued to slide, falling 0.8 percent in March and 6.9 percent over the past 12 months (Wall Street Journal, page A2). __Demand for workers in information technology industries is growing rapidly and will continue to expand, according to a Commerce Department report. "An analysis of IT occupations shows that the demand for workers to fill higher-skilled IT jobs (computer engineers, scientists, and system analysts) is expected to grow from 874,000 in 1998 to 1.8 million by 2006," the report says. Information technology, and particularly the Internet, has expanded beyond all expectations in recent years. In 1994, only 3 million people used the Internet In 1998, 100 million people worldwide are using the Internet This rapid expansion has swelled the need for skilled IT workers. Many observers believe advances in information technology driven by growth of the Internet have contributed to a healthier than expected economy .(Daily Report, page A-2). _"Who, What, Where: Putting the Internet in Perspective" in The Wall Street Journal (page B12) says that about 62 million people in the U.S. use the Net, according to IntelliQuest Information Group, Inc. of Austin, Tex. That figure represents about 30 percent of U.S. residents age 16 and older Federal Highway Administration data show that 26 percent of households below the poverty level don't have cars, while only 4 percent of higher-income homes lack them. That fact limits job options for the working poor, since many jobs are in the suburbs, says an FHWA publication (Wall Street Journals "Business Bulletin," page A1). DUE OUT TOMORROW: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment: March 1998 -- =_NextPart_000_01BD6A0E.C4801D30 b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQWAAwAOzgcEABEACgAvAAYABQAuAQEggAMADgAAAM4HBAAR AAoAKAAdAAUAPgEBCYABACEwQTQ5MzgzQ0RGRDVEMTExODg4RTAwMjBBRjlDMDMwOAAWBwEE gAEAEQAAAEJMUyBEYWlseSBSZXBvcnQAkAUBDYAEAAICAAIAAQOQBgCACQAAHEAAOQAQ 5D+xD2q9AR4AcAABEQAAAEJMUyBEYWlseSBSZXBvcnQAAgFxAAEWAb1qDq5M PDhJENXfEdGIjgAgr5wDCAAAHgAxQAENUklDSEFSRFNPTl9EAAMAGkAAHgAw QAENUklDSEFSRFNPTl9EAAMAGUAAAgEJEAEAAADABgAAvAYAAAwLAABMWkZ1 SWkvWP8ACgEPAhUCpAPkBesCgwBQEwNUAgBjaArAc2V0bjIGAAbDAoMyA8UCAHDccnESIAcTAoB9 CoAIzx8J2QKACoENsQtgbmcxODAzMwr7EvIB0CBCgkwF8ERBSUxZB/AARVBPUlQsIFRQSFVSUxjA WRmAQURQUhjgIDE2GYAxGDk5OAqFCoVJbXAlFNEgE5BpYweRZmV6bAMgMRxgBJAcoAIwIB8LgAXQ CsARsBmAdGhlhxzQBpAecCBzdHILcBxnaAVABGACMGhseaogBYFsC4BlGYBhBCDHHVAfIAbwZXVt HGYFoFcCMAuAClBkHmJpBcBu5m8R8CAQaXYggRiCFTCBHCJzLiAgRXgcKhZ3BJAekG8N0CAwLn8S IB1fHmQIYR7hIfER8GNOdSIgI2AfniAuKcEotkQLcB/xTAGgBbFSI/MLGYAKsGcekEQtMSnzJFAb LEJ1AJAgcAQRC4AfI2ACMAWwCJAEIGFkdi8AcBygInAl8DYmKkZlKGJydQrAeRmAYnXUb3kiYWIg AGEfAAhw0ytxHdF3aCEhcwdAHpChHxBvY2tzIJFuInC7MfIEIGohUCYwLqI4Jib7HlQIUG0HgCZR GLAj8ArAvnQHgCaBI+UpvyrMQSuw6xYwB7NZBbBrGZAHcis2/DIyK9AbLS2JCcEH4C7P+y/WHnJi H1ArcB8QHcEFAP5lILAxUx6wKJYykR3RNZL7MEAFkGEs8B6QHnEgAADAtyAAQNAyNHADEAuAZyHg +R6AYXAT0ACQA5EHcDZI3lQegTdUNXkx8GkicEOU0xxlGYBleCBAdSNAQqH6ZgpQbDKRHOMl/x4n AJDueCffH8skUVAchQWxQ5Z7A1IeZW4uYQcxH/EhAXXvAmAiYUM0BaB1AjAt4yH5/m8fACBQDbBH 0U5RQpIz2aMdxzKzNi45UidvI2DvBcAecgqwPpExEiA/1DaUvldOUQYAHyAJ4AVASghhzU4AbDgW A/BCoR8wQmBkH/Eywv8D8B0BIfZQwkbgCrAy0CCR/mMFoUczUNEw8DTvNfckUdwiQQOgAHAHQHkA kAQg2yWwG/BUJaBfgHUKsFrC9QQgczGwdwQgHnBasB5j3w2wWR9Q0R6wHQFoH1EEkDgtc2td8SJh YzFqb/piBCAoBaAcEEqgVGEJ8P5nIGFZ4RmABPAIkCIRHxC/MpZisFsQIWBidCQwKVxiP17xBZBb EFCzXKJNRDg3eDQsMG1gHcIa4lDCMb0z4W1d8VrSMMEB0DAasP4iHmMj5DLxYrAkUDtgWn+vW4Ey pDWSHJB1C2ByTnL/HoE7YGiRIHArIRHAa6Mywf8wkkFwAiAicFYia8RjtR3R/xUwSLMwgBHRJFE7 YBrSbUC1JaBuH/EzbodIgG8LUL8ekEERInNzhzaTd6Q4GsHnbXF4rVmhbGQD8A2wIKD/JYEs8l/x ef5EUFxxXSNe5P8AkFrhdDID4BzxebVpEVlE72c5WaUkUR4AbiAAZ/EEkO9UUQQgQNAgUGVK0S41 Wg/9WxlkBRAtkTCyXKIe4WMB/337EcBK0SHyBRAwUGwVMPD9QuFsHnAIkWRyA6BrxwWR/SLwbSAA Nqk3vVfIWNCOgfwiVzGwGYCO4IXAjxIlcb46TBBKoCIhfd0d0VBZ4f9r4iNRb5Ad0URSVh8HQGgg
Afroblue: music of the African Diaspora
