Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Barter makes comeback in Argentina
I meant to write: Here, our 'first way' government has worked it out with insurers that taxpayers should help pay out a collapsed insurance company's $1 billion obligations and that other insurers should impose a levy on all the country's policy holders to help. As shareholders are a more important sector than the insurance consumers, we have to ensure that our insurance industry doesn't actually take risks. It was this bunch, of course, who nagged and bullied until all properly run public insurers were privatised (ie those which didn't spend a fortune undertaking expansion and takeovers at the top of bubble markets, did spend enough on hedging, didn't overvalue their assets and didn't undervalue their liablilities) and then deregulated. Oh, and Michael K., I hear East Timorese delegates have announced they'll pull out of negotiations if Oz govt and subsidiary companies don't bend a bit on the milking of their oilfields. Wonder if they actually have options in mind (ie people who steal at more conscionable rates) or whether this is just a haggle gesture ... Cheers, Rob.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Barter makes comeback in Argentina
Responded Rob : Here, our 'first way' government has worked it out with insurers that taxpayers should help pay out a collapsed insurance company's $1 billion obligations and that other insurers should impose a levy on all the country's policy holders to help. As shareholders are a more important sector than the insurance consumers, we have to ensure that our insurance industry doesn't actually take risks. It was this bunch, of course, who nagged and bullied until all properly run public insurers were privatised (ie those which didn't spend a fortune undertaking expansion and takeovers at the top of bubble markets, did spend enough on hedging, didn't overvalue their assets and didn't undervalue their liablilities) and then deregulated. If you're referring to HIH insurance, I suspect the collapse had something to do with the New Zealand government. HIH was a big player in the privatised workers' accident compensation scheme (ACC) when the tories privatised it a year before the election. HIH would have lost considerably when the new government renationalised it - a singularly courageous action in the current climate. And one that would be impossible under NAFTA because the insurance companies would have sued the pants off the government and made it unaffordable. So why is the current government staying in similar investment agreements already signed, and reinforcing them with new model full free trade and investment agreements? But to give some idea of the continued dryness at home at the same time as some genuinely progressive initiatives are taking place - - continued rigid adherence to a (very) independent Reserve Bank setting monetary policies - continued rigid adherence to a balanced - in fact surplus - budget - continued support for the Fiscal Responsibility Act which requires balanced budgets and policies that essentially require the government to run its finances like a business. - setting up a government superannuation fund that will be huge compared to the size of our share market but will be required to apply only commercial criteria to its investment and will invest a large part of its funds overseas. It is certainly an improvement on anything here for the last 25 years, both in content and style - but that is unfortunately not saying much! Cheers Bill Here, our 'first way' government gleefully went along with Shrubya's treachery on Kyoto, just as temperature rises promise to deprive this particularly dry continent of 20% of the water it does have. Here, our 'first way' government is presiding over scores of preventable deaths among the disabled due to lack of care whilst supplementing a 'defence' technology budget already unrivalled (for now) in the region. And that's just the first coupla pages of today's Herald ... Staring enviously Tasmanwards, Rob.
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: CA energy crisis -- one solution
You know, up to about a year ago I would receive email from valis as if he were Mulder being pursued by the cigarette-smoking guy. He'd always post from some Internet cafe, someplace that he'd prefer not to divulge the location of. I thought that he was easing his defenses with me, since he always signed off Palmer Eldritch. How disappointed I was to discover in the latest Lingua Franca that 'Palmer Eldritch', like 'valis', was the name of a character in a Philip Dick science-fiction novel. Louis Proyect In today's post: . . . Dick ingested a ton of dope in the '60s, and by the mid-'70s he was receiving strange pink light visions that he believed came from a future superior intelligence that he named VALIS -- Vast Active Living Intelligence System. . . . http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60858-2001May7.html From one of the more interesting features in the Post, The Magazine Reader. Check out the item in there about McVeigh too. mbs
Ghana
An op-ed piece in today's NY Times by neoliberal super-pimp Thomas Friedman reminds me why I love Bruce Cockburn's song If I had a Rocket Launcher. Friedman tells his mostly middle-class American readers that the people of Ghana should happy to receive crumbs from massa's table: --- NY Times, May 8, 2001 FOREIGN AFFAIRS It Takes a Satellite By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN ACCRA, Ghana - If you're wondering why I came to Ghana, I can now reveal the truth: I came to check my health insurance. No, really. You see, I'm enrolled with Aetna health insurance. And Aetna, as well as Keystone Mercy health care, has moved a large chunk of its data processing to a modern high-rise in downtown Accra. There 400 young Ghanaian techies - working in three eight-hour shifts and connected to the U.S. by satellite - punch the raw claims data sent to them by the U.S. health-care giants onto computerized forms and then zip it back by satellite to the U.S. for final processing. Since I had recently filed a claim with Aetna, I kept looking over the shoulder of the Ghanaian techies to see if, by chance, they were processing my forms! The Ghana office of the U.S.-based ACS Inc., where this data processing is going on, is a good answer to a question one hears often these days: Is Africa hopeless? To be sure, one tele-computing office does not an economy, or a future, make. The evening before I visited the ACS operation, I was at a dinner where a debate broke out between a leader of Ghana's Trades Union Congress and the country's deputy minister of finance over how much to raise the minimum wage. They were arguing over an increase of 10 cents a day. It was sad. Ghana's minimum wage is about 80 cents a day - a rich country made poor by decades of misrule. But hopeless? Well, a country or continent can be hopeless only if the best and the brightest, particularly the young, have given up all hope. And I did not find that in Ghana, and certainly not at the ACS office. You have to imagine this scene: You step off the steamy streets of Accra, go up three floors, and all you see in every direction is a sea of young Ghanaians doing data processing on computers, in air-conditioned rooms with a radio playing Don't Worry, Be Happy. --- In actuality, Ghana is an object lesson in how integration into the world capitalist economy can only lead to disaster. Before independence, the country was called Gold Coast. Although it earned its name from the rich gold deposits there, it was also rich in other minerals and fertile soil. I imagine if Cuba had the kind of resources that Ghana did, it would have been even more successful than it has been. But despite the wealth in natural resources, opportunities for true development were squandered. It starts with Kwane Nkrumah, who despite an earlier exposure to CLR James's Marxism, found himself seduced by conventional development economics. Seduced by the notion of jump-starting a capitalist economy through hydro-electricity, Ghana soon discovered that a mega-dam was the last thing the country needed. Since the 1920s, British colonial engineers had proposed to harness the Volta River in Ghana, the country's version of the Nile. As a student in the United States, Nkrumah had been inspired by the Franklin Roosevelt's post-Depression dam projects. Cheap electricity, Nkrumah reasoned, would light up Ghanaian homes and attract foreign industrial investment. Britain encouraged this vision with promises of technical and financial help for the project in return for cheap aluminum. After Great Britain backed out the project, Nkrumah turned to the U.S. and was encouraged by then-president Dwight Eisenhower to contact Edgar Kaiser, who needed power for his aluminum company. Kaiser promised to build a plant in Ghana and this allowed Nkrumah to secure the largest loan ever given by the World Bank at that time to build the Volta River dam. But Ghana's bauxite deposits could create a fully integrated industry, from mining the ore to processing it and manufacturing finished products. Fearful that a profitable aluminum industry in Ghana would be nationalized, Kaiser forced Nkrumah to agree to process American bauxite. And once the World Bank loan was assured, Kaiser demanded electricity at the lowest rate paid by his global competitors. In essence, Ghana would be subsidizing an American company to process American bauxite to provide aluminum ingots to American manufacturers. But by then, too much was riding on the project for Nkrumah to pull out. By the time the dam was completed early in 1966, Ghana was deeply in debt, its foreign reserves depleted. Ghana was also caught up as a pawn in the Cold War and two months later, a coup that some claim was engineered by the CIA, overthrew Nkrumah. He fled to Guinea, where he died in 1972. Ghana has also relied on gold and cocoa exports for development, but both commodities are susceptible to overproduction and falling prices. In 1999 2,200 Ashanti miners in
