Re: Deflation?
Doug: H, I think it's worth testing the hypothesis that when PEN-L gets a thread going on economic vulnerability, the economy is about to accelerate. This is a good real-time test. Well! It is not just PEN-L. Bill Gross thinks so too. Sabri Fund chief issues global warning By DEBORAH BREWSTER Financial Times,June 17, 2004 Thursday The outlook for the global economy is the most uncertain for 20 or 30 years, according to Bill Gross, the chief investment officer of Pimco, the world's biggest bond fund manager. Too much debt, geopolitical risk and several bubbles have created a very unstable environment which can turn any minute. More than any point in the past 20 or 30 years, there's potential for a reversal, he told the Financial Times. We have become a levered global economy, specifically in Japan and the US. With all this consumer debt, business debt, government debt, smaller movements in interest rates have a magnified effect ...a small movement can tip the boat. Pimco manages Dollars 400bn (Pounds 220bn) in bonds, about a third of which is outside the US. Mr Gross is one of the few bond managers whose views can move the market. He said there were bubbles in commodities, the UK housing market and the US currency. The US dollar is being supported by the kindness of strangers - Japan and China. It should be 20 per cent lower than it is. Japan and China will change their stance, we don't know when, but we know they will. The dollar isn't overvalued against the euro, but it is against Asian currencies. The threat of economic instability, he said, stemmed in part from the advent of financial alchemy - in particular, the growing use of hedge funds. Even banks are employing the 'carry' trade - borrowing short and lending long. They're doing things they haven't done before. There's lots of risk in the economy now compared with even five years ago. Mr Gross supported calls for hedge funds to be regulated, saying they were basically unregulated banks. They are amazingly similar in the leverage they use, and have the same structure, borrowing at 1 per cent and lending or investing longer, and they take it to an extreme because they go into stocks, commodities, real estate. If banks are regulated, hedge funds should be, he said. Pimco's plan was to stay ahead of reflation by keeping money out of the US and in countries such as the UK and Germany. The highest level ever of Pimco's money was invested outside the US, in part because of growth in the fund's non-US fund management business. The proportion would be higher, Mr Gross said, except that many US clients had a ceiling on how much they could invest abroad.
Re: Deflation?
By the looks of it, Roach is on our side too but of course there is nothing new about this. Apparently, we are all waiting for Godot but I am sure of that he will show up one day. If only I knew when and whether I would be around to meet him. Sabri + Heading for the Exits Stephen Roach (New York) Global Economic Forum, June 18, 2004 First, it was the Reserve Bank of Australia. Then, the Bank of England. And now, it's the Swiss National Bank. One by one, central banks around the world are joining the rush to the exit doors. So far, the Big Three - the Federal Reserve, the ECB, and the Bank of Japan - have yet to embark on the road to policy normalization. But that day is coming - and the sooner the better, in my view. Now, more than ever, the global economy and world financial markets need to be weaned from the steroids of extraordinary monetary stimulus. Coming from me, of course, that sounds like a broken record. Earlier this year, I urged the Fed to turn aggressive in normalizing its policy stance by moving the federal funds rate in one step from 1% to 3% (see An Open Letter to Alan Greenspan published in the March 1, 2004, issue of Newsweek International). While my suggestion was not exactly well received at the time, the markets are now rife with talk of the need for a bold policy adjustment. Even the Fed is waffling on this point. One minute, senior Fed officials cling to the incrementalism of a measured tightening. The next minute, they go out of their way to distance themselves from such a mechanistic approach. Little wonder, fixed income markets go back and forth in discounting the outcome of the upcoming FOMC meeting on June 29-30. In the heat of debate, it's easy to fixate on the high-frequency economic statistics that often seem so decisive in shaping the tactical outcome. In doing so, however, we can lose sight of the big-picture issues that matter most. That point was hammered home to me recently by Hans Tietmeyer, former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank and a guest speaker at our mid-June European investment conference. Like America's Paul Volcker, Tietmeyer was a disciplined, tough-minded, and independent central banker. Under his leadership in the 1990s, the Bundesbank became one of the most credible central banks in the world. Tietmeyer was the personification of that credibility. And in listening to him last week, I couldn't help but sense his mounting concern over the current state of central banking. As I stressed in my summary of our Eden Roc conference, Hans Tietmeyer was clearly uncomfortable over the current degree of monetary stimulus that still exists in today's increasingly robust economic climate (see my June 14 essay in the Global Economic Forum, Escape Act). While he concurs that the emergency of last year's deflation scare may well have justified extraordinary monetary accommodation, he was equally quick to suggest that the excess stimulus must be removed promptly once the emergency is over. With world GDP growth having surged at a 5-5.5% annual rate over the past three quarters and core inflation rates having moved up significantly from their lows, the emergency has clearly passed. In Teitmeyer's view, a failure to remove excess monetary stimulus under these conditions underscores the risks of inflation, financial instability, and speculative trading activity in financial markets (i.e., the carry trade). There was one key point that stuck in my mind as I pondered the Tietmeyer message - his emphasis on a much broader concept of inflationary risks than one normally hears. In his view, inflationary pressures in both the real economy and asset markets must be taken into consideration. That's especially true when nominal interest rates converge on the zero-boundary, as they are doing at present. The transmission mechanism of a blunt policy instrument is very different at low interest rates than it is when rates are higher. It may well be that the excess liquidity of extraordinary stimulus doesn't impact inflation in the real economy; limited pricing leverage in the face of serious global competition could keep CPI-based inflation at bay for some time to come. If that's the case, then it seems perfectly reasonable to presume that the impacts of policy stimulus would then spill over into asset markets. And that, of course, is where the carry trade comes into play - the yield-curve arbitrage that creates an artificial bid for long-duration assets such as stocks, bonds, or property. On this key point, Tietmeyer is in strong agreement with Ottmar Issing of the ECB, who has argued that while asset markets should not be targeted by central banks, benign neglect is not the appropriate answer either (see Issing's February 18, 2004, editorial feature in the Wall Street Journal, Money and Credit). Tietmeyer underscored the related point that central banks should not contribute to market euphoria by talking up the fundamentals
Re: Putin
-Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Because I personally know people who were ethnically cleansed? What do you know, it is even mentioned on your vuddy Vadim Stoltz's website: Vladimir Bilenkin Imperialist Left and the War in Chechnya: Reflections on One Campaign Dedicated to Vladimir Burtsev, the Sherlock Holmes of theRevolution, a man who unmasked Evno Azef I Will ISWoR, a London-based organization of International Solidarity with Workers of Russia, condemn the murder of civilians--most of whom are ethnic Russian working class retirees--by the chlorine and ammonia released by Islamic fascists in Grozny? That was the question I asked myself this morning when the news of this crime appeared in Russian and Western press. Or will they continue to be one big happy family with the governing faction of the British ruling class, its imperialist agencies, its NGOs, and its anti-Communist left? To put it differently, will they remain on the side of LIBERAL IMPERIALISM of Clinton and Blair against the CONSERVATIVE IMPERIALISM of John Maples or will they be able to disengage themselves from any kind of imperialism? So far the answer is negative. It's time to speak up. I cannot be silent. Neither the genocide of ethnic Russians in Chechnya, in 1994-1999, nor the enslavement of and slave trade in thousands of working class people by Islamic fascists, nor their murderous attack on Dagestan, as the result of which the entire ethnic group (the Avars) was driven on the brink of extinction, nor the repeated pleas of Maskhadov-Basaev clique for NATO to attack Russian cities (mostly populated by working class people), nor dynamiting the working class apartment buildings in Piatigorsk, Bujnaksk, Moscow, and Volgograd--none of these crimes elicited as little as a token expression of protest from ISWoR.. http://left.ru/burtsev/iswor/reflections.html Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:38:34 -0400 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Putin Chris Doss wrote: they could leave on foot, like the 35,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians and Greeks did who were ethnically cleansed in the early 90s. Michael Perelman referred to Chris Doss's expertise on the region. Maybe he can then substantiate the above comment since Lexis-Nexis could not provide a single article that described such people being driven out of Chechnya. In fact, a search on ethnic cleansing and Chechnya for the period 1990-1990 could only turn up the following:
Re: Putin