For people who appreciate South African popular music, particularly of the kind that Hugh Masakela and Mariam Makeba made famous, there is an opportunity to hear a group of local New Yorkers who play this kind of music like honorary Sowetans. This is the swinging band called Afroblue. Not only do they play the South African style superbly, they include classic reggae and Afrocuban stylings as well. Music of the African Diaspora is second nature to the band's members who have roots in Africa, the Caribbean and multicultural New York City. Sid Whelan, Afroblue's guitarist and native New Yorker, describes the band's outlook: "African music is specific to its environment and Africans always adapt their musical values to their surroundings. Afroblue is a New York band through and through--it could have happened here in this tremendously complex multi and intercultural mosaic. We represent a few of the Pan-African stones which make up that mosaic." "Mudiwa Wangu" from Afroblue's upcoming CD is a great example of their eclectic approach. A guitar introduction by Sid Whelan lays down some sweet, plangent, Soukous melodies and just when you ready for a vocal in the style of Tabu Ley, you get a surprise. Tutu Tutani sings in English, "On my way again, down that stormy road...". At this point, the style then shifts almost imperceptibly into the South African "marabi" style that Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba popularized. Marabi, better known as "township jive," has roots in American jazz, church hymns and local African rhythms. It relies on major keys and has an "upbeat" quality that makes you want to get up on your feet and march--or, better yet, dance. Keyboard player Arnaldo (Naido) Vargas' keyboard accompaniment is the glue that holds everything together. His electronic keyboard is analogous to the accordion in Marabi bands, with their chugging, nonstop rhythms. It is also suggestive of traditional Cuban bands, where the keyboard provides the central melodic and harmonic thrust. This is the music that Vargas grew up listening to in Washington Heights. Marabi is the music that is most synonymous with the struggle against Apartheid. In addition to the powerful protest songs of Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba. Masakela's words speak eloquently for the artistic spirit which moves Afroblue: "If you look at the whole African diaspora, whether it be in South America, the Caribbean or the United States, there's been a victimization because of the color of our skin and the closeness to nature of our culture. It is sad that we tend to look at the international black middle class and think that we're making progress. But whether you go to Trenchtown of Jamaica or the townships of South Africa, we're the low-life. Other people have been able to beat their impoverishment, but they had to be aware of what was going on and try to pick themselves up. We have to become an enterprising people instead of a complaining people. The only way to get out of our problems is to uplift ourselves." While the interplay between Vargas and Whelan sounds relaxed and confident, it took four years of hard work to produce. Whelan says that guitar and piano are two of the hardest instruments to use together in African music, or any other popular music for that matter. When he recently asked one of his jazz guitar teachers how to play with a pianist, he said "stay out of the way." Combining Vargas' Afro-Cuban piano style with Whelan's soukous guitar has been a big success and no other band blends the two styles together the way they do. So how do you categorize this surprising and fresh new approach to Afropop? Is it soukous or marabi or son conjunto? Is it Congolese or South African or Cuban? The answer is that it is all of these things at the same time. African music rejects the exclusive "or". This is a music of inclusion, and Afroblue ties things together better than anybody around. Coming to the music from the outside has afforded Whelan some interesting perspectives on the difference between playing guitar in an American jazz band and playing Congolese style guitar. The hardest thing for him to adjust to was that soukous guitarists do not start on the same downbeat, nor do they follow the same beat during the course of a song. The guitarists have to listen to each other and to the drummers more carefully than usual. The overall effect is much more improvisatory than American jazz or popular music that follows a steady beat in most cases. African multi-rhythms are a pleasure to the ear, but they are a big challenge to apprentice musicians as Whelan learned. Whelan says, "The recording artists who have influenced my sound the most are Diblo Dibala and Dally Kimoko in their work with Kanda Bongo Man, Remmy Ongala and Mose Fan Fan in their post-Franco playing, as well as Syran M'Benza with his Franco-at-120mph style. they have been tremendous influences on my sound. Rigo Star, Bopol Misiana and Lokassa Ya M'Bongo have been tremendous