US productivity falls
Instead of the expected increase at a 1 percent annual rate, US productivity declined in the first quarter of this year. The preliminarly BLS results, seasonally adjusted, annual rates, were -0.4 percent in the business sector and -0.1 percent in the nonfarm business sector. This might be explained by the 5.2 percent annual rate increase in unit labor costs over the same time period. Could it reflect a surge in one-time downsizing charges taken by employers? If not, it may be a sign that a purely monetarist response may be unable to to get the US economy moving again. Since the economic crisis has entered the perception of the public earlier this year, the FOMC has reduced both the discount rate and the feds fund rate by 2 percent. Nevertheless, Fed watchers are anticipating another rate cut at the Committee's May 15 meeting. It could be that the current crop of investors have become so risk adverse that they will not invest substantially even with reduced interest rates. To speak anecdotally, I'm not personally aware of any great new business plans or market opportunities. Particularly in the tech sector, there is no new killer app or new device that people simply must have. As a result, they continue to use the hardware and software they already have. This could change. It may be, however, that a Keyenesian government spending program could be required to spark the economy again. A Keyensian tax cut will probably not work if investors are so risk averse that they will not invest the money given to them by the government. They'll just pocket it. In short, the wheels are stuck in the mud, and no one is getting out to p http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010508/bs/economy_productivity_dc_2.ht ml Andrew Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PK Dick
[was: Re: [PEN-L:11275] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: CA energy crisis -- one solution ] At 08:29 AM 5/8/01 -0400, you wrote: You know, up to about a year ago I would receive email from valis as if he were Mulder being pursued by the cigarette-smoking guy. He'd always post from some Internet cafe, someplace that he'd prefer not to divulge the location of. I thought that he was easing his defenses with me, since he always signed off Palmer Eldritch. How disappointed I was to discover in the latest Lingua Franca that 'Palmer Eldritch', like 'valis', was the name of a character in a Philip Dick science-fiction novel. Louis Proyect In today's post: . . . Dick ingested a ton of dope in the '60s, Now there's a solution to the CA energy crisis. and by the mid-'70s he was receiving strange pink light visions that he believed came from a future superior intelligence that he named VALIS -- Vast Active Living Intelligence System. . . . I'd heard that Philip K. was schizophrenic. Maybe he was self-medicating... I still admire Dick's MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which is about what would have happened if Hitler had won WW2. In one scene, it's heard that Hitler is dying and Americans in the unoccupied zone are wondering and arguing about who will replace him. Could it be Heydrich? Goebbels? Himmler? they get into a lesser-of-two evils argument, about how Goebbels would be better... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: PK Dick
I'd heard that Philip K. was schizophrenic. Maybe he was self-medicating... I still admire Dick's MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which is about what would have happened if Hitler had won WW2. In one scene, it's heard that Hitler is dying and Americans in the unoccupied zone are wondering and arguing about who will replace him. Could it be Heydrich? Goebbels? Himmler? they get into a lesser-of-two evils argument, about how Goebbels would be better... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine == PK was arguably the first sci-fi writer to incorporate information theory into cosmology; seeing space-time as one big computational plenum leading to a neo-idealist ontology with god as the ultimate observer-generator of info Ian
An exchange about reaching workers
[This Marxism list exchange is extraordinarily interesting.] Dear Gary, Having worked in large and medium sized factories from 1964 to 1989 as an industrial mechanic(10 years or so of that as an active revolutionary) I am more than a little aware of the conditions and attitudes among the workers that drive you to despair. In one large factory (1500 - 4000 workers at different times) I was an active revolutionary and used to engage any worker that made the mistake of asking me a question in extended political discussion not just on union issues although that was always uppermost but on any issue under the sun. I used to tell them what was what whether they wanted to hear it or not. I've wondered recently if I were able to go back to that time and place if I would find that the workers who engaged me the most, on the average, had the most boring jobs. In any case none of the conservatism, caution, and down right pig headedness that I encountered surprised me very much. I was at times a little taken aback by the capacity of some of the union activists to edit the tape in order not to get into a conflict with the union leadership but even that I had seen in other circumstances and was not completely taken off guard. Mostly in those circumstances I and the two comrades that I worked with in that plant would take it under advisement and be a little more cautious in our hopes and projections. Some of the leaflets we put out on plant and union issues did have a big impact but even then there was a tendency on the part of many of the more militant members to attribute our material to the leadership when then they liked it - merely assuming that we were finally supporting the leadership. On the whole there was a range of beliefs and attitudes that many had acquired in childhood that could not be shaken no matter what evidence we produced or how logically we argued the case. The basic issue was trust. We were introducing ideas that they simply didn't trust and since they - at the beginning of the process - didn't know us that well, they didn't trust us. On top of that in the mid 60's we were communists - openly so - and the cold war mentality was still prevalent in Canada. I should point out that the union was quite strong and had two wild cat strikes in 1967. On partial walk out to defend the collective agreement against an arbitrary violation by the company and a full scale wildcat a bit later to defend a group of workers fired as a result of the first one. One of the comrades that I worked with at the time was on the bargaining committee and was formally fired right across the bargaining table for leading the tool room out to joint the walk about. That's what it got called. There were two strikes like that - one before contract termination in 1965 and this one. It ended up with a thousand or so workers trapping about the plant yelling out scab out making sure they got everybody before they went out the gate. The International Union based in Detroit, I suspect, would have gladly dumped workers on the firing line but it's very difficult to scab an aircraft plant and trying to enforce the full discipline at that time might have resulted in a little civil war with possible damage to some very sensitive and expensive parts and equipment. The company and the International eventually got control of the place somewhat to their satisfaction but it was a long messy process that took another contract strike and a set up and firing of the bargaining committee. At that point management