test
test April 6
test
test april 4
Indiana faculty position in social informatics (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 17:42:15 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Indiana faculty position in social informatics Resent-Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 17:42:33 -0800 (PST) Resent-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [I have taken the liberty of reformatting this.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 18:50:44 -0500 From: Rob Kling [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: Senior faculty position, social informatics+ Please repost as appropriate ... School of Library and Information Science Indiana University Bloomington Faculty Position Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) invites applications and nominations for a senior faculty position (associate or full professor) at its Bloomington campus. The School has a full-time interdisciplinary faculty of twenty whose backgrounds include information science, computer science, psychology, sociology, and communications. SLIS is one of the top-ranked programs of its kind in the nation, offering both a master's degree (MIS) and PhD in Information Science, along with a master's in Library Science (MLS) and a post master's specialization in Library and Information Science. Applicants for this position should have an outstanding record in research and teaching. Essential qualifications are: evidence of sustained scholarship; influential research; dynamic teaching; national/international reputation; record of external funding; ability to mentor doctoral students and junior faculty. Given the School's diverse intellectual character, individuals with the capacity to crystalize debate and synthesize issues will be given special consideration. Areas of specialization are not prescribed, but it is expected that applicants will be able to articulate how their backgrounds and skills would enhance the School's existing and emerging strengths in the broad domain of social informatics. SLIS is committed to exploring important trends, theories, and technologies and to understanding the cognitive, contextual and social factors which characterize information behavior at individual, organizational and societal levels. Current research foci include human-computer interaction, scholarly communication, electronic publishing, community networks and digital libraries. Information about the School's faculty, degree programs and research activities, including the Center for Social Informatics and the Usability Laboratory, can be found at http://www.slis.indiana.edu Indiana University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, offering a full range of benefits, including TIAA/CREF. Salary is negotiable, commensurate with qualifications and experience. To apply, submit a letter of application, five references and curriculum vita. Applications will be reviewed beginning March 1, 1998. Informal inquiries can be directed to members of the search committee: Dr. Debora Shaw ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), Dr. Rob Kling ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or Dr. Howard Rosenbaum ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Applications, nominations and curricula vitae should be sent to: Dr. Debora Shaw, Chair of the Search and Screen Committee School of Library and Information Science 10th Street and Jordan Ave., Library 012 Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405-1801 phone: (812) 855-3261; fax: (812) 855-6166 Rob Kling http://php.ucs.indiana.edu/~kling The Information Society (journal) http://www.slis.indiana.edu/TIS Center for Social Informatics http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI Indiana University 10th Jordan, Room 005C Bloomington, IN 47405-1801 812-855-9763 // Fax: 855-6166 Read contribute to the Social Informatics Home Page -- http://www.slis.indiana.edu/SI a resource about research, teaching, conferences journals
Re: Dooms day
On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Durant wrote: (Elinor:) The first thing I'd like to do is a bit tax on financial movements, which, would slow down some of the financial speculations. It has been tried in various countries, did not make a lot of difference. Our entrepaneurs complain, that that others make the profits they should have. That they are not allowed to make all the money that they would selflessly invest to provide millions of lovely jobs... I'm afraid, there is not a lot you can do for speedy improvement in the capitalist framework. We are at the point where most things have been tried and was found wanting. Eva Ahem, for the record. To date the bit tax has not been tried. It is regularly criticized, especially by those who haven't looked at it in any detail. Ditto, for the Tobin tax. H. Wonder why?? arthur
Re: Fw Some hard questions about Basic Income 1
On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Thomas Lunde wrote: snip, snip, snip. I do not think our solution will come from industrialists or from politicians. I think our solution will come from re-educating the public to think of what they want and then to demand that in a way that those in power become powerless to refuse. That education can come from a disaster or it can come from frustration with the inequalities of the present situation. How does this happen? The re-educators have to have legitimacy. Where do they 'teach', how are they paid, why will anyone listen to them. The change needed is profound. So profound that I have trouble finding a place to start (this especially now when children are being taught computer skills in kindergarten so they can become part of the new 'educated' workforce.) arthur cordell
Re: Fw Some hard questions about Basic Income 1
On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Durant wrote:
I do not think our solution will come from industrialists or from
politicians. I think our solution will come from re-educating the public to
think of what they want and then to demand that in a way that those in power
become powerless to refuse. That education can come from a disaster or it
can come from frustration with the inequalities of the present situation.
How does this happen? The re-educators have to have legitimacy.
Where do they 'teach', how are they paid, why will anyone listen
to them.
What implied - if time runs out - is the force of circumstance and experience, the
best educators. When there will be no other choice
and people take over their
workplaces, they will notice that they can manage them
without the "legitimacy" of shareholders. What legitimacy do you mean?
I was thinking about the way in which, for example, someone
speaking at Hyde Park might be listened to vs. someone, saying much the
same sort of thing, speaking from Cambridge of from Downing St. or from
the City. Sparking the willingness to make internal shifts rests on trust
of the communicator.
arthur cordell
Re: FW Some hard questions about a Basic Income 1
I recall reading the report of a US Commission (presidential or Senate?)
looking at automation. Was it in the 50's? It seemed to come to the
conclusion 'nothing to worry about.'