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
In a message dated 98-04-17 01:36:03 EDT, you write: Comptroller of the Currency If its that guy Lugwig, there are a lot of insurance agents who HATES what he's doing to financial services (of course, all those Travelers' guys have just been given a new script by that mis-named communist, oops, I mean kist, "John Reed" of Citigroup Jason
Re: Boddhi on Japan
Rob writes: First, Jim, yeah, I was being a bit narrowly monetarist. But wouldn't tax cuts or cash injections counteract the upward pressure of consequent government deficits on interest rates? More cash in circulation - less demand for credit - lower interest rates? Or doesn't the supply/demand curve apply to interest rates? In the short run, there need not be any increase in the amount of cash in circulation due to an increased fiscal deficit. Government deficits are financed by selling bonds, which simply transfers existing money in circulation from the public buying the bonds to the government, which promptly spends it. In the longer run, maybe monetary accomodation might be needed, but if one's purpose is to boost the Yen, it's only the short run that counts. Anyway, downunder here, we keep getting regaled with stories of American economic success. 'Do what the Yanks do and all will be well,' we're told. After all, 'the fundamentals' there are so good! Ya only gotta look at the Dow Jones ...). So I was surprised to be told it was so important to the Americans that the Yen stay big. Why? Surely such a healthy economy could handle a more competitive Yen, couldn't it? But, thanks to ... the *Economic Statistics Briefing Room* [at] http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/esbr.html that the US economy currently boasts the following trends: Current Account Deficit up comment: this is a real problem. Unemployment up so far this is minor; the trend over the last few years in downward. 4.7% unemployment is below most economists' estimates of what the US economy can tolerate without suffering severe increases in inflation. But we've got that unemployment rate _plus_ declining inflation rates. As I've argued before, this good luck hides a lot of structural instability in the US economy [think 1929-33], but that latent instability hasn't become manifest as yet. Trade in goods and services down so far, minor. RD as proportion of GDP down this is a long-term and real problem. Corporate profits down They may be down right now, but the profit rate has been very high lately. Not as high as in the GOD [good old days] of the 1950s and 1960s, but a steep rise is all that's needed to make capitalists cheery. Of course, a leveling off/mild fall of profits combined with worries in East Asia may cause the stock market to tank. I also notice that both the rate of industrial capacity utilisation and the number of new orders for manufactured goods are down. again, so far these are small blips rather than trends. Now, I guess a big Yen might help soak up lots of SE Asian product in bad times - but then it seems to me that Ringgits, Baht, Rupiah etc are so low now that the value of the Yen would be of marginal significance. I think the issue is one of avoiding too low a Yen, which would cause or contribute to competitive depreciation of currencies, which means that no single East Asian country benefits in a big way from depreciation but the US and Europe suffer from even larger trade or current-account deficits. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "The only cause of depression is prosperity." -- Clement Juglar.