had to take everyone back who had been fired or suspended and be satisfied with just putting it on the record. Even today I believe that that local is in better shape that many others in the same union. Having been on the inside for most of my years (including many years when I was not a party person and had no particular ax to grind), it is my experience that most of the stuff the far left produces and puts out to industrial workers is born of ignorance of the specific conditions of the work place and written in a language that makes the material nearly incomprehensible if not down right foolish. Most of the more intelligent workers who are involved in the union also have a real fear of being setup - of provocateurs and if they don't know you the automatic response is to stay away at least until they know who you are. It was for good reason that Lenin spent much of his early activity in the Social Democratic movement interviewing workers about their working life. He struggled to get workers including non Social Democrats to give him an extremely detailed account of their daily lives. He logically reasoned that he could not write for workers sensibly if he didn't have this kind of familiarity. He also understood from this experience that, by enlarge, the conditions of the lives and upbringing of the workers would prevent them from developing a revolutionary leadership internally. This required that the best of the intelligencia would
Re: US productivity falls
At 11:33 AM 5/8/01 -0400, you wrote: Instead of the expected increase at a 1 percent annual rate, US productivity declined in the first quarter of this year. The preliminarly BLS results, seasonally adjusted, annual rates, were -0.4 percent in the business sector and -0.1 percent in the nonfarm business sector. This might be explained by the 5.2 percent annual rate increase in unit labor costs over the same time period. no it can't be explained that way, since unit labor costs (ULC) reflect labor productivity rather than vice-versa: ULC = (total employment costs)/(output) = (employment costs per worker)/(output per worker), where output per worker = labor productivity. Could it reflect a surge in one-time downsizing charges taken by employers? More likely, it's because output fell drastically (or output growth slowed down drastically) but instead of laying off workers in proportion to output, employers held onto overhead workers in management (line and staff employees). The overhead workers are supposed to contribute to output in the long run, but in the short run holding onto them means falling output per worker. This is a normal cyclical phenomenon (though the triumphalism of as little as a year ago would have denied the possibility of a normal cyclical phenomenon). If not, it may be a sign that a purely monetarist response may be unable to to get the US economy moving again. Since the economic crisis has entered the perception of the public earlier this year, the FOMC has reduced both the discount rate and the feds fund rate by 2 percent. Nevertheless, Fed watchers are anticipating another rate cut at the Committee's May 15 meeting. I'd say instead that the unused industrial capacity, the extremes of consumer and corporate debt (relative to assets, which have fallen in value), and the shift to pessimism are blocking monetary policy. So far, however, lower interest rates might spur growth in the housing sector. If that begins to fail, then monetary policy is pretty useless. It's true that lower interest rates can stimulate US net exports (by pushing the dollar exchange rate down), but that simply stimulates the US economy at the expense of other countries. This doesn't work if other countries' interest rates also fall -- or if there's an effort to stabilize the dollar. Worse, the policy could work _too well_: if the dollar falls drastically, that causes an inflationary shock to the US economy (rising import costs, including most raw materials), which encourages the Fed to start raising rates again. (Monetarism refers to an old-fashioned Friedmaniac philosophy of monetary policy, one that's been rejected by the vast majority of economists. (Monetarism involved the idea of controlling the money supply, not interest rates, and keeping the MS growing at a constant rate each year, no matter what happens.) However, as pen-l's Brad deLong makes clear, there's a heck of a lot of that old philosophy in what's now called Keynesianism.) It could be that the current crop of investors have become so risk adverse that they will not invest substantially even with reduced interest rates. To speak anecdotally, I'm not personally aware of any great new business plans or market opportunities. Particularly in the tech sector, there is no new killer app or new device that people simply must have. As a result, they continue to use the hardware and software they already have. This could change. The household market for PCs is pretty dead, since people don't need to replace old ones. The same applies to businesses, to a large extent, especially as the market for used PCs is swamped. In addition, it's smart to wait for PCs or MACs that have the promised new operating systems already built in, because the new OSs are very different from the old ones. It may be, however, that a Keyenesian government spending program could be required to spark the economy again. That's Dumbya's plan. Of course, he has to compensate for the regressivity of the tax cut (how it mostly helps the high end of the income distribution) by making it long-term (permanent) so that the well-to-do people who can plan ahead can rely on future tax cuts in planning consumption. The latter makes the tax cut more effective than if it were a one-shot deal. A Keyensian tax cut will probably not work if investors are so risk averse that they will not invest the money given to them by the government. They'll just pocket it. In short, the wheels are stuck in the mud, and no one is getting out to p Keynesian tax cuts -- including Dumbya's -- affect consumer spending much more than (real) investment. That in turn could create the markets that businesses require if they want to invest in new plant and equipment. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Research request
We would like to ask you for your help. We are looking for time series of the wealth distribution in the United States (e.g. in form of the gini coefficient) or of the world as a whole that go back as long as possible (e.g. the. beginning of the century or earlier). It is because we are about to test the empirical evidence of some theoretical work. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get appropriate data input. Please let us know, how far you can help us. Thank you in advance. We are looking forward to your email. Regards, Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair Prof. Dr. Gr=FCner A5 University of Mannheim 68131 Mannheim=20 GERMANY Kerstin Tullius wrote: As far as I know, the article is about income inequality, but we are looking for wealth inequality. Thanks. - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 5:34 PM Subject: Re: help Have you looked at Williamson, Jeffrey and Peter H. Lindert. 1980. American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History (NY: Academic Press)? The later material should be fairly easy to obtain. Kerstin Tullius wrote: Dear Professor, regarding your course outlines in the web and your reputation, we would = like to ask you for your help. We are looking for time series of the wealth distribution in the United States (e.g. in form of the gini coefficient) or of the world as a whole that go back as long as possible = (e.g. the. beginning of the century or earlier).=20 It is beause we are about to test the empirical evidence of some = theoretical work. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get = appropriate data input. Please let us know, how far you can help us. Thank you in advance. We are looking forward to your email. Regards, Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair Prof. Dr. Gr=FCner A5 University of Mannheim 68131 Mannheim=20 GERMANY --=_NextPart_000_0498_01C0D7E0.FC45C190 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN HTMLHEAD META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3Dtext/html; = charset=3Diso-8859-1 META content=3DMSHTML 5.50.4522.1800 name=3DGENERATOR STYLE/STYLE /HEAD BODY bgColor=3D#ff DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2FONT face=3DArial size=3D2Dear=20 Professor,nbsp;nbsp;BRnbsp;/FONT/DIV DIV DIV DIV DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2regardingnbsp;yournbsp;course = outlines in the=20 webnbsp;and your reputation, we would like to ask you for your help. We = are=20 looking for time series of thenbsp;wealth distributionnbsp;in = thenbsp;United=20 States (e.g. in form of the gini coefficient) or of the world as a=20 wholenbsp;that go back as long as possible (e.g. the. beginning of the = century=20 or earlier). /FONT/DIV DIVnbsp;/DIV DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2It is beause we are about to test the = empirical=20 evidence of some theoretical work. Unfortunately, it is extremely = difficult to=20 get appropriate data input./FONT/DIV DIVnbsp;/DIV DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2Please let us know, how far you can = help us. Thank=20 you in advance.BRWe are looking forward to your=20 email.BRnbsp;BRRegards,BRKerstin TulliusBRnbsp;BRA=20 href=3Dmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED];[EMAIL PROTECTED]= de/ABRChair=20 Prof. Dr. Gr=FCnerBRA5BRUniversity of MannheimBR68131 Mannheim=20 BRGERMANY/FONT/DIV/FONT/DIV/DIV/DIV/BODY/HTML --=_NextPart_000_0498_01C0D7E0.FC45C190-- -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: US productivity falls