Separatism, Terrorism, and Human Rights in the Caucasus To begin with, in 1996, Russia granted de facto full state independence to Chechnya, withdrawing militia units and troops and dismantling all federal structures. However, those steps failed to bring real independence to Chechnya because the power vacuum was immediately filled by political extremists, soldiers of fortune, and fanatics from Afghanistan, the Middle East, and other regions. Ethnic cleansing was unleashed. According to the last census held in 1989, the Republic s population stood at 1,270,000 people, including 336,000 ethnic Russians. But by the time the counter-terrorist operation was undertaken in the fall 1999, there were only 20,000 Russians left in Chechnya, while the Chechen population did not exceed 500,000 people out of a total of one million Chechens living in Russia. With the rise of the Dudayev Maskhadov regime, executions at town squares, decapitations, and attempts to restore law and order on the basis of shariah perturbed both the population of the neighboring Republics and the Chechen people themselves. There is evidence that, in almost eight years of Dudayev Maskhadov rule, more than 21,000 Russian civilians were murdered and over 46,000 people were forced into slave labor. In 1995 99, as many as 2000 hostages were deported to Chechnya from other Russian regions. http://www.trilateral.org/annmtgs/trialog/trlgtxts/t55/yas.htm -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:38:34 -0400 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Putin Chris Doss wrote: they could leave on foot, like the 35,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians and Greeks did who were ethnically cleansed in the early 90s. Michael Perelman referred to Chris Doss's expertise on the region. Maybe he can then substantiate the above comment since Lexis-Nexis could not provide a single article that described such people being driven out of Chechnya. In fact, a search on ethnic cleansing and Chechnya for the period 1990-1990 could only turn up the following: The Toronto Star October 17, 1993, Sunday, SUNDAY SECOND EDITION Moscow crackdown fans flames of racism BYLINE: By Olivia Ward Toronto Star DATELINE: MOSCOW MOSCOW - In 1945 I was here in Moscow defending the city against the Germans, says Valli Akhperiok. Now I'm an old man the Russians are beating me and driving me out of town. Akhperiok, 71, was standing beside his market stall in southwest Moscow on what might have been an ideal mild fall shopping day. But his shelves were half-empty, and regular customers stopping by for cucumbers and peppers got a regretful shake of the head. Today, after 50 years in Moscow, Akhperiok is returning to his homeland of Azerbaijan, the victim of what he calls Russian ethnic cleansing. Since a state of emergency was imposed during the bloody civil strife earlier this month, Moscow's mayor, police and government officials have seized the opportunity to declare war on criminal elements they identify with the dark-skinned people of the Caucasian republics and Central Asia. But the victims, and some human rights activists, claim the purge is more than that. They call it a hamfisted attempt to rid the overcrowded city of people often resented for their commercial success and accused, rightly or wrongly, of boosting inflation by charging punitive prices for their produce. They blame the authorities for barbaric actions that are deliberately igniting the smoldering ashes of racism, whose presence was denied during the decades of Soviet rule. All over Moscow during the past week the markets have been dramatically transformed by a revival of rules that allow non-residents to be deported as in the old Soviet days, and give the police the green light to raid homes, stop and search cars, turn back travellers at airports and rail stations, make arbitrary arrests, and detain or beat suspects. On Friday, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that Moscow was to be put under a tightened full-scale visa regime that would make the capital, in effect, a closed city. Luzhkov would also like to create a cordon sanitaire around the entire region of Moscow's neighboring towns to bar people without permits. And he thanked vigilante groups and democratically minded young people who had answered a call to denounce neighbors living here illegally. Scenes that are a throwback to Stalinist times are now repeated daily in the capital: Caucasians dragged out of cars and taken to jail, refugees rounded up and deported, families shipped back to their native republics under guard, or with passports confiscated by rail officials. Official and unofficial figures vary, but an estimated 6,000 people have been deported in the past week and more than 10,000 are said to have left voluntarily. Spokespersons at Caucasian embassies say the numbers may be dramatically higher. Meanwhile, at the
Re: Sinclair Lewis quote
:-) Has someone already noted that Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis are not the same person? Sinclair wrote a whole mass of pamphlets besides his novels. This could come from almost anyplace. Carrol Michael Perelman wrote: Michael, I would be that C. Cox would know, but it sounds like it belongs in the Brass Check. On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 04:11:17AM -0400, Michael Pollak wrote: [Got it from A.W.A.D, so don't know the exact source] It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. -Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878-1968) Michael -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chris Doss's sources
Yesterday, Chris Doss told PEN-L that there was ethnic cleansing in Chechnya, including Jews. Since demagogic charges of anti-Semitism has surfaced to such an extreme degree in recent years, I was particularly interested to see if there was hard evidence of this. So, instead of producing articles from respected sources, he cites 2 experts. One is Vladimir Bilenkin, a professional sectarian who has been living in the USA during the entire time under question and who helped to destroy the original Marxism list run by the Spoons Collective with his partner Bob Malecki. If he ever wrote anything worth taking seriously, I am not aware of it. The other is Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an adviser to Putin. You might as well cite Condoleeza Rice on Iraq. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Chris Doss's sources
Lou Chris. I am leaving now. Please. Stop getter personal. I need to get to Pittsburgh to see me father in the hospital. I don't want to have to worry about the list. Thanks. On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 09:19:42AM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Yesterday, Chris Doss told PEN-L that there was ethnic cleansing in Chechnya, including Jews. Since demagogic charges of anti-Semitism has surfaced to such an extreme degree in recent years, I was particularly interested to see if there was hard evidence of this. So, instead of producing articles from respected sources, he cites 2 experts. One is Vladimir Bilenkin, a professional sectarian who has been living in the USA during the entire time under question and who helped to destroy the original Marxism list run by the Spoons Collective with his partner Bob Malecki. If he ever wrote anything worth taking seriously, I am not aware of it. The other is Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an adviser to Putin. You might as well cite Condoleeza Rice on Iraq. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Trent Lott interview (hilarious)
NY Times Magazine, June 20, 2004 QUESTIONS FOR TRENT LOTT All's Fair Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON Q: Senator Lott, many people associate you not only with conservative politics but also with your curious hair. It never moves, even in the wind. Is it real? A: No. 1, it is not a toupee. No. 2, it is generally straight and not inclined to run all over the place. Q: I assume you spray it to get that prom look. A: It's just a hair spray you buy at the drugstore. I am a neat guy. What is amazing to me is that people are fixated on my hair when you look at all the bad hairdos in the U.S. Senate. Q: As a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, what do you think of the C.I.A.? A: I went on the intelligence committee thinking that I would be a defender of the C.I.A. But within relatively short order, I became very critical. The running joke is that if you get on Intelligence, you have no intelligence. Q: What can be done to make the C.I.A. more effective? A: One problem is that we don't have sufficient linguists in the C.I.A . You've got to have people who at least speak the language. There is no substitute for a pair of eyes in Mosul. Q: What languages do you speak? A: I speak English with a Southern accent. Q: Speaking of Mosul, how do you think the war in Iraq is going? A: There are terrorists in Iraq who have been drawn into that part of the world. Every day we eliminate some of them; that's one more that won't be coming here. Q: What do you mean by eliminate them? Where are the terrorists and insurgents going to go? A: Well, they are going to be killed. When they attack our troops, 20 or 30 or 40 at a time are being eliminated. Q: We can't kill everyone who hates America! A: We can kill a lot of them, particularly when they try to kill us. Q: And you think that will lead to democracy in Iraq? A: It's kind of like the song about New York. If it can succeed in Iraq, it can succeed anywhere. Q: You recently created a stir when you defended the interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib. A: Most of the people in Mississippi came up to me and said: ''Thank Goodness. America comes first.'' Interrogation is not a Sunday-school class. You don't get information that will save American lives by withholding pancakes. Q: But unleashing killer dogs on naked Iraqis is not the same as withholding pancakes. A: I was amazed that people reacted like that. Did the dogs bite them? Did the dogs assault them? How are you going to get people to give information that will lead to the saving of lives? Q: Looking back on your career, did you find it painful to resign as Senate majority leader last year after you made a pro-segregation, pro-Strom Thurmond comment? A: I don't focus on that. I made a mistake and did what I had to do. I never really had a problem in that area, and always try to be helpful to the minorities in my state. Q: You worked closely with President Reagan. Do you think his funeral has been overblown? A: I think Ronald Reagan was the best president of the last century. Q: Some members of Congress would like to see Alexander Hamilton pushed off the $10 bill and Reagan's face installed in his place. A: I am an advocate of having a gold dollar with Reagan's picture on it, and calling it the Ronnie. The Canadians have the Loonie, and we can have the Ronnie. Q: By the way, happy Father's Day. What do you think it takes to be a good father? A: Time. And love. Q: How do you feel about gay men adopting and raising children? A: It's so important that children have parents or family that love them. There are a lot of adopted children who have loving parents, and it comes in different ways with different people in different states. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Chris Doss's sources
Don't worry, Mike, I'll handle it for you. I'm really good at this. - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 6:43 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Chris Doss's sources Lou Chris. I am leaving now. Please. Stop getter personal. I need to get to Pittsburgh to see me father in the hospital. I don't want to have to worry about the list. Thanks. On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 09:19:42AM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Yesterday, Chris Doss told PEN-L that there was ethnic cleansing in Chechnya, including Jews. Since demagogic charges of anti-Semitism has surfaced to such an extreme degree in recent years, I was particularly interested to see if there was hard evidence of this. So, instead of producing articles from respected sources, he cites 2 experts. One is Vladimir Bilenkin, a professional sectarian who has been living in the USA during the entire time under question and who helped to destroy the original Marxism list run by the Spoons Collective with his partner Bob Malecki. If he ever wrote anything worth taking seriously, I am not aware of it. The other is Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an adviser to Putin. You might as well cite Condoleeza Rice on Iraq. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Chris Doss's sources