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
To whom, Dennis has really tipped his hand with this statement: "All this talk of how Japan is going to go bankrupt tomorrow is so much hooey -- what's happening is that some deeply unsettling fears about the length and tenure of the Wall Street bubble are being projected, by the usual punters and earnings-obsessed analysts, onto an immensely powerful Japanese economy all but drained of speculative excess and about to declare its fiscal and political autonomy from the USA." Meanwhile Japanese debt from bankruptcies is at a fifty year high. The problem with the Keynesian approach is that, unfortunately, somebody has to *own* it and that somebody is *NOT* the proletariat. Keynesianism is two things: welfare for people (some) and pork-barrel gifts to capitalists (lots). The capitalists in Japan wouldn't know what to do with more money. They already have the cheapest money in the industrialized world. The very idea of giving them more money is absurd. As for the Japanese people, if the government wants to fork over all those bonds to regular folks, I'm all for it. Two words: Not likely. Capitalism has to be disciplined to counter its greed and complacency because it is a bad system. The Japanese are coddling a bad system and it is acting badly. Either they will have to discipline it or get rid of it. peace
Re: The Chilean Model?
In a message dated 98-04-16 15:30:55 EDT, you write: All the left anti-communists, local and foreign, who were blowing hard during the cold war didn't have a clue what to do when the USSR fell either, leaving a perfectly clear field for the IMF. So I think it's pretty important to compare the experiences of Latin America and Southeast Asia - A nice little rhetorical flourish but rhetorical none-the-less. Come on, I heard plenty of proposals for ways to help democratize a de-Stalinizing economy. Unfortunately, none of the people who had much say in the process, either in the SU or anywhere else, had very little interest in "democracy", either economic or democratic in the emerging Russia. (I mean if you are really interested in democracy, you don't use a bastardized version of the American governmnet as your model, a model which, as I have suggested before, resembles Wiemar Germany with its weak parliament and strong executive).
Re: Some that might interest
bill, I found the paper at: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html Is that the same one? (econ-www doesn't exist without the newcastle.edu.au) At 08:55 a.m. 4/18/98 +1000, bill wrote: Dear Pen-L and Pkt If any one is interested you can read the paper I am giving at Ed Nell's conference in New York on Monday at http://econ-www/economics/research/bse-openeconomy.pdf it is in pdf. it explores the open economy considerations of my Buffer Stock Employment model of Full employment kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Re: The Chilean Model?
On Sat, April 18, 1998 at 00:35:13 (+0100) Mark Jones writes: ... So, just as you find my cassandra-ism risible, I am mystified at the self-deception you are stricken with. Actually, I find you schizoid -- on one e-list you can be seen expressing deep fears for the globally-warmed, asphalted-over future; on another you are praising to the skies the technologies and heavy industries and growth trajectories which create the problem ... Nothing like a little exaggeration to help one's argument, is there? Why don't you try a quote, just one, where we can see Doug "praising to the skies the technologies and heavy industries and growth trajectories"? Actually, I find Doug to be a very credible Cassandra. You bear resemblance to an angry Clytemnestra, raging wild-eyed about the mansion... Bill
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, boddhisatva wrote: The capitalists in Japan wouldn't know what to do with more money. They already have the cheapest money in the industrialized world. The very idea of giving them more money is absurd. Gee, really? I've never had any problem whatsoever spending money, so why should Mitsubishi and Sony be any different? -- Dennis
Re: -- No Subject --
Boddhi, The fact that the T-bill sale by the Japanese went through the New York Fed in a single block proves that it was coordinated. Essentially the Fed incorporated this sale, which could have been spread out, into its own open market operations which are carried out by the New York Fed. Barkley Rosser On Fri, 17 Apr 98 5:02:45 EDT boddhisatva [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: C. Rosser, I don't think that there is a shortage of treasuries out there. Selling treasuries doesn't do the Yen any good unless you then use the proceeds to buy Yen. If treasury sales raise U.S. interest rates, the spread between Japanese and American yields gets wider. I think the Japanese were using the big sale to threaten the markets with their immense reserves. I'm sure Washington approves of anything that keeps the Yen higher (note recent earnings reports' citing for-ex losses), but I don't think this is coordination. peace -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Chilean Model? II
C. Valis, The morality is there but the vehicle is not. People want to be better to each other. Americans overwhelmingly support the idea of workers owning their companies. For that reason, conservatives try and pass off the fact that working people have moved some of their pittance from banks to mutual funds as *evidence* that working people own the means of production (a bizarre argument). Ross Perot used a slogan "You are the owners of the country" when he was big (and full of crap). Modern management theory with its "team" bullshit tries to foster or at least labors under the illusion that management and workers have the same interest. Leninist socialism takes advantage of none of these trends. Instead it casts about vainly for a laundry list of issues and outrages meant to stimulate interest in and support for "the Party". The question people are asking is not "What is happening? What is going wrong?" because if they even allow themselves to think about it (rare in this country) it's perfectly obvious. The question they are asking is "What's the alternative? How can it work? Where will the money come from?" These are not only valuable questions, but decisive ones. The statist model of socialism is simply a bad answer to these questions. That's why it's dead. peace
Re: The Chilean Model?