Also, it suggests that, contrary to the wishes of the new economy types, that Robert Gordon was correct in insisting that much of the recent productivity growth was cyclical. Andrew Hagen wrote: Instead of the expected increase at a 1 percent annual rate, US productivity declined in the first quarter of this year. The preliminarly BLS results, seasonally adjusted, annual rates, were -0.4 percent in the business sector and -0.1 percent in the nonfarm business sector. This might be explained by the 5.2 percent annual rate increase in unit labor costs over the same time period. Could it reflect a surge in one-time downsizing charges taken by employers? If not, it may be a sign that a purely monetarist response may be unable to to get the US economy moving again. Since the economic crisis has entered the perception of the public earlier this year, the FOMC has reduced both the discount rate and the feds fund rate by 2 percent. Nevertheless, Fed watchers are anticipating another rate cut at the Committee's May 15 meeting. It could be that the current crop of investors have become so risk adverse that they will not invest substantially even with reduced interest rates. To speak anecdotally, I'm not personally aware of any great new business plans or market opportunities. Particularly in the tech sector, there is no new killer app or new device that people simply must have. As a result, they continue to use the hardware and software they already have. This could change. It may be, however, that a Keyenesian government spending program could be required to spark the economy again. A Keyensian tax cut will probably not work if investors are so risk averse that they will not invest the money given to them by the government. They'll just pocket it. In short, the wheels are stuck in the mud, and no one is getting out to p http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/prod2.nr0.htm http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010508/bs/economy_productivity_dc_2.ht ml Andrew Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Research request
They'll want to contact Lisa Keister in the Sociology Dept. of Ohio State; she's the author of Wealth in America [Cambrige UP 2000]. She's got tons of good info... Ian - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 9:03 AM Subject: [PEN-L:11282] Research request We would like to ask you for your help. We are looking for time series of the wealth distribution in the United States (e.g. in form of the gini coefficient) or of the world as a whole that go back as long as possible (e.g. the. beginning of the century or earlier). It is because we are about to test the empirical evidence of some theoretical work. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get appropriate data input. Please let us know, how far you can help us. Thank you in advance. We are looking forward to your email. Regards, Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair Prof. Dr. Gr=FCner A5 University of Mannheim 68131 Mannheim=20 GERMANY Kerstin Tullius wrote: As far as I know, the article is about income inequality, but we are looking for wealth inequality. Thanks. - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 5:34 PM Subject: Re: help Have you looked at Williamson, Jeffrey and Peter H. Lindert. 1980. American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History (NY: Academic Press)? The later material should be fairly easy to obtain. Kerstin Tullius wrote: Dear Professor, regarding your course outlines in the web and your reputation, we would = like to ask you for your help. We are looking for time series of the wealth distribution in the United States (e.g. in form of the gini coefficient) or of the world as a whole that go back as long as possible = (e.g. the. beginning of the century or earlier).=20 It is beause we are about to test the empirical evidence of some = theoretical work. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get = appropriate data input. Please let us know, how far you can help us. Thank you in advance. We are looking forward to your email. Regards, Kerstin Tullius [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chair Prof. Dr. Gr=FCner A5 University of Mannheim 68131 Mannheim=20 GERMANY --=_NextPart_000_0498_01C0D7E0.FC45C190 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN HTMLHEAD META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3Dtext/html; = charset=3Diso-8859-1 META content=3DMSHTML 5.50.4522.1800 name=3DGENERATOR STYLE/STYLE /HEAD BODY bgColor=3D#ff DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2FONT face=3DArial size=3D2Dear=20 Professor,nbsp;nbsp;BRnbsp;/FONT/DIV DIV DIV DIV DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2regardingnbsp;yournbsp;course = outlines in the=20 webnbsp;and your reputation, we would like to ask you for your help. We = are=20 looking for time series of thenbsp;wealth distributionnbsp;in = thenbsp;United=20 States (e.g. in form of the gini coefficient) or of the world as a=20 wholenbsp;that go back as long as possible (e.g. the. beginning of the = century=20 or earlier). /FONT/DIV DIVnbsp;/DIV DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2It is beause we are about to test the = empirical=20 evidence of some theoretical work. Unfortunately, it is extremely = difficult to=20 get appropriate data input./FONT/DIV DIVnbsp;/DIV DIVFONT face=3DArial size=3D2Please let us know, how far you can = help us. Thank=20 you in advance.BRWe are looking forward to your=20 email.BRnbsp;BRRegards,BRKerstin TulliusBRnbsp;BRA=20 href=3Dmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED];[EMAIL PROTECTED]= de/ABRChair=20 Prof. Dr. Gr=FCnerBRA5BRUniversity of MannheimBR68131 Mannheim=20 BRGERMANY/FONT/DIV/FONT/DIV/DIV/DIV/BODY/HTML --=_NextPart_000_0498_01C0D7E0.FC45C190-- -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: US productivity falls
At 09:06 AM 5/8/01 -0700, you wrote: Also, it [the decline in labor productivity] suggests that, contrary to the wishes of the new economy types, that Robert Gordon was correct in insisting that much of the recent productivity growth was cyclical. yes, but it's hard to tell from one quarter's stats. We could have had a new economy spurt of productivity growth during the period 1996 to 2000. It's also possible that notional (constant unemployment rate) labor productivity is continuing to spurt, but that the slowdown/possible recession means that the spurt isn't being realized in terms of actual productivity. There was a spurt of labor productivity growth during the 1920s that wasn't realized during the 1930s but turned out to be the beginning of a new trend (compared to the period before 1919 or so) once high aggregate demand returned with WW2 and the 1950s warfare/welfare state. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: US productivity falls
Jim, I agree with you. I only said suggests. Maybe I am too suggestable. On Tue, May 08, 2001 at 09:47:53AM -0700, Jim Devine wrote: At 09:06 AM 5/8/01 -0700, you wrote: Also, it [the decline in labor productivity] suggests that, contrary to the wishes of the new economy types, that Robert Gordon was correct in insisting that much of the recent productivity growth was cyclical. yes, but it's hard to tell from one quarter's stats. We could have had a new economy spurt of productivity growth during the period 1996 to 2000. It's also possible that notional (constant unemployment rate) labor productivity is continuing to spurt, but that the slowdown/possible recession means that the spurt isn't being realized in terms of actual productivity. There was a spurt of labor productivity growth during the 1920s that wasn't realized during the 1930s but turned out to be the beginning of a new trend (compared to the period before 1919 or so) once high aggregate demand returned with WW2 and the 1950s warfare/welfare state. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Any thoughts?