On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, Jim Dator wrote:
Yes, Tom, YES. That is what I was thinking about, and I would love to
know more (maybe sending it privately if onthers on this list aren't
intersted).
Here is the book you were probably thinking of: John Diebold, Automation:
the advent of the automatic factory. Van Nostrand, 1952, although he did
write others.
Anyone have other examples?
On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, Tom Walker wrote:
Jim Dator expressed his interest in documenting the early debates and
responses to automation. The termed reputedly was coined in the early 1950s
by a guy named Diebold (can't find his first name at the moment). What to do
about automation was a big issue for the newly merged AFL-CIO in the
mid-fifties. The president of the UAW, Walter Reuther, was an outspoken, if
wavering, critic of automation. There's a story he told about being taken on
a tour of a new, highly automated car plant and asking, "but who is going to
buy all these cars?"
Soon after the merger of the AFL and the CIO, the organization held a
conference on the shorter work week. I've got quite a bit of documentation
on the 1950s automation/shorter work time debate, which I can forward as
time permits. By the mid-1960s union alarm about automation seems to have
subsided and been soothed by 1. schemes for retraining existing union
members and 2. substantial increases in government spending, particularly on
military buildup, war and space exploration.
Looking back at old magazines and news reports, one might go so far as to
say that Sputnik killed the four-day week. There's a fascinating footnote to
this history that reports Lyndon Johnson, then Senate Majority Leader,
calling for scrapping the 40-hour work week and full wartime mobilization to
meet the challenge of Russia's sputnik and missle development. ("Up Work
Week, Johnson Urges", Washington Post and Times Herald, December 11, 1957)
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^^
Vancouver, B.C.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(604) 669-3286
^^^
The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: FW - some hard questions about a Basic Income 1 - Tom
One practical reason for a basic income. Maintain effective demand in the economy. Maintain purchasing power. Going to be hard to buy all that output without access to purchasing power. arthur cordell On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Colin Stark wrote: At 03:34 PM 2/20/98 -0500, Thomas Lunde wrote: Tom Walker answered: If I can try and paraphrase your answer, it would be that we should change because "a wage system is no longer appropriate to the way that a modern economy works." And because of this, the cost of providing a worker is borne by society as a whole and when business becomes more efficient and produces more with less labour the costs to society increase. Therefore the current system has an imbalance in the redistribution of income. Thank you for boiling it down I think many would agree with you but the question I would ask is what philosophical reason would justify introducing a Basic Income in answer to the unspoken question of those who are benefiting from the current system? Because! Because IT IS OBVIOUS! Just do it! Who cares about philosphical, hypothetical, theorizing? There are 3 answers -- plus a hypothetical question! Colin Stark
question re: FW
I have received a complaint of problems in the list. Anybody sending messages to futurework and not seeing their message posted on FW? Any other anomalies in list? arthur cordell
FW: The Computer Hillbillies (fwd)
For those who remember the Beverly Hillbillies... -- From: Universal Access Canada To: UA-C Subject: The Computer Hillbillies (fwd) Date: Friday, February 13, 1998 5:35PM The Computer Hillbillies Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed, A poor college kid, barely kept his family fed, But then one day he was talking to a recruiter, Who said, "they pay big bucks if ya work on a computer..." Windows, that is... PC's... Workstations... Well, the first thing ya know ol' Jed's an Engineer. The kinfolk said "Jed, move away from here". They said "California is the place ya oughta be", So he bought some donuts and he moved to Silicon Valley... Intel, that is... Pentium... big amusement park... On his first day at work, they stuck him in a cube. Fed him more donuts and sat him at a tube. They said "your project's late, but we know just what to do. Instead of 40 hours, we'll work you 52!" OT, that is... unpaid... mandatory... The weeks rolled by and things were looking bad. Schedules started slipping and some managers were mad. They called another meeting and decided on a fix. The answer was simple... "We'll work him sixty-six!" Tired, that is... stressed out... no social life... Months turned to years and his hair was turning grey. Jed worked very hard while his life slipped away. Waiting to retire when he turned 64, Instead he got a call and escorted out the door. Laid off, that is... de-briefed... unemployed... Now the moral of the story is listen to what you're told, Companies will use you and discard you when you're old. So gather up your friends and start your own firm, Beat the competition, watch the bosses squirm. Millionaires, that is... Bill Gates... Larry Ellison... Y'all come back now... ya hear'!
Reich Article (fwd)
This is a longish piece forwarded to me by an FWer. I am passing it along to the list. arthur cordell === The Nation February 16, 1998 Broken Faith Why We Need to Renew the Social Compact By Robert B. Reich Presidents come and go in America these days, but inequality just keeps rising. A few Democrats mutter about it and a few Republicans even praise it, but hardly anyone inside the respectable political spectrum is willing to confront it. In the following contribution to