Mark Jones wrote: Doug, tell me as a Marxist: is it better for the world if people pick strawberries or make 4x4's? I suppose having tried to impose a forced choice on you I deserve one in turn. But like you I'm not going to play. So I'll say this: I hate 4x4s and everything they come with/stand for. I wouldn't want life to revolve around strawberries though. Can we have some poets and DJs too? Doug
Re: The Chilean Model?
C. Mark, No, it wasn't any V-8 it was a little stinking Midget that I loved although it had more problems than a normal car owner can conceive of. Actually it might have been early 80's but I think it was late 70's. I bought it very much used. It was a poor substitute for the '63 MGB that my Dad had when I was kid, or even the post-British-Leyland '68 B that died of consumption or rheumatism or something in the early 70's. What British Leyland did to that brand was a crime (although frankly My Dad reports that the '63 had quite a few problems before it got wrecked in '67). peace
Re: The Chilean Model?
C. Mark, I'll chime in here. You asked Doug Henwood "Doug, tell me as a Marxist: is it better for the world if people pick strawberries or make 4x4's?" As a Marxist, my first answer would be that ideally we would make 4x4's that pick strawberries, but that's a little cute. The point is we make industrial goods to increase our capacities to render a better world. Therefore I'll go with the 4x4's. peace
Re: Broken Yen
To whom, I think that actually Japanese fiscal inervention will be of little use because of the expectation that Japanese will simply save the money. Japan will have to raise intereset rates significantly to get back on track. It will really hurt them, but it is a needed dose of reality. Unless Japan develops a socialist economy right quick, the only other alternative is to raise the bar on returns on investment. I need to read more about it (any suggestions?) but I think that Japan has hidden what is effectively inflation in their system with artificial pricing. The country should rightly be in significant deflation given the intense lack of internal demand, it seems. Yet they are only in very mild deflation, at least officially. I think they have built a big house of cards over there. peace
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
Dennis R Redmond wrote: Tom Schlesinger - who's putting Fed transcripts up on the Financial Markets Center website What's the URL on this? I spidered for this and came up empty. It's not up yet; lots of text to input. When I talked to Tom yesterday, he pointed out how boring most of the transcripts are - in contrast, say, to the transcripts of LBJ's cabinet meetings. Nothing, in other words, like this morsel reported in the NY Times Book Review the other day (reminding us how apt his surname was): "Johnson found it difficult to sustain his rationality in dealing with war critics. During a private conversation with some reporters who pressed him to explain why we were in Vietnam, Johnson lost his patience. According to Arthur Goldberg, L.B.J. unzipped his fly, drew out his substantial organ and declared, 'This is why!'" Doug
Re: The Chilean Model? II
boddhisatva opines: Lou Proyect wrote: "In the final analysis, the problem facing us is politics, not which economic theories can make socialism feasible." This view could not be more wrong. The *how* of undoing and replacing capitalist property relations is intrinsic to the development of socialism and the revolution. The assumption that a state-run command economy is the answer has marginalized socialism. By replacing "politics" with "values" I think you get a lot closer to what he actually means by that statement. Revolution has to start between the ears of the people, not in arcane journals or faculty lounges. That happened in history at least once, quite by accident (I don't suppose there are any bible-thumpers in the house), and it needs to happen again, I know not by what means. A few years before the Prague Spring a Czech economist told me "Mr _, every Czech is a Good Soldier Schweik: he very soon figures out how to get the most out of anything." The man was saying that personal morality is prior to ideology or its specific ways of ordering the social product. The Prague Spring and the benign figure of Dubcek appeared to present the world with such a spontaneous change as I mention above; had the US not been soulfully engaged in a high-tech Asian blood orgy at the time, the Russians might have had the confidence to let the thing proceed. Watching the technical arguments that abound on this list - which utilize a patois that I still haven't really penetrated - I fear that you'll miss what even the empty patrician shell called George Bush was able to recognize as "the vision thing." valis