Louis' post provided a great deal of food for thought. My question is what capitalist sector gained most from the restructuring of the US airline industry, and has this restructuring altered the distribution of profits higher up the economic food chain? Wall Street, the aircraft manufacturers, and the airlines themselves each play a role in allocating profits and risk in the industry as a whole. Did the restructuring/deregulation process significantly change the share of airline profits absorbed by interest payments? Have aircraft manufacturers benefitted at the expense of airlines? We can see that finance capital drove a great deal of the restructuring but has it left the industry with a fundamentally different role, primarily that of leveraged buyer of aircraft and servicer of debt? Obviously it leaves airline workers severely weakened if the biggest and most consistent share of their industry's profits accrues not to the companies they work for but to bankers, who have the planes as security and who can step in and reorganize when it serves their purposes. Wall St. doesn't even mind if the workers own a big piece of an airline as long as they get to call the shots. When finance capital sucks the profits out of businesses that had seen great economic gains by workers, class struggle can only advance by engaging with the real enemy. Stuart [EMAIL PROTECTED] Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Mickey Mouse versus Eugene V. Debs
[The call letters EVD stand for Eugene Victor Debs, whom the station honored at its inception. It has been the voice of liberal/radical Jewry for many decades.] Friends - In NYC, there's a similar struggle unfolding at another independent radio station fighting a corporate takeover. WEVD, a news-talk station owned by the Jewish newspaper Forward, features several liberal hosts, and has welcomed on the air (among other issues) our movement to take back Pacifica. We should link up with the listener group Save WEVD Radio and see about the potential for some joint work. Check out their Website and give them a call. If anyone is interested in making contact with them, please email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED], as I have some strategy suggestions. Bob Lederer From the website: www.SaveWEVD.com If you have suggestions about what next steps to take in our fight to maintain WEVD as an alternative news-talk radio station on the AM dial in New York City, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] or phone 212-726-1385 For Immediate Release Contact: SaveWEVD May 7, 2001 Chuck Zlatkin 212-726-1385 Owners of WEVD 1050 AM Stonewall Rumored Sale to Disney/ABC/ESPN The Forward Association Ignores Lobbying Effort By WEVD's Listeners Listeners Group Intensifies Efforts NEW YORK - MAY 7 - Listeners to radio station WEVD-AM 1050 in New York City have been lobbying the owners of the station, The Forward Association, not to sell the stand-alone, news-talk radio station to Disney/ABC/ESPN. The rumored sale price is considered to be in the neighorhood of $80-85 million, with the new owners using the freqeuncy to be the flagship station of the growing ESPN sports-radio network. The efforts by the listeners group, SaveWEVD, and the creation of the web site www.SaveWEVD.com has been ignored by The Forward Association. The members of SaveWEVD concentrated their efforts on generating letters, e-mails and phone-calls to the Forward Asscociation detailing what the station meant to them as an independent, alternative voice in New York City, countering the dominance of right-wing and hate radio on the dial. It was felt by the members of SaveWEVD that the owners of WEVD were honorable people who were committed to progressive social and political issues. The tenor of the effort by Save WEVD was respectful and civil. As time passed, it became increasingly clear that the strategy of The Forward Association was to ignore the efforts of SaveWEVD and not respond. A formal request was made by representatives of SaveWEVD to meet with Samuel Norich, President of The Forward Association. This request was also ignored. A number of rumors have surfaced in the press that the sale has already been made. There is speculation that the announcement of the sale has been delayed for tax purposes. SaveWEVD has decided to intensify its efforts by forming two new committees. The first committee is a Legal Committee to explore options for taking legal action to stop the rumored sale of radio station WEVD. The second committee is a Research Committee to find out the true history of how The Forward Association gained control of the license to WEVD, and how its business affairs have been conducted in recent years. * Here are several articles from the website -- check it out: The Inside Radio Fax, 04.20.2001 Inside Radio is a trade publication that is faxed to subscribers. ABC's acquisition strategy turning out to be shrewd-eyeing a big market next. Disney is bearing down on a major market for its ESPN Sports Network. Waiting to purchase WEVD-AM, New York from Forward Broadcasting. Forward has taken the station off the market due to issues relating to how the sale of WEVD-AM would affect the newspaper trust which operates their Jewish daily newspaper. Sources close to the situation say those problems can likely be worked out. ABC wants WEVD-AM for its missing piece of the puzzle for ESPN Radio. ESPN has stations in Los Angeles and Chicago. New York is a must. WEVD-AM makes sense. But it may not be that easy. Infinity really wants WEVD-AM, too. And so does Clear Channel. Forward is asking $80 million for WEVD-AM. Can afford to wait until the market comes back because as one broker put it, nobody is buying anything right now. That is expected to change. Maybe as soon as fourth quarter. ABC's Michael Eisner never sold his radio properties while he sat out consolidation. No doubt had some good offers for ABC's top market stations. Instead ABC rented stations for Radio Disney's children's format and now ESPN. Only buying in critical markets where clearance issues would make it worthwhile. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Dollarization
I don't remember if anyone referred to this study, but if not here is the abstract that I just came across. Paul Phillips Economics, University of Manitoba NBER WORKING PAPER BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRY Dollarization and Economic Performance: An Empirical Investigation Sebastian Edwards NBER Working Paper No. W8274 Issued in May 2001 Abstract - In this paper I investigate the historical record of countries that have lived under a 'dollarized' monetary system. As it turns out, this is a very small group of counties, most of which have operated under very special circumstances, and for which there are very limited data. The results reported in this paper suggests that, when compared to other countries, the dollarized nations have: (a) have had significantly lower inflation; (b) grown at a significantly lower rate; (c) have had a similar fiscal record; (d) have not been spared from major current account reversals. Additionally, my analysis of Panama's case suggests that external shocks result in greater costs - in terms of lower investment and growth - in dollarized than in non-dollarized countries.