Far be it from me to insist on niceties in arguments, but Mr. Proyect is using a false analogy regarding Yastrazhembsky and Rice: Rice is wrong NOT SIMPLY because she is the Bush's NSA, but because she is demonstrably a liar, distorting fact in service of class interest. So while Yastrazhembsky's position in the Russian government obviously speaks to his lack of uninterest, it still must be demonstrated that he is a liar, distorting fact in the service of his class interest. I'm sure, with the vast resources at his command, Mr. Proyect will be able to provide such demonstration. It comes down to asking Yaz what you ask Condee-- where's the evidence? Or absent that, detailing the class interest that requires the promulgation of a false ideology to obscure and cover its real designs. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 6:19 AM Subject: [PEN-L] Chris Doss's sources Yesterday, Chris Doss told PEN-L that there was ethnic cleansing in Chechnya, including Jews. Since demagogic charges of anti-Semitism has surfaced to such an extreme degree in recent years, I was particularly interested to see if there was hard evidence of this. So, instead of producing articles from respected sources, he cites 2 experts. One is Vladimir Bilenkin, a professional sectarian who has been living in the USA during the entire time under question and who helped to destroy the original Marxism list run by the Spoons Collective with his partner Bob Malecki. If he ever wrote anything worth taking seriously, I am not aware of it. The other is Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an adviser to Putin. You might as well cite Condoleeza Rice on Iraq. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Putin
Sigh. Louis, I actually _know_ people who were ethnically cleansed from Chechnya. I used to work with two sisters who were gangraped, had their apartment seized, and had to leave Chechnya on foot in 1992. I am really tired of this conversation. Take it up with Vadim Stolts, who happens to have this on his website, which you apparently have never bothered to read: U.S., Hands Off The Caucasus! No War For Oil! Stop The US/ NATO War Against Russia! This page contains materials exposing the activities of Imperialist Left in relation to the Russian Federation http://left.ru/burtsev/iswor/index.html Vladimir Bilenkin Imperialist Left and the War in Chechnya: Reflections on One Campaign Dedicated to Vladimir Burtsev, the Sherlock Holmes of theRevolution, a man who unmasked Evno Azef I Will ISWoR, a London-based organization of International Solidarity with Workers of Russia, condemn the murder of civilians--most of whom are ethnic Russian working class retirees--by the chlorine and ammonia released by Islamic fascists in Grozny? That was the question I asked myself this morning when the news of this crime appeared in Russian and Western press. Or will they continue to be one big happy family with the governing faction of the British ruling class, its imperialist agencies, its NGOs, and its anti-Communist left? To put it differently, will they remain on the side of LIBERAL IMPERIALISM of Clinton and Blair against the CONSERVATIVE IMPERIALISM of John Maples or will they be able to disengage themselves from any kind of imperialism? So far the answer is negative. It's time to speak up. I cannot be silent. Neither the genocide of ethnic Russians in Chechnya, in 1994-1999, nor the enslavement of and slave trade in thousands of working class people by Islamic fascists, nor their murderous attack on Dagestan, as the result of which the entire ethnic group (the Avars) was driven on the brink of extinction, nor the repeated pleas of Maskhadov-Basaev clique for NATO to attack Russian cities (mostly populated by working class people), nor dynamiting the working class apartment buildings in Piatigorsk, Bujnaksk, Moscow, and Volgograd--none of these crimes elicited as little as a token expression of protest from ISWoR.. http://left.ru/burtsev/iswor/reflections.html
Re: Chris Doss's sources
sartesian wrote: I'm sure, with the vast resources at his command, Mr. Proyect will be able to provide such demonstration. I thought we already established that the White House and the Kremlin are past masters at lying. === Russia Gave U.S. Intel on Iraq, Putin Says THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 19, 2004 ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday his government warned Washington that Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks in the United States and its interests abroad -- an assertion that appears to bolster President Bush's contention that Iraq was a threat. Putin emphasized that the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the U.S.-led war last year, but his statement was the second this month in which he has offered at least some support for Bush on Iraq. ``After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services ... received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests,'' Putin said. ``Despite that information ... Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged,'' he said in the Kazakh capital, Astana, after regional economic and security summits. He said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime had actually been behind any terrorist acts. ``It's one thing to have information that Saddam's regime is preparing terrorist attacks, (but) we didn't have information that it was involved in any known terrorist attacks,'' he said. Putin didn't elaborate on any details of the alleged plots or mention whether they were tied to al-Qaida. He said Bush had personally thanked one of the leaders of Russia's intelligence agencies for the information but that he couldn't comment on how critical it was in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. In Washington, a U.S. official said Putin's information did not add to what the United States already knew about Saddam's intentions. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Putin's tip didn't give a time or place for a possible attack. Bush alleged Thursday that Saddam had ``numerous contacts'' with al-Qaida and said Iraqi agents had met with the terror network's leader, Osama bin Laden, in Sudan. Saddam ``was a threat because he had terrorist connections -- not only al-Qaida connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations,'' Bush said. However, a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported this week that while there were contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq, they did not appear to have produced ``a collaborative relationship.'' Also Thursday, a top Russian diplomat called for international inspectors to resolve conclusively the question of whether Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction. ``This problem must be resolved ... because to a great extent it became the pretext for the start of the war against Iraq,'' the Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov as saying. He said such a finding would allow the U.N. Security Council to ``finally close the dossier on Iraqi weapons.'' In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, Putin sharply rebuked the United States for going to war despite opposition within the U.N. Security Council and said the threat posed to international security by the war was greater than that posed by Saddam. But Putin's relationship with Bush is warm by the accounts of both leaders, and last week he said he has no patience for those who criticize Bush on Iraq. ``I don't pay attention to such publications,'' Putin said of media criticism of Bush at the end of the Group of Eight summit in the United States, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Putin said opponents who criticize Bush on Iraq ``don't have any kind of moral right. ... They conducted exactly the same kind of policy in Yugoslavia.'' Russia vehemently opposed the NATO bombing attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999, which the United States pushed for under President Clinton. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Putin
You clearly didn't look very hard. I found this using google in about 45 seconds: Consequently, while ethnic cleansing affects people what is really at stake is territory; the primary consideration behind moving people is to secure territory defined in ethnic terms. In other words, the quest for territory inhabited only by one's own people is arguably the modus operandi of the ethnic cleansing process; the goal, then, is the ethnically homogeneous or pure (cleansed of minority ethnic groups) nation-state. Ethnic cleansing is therefore an instrument of nation-state creation. Indeed, such population movements are often carried out to bolster claims for international boundary changes or to consolidate control over disputed frontier areas. The cleansing of Croats from Serbian occupied Krajina, the cleansing of Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, and the cleansing of Russians from Chechnya are just a few post-Cold War examples of ethnic cleansing's role in the quest for national self-determination. http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_states/2000/papers/jacksonpreece.html
Re: Putin
Chris Doss wrote: Sigh. Louis, I actually _know_ people who were ethnically cleansed from Chechnya. Chris, I am looking for *independent* documentation. For example, I have written many articles making the case that the Kosovars were *the first* to institute ethnic cleansing against Serbs. I backed up my assertions with sources like Chris Hedges, a highly respected NY Times reporter. If you can't supply such documentation, I can understand why. It does not exist. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Putin
Oddly, I managed to find this using google in about 45 seconds: Consequently, while ethnic cleansing affects people what is really at stake is territory; the primary consideration behind moving people is to secure territory defined in ethnic terms. In other words, the quest for territory inhabited only by one's own people is arguably the modus operandi of the ethnic cleansing process; the goal, then, is the ethnically homogeneous or pure (cleansed of minority ethnic groups) nation-state. Ethnic cleansing is therefore an instrument of nation-state creation. Indeed, such population movements are often carried out to bolster claims for international boundary changes or to consolidate control over disputed frontier areas. The cleansing of Croats from Serbian occupied Krajina, the cleansing of Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, and the cleansing of Russians from Chechnya are just a few post-Cold War examples of ethnic cleansing's role in the quest for national self-determination. http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_states/2000/papers/jacksonpreece.html