Re: Boddhi on Japan
G'day Penners, First, Jim, yeah, I was being a bit narrowly monetarist. But wouldn't tax cuts or cash injections counteract the upward pressure of consequent government deficits on interest rates? More cash in circulation - less demand for credit - lower interest rates? Or doesn't the supply/demand curve apply to interest rates? [Not a rhetorical question - I just wouldn't have a bloody clue, that's all]. Anyway, downunder here, we keep getting regaled with stories of American economic success. 'Do what the Yanks do and all will be well,' we're told. After all, 'the fundamentals' there are so good! Ya only gotta look at the Dow Jones ...). So I was surprised to be told it was so important to the Americans that the Yen stay big. Why? Surely such a healthy economy could handle a more competitive Yen, couldn't it? But, thanks to Jim Devine's 'favourite links' guide, I find in the *Economic Statistics Briefing Room* http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/esbr.html that the US economy currently boasts the following trends: Current Account Deficit up Unemployment up Trade in goods and services down RD as proportion of GDP down Corporate profits down I also notice that both the rate of industrial capacity utilisation and the number of new orders for manufactured goods are down. Now, I guess a big Yen might help soak up lots of SE Asian product in bad times - but then it seems to me that Ringgits, Baht, Rupiah etc are so low now that the value of the Yen would be of marginal significance. Boddhi also reckons a big Yen policy might help Japanese companies buy capital equipment, but I think he's implying that's not much of a concern right now. Japan already has overcapacity problems. Maybe a big Yen is a much more significant factor in alleviating US overcapacity/current account concerns? Might it be US 'fundamentals' that are actually at the root of these daft calls for a big Yen? I dunno where this is going ... just wondering, I s'pose. Cheers, Rob.
Re: The Chilean Model?
To whom, Lou Proyect wrote: "In the final analysis, the problem facing us is politics, not which economic theories can make socialism feasible." This view could not be more wrong. The *how* of undoing and replacing capitalist property relations is intrinsic to the development of socialism and the revolution. The assumption that a state-run command economy is the answer has marginalized socialism. peace
Re: -- No Subject --
C. Rosser, I don't think that there is a shortage of treasuries out there. Selling treasuries doesn't do the Yen any good unless you then use the proceeds to buy Yen. If treasury sales raise U.S. interest rates, the spread between Japanese and American yields gets wider. I think the Japanese were using the big sale to threaten the markets with their immense reserves. I'm sure Washington approves of anything that keeps the Yen higher (note recent earnings reports' citing for-ex losses), but I don't think this is coordination. peace
Re: Boddhi on Japan
C. Schaap, I think you've got the situation in hand. The problem for the BoJ is that they will become predictable and the currency traders will have them for lunch. If the market pressure is for a lower Yen and they predictably prop it up at certain levels, the traders will trade on that formula and make it more expensive for the BoJ. Then there comes the question of whether the BoJ will want to keep doing that forever. If too many market players get in to the game of taking the BoJ's lunch money there will be enormous pressure against the Yen and if the BoJ quits intervening that will be that. Of course the BoJ knows this and tries to keep the *threat* of intervention looming over traders without getting into the game too much. Behind all this is the strong Yen policy. Why the Japanese should pursue such a policy I don't know. Perhaps it has to do with preserving Japanese companies' purchasing power for materials. It certainly doesn't serve the needs of exporters. The purchasing power idea makes a certain amount of sense when taken together with the stated desire to ease credit (despite the fact that this weakens the Yen). It makes sense if the Japanese are trying to prop up very weak corporations. It seems to me that if it has gotten to the point that the Japanese are pursuing contradictory policies (cheap money/strong Yen) it may auger very bad news. peace