vestiges
At 01:33 PM 5/8/01 -0400, you wrote: [The call letters EVD stand for Eugene Victor Debs, whom the station honored at its inception. It has been the voice of liberal/radical Jewry for many decades.] the call letters of radio stations often include vestiges of history. In Chicago, where I'm from, there's WGN (World's Greatest Newspaper, the Chicago TRIBUNE, which now owns the L.A. TIMES), WLS (the World's Largest Store, i.e. Sears), and, surprisingly, WCFL (named after the Chicago Federation of Labor). When I was growing up (to the extent that I did), the latter two were the big competing top-40 AM rock stations. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Any thoughts
Again with reference to the Air Canada takeover of Canadian Airlines, the experts for CAW Local 1990 argue that Canadian Airlines was by far the more cost effective operator but was done in by its heavier debt servicing costs. Stuart wrote: We can see that finance capital drove a great deal of the restructuring but has it left the industry with a fundamentally different role, primarily that of leveraged buyer of aircraft and servicer of debt? Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
Response to Stuart's query I forwarded to PEN-L
Again with reference to the Air Canada takeover of Canadian Airlines, the experts for CAW Local 1990 argue that Canadian Airlines was by far the more cost effective operator but was done in by its heavier debt servicing costs. Stuart wrote: We can see that finance capital drove a great deal of the restructuring but has it left the industry with a fundamentally different role, primarily that of leveraged buyer of aircraft and servicer of debt? Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213 Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Bush's Tax Plan Exposed by the Fed
Rebello, Joseph. 2001. The Richest 20 Percent of the Americans Did Most of the Spending Fueling Late '90s Boom. Wall Street Journal (5 May): p. BA 7. The consumer-spending spree that fueled the U.S. economic boom of the late 1990s was nearly entirely the doing of the richest 20% of Americans. The study, published by the Federal Reserve this week, found compelling evidence of a direct link between consumer spending and the movement of stock prices. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who proposed the study, has long believed in that link, but its validity has been questioned both inside and outside the central bank. The study could also cast doubt on the theory that rich people invest more when they acquire additional cash while poorer people simply spend more. U.S. Between 1992 and 2000, the study says, the net worth of all Americans grew faster than their incomes because of skyrocketing stock and property prices. The wealthiest 20% of Americans benefited the most: their net worth nearly doubled. But, far from saving more, those Americans spent prodigiously, reducing their savings rate by 10.6 percentage points to -2.1%. By contrast, poorer Americans generally increased their savings rate. The poorest 20%, for example, boosted their savings rate by 3.3 percentage points, more than any other group. We show that the groups of families whose portfolios were boosted the most by the exceptional stock market performance over the latter half of the 1990s are the same groups whose net saving flows fell the sharpest from 1995 through 2000, according to the study, which was written by Fed economists Dean Maki and Michael Palumbo. The authors say their paper is the first to document the dramatic behavioral response of wealthy Americans to the stock market, and to show that the response accounted for nearly all of the drop in the overall U.S. personal savings rate in the 1990s. Between 1992 and 2000, for example, overall U.S. savings fell by $200 billion. That is because the richest 20% of Americans reduced their overall savings by $240 billion while the remaining 80% increased savings by $40 billion. The savings rate of the richest Americans, the study said, implied that they increased their spending by an average of one percentage point for each of those eight years. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: US productivity falls
Jim Devine wrote: Keynesian tax cuts -- including Dumbya's -- affect consumer spending much more than (real) investment. That in turn could create the markets that businesses require if they want to invest in new plant and equipment. What's the theory behind this--ie tax cuts affect demand more than investment? In light of the Fed study that Michael just posted an article about, would not this have to do with the target of the cuts? Christian
reigniting the inequality debate
This article gives a nice summary of some of the issues in measuring inequality. Wade, Robert. 2001. Winners and Losers. The Economist (28 April). Global inequality is worsening as the distribution of income becomes more unequal. The answer to what is happening to world income distribution turns out to depend heavily on whether countries are weighted by population, and whether income in different countries is measured in PPP terms or by using actual exchange rates. If countries are treated equally (not weighted by population) and average income is measured in PPP terms, most studies find that world income distribution has become more unequal in the past few decades. If countries are weighted by their populations (so that China's change in average income counts for many times more than Uganda's), the world's PPP income distribution over recent decades shows little change. When incomes in different countries are compared using actual exchange rates, the evidence shows that world income distribution has become much more unequal over the past several decades, and that inequality accelerated during the 1980s, whether countries are treated equally or weighted by population. When incomes are compared using PPP calculations, the degree of inequality shrinks, and so does the rate of widening. Many assume that PPP measures are always superior. Certainly the exchange rate is a flawed measure of purchasing power: it fails to reflect the large amount of non-monetary exchange in developing countries, or money payment for services that are not subject to international competition. Also, exchange rates are much affected by capital flows and by monetary policy. But PPP measures have their drawbacks as well. Different methods of measuring purchasing-power parity, all plausible in themselves, yield different results. Comprehensive estimates of PPP incomes for developing countries, based on actual data on prices of comparable goods and services, go back only to the 1970s. This makes longer-run analysis difficult. Finally, incomes based on actual exchange rates may be a better measure than PPP of relative national power and national modernity--matters of more interest to sociologists and political scientists, no doubt, than to economists. In any event, the bulk of the evidence on trends in world income distribution runs against the claim that world income inequality has fallen sharply in the past half-century and still faster in the past quarter-century. None of the four approaches supports that idea. Two very recent studies based on new data challenge the finding that world PPP-income distribution weighted by countries' population shows little change over the past few decades. The new studies show, on the contrary, a rapid rise in inequality. These new studies differ from the others in being based solely on household income and expenditure surveys. The earlier ones either used average GDP, ignoring inequality within each country, or used indirect methods to estimate within-country inequality, including production surveys and revenue surveys, which typically miss important components of household incomes. Branko Milanovic at the World Bank assembled the database, using the Bank's formidable statistical organisation to obtain household survey data from just about all the Bank's members, covering 85% of the world's population, for the years 1988 and 1993. The result is probably the most reliable data set on world income distribution. Then Mr Milanovic computed the Gini coefficient for world income distribution, combining within-country inequality and between-country inequality, and measuring it in PPP terms. (The Gini coefficient is a commonly used measure of inequality: 0 signifies perfect equality, 100 means that one person holds all the income.) The results are startling. World inequality increased from a Gini coefficient of 62.5 in 1988 to 66.0 in 1993. This is a faster rate of increase of inequality than that experienced within the United States and Britain during the 1980s. By 1993 an American on the average income of the poorest 10% of the population was better off than two-thirds of the world's people. The other new study, by Yuri Dikhanov and Michael Ward, uses the same data set with a different methodology. It confirms that world income distribution became markedly more unequal between 1988 and 1993. Like the Milanovic study, it finds that the Gini coefficient increased by about 6%. It finds, further, that the share of world income going to the poorest 10% of the world's population fell by over a quarter, whereas the share of the richest 10% rose by 8%. The richest 10% pulled away from the median, while the poorest 10% fell away from the median, falling absolutely by a large amount. In short, we have to revise cell 4. World PPP income distribution with countries weighted by population (and China and India split into urban and rural) became much more unequal between 1988 and 1993 (see table 3). Why has global
Will Atlas wimp out?
[Ecological Economics, anyone?] Published on Tuesday, May 8, 2001 in the Guardian of London Evolution Is In Our Hands, Say Scientists Biologists warned to focus on the future, not the riddles of the past by James Meek Evolution scientists today warn of the spread of a global pest and weed environment, with animals and plants such as rats, cockroaches, nettles and thistles flourishing at the expense of more specialized wild organisms. The scientists say that, in the next 5 million years, short-term evolution will favor those species able to thrive in the margins of human settlement. They also warned that decisions made in the next few decades will determine the fate of 500,000 billion people, adding that efforts to protect species and wild habitats now will dictate the future course of evolution. In their startling wake-up call, the group of US, African and British researchers writing in the US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared the present mass extinction of species on Earth to past mass extinctions; then, it took roughly 5 million years for biological diversity to reassert itself. Suppose that the average number of people on Earth during the future recovery period is 2.5 billion, by contrast with the 6 billion today, said two of the scientists, Norman Myers of Oxford University and Andrew Knoll of Harvard. Under these conditions, the total number of people affected by what we do - or do not do - during the next few decades will be in the order of 500 trillion, 10,000 times more people than have existed until now. We are thus engaged in by far the largest 'decision' every taken by one human community on the unconsulted behalf of future societies. The scientists suggested that the world is entering a new period of geological time, the Homogecene, marked by all parts of the planet increasingly coming to resemble each other. David Woodruff, of the University of California at San Diego, said that between 3,000 and 30,000 of Earth's estimated 10 million species were disappearing each year. We live at a geological instant when global rates of extinction are at an all time high for the last 65 million years, and are increasing, he said. The biosphere will have fewer species and be subject to more weed, pest and disease outbreaks...the new [habitats] will be more easily disturbed and invaded, and will have an aesthetically unappealing dullness. None of this means that evolution will stop - just that it might go in an undesirable direction. Evolution is not over - set back perhaps - but by no means over, Dr Woodruff said. Scientists who studied evolution, he said, were obliged to abandon their preference for looking backwards and begin considering the future. Some of us advocate a shift from saving things, the products of evolution, to saving the underlying process, evolution itself, he said. Like it or not, evolutionary biologists have to recognize that the ultimate test of their science is not their ability to solve the riddles of the past and the origin of species, but rather to manage their viability and prevent their premature extinction - to manage the biosphere's future. DR Myers said that much more emphasis should be put on protecting plants and insects, to protect the evolutionary pool, rather than on preserving big beasts like tigers or elephants, which are too few to evolve. Environmentalists needed to think not just about saving the species we have, but about protecting the planet's ability to generate the species of the future. A lot of people would say, 'no, we don't want creepy crawlies', but if we lost half the mammals, we could get by, DR Myers said. If we lost half of all insects, with their pollinating function, our agriculture would be in trouble in just a few seasons. We live at a time when, in just the next two decades, we can save some very fundamental processes. If we do that, I think we will be thanked by hundreds of thousands of generations to come, and if we don't, we will be criticized for millions of years. Going Hamilton frogs One of the rarest frogs in the world, Hamilton frogs are small amphibians endemic to Stephens Island in the Cook Strait, New Zealand. First discovered in 1915, about 200 exist. Their future is threatened by stoat invasions Hawaiian fern Only one single Diplazium molokaiensis, a member of the wood fern family, has been found in Hawaii during the past two decades, and the species' extinction seems inevitable Alabama sturgeon Endangered after a reduction of at least 80% of the population in 10 years. Overfishing, and loss of habitat to blame Gone Dusky seaside sparrow Became extinct in 1987. It is widely considered to be the most recent, well-documented extinction of a vertebrate in the US. Disappearance due entirely to the loss of a natural habitat, the Everglades Golden Toad Discovered in Monteverde, Costa Rica, in 1963. Despite being protected, it was presumed extinct when by 1989 the one lone
Article on FTAA
Business Week May 2, 2001 Free Trade? Someone always has to pay From Seattle's riots to the Quebec protests, not even the thickest cloud of tear gas can obscure the truth that globalism hurts workers By B. Kite From Seattle's riots to the Quebec protests, not even the thickest cloud of tear gas can obscure the truth that globalism hurts workers To hear the punditry tell it, the protesters who turned out in Quebec a few weeks ago and, more recently, at the International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington on Apr. 28-29, are largely irrelevant to the debate over free trade. A serious force for change? Not this ragtag bunch. Among the experts, the protesters were seen as either unrealistic flat earthers (according to The New York Times's Thomas Friedman) or, at best, sadly misguided (those toward the left end of this narrow spectrum of opinion take the opportunity to trot out memories of their own ancient activism in the '60s). And you can feel the contempt of most national leaders. It's very easy to protest when you have a job, when you have food on the table, like those protesters have, said Mexican President Vicente Fox at the Quebec summit. Almost makes you wonder why the working poor in the maquiladoras didn't book a flight to Canada for the weekend. TV reporters, meanwhile, now know what motivates the globophobic crowd -- they come to smash things and party. This, if true, really ought to set off alarm bells, because it means America has raised a generation of masochists who view getting beaten and tear-gassed as just what they need to spice up their revels. WRONG ISSUES. Young people get a pretty rough deal from these aged experts. Not long ago, the same pundits were wringing their hands over the perceived apathy of a generation of slackers (cue, again, the '60s flashbacks). Now that a significant segment of modern youth is again demonstrating passionate concern about something -- well, the problem is they just keep picking the wrong issues. Protesting against human- rights abuses, job loss, environmental depredation, giving corporations the ability to rewrite laws? Those crazy kids will never learn. Much has been made of the so-called democracy clause in the latest Hemispheric Free Trade Zone proposal circulated in Quebec. But you have to wonder: If the document is, in fact, the celebration of freedom and democracy that the signatories claim, why did they feel the need to take such stringent and undemocratic steps as building a giant fence to keep protestors away from the event? Yes, I remember the violence at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. But what about keeping the trade document hidden from the public and most elected lawmakers (while making it available to 500 business leaders) until the very last minute? It isn't democratic, but it is strategic. Truth is, once people find out what's in these trade pacts, they tend not to like them very much. Clinton tried to do the same thing with the global Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), keeping it secret even from Congress. When a copy of that agreement leaked onto the Internet, Clinton, with the lovable roguishness that has endeared him to liberals across the country, pointed to the surreptitious posting as proof the document was available for public scrutiny. BACKLASH. The MAI went down in flames, and the same fate may await the FTAA. There's a backlash that has been building ever since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, because free trade can carry a high price for a lot of people. According to a report from economist Robert Scott of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA has eliminated some 766,000 job opportunities in the U.S. -- primarily for manufacturing workers without college educations. Contrary to what the American promoters of NAFTA promised U.S. workers, the agreement didn't result in an increased trade surplus with Mexico. Quite the reverse. As manufacturing jobs disappeared, some workers were downscaled to lower-paying, less-secure services jobs, Scott writes. Within manufacturing, the threat of employers to move production to Mexico proved a powerful weapon for undercutting workers' bargaining power. http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/nafta01 But that's just the bitter pill American workers will have to swallow to help Mexico's poor, right? (Amazing how open to socialist arguments industry leaders are, as long as it isn't their income being redistributed.) Well, according to the EPI study, Mexican wages have decreased 27% since NAFTA, while hourly income from labor is down 40%. FUEL FOR THE FIRE. And it isn't only factory workers who feel the impact. Corporations now have the legal means to try to rewrite troublesome laws. To take just one example, under NAFTA's Chapter 11 rules, Ethyl Corp. sued Canada for its ban on toxic gasoline additive MMT, claiming the ban expropriated its business by denying the company the