Re: Putin
mail.ru is behaving spastically, so I resubbed using yahoo. Sigh. Louis, I personally know people who were ethnically cleansed from Chechnya. They were raped, had their apartment confiscated, and left Chechnya on foot. It took me all of 45 seconds on google to find a reference to the very well-known and well-documented phenomenon of ethnic cleansing in Chechnya here: Consequently, while ethnic cleansing affects people what is really at stake is territory; the primary consideration behind moving people is to secure territory defined in ethnic terms. In other words, the quest for territory inhabited only by one's own people is arguably the modus operandi of the ethnic cleansing process; the goal, then, is the ethnically homogeneous or pure (cleansed of minority ethnic groups) nation-state. Ethnic cleansing is therefore an instrument of nation-state creation. Indeed, such population movements are often carried out to bolster claims for international boundary changes or to consolidate control over disputed frontier areas. The cleansing of Croats from Serbian occupied Krajina, the cleansing of Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh, and the cleansing of Russians from Chechnya are just a few post-Cold War examples of ethnic cleansing's role in the quest for national self-determination. http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_states/2000/papers/jacksonpreece.html I am really tired of "conversations" involving an interlocutor who doesn't know what he or she is talking about, and will not admit it. So, you can take it up with Vadim Stolts, who happens to have the following on his website: Neither the genocide of ethnic Russians in Chechnya, in 1994-1999, nor the enslavement of and slave trade in thousands of working class people by Islamic fascists, nor their murderous attack on Dagestan, as the result of which the entire ethnic group (the Avars) was driven on the brink of extinction, nor the repeated pleas of Maskhadov-Basaev clique for NATO to attack Russian cities (mostly populated by working class people), nor dynamiting the working class apartment buildings in Piatigorsk, Bujnaksk, Moscow, and Volgograd--none of these crimes elicited as little as a token _expression_ of protest from ISWoR. http://left.ru/burtsev/iswor/reflections.html Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
Re: Sinclair Lewis quote
on the other hand, Sinclair Lewis (no relation to Upton) had a good quote. Paraphrasing, he said that when fascism came to the US, it would be called Americanism. jd -Original Message- From: Carrol Cox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sun 6/20/2004 4:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sinclair Lewis quote :-) Has someone already noted that Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis are not the same person? Sinclair wrote a whole mass of pamphlets besides his novels. This could come from almost anyplace. Carrol Michael Perelman wrote: Michael, I would be that C. Cox would know, but it sounds like it belongs in the Brass Check. On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 04:11:17AM -0400, Michael Pollak wrote: [Got it from A.W.A.D, so don't know the exact source] It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. -Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878-1968) Michael -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Chris Doss's sources
So while Yastrazhembsky's position in the Russian government obviously speaks to his lack of uninterest, it still must be demonstrated that he is a liar, distorting fact in the service of his class interest. -- Behold the use of logic! :)
Re: Putin
I just sent some. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 11:01:02 -0400 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Putin Chris Doss wrote: Sigh. Louis, I actually _know_ people who were ethnically cleansed from Chechnya. Chris, I am looking for *independent* documentation. For example, I have written many articles making the case that the Kosovars were *the first* to institute ethnic cleansing against Serbs. I backed up my assertions with sources like Chris Hedges, a highly respected NY Times reporter. If you can't supply such documentation, I can understand why. It does not exist. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Putin
Chris Doss cited an article that contained the phrase the cleansing of Russians from Chechnya are just a few post-Cold War examples You still don't seem to get it. This fellow alludes to ethnic cleansing but he leaves out who, where, what, when and why. Here is the sort of thing I am looking for. When you find it, get back to us. I couldn't find a *single* article in Lexis-Nexis that alleged that Russians were ethnically cleansed in Chechnya. === The New York Times November 1, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1; In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times BELGRADE, Yugoslavia Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of ''civil war'' in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II. The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants. A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided. Vicious Insults Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have exchanged vicious insults. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls. Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and Croats. Radicals' Goals The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview, is an ''ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself.'' That includes large chunks of the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia. Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the capital of neighboring Albania. There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana is giving them material assistance. The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo, a high plateau ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The rest are Serbians and Montenegrins. Worst Strife in Years As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981 - an ''ethnically pure'' Albanian region, a ''Republic of Kosovo' ' in all but name. The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to ''the worst in the last seven years.'' Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and religions as Yugoslavia's and involves economic development, law, politics, families and flags. As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are today. Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia's problems with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000. ''We've already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians,'' said a member of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region. Attacks on Slavs Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe. In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the Communist Party. As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police officers to the Kosovo
Whoops!
Sorry for the redundancy, all... my server is doing weird things.
Re: Chris Doss's sources
I hope he's OK. -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 06:43:33 -0700 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Chris Doss's sources Lou Chris. I am leaving now. Please. Stop getter personal. I need to get to Pittsburgh to see me father in the hospital. I don't want to have to worry about the list. Thanks. On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 09:19:42AM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Yesterday, Chris Doss told PEN-L that there was ethnic cleansing in Chechnya, including Jews. Since demagogic charges of anti-Semitism has surfaced to such an extreme degree in recent years, I was particularly interested to see if there was hard evidence of this. So, instead of producing articles from respected sources, he cites 2 experts. One is Vladimir Bilenkin, a professional sectarian who has been living in the USA during the entire time under question and who helped to destroy the original Marxism list run by the Spoons Collective with his partner Bob Malecki. If he ever wrote anything worth taking seriously, I am not aware of it. The other is Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an adviser to Putin. You might as well cite Condoleeza Rice on Iraq. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Kerry, that weight.
if nothing else, Kerry should say stuff like if elected, I will guarantee that the US has _no_ permanent bases in Iraq if the Iraqis don't want them... Kerry: a Lighter Shade of Bush By William M. Arkin William M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] June 20, 2004/L.A. TIMES Sunday opinion section, page 1. SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry got a boost last week when 27 retired U.S. diplomats, admirals and four-star generals, including a number of prominent Republican appointees from former Bush and Reagan administrations, publicly urged Americans to vote President Bush out of office. They did not explicitly endorse Kerry, but the old warriors and insiders find themselves far more comfortable with the Massachusetts senator than with Bush when it comes to their favorite subject. Not only has Kerry firmly surrounded himself with Clinton standard-bearers on foreign policy and defense, but he has espoused his own brand of warmongering. I would love nothing better than to see Bush out of office, but Kerry is a gloomy alternative. Worse yet, in the short term, his me too, only better approach to the war on terrorism could actually serve to make the United States less safe. Kerry's defense plans might be a slam-dunk for the atherosclerotic set in the national security community, but here is the alternative that the senator offers to Democrats and people of liberal values in November: no plan to withdraw from Iraq, not even the kind of secret plan the late President Nixon offered on Vietnam, and no change in Afghanistan; continuation of Bush's preemption policy; a larger military with many more special operations units, plus accelerated spending on transformation, which in today's defense jargon means creation of greater capability to intervene around the world on short notice; a new domestic intelligence agency and a vastly beefed-up homeland security program. Kerry's defense advisors see much of this as innocuous rhetoric to protect the Democratic candidate's flanks from traditional conservative accusations of being soft on national security. At the same time, it represents a calculated strategy to keep your head low and win. In his stump speeches, Kerry stresses a spirited dose of alliances, the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and a return to what he calls an America that listens and leads again. He roundly criticizes the Bush administration on Iraq, Afghanistan and homeland security. He promises as commander in chief that he will never ask the troops to fight a war without a plan to win the peace. All that is to the good. Yet when Kerry describes the contemporary world, and the challenges that the U.S. faces, he sounds just like the president, the vice president and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Terrorism, he says, present[s] the central national security challenge of our generation. Preventing terrorists from gaining weapons of mass murder is his No. 1 security goal, and Kerry says he would strike first if any attack appears imminent. The senator promises to use military force to protect American interests anywhere in the world, whenever necessary. On May 27 in Seattle, he promised to take the fight to the enemy on every continent (I guess that probably doesn't include Antarctica). Beyond rhetoric, Kerry proposes to add 40,000 troops to the Army and to double the Special Forces capability to fight the war on terror, presumably jumping from the current 48,000 to 96,000. On homeland security, there isn't a constituency that Kerry doesn't pander to. National Guard, local government, police, firefighters, public health services, even AmeriCorps the modest domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps all should be beefed up, he says, to protect America. He even proposes a new community defense service of homeland security wardens la civil defense in the Cold War, which would surely be the looniest club that ever existed. Even his serious proposals are problematic. The homeland security plan is defeatist and out of control. On the Army, though it sounds as if adding active-duty troops would solve the current overburden in Iraq and relieve the National Guard and reserves, the reality is that adding 40,000 to the end strength would take two or more years, according to one of Kerry's own advisors. Special Forces are even more difficult and time-consuming to manufacture. But the biggest problem is that the basic premise of military growth is that we will continue to fight at the Bush pace. And relying more on special operations? That's the Rumsfeld doctrine: fast and light, covert and unaccountable. But anyone who is not an administration toady must recognize by now that ninja magicians can do only so much and that the cost of not having enough regular soldiers on the ground is a theme that
Re: Putin
Actually, the denial of the right to self-determination of Chechnya and Yeltsin's resulting war on Chechnya was responsible for a lot of the misery endured by Russian residents of Chechnya. It turns out that it was impossible to destroy the Chechen economy and government, to devastate it, without also harming the interests of the Russian residents, who were disproportionately concentrated in urban Chechnya, specifically Grozny, and in the modern sector of the economy. For example, this is what happened to Russians in Grozny, capital of Chechnya. The following is from Anatol Lieven, an author whom Chris Doss has cited in the past: - No reliable statistics are available or could be under the circumstances, but to judge from the evidence of my own notebooks from Grozny during the bombing in December 194, and the anecdotal evidence of my colleaques, it seems clear that a majority of civilians killed by the [Russian--JG] bombing in Grozny were ethnic Russians, and of these a very large proportion were pensioners. Again and again, my colleagues and I heard words like the following, spoken on the bitter morning of 21 December by Lydia Mukashenko, an elderly Russian widow whose flat had just been destroyed by a bomb while she was sheltering in the cellar. Standing by the ruins in a nightdress with an overcoat flung over it, her thickly veined legs and bare, swollen feet in their slippers turning blue in the snow, she moaned, The Russian Federation is killing us Russians. Two of my neighbors are dead. Why? For what? Russian television said that Grozny is empty of people, that it's a military target. Are they lying, or do they really not know that there are still women and children here? Tell them, you must tell them that we are still here, that they are killing us, that the Russian army is killing its own people. The evidence of what their own forces had done to Russian grandmothers was one factor in undermining the will of Russian soldiers to fight in Chechnya. - (from Chapter 1, A Personal Memoir of Grozny and the Chechen War, from Anatol Lieven's book Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power) --Joseph Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.communistvoice.org
Re: Chris Doss's sources
Is the Chechen diaspora good enough for you? Rosbalt April 24, 2003 Chechens Call on Russians to Return Leading representatives of the Chechen diaspora in Moscow attended a press conference recently and then a round-table discussion devoted to the situation of the Russian-speaking population of Chechnya. According to Amin Osmayev, chairman of the national assembly of Chechnya, Chechen public organisations have been forced to tackle this issue as 'the federal authorities are afraid of discussing the issue for fear of sounding chauvinistic.' This is the impression of those Cossacks and Russians from Chechnya who have appealed to 'the Kremlin, the government and other authorities' for security and protection from violence and infringements on their human rights and whose appeals have been ignored. 'The government must understand that it abandoned these people and all other Chechens in 1991 and it must answer for this policy,' announced Mr Osmayev. 'The priority of the authorities in Chechnya must be to recreate normal living conditions for all those who have left Chechnya,' according to Umar Avturkhanov, chairman of the Chechen National Accord Committee. However, according to Mr Osmayev, the current security level in Chechnya is quite low. Chechens are more or less protected from terrorists by their taips and the custom of vengeance. Russians, on the other hand, have no protection from terrorism. What is more, according to Khamsat Salamov, chairman of the charity Peace. Charity. Morality and former imam at the central mosque in Grozny, it is important to teach Muslims, especially the younger generation, that 'Russians also live in Chechnya and should have the same rights as everyone else.' At the moment there are very few Russians in the Chechen government. Chechens in Moscow believe this situation could be rectified by introducing a quota for the Russian population whereby Russians would have the same level of representation as they did in 1991. A statute on this must be inserted into the agreement outlining the balance of power between the federal government and that of Chechnya itself, as there is no mention of it in the new Chechen constitution. Interestingly, many republics are now choosing to reject such an agreement. Chechens in Moscow believe there are about 100 thousand Russians who could return to their homes in Chechnya. However, as Mr Osmayev told a Rosbalt correspondent, there is no corresponding programme in Chechnya or Russia as to how this could be done. 'One can't help feeling that Russia has no national policy on this,' he said. According to Mr Avturkhanov, apart from the idea about giving Russians greater political representation in Chechnya, there are also other ways of bringing them back. For example, administrative leaders in the Cossack regions of Chechnya such as the Naursky and Shelkovsky regions ought to be Cossacks (at the moment there is only a Cossack leader in the Naursky region). Chechen children should learn the Russian language, be taught about Russian culture and have the chance to obtain a higher education. In Mr Avturkhanov's opinion, it is absolutely essential that Russian oil workers and middle-level management return to Chechnya. Such a desire is understandable. Russians appeared in Chechnya at the start of the last century. They mostly worked in the oil industry in Grozny and the oil plants. Cossacks appeared in Chechnya in the 16th century. In Soviet times Grozny became one of the biggest centres of oil refining. The Chechens were unable to maintain the complex technology of oil extraction and oil refining. The collapse of the oil industry in Chechnya, which had really been the mainstay of the Chechen economy, forced many of the Russian population in Chechnya and even many Chechens to leave. Then the Chechens found themselves a new source of wealth. According to the census in 1989 there were about 400 thousand Russians living in Chechnya at that time. It is very difficult to say how many of those were killed during the regimes of Dudayev and Maskhadov. By 1992, according to the Russian Interior Ministry, 250 Russians had been killed in Grozny and about 300 had disappeared without trace. By 1994 Dudayev's followers had killed more than two thousand Russians. Thousands of other Russians abandoned their homes and fled to Russia. More than 250 thousand people had left Chechnya before the first military conflict. Beatings, murders, robberies, rape, hostage takings, burglaries and forced eviction became everyday occurrences. It was genocide. Cossacks suffered the same kind of terrorism and almost all of them fled from the Naursky, Sunzhensky and Shelkovsky regions. Only 29 thousand Russians remained by the time the second military operation in Chechnya began (17 thousand of these were pensioners). Nobody knows how many of them are left now. This is how Olga Selenkova, a member of the Grozny congress of Russian-speaking people, described the position of Russians
Re: Putin
Oh yes. A lot of it was revenge killings. I do not defend Yeltsin's war at all. Lieven, as you know if you have read him recently on the subject, is a supporter of Russia in the current conflict.
Re: Chris Doss's sources