Re: reigniting the inequality debate
PPP? I probably have asked this before, but I doubt I'm alone in my inability to keep _all_ the abbreviations permanently in memory. Carrol
Economic Terrorism---Michel Chossudovsky
This is long, but interesting and no doubt debatable in places. Cheers, Ken Hanly In Yugoslavia, the IMF has become the steadfast financial bureaucracy of the Western military alliance, working hand in glove with NATO and the US State Department. ECONOMIC TERRORISM by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is known to bully developing countries, imposing strong doses of deadly economic medicine while saddling governments with spiraling external debts. In complicity with Washington, the IMF often meddles in cabinet appointments in debtor countries. In Korea in the turmoil of the 1997 Asian crisis, the Finance Minister --sacked for allegedly hindering negotiations with the IMF-- was replaced by a former IMF official.1 In Turkey, also in the wake of an IMF-style financial meltdown (March 2001), the Minister of Economy was substituted by a Vice-President of the World Bank. 2 But what has occurred in Yugoslavia sets a new record in the abusive practices of the Washington-based international financial bureaucracy: the arrest of a head of State of a debtor nation --demanded by its main creditors-- has become a pre-condition for the holding of loan negotiations. While the 31st of March 2001 was Washington's deadline date for the arrest of President Slobodan Milosevic by the DOS government, another ultimatum was set for transferring the former head of State to the jurisdiction of the NATO-sponsored Hague Tribunal (ICTY). In the words of Secretary of State Colin Powell: the US administration's support for an international donors' conference where Yugoslavia is hoping for up to $1 billion to help rebuild would depend on continued progress in full cooperation with the [Hague] tribunal.3 A State Department spokesman further clarified that the United States has the power to stop the conference from going ahead in the early summer if Washington is not satisfied.4 Meanwhile, the Hague Tribunal has threatened to take the matter before the UN Security Council, if President Milosevic is not rapidly transferred to its jurisdiction. 5 WITHHOLDING FINANCIAL AID Very timely. At the height of the Yugoslav presidential elections (September 2000), enabling legislation was rushed through the US House of Representatives. Washington had forewarned Kostunica --pursuant to an Act of Congress (HR 1064)-- that unless his government fully complied to US diktats, financial aid would be withheld. The IMF and the World Bank had also been duly notified by their largest shareholder, namely the US government, that: the US Secretary of the Treasury [would] withhold from payment of the United States share of any increase in the paid-in capital of [the IMF and World Bank] an amount equal to the amount of the loan or other assistance [to Yugoslavia].6 Meanwhile, Washington had demanded the setting up of an office of the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) in Belgrade as well as modifications to the legal statutes of Yugoslavia. The latter --to be rubber-stamped by the Parliament-- would place the ICTY Tribunal above the jurisdiction of Yugoslavia's national legal system. It would also allow the ICTY to order on NATO's behest, the arrest of thousands of people on trumped up charges. RELEASING KLA TERRORISTS US officials had also intimated that the prompt release of KLA freedom fighters serving jail terms in Serbia was to be regarded as an additional pre-condition for the granting of financial assistance: State Department officials later told UPI that among other steps the United States was looking for, were Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to begin returning Albanians captured during the 1999 Kosovo conflict to Kosovo and for an acceptance of the war crimes tribunal's jurisdiction inside Serbia where numerous indicted suspects still enjoy immunity.7 An Amnesty Law was rushed through the Yugoslav parliament barely a month before Washington's March 31st deadline.8 While the victims of the war are persecuted and indicted as war criminals, the Kostunica regime --on Washington's instructions-- has released Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) criminals (linked to the drug mafias) who committed atrocities in Kosovo. Meanwhile, these criminals have rejoined the ranks of the KLA, now involved in a new wave of terrorist assaults in southern Serbia and in neighboring Macedonia. The evidence amply confirms that these terrorist attacks are supported and financed by Washington.9 ECONOMIC NORMALIZATION Without further scrutiny, the Western media touts the holding of a donors' conference as a necessary step towards economic normalization and the reintegration of Yugoslavia into the family of nations. Public opinion is led to believe that the donors will help Yugoslavia rebuild. The term donor is a misnomer. In fact the donors' conference is a meeting of bankers and creditors mainly from the countries which bombed Yugoslavia. Their intent is to not only to collect money from
Re: Re: Re: US productivity falls
I wrote: Keynesian tax cuts -- including Dumbya's -- affect consumer spending much more than (real) investment. That in turn could create the markets that businesses require if they want to invest in new plant and equipment. Christian writes: What's the theory behind this--ie tax cuts affect demand more than investment? In light of the Fed study that Michael just posted an article about, would not this have to do with the target of the cuts? it's absolutely true that tax cuts that are targeted to spur business fixed investment will do so (though Bush's proposal doesn't include this). However, these types of tax cuts are notoriously weak, delivering little or no bang for the buck. The problem is that businesses typically treat corporate tax cuts and investment tax credits as rewards for something they'd do anyway. Other concerns like cash flow and expectations play a bigger role. This is more of an empirical generalization than a theory, but it seems to be true. Maybe others on pen-l could help... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: reigniting the inequality debate
At 06:50 PM 05/08/2001 -0500, you wrote: PPP? I probably have asked this before, but I doubt I'm alone in my inability to keep _all_ the abbreviations permanently in memory. PPP = purchasing power parity. It's a theory of how exchange rates are determined in the long run. The assumption is the law of one price, i.e., that the same product has the same price in all countries if there are no trade barriers (either political or natural or imposed by monopolistic firms). The textbook example is the Big Mac index. It should be that the price of a Big Mac is the same everywhere. Thus (the English pound price of the Big Mac) times (the number of dollars it takes to buy a pound) = (the dollar price of the BM). If we replace the BM by a basket of tradable goods, the exchange rate can be calculated as (the dollar price of the basket) divided by (the pound price of the basket). This calculated exchange rate typically does not equal the actual exchange rate. It's the purchasing power parity exchange rate -- toward which the actual exchange rate is supposed to gravitate, following the laws of supply and demand. (If the dollar can't buy very many pounds compared to the PPP rate (i.e., the pound is high), then fewer British goods will be purchased by dollar-holders, so that the pound will fall back toward the PPP rate.) The problem, of course, is that the PPP rate doesn't seem to be a center of gravity for actual fluctuations of exchange rates (or so saith Anwar Shaikh). Among other things, short-term fluctuations of GDP and interest rates seem to dominate exchange rate fluctuations. Further, there are all sorts of barriers to trade and non-traded goods. Some say that third world exchange rates are permanently out of equilibrium vis-a-vis PPP rates. Is there an alternative to PPP exchange rates which could be used to do the kind of calculations that the ECONOMIST article discusses? Wouldn't 10 year averages of actual exchange rates do? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine There are few Einsteins today. Maybe they all flunk the Graduate Record Exam or get poor grades. -- Temple Grandin, _Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports From My Life with Autism_.
Re: Economic Terrorism---Michel Chossudovsky
Strange bedfellows dept. Chossudovsky and Jared Isreal are cited in the newsbriefs section of the latest issue of The New American, the magazine of the far right mainstay in the USA, the John Birch Society. Two pgs. before, Gerhard Schroeder is identified as a Marxist (!) but, not Chossudovsky. Interesting ravings from a fellow participant, Srjda Trifkovic, at this Canadian anti-NATO conference. http://www.balkanpeace.org/events/ Srjda invokes The Illuminati. I hope Michel, at least rolled his eyes at that. And Michael Mandel too. (Lefty is he not? Or am I mistaking him for David Mandel?) Thomas Fleming, paleo-con from Chronicles also addressed the gathering, and Bob Djurdjevic of Truth In Media website, a racist Buchananite. http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/reports/muttamericabelgrade.htm http://www.glypx.com/balkanwitness/sells2.htm Michaeel Pugliese