Or the highly respected Russian newspaper Trud? Russian original: http://www.infocentre.ru/win/user/index.cfm?page=12date=2000-02-17startrow=1msg_id=6430 17.02.2000 16:00 Newspaper Trud OUTCASTS IN OWN LAND. Documentary testimonies of Russian genocide in Maskhadov Ichkeriya From the beginning of 1990s more than 300 thousands of Russians have left Chechnya. Only in 1992 according to the official data of the republican interior ministry 250 people of Russian nationality were murdered and another 300 went missing (the numbers are taken from the report submitted by the chairman of Russian Society of Chechnya Oleg Makoveyev). I have in front of me a copy of the letter written by those who are customarily called Russian-speaking . This message addressed to the (now former) Russian premier-minister Primakov with a nave note on it pass into his hands personally is a veritable cry of despair. We, inhabitants of Grozny who did not have an opportunity to flee from the city in 1994-1996 have survived in the basements only by miracle. We lost our houses and our possessions. Every day we feel threat to our lives. There are no more than 5 thousands of us, Russian women, old men, and children, who are left in Grozny. We appeal to you as a patriot and an intellectual: save us, admit us to Russia. We are praying for you and believing in you. It is like hell in Grozny and Chechnya for Russians now. I don t know if the addressee has heard this call of despair. Most probably, no. Neither does the chairman of Russian Society of Chechnya Oleg Makoveev, who came to the editorial office of our newspaper with a whole pile of documents. Here is only a tiny part of the list of insults and tortures suffered by the Russian population in Chechnya during the years of Dudayev s and Maskhadov s regimes he gave to us. -Nesterovs, Vera and Mikhail were shot dead in October of 1996 in their house near the rail-road station. -Mikhail Sidor, a pensioner, a Cossack of Grozny district of Terek Cossack Force, shot dead together with his wife and two sons in his house in Grozny on the 6th of August of 1996. -Aleksandr Khapryannikov was killed in September of 1996. He lived in Grozny on Rabochaya Street 67. -Aleksandr Gladilin, a Cossack, a resident of Mekenskaya stanitsa of Naurski district was a head of local administration. In April 1997 he was seized by the security service of Ichkeria, thrown into jail and tortured. Released personally by Maskhadov for 10 tonns of flour. -From the letter written by Assinovskaya stanitsa residents: Before 1995 there were 8,400 of us, Russians, living here. Now only 250 left. Since August of 1996 26 Russian families have been murdered, 52 households have been taken from us by force. A woman from Gudermes who refused to reveal her name writes: We came from the cemetery and were at home with our friends the Sapronovs family. When Tanya and Volodya went home, Chechens from a white Zhiguli car shot them dead point-blank with a machine-gun. Sapronovs had a good house; perhaps somebody from the title nation has liked it. I was fired from my work. They force me to cover my hair with a shawl in accord with shariah law so that my hair could not be seen. But I am not Muslim, I am an Orthodox Christian. Russians are being fired from all top positions, Chechens, even most illiterate ones, are being put on their places. A Chechen whom I know was a shepherdall of his life, after that he fought in the war on Maskhadov s side, now he is made a head of the depot. Orthodox Christians to slavery. Purely criminal gangster genocide of Russian-speaking population in shariah Ichkeria was accompanied by the severe persecution according to one s religion belief. Orthodox Christianity was de facto prohibited by Maskhadov s authorities on the territory of Chechnya. From the letter by the senior priest of the Saint Archstratig Mikhail cathedral father Zahari (city of Grozny) addressed to the Moscow Patriarch Alexi II: There are no human words to describe the terrible life we are living in Chechnya. It is life in Hell, amid impudent evil and complete lawlessness. Chechens do not want to work peacefully along with other nationalities, they prefer to live by robbery, stealing, and kidnapping. Many of them are armed. They pilfer and rob everything and everyone they can, in industry and in everyday life as well. Slave dealing became a normal thing, everyone profits from it. And we, Orthodox Christians are destined to be slaves for them. As if father Zakhari Yampolsky had a second sight. The second priest of the Grozny cathedarl father Aleksandr Smyvin was ferociously beaten in October of 1995, father Anatoli Chistousov and father Sergi Zhigulin were abducted in Grozny in January 1996. In January of 1997 Hieromonk father Eufimi Belomestny and lay brother Alexi Ravilov were taken into captivity. In the spring of 1999 Russian
Re: Chris Doss's sources
One mo' time: Looking for that thing called specificity, Mr. Proyect. And that would be a social specificity, analyzing the material forces at work driving the contending forces. As is your preferred style, you reproduce text unrelated to the issue at hand and say Here, look at this. I told you so. Told us what? Putin has lied? No shit? Really? I never knew that. And lied about Iraq to curry favor with the US? I am shocked and appalled. Newsflash: I did not just fall off a truckload of pumpkins. But what about Chechnya? To say that the Russians are conducting a brutal war, or that you personally find that war brutal, is not a political analysis. Ever read the accounts of the Red Cavalry in the Civil War? Brutal is a gross understatement. Or the advance of the Red Army through Germany in WW 2? Or the Soviet military in Afghanistan? And despite the brutality, the Red Cavalry, the Red Army, the Soviet military were, how to put this?, more aligned with the prospects for emancipation than their opponents were? I, for one, need much more information on the sources of the conflict. My relatively uninformed feeling has me aligning with the Russians again for several reasons, first of which is that dissolution of the Soviet Union, Balkanization on the grand scale, is itself and has been accompanied by a giant step backward in living standards, and I have read, although not confirmed, that Saudi/Pakistani money and training has been instrumental in supporting the separatists. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 7:57 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Chris Doss's sources sartesian wrote: I'm sure, with the vast resources at his command, Mr. Proyect will be able to provide such demonstration. I thought we already established that the White House and the Kremlin are past masters at lying. === Russia Gave U.S. Intel on Iraq, Putin Says THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 19, 2004 ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday his government warned Washington that Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks in the United States and its interests abroad -- an assertion that appears to bolster President Bush's contention that Iraq was a threat. Putin emphasized that the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the U.S.-led war last year, but his statement was the second this month in which he has offered at least some support for Bush on Iraq. ``After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services ... received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests,'' Putin said. ``Despite that information ... Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged,'' he said in the Kazakh capital, Astana, after regional economic and security summits. He said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime had actually been behind any terrorist acts. ``It's one thing to have information that Saddam's regime is preparing terrorist attacks, (but) we didn't have information that it was involved in any known terrorist attacks,'' he said. Putin didn't elaborate on any details of the alleged plots or mention whether they were tied to al-Qaida. He said Bush had personally thanked one of the leaders of Russia's intelligence agencies for the information but that he couldn't comment on how critical it was in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. In Washington, a U.S. official said Putin's information did not add to what the United States already knew about Saddam's intentions. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Putin's tip didn't give a time or place for a possible attack. Bush alleged Thursday that Saddam had ``numerous contacts'' with al-Qaida and said Iraqi agents had met with the terror network's leader, Osama bin Laden, in Sudan. Saddam ``was a threat because he had terrorist connections -- not only al-Qaida connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations,'' Bush said. However, a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported this week that while there were contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq, they did not appear to have produced ``a collaborative relationship.'' Also Thursday, a top Russian diplomat called for international inspectors to resolve conclusively the question of whether Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction. ``This problem must be resolved ... because to a great extent it became the pretext for the start of the war against Iraq,'' the Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov as saying. He said such a finding would allow the U.N. Security Council to ``finally close the dossier on Iraqi weapons.'' In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, Putin sharply rebuked the United States for
Re: Chris Doss's sources
I, for one, need much more information on the sources of the conflict. Myrelatively uninformed feeling has me aligning with the Russians again forseveral reasons, first of which is that dissolution of the Soviet Union,Balkanization on the grand scale, is itself and has been accompanied by agiant step backward in living standards, and I have read, although notconfirmed, that Saudi/Pakistani money and training has been instrumental insupporting the separatists.--- It is often alleged. I don't think bin Laden has an Order of Free Ichkeria medal for no reason. The only government in the world to acknowledge Ichkeria was that of the Taliban, so they ISI connection is plausible. Basayev was allegedly paid $20 million for his attack on Dagestan; that money came from somewhere. Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
Re: Chris Doss's sources
On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, sartesian wrote: One mo' time: Looking for that thing called specificity, Mr. Proyect. And that would be a social specificity, analyzing the material forces at work driving the contending forces. The same thing that is driving Putin is driving Bush: control over oil. You can't get more material than that. And both capitalist politicians use the same excuse, they are trying to defeat Islamic fundamentalism and spread democracy.
Re: Chris Doss's sources
It is not control over oil that drives the US policy-- it was/is overproduction, the decline in profits, the dreaded collapse of oil prices. It is the need to destroy capital stock. We've had the argument before. We can show how fixed asset expenditures, rig counts, lifting costs, production costs, etc. have impacted the US oil industry profits, and driven policy decisions. The very least we must do is provide the same sort of analysis for Russia if we are going to claim similar policy motivations. As for Putin controlling the oil-- Russia's oil production has turned up with the jump in prices since 1999 and the constraint is not in production but in transportation. And transportation is the critical factor in the Caspian/Caucasus regions. In this regard US/Russia policies are divergent to say the least and conflictual to say it modestly. Which is another reason I, at this uninformed point, lean against national self-determination as a reason/cause/justification for the combat. Not accepting Putin's slogans/self-justification does not make the opposite position more left. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 10:51 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Chris Doss's sources On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, sartesian wrote: One mo' time: Looking for that thing called specificity, Mr. Proyect. And that would be a social specificity, analyzing the material forces at work driving the contending forces. The same thing that is driving Putin is driving Bush: control over oil. You can't get more material than that. And both capitalist politicians use the same excuse, they are trying to defeat Islamic fundamentalism and spread democracy.
Re: Chris Doss's sources
In a message dated 6/20/2004 12:51:51 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, sartesian wrote: One mo' time: Looking for that thing called specificity, Mr. Proyect. And that would be a social specificity, analyzing the material forces at work driving the contending forces.The same thing that is driving Putin is driving Bush: control over oil.You can't get more material than that. And both capitalist politicians usethe same excuse, they are trying to defeat Islamic fundamentalism andspread democracy. Comment I could hardly locate Chechnya on the map, which is why I keep several maps of the world within reach.Having followed and studiedina general way the evolution of the Russian state, and Soviet history and the breakup of the Soviet Union into more or less warring bourgeois capitalist type states/fiefdom- and the political leaders in Chechnyaare not trying to found a Soviet type antyhing or socialist state, it seems to me that the motivation of a Putin and Bush are radically different and not reducible to profit motive or oil. This thing about oil has reach the level of the absurd in my opinion. Putin represents bourgeois property in Russia but not as an abstraction. He also represents distinct national interest and geopolitical considerations profoundly different from the Bush administration and the strategic interest our own imperial bourgeoisie. It is not so much the words politicians say that divine their interest and consideration by real history. For Bush and his administration to be in a remotely similar situation to Putin, they would have to face the material results of the dismantling of the USNA multinational state and the emergence of say Texas, Michigan, North Carolina or Mississippi and about eleven more states, as more than less independent states or regions. Sections of the Southwest of America would be gyrating between Mexico andant the US State proper. In such a situation what would I "support?" Does this not depend on events in Mexico? Sooner or later one must move beyond participatory democracy of the old student movement and try and understand real world politics. Then again to equate the Bush administration and the Putin administration, the former would have to face a combination of say a China and Russia alliance surrounding it with military bases and advocating the direct use of force. Self determination is the calling card of absolutely everyone - including Woodrow Wilson and in the context of America, if the blacks of Michigan and Chicago and say Mississippi demanded self determination and the formation of independent states, what would ones response be? Thepolitical reality of the decomposition of the multinational state structure of the former USSR contains some historical factors that are not subject to ideological declarations for democracy or the loud cry for human rights, which is the calling card of the militant imperialists - our imperialist in particular, in its war against the people of earth. What about history and geopolitical reality? For example the ruling people inside the Soviet Union were (white) Russians for a similar reason that the ruling peoples - not simply propertied class, in Americanare Anglo-American. I do not mean that the people of Chechnya were owned by the Russian people as whites once owned blacks, but that the imperial status of a people has much to do with their economic development and export of productive forces to less developed regions and areas. Here is the bottom line economic logic that placed many Russians at the top of the federated system. Does this process breed resentment? Yes, . . .especially - but not exclusively, by the aspiring petty bourgeois, bourgeois and criminal syndicates that want the spoils for themselves. These criminal syndicates are not just Chechnya or just Russian but a complex combination of both. For Bush to mirror Putin would also means that something like the Nation of Islam would control the state of Mississippi. Putin is going to do what any leader that comes to power in Russia is going to do in respects to how national interest are perceived in our geopolitical world. Do I support Putin? Of course not and if I did - Which I don't, it would be fairly meaningless, nor would I support the band of bourgeois nationalist criminals - many using the pre-Soviet networks economic and political networks and trade routes for their bourgeois class interest. Obviously the trade in human flesh could not take place without member of the old federated structures supporting this totally capitalist enterprise. I tend to be leary and weary of arguments based on an ideological conception of self determination without taking into account economic and political factors in a larger geopolitical context. An autonomous region such as Chechnya was never an independent state in the Soviet system and
Re: Chris Doss's sources
Right on the money. A little smokestack lightning from the Detroit brother. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 12:03 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Chris Doss's "sources" In a message dated 6/20/2004 12:51:51 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, sartesian wrote: One mo' time: Looking for that thing called specificity, Mr. Proyect. And that would be a social specificity, analyzing the material forces at work driving the contending forces.The same thing that is driving Putin is driving Bush: control over oil.You can't get more material than that. And both capitalist politicians usethe same excuse, they are trying to defeat Islamic fundamentalism andspread democracy. Comment I could hardly locate Chechnya on the map, which is why I keep several maps of the world within reach.Having followed and studiedina general way the evolution of the Russian state, and Soviet history and the breakup of the Soviet Union into more or less warring bourgeois capitalist type states/fiefdom- and the political leaders in Chechnyaare not trying to found a Soviet type antyhing or socialist state, it seems to me that the motivation of a Putin and Bush are radically different and not reducible to profit motive or oil. This thing about oil has reach the level of the absurd in my opinion. Putin represents bourgeois property in Russia but not as an abstraction. He also represents distinct national interest and geopolitical considerations profoundly different from the Bush administration and the strategic interest our own imperial bourgeoisie. It is not so much the words politicians say that divine their interest and consideration by real history. For Bush and his administration to be in a remotely similar situation to Putin, they would have to face the material results of the dismantling of the USNA multinational state and the emergence of say Texas, Michigan, North Carolina or Mississippi and about eleven more states, as more than less independent states or regions. Sections of the Southwest of America would be gyrating between Mexico andant the US State proper. In such a situation what would I "support?" Does this not depend on events in Mexico? Sooner or later one must move beyond participatory democracy of the old student movement and try and understand real world politics. Then again to equate the Bush administration and the Putin administration, the former would have to face a combination of say a China and Russia alliance surrounding it with military bases and advocating the direct use of force. Self determination is the calling card of absolutely everyone - including Woodrow Wilson and in the context of America, if the blacks of Michigan and Chicago and say Mississippi demanded self determination and the formation of independent states, what would ones response be? Thepolitical reality of the decomposition of the multinational state structure of the former USSR contains some historical factors that are not subject to ideological declarations for democracy or the loud cry for human rights, which is the calling card of the militant imperialists - our imperialist in particular, in its war against the people of earth. What about history and geopolitical reality? For example the ruling people inside the Soviet Union were (white) Russians for a similar reason that the ruling peoples - not simply propertied class, in Americanare Anglo-American. I do not mean that the people of Chechnya were owned by the Russian people as whites once owned blacks, but that the imperial status of a people has much to do with their economic development and export of productive forces to less developed regions and areas. Here is the bottom line economic logic that placed many Russians at the top of the federated system. Does this process breed resentment? Yes, . . .especially - but not exclusively, by the aspiring petty bourgeois, bourgeois and criminal syndicates that want the spoils for themselves. These criminal syndicates are not just Chechnya or just Russian but a complex combination of both. For Bush to mirror Putin would also means that something like the Nation of Islam would control the state of Mississippi. Putin is going to do what any leader that comes to power in Russia is going to do in respects to how national interest are perceived in our geopolitical world. Do I support Putin? Of course not and if I did - Which I don't, it would be fairly meaningless, nor would I support the band of bourgeois nationalist criminals - many using the pre-Soviet networks economic and political networks and trade routes for their bourgeois class interest. Obviously the
The Day After Tomorrow: Greenwashing the Democrats and Global Capitalism
The Day After Tomorrow: Greenwashing the Democrats and Global Capitalism: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/06/day-after-tomorrow-greenwashing.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Knock, Knock
What was, for capitalism ascendant, its self-leavening was the conquering of new markets; the uprooting of all that had gone before; the transformation of all social relations in its self-image. And all this existed, for waxing capitalism, only as an abstraction, a tendency, an impulse. In the concrete, the impulse is obstructed, and conjoined with the very source of the obstruction. What was in theory the condition for development is in practice the limit of development and vice versa. The essential nature of capital is made manifest in its deviation, its aberration from its own code for growth. So that capital announces its triumph not in the destruction of all foregoing, pre-existing, archaic relations of land and labor, but in their embrace, accommodation, absorption into the plastic stream of exchanges called the market. Private property demands just such an embrace, just this accommodation, and private property is nearest and dearest to the bourgeoisie. http://wolfatthedoor.blogspot.com
Correction
Wrong URL, sorry http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com It's the simple things that give us the most trouble
[Fwd: Swans' Release: June 21, 2004]
http://www.swans.com/ June 21, 2004 -- In this Issue: Note from the Editor:Let's begin with something special, shall we? Curious about Yiddishkayt? Interested in the connection between Jewish popular culture and the American Left? Fascinated by the urban Jewish milieu of New York City's lower east side as it wends its way from Vaudeville to contemporary television? Want to learn more? Then you must read Louis Proyect's superb review of the latest book written by his friend Paul Buhle, From the Lower East Side to Hollywood. Louis, who's both Jewish and Marxist, weaving his web around Buhle, himself not Jewish but fluent in Yiddish, makes for a fascinating read! Not to be missed; it's one of Proyect's very best reviews. Elsewhere, in the skunk-stinking trenches of US politics, the Bush cabal now finds itself defending its war on Iraq with an it depends on what the definition of 'collaborator' is strategy for damage control, thus ironically emulating the Clintonesque approach to debating the meaning of is. With Bush's poll ratings heading steadily south, the ABBers are waiting, no, hoping, no, praying for Kerry to exhibit something, anything, they can wrap their arms around should he get elected. First-time Swans contributor Bill Eger provides an insightful analysis of our one-sided democracy in which voters have no power over candidates once they are elected, and the political parties hold no accountability to the candidates or the people. The speculation of a Kerry-McCain ticket has been firmly squashed -- but what of a McCain VERSUS Kerry strategy for the Republicans? Could Kerry defeat McCain? asks Manuel García. John Blunt has some suggestions for Mr. Kerry should he want to be a true leader; and wise Milo Clark, examining the nature of progress and progressives, takes a simpler, down-to-earth approach: clear out Washington so we can get on with it. (In the next few issues, we'll keep providing a series of opinions on the coming US presidential election.) Now, imagine all our great leaders, deep down in hell's inferno, defending themselves to the devil... Phil Rockstroh does just that with a heated exchange between Ronnie and Satan -- and it's no surprise whose logic prevails. Richard Macintosh, incensed by the utter immorality of the US war machine, muses over the fragility of the whole edifice and utilizes logic to debunk the imperial agenda, represented in Philip Greenspan's construct of Uncle Sam as Bullshit Virtuoso. Even worse, we had to suffer the unbearable loss of The Genius, Ray Charles. He was only 73 and we had all long been lulled into believing, hoping, he was as timeless and immortal as his music (it's the wrong dude who died at 93 the other day...). So here is another special: Thanks to the generosity of Bruce Anderson and the Anderson Valley Advertiser, we are publishing three of their odes to Ray; along with one of our own, which explores a few memories regarding Mr. Charles and American music, as well as Americana and a week of encomia for a cold and fake president. Letters to a Young Poet and more Letters to the Editor round out this issue. As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know about Swans. * Here are the links to all the pieces: http://www.swans.com/library/art10/lproy16.html Paul Buhle's From the Lower East Side to Hollywood - Book Review by Louis Proyect http://www.swans.com/library/art10/beger01.html Reviving Political Parties: The Last Chance For Democracy - by Bill Eger http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgarci16.html McCain Versus Kerry? - by Manuel Garcia, Jr. http://www.swans.com/library/art10/jblunt04.html Letter To John Kerry - by John Blunt http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgc131.html The Bankruptcy Of Progress: The Challenge Of Today - by Milo Clark http://www.swans.com/library/art10/procks29.html Ronald Reagan Receives Sympathy From The Devil - by Phil Rockstroh http://www.swans.com/library/art10/rmac23.html Fragile - by Richard Macintosh http://www.swans.com/library/art10/pgreen44.html Uncle Sam, The Bullshit Virtuoso - by Philip Greenspan http://www.swans.com/library/art10/ava001.html Remembering Ray - by Chili Bill http://www.swans.com/library/art10/ava002.html Not Joe Isuzu; Not Mr. Whipple: The Greatest Republican - by Garry Goodrow http://www.swans.com/library/art10/ava003.html Goodbye, Ray - by Tom Reier http://www.swans.com/library/art10/ga180.html Ron And Ray - by Gilles d'Aymery http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgc130.html Final EIS For SBCT Transformation In Hawai'i - by Milo Clark http://www.swans.com/library/art10/xxx108.html Letters to a Young Poet (Letter Eight) - by Rainer Maria Rilke http://www.swans.com/library/art10/letter44.html Letters to the Editor # You are receiving this E-mail notification for you have expressed your interest in Swans and the work of its team, or someone suggested that we
Re: Chris Doss's sources
This thing about oil has reach the level of the absurd in my opinion. Putin represents bourgeois property in Russia but not as an abstraction. He also represents distinct national interest and geopolitical considerations . . . Comment What is actually meant is not a denial of the important of oil and other natural resources in Russia external trade, but rather relative impact of external trade on economic development. I have not flowed the money in the sense of charting what American dollars and Euro's are converted into by the Russian governement versus the private owners of capital. Perhaps, part of the political equation is pure economics that drive Putin to usestate coersion against a sector of the gangster bourgeoisie, who have no problem investing their foriegn currency into the bond markets of the respective imperial centers as opposed to internal development and modernization of industry. As I understand matter this is one of the real current problems with Japan and the yen in particular, as she use increasing amounts of foreign earning - dollars, to buy yens. My underlying point is this very real material relations of trade and monetary policy lies beneath "oil" and not simply its "importance" to the industrial economies. Oil is critical to industrial production but here we are talking about oil as external trade. In the strategic sense Russia is sitting on huge reserves, which would in my opinion not govern her immediate geopolitical interest. In this sense national interest are in fact riveted to economic interest of the state vis a via oil . . . which is in collision (the state) . . . with a sector of private capital. In my opinion here is the reason for the Putin administrations jailing of the ganster capitalists and his Populist like demand to "help the people." Mr. Putin is very serious and Russia have the means to cut off or at any rate serious hinder the flow of foreign currency from exchange back into the bond markets. He is serious enough to jail people. He is also compelled to deal with the "border regions" as hostile bourgeois regimes. Then again what the hell do I know? What seems clear to me is that political leaders operate from very little ideology in the international arena where economic and national interest collide. Here the job of the economists is to discern the economic interest - impulse. It was inappropriate to state: "This thing about oil has reach the level of the absurd in my opinion," without qualification. Melvin P.
Re: Deflation?
And this is what Kenneth Rogoff says. Maybe we should invite him to PEN-L? Sabri ++ The hidden threat of extreme events By SAMUEL BRITTAN Financial Times (London, England) June 18, 2004 Friday We are now in one of those phases where highly favourable economic data clash with an anxious mood among large parts of the business community. Contrast for instance the upbeat remarks of the governor of the Bank of England on a synchronised world recovery with the warning by Bill Gross of Pimco that the global outlook is at its most uncertain for 20 or 30 years. A thoughtful explanation of the discrepancy comes from Kenneth Rogoff, formerly chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, in the May issue of the Central Banker. Mr Rogoff was always an untypical international official - he gave up a career as a chess grand master to concentrate on economics. He now puts his finger on a weakness of official assurances by saying people tend to resist thinking about low probability extreme events. He uses this expression in relation to the risks to consensus economic forecasts of modest US consumer price inflation of some 2 per cent a year stretching ahead. But many low probability events cumulate to a substantial risk. There are other kinds of extreme events outside the range of conventional forecasts. There are those that may not happen quickly, such as a violent regime change in Saudi Arabia, but which would be very disruptive if they did. There are also dangers that are highly likely, but the timing of which is uncertain. Mr Rogoff cites the US current account deficit of 5 per cent of gross domestic product, which he, like many others, regards as unsustainable. Suppose, however, this suddenly reverts to balance. For instance, a steep collapse in US house prices could lead to a sharp rise in private savings. Indeed, he believes there is a high risk of a housing slump in the US even though the boom there has not gone as far there as it has in the UK or Australia. A future correction would need to be accompanied, according to the former IMF economic director, by a drop in the the dollar of over 40 per cent in the short run and in the long run of about 12-14 per cent. But he shares the view that fixed exchange rates would worsen matters. He considers that the US economy has sufficient flexibility to survive the turmoil he foresees. But how would the inflexible economies of Europe and Japan handle a sudden drop in the dollar? Very poorly I would venture. There are weaknesses in the world economy that have a high rather than a low probability of doing damage but to an uncertain extent and over uncertain time horizons. Mr Rogoff cites the low value of official short-term rates, the unusually lax stance of fiscal policy and global imbalances. He believes that we underrate the long-term threat to price stability posed by the steady deterioration in budget positions forecast over the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development area in the next 30 years, due mainly to ageing populations. Central banks will thus need to strengthen their independence so that irresistible spendthrift governments meet immovable anti-inflation monetary authorities. Yet he is critical of the obsession with inflation targets over fairly short horizons. He would like central banks to have a longer focus and also take into account output, the exchange rate and asset prices, especially housing, as well as consumer prices. Meanwhile, what is the immediate world conjuncture? Outside the core eurozone countries there is indeed a pretty vigorous world economic expansion. At the same time inflation rates, although still low, are rising faster than expected. Nor is it only oil. Other commodity prices are creeping upwards and so are core consumer inflation rates. The pattern is that of an economic upturn beginning to press on primary producing capacity, and in the UK on the labour market too. The last thing required now are policies designed to stimulate activity further. Yet monetary policies are still highly expansionary. Short-term real interest rates in the Group of Seven countries are still negative. In the US, they are minus 1 per cent. In core euro countries, they are around zero. This compares with a normal historical level of, say, 2 or 3 per cent. There is also a gap of over 2 1/2 percentage points between prevailing international nominal short-term rates and the rates on 10-year government bonds (an upwardly sloping yield curve). Monetary policy is, in the awful US financial jargon, behind the curve. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that central banks still practise the pretence of knowledge. They believe they can estimate phenomena such as the output gap or the rate of inflation to be expected for any specified behaviour of real activity. The sooner they forget these pretensions and move back towards a neutral policy, the better they will be prepared to meet future threats from any direction.
Re: Mark Jones Still Wrong
Mark could not have been wrong. in some sense it amounts to a truism. oil runs out dont know how dont know when.? why it was important is because some argued that the invasion of iraq was not because of oil.. it was entirely and i think entirely is justified because of oil. oil is anywhere between 6 to 10 percent of world trade and that is not the important part.. the important part is that it is the principal energy source that underpins capitalist accumulation. and the value relation that allocates resources will do its utmost to draw profits out of oil at the expense of ordinary hard working folk.sartesian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From the WSJ of 16 June 04:OIL MAJORS REPLACE JUST 75% OF RESERVES PUMPED, STUDY SAYSLondon-Oil companies replaced only 75% of the reserves they pumped duringthe past few years, far below what Securities and Exchange Commission filingindicate, a report by Deutsche Bank AG says.SEC filings by oil major show companies increased their total oil reserves,replacing 116% of what they pumped during 20001-2003. But Deutsche Banksays those figures represent historic discoveries that companies bookedlater and don't reflect genuinely new finds.The report found oil majors increased their reserves at a rate 20% lowerthan during the 1990s, partly as a result of a cut of nearly a third inexploration budgets, as companies streamlined operations after a series ofmeasures. In additions, companiesfocused more on getting out the oil thathad already discovered.BP PLEC, meanwhile, said in its closely followed annual statistical reportthat world oil reserves, as of the end of 2003 are sufficient to supportcurrent global production levels of nearly 77 million barrels a day for thenext 41 years.Hmmm.replacement rates declining after draconian cuts in explorationbudgets due to fixed asset elimination due to "streamlining" operations dueto mergers... Hey I did NOT write the article. Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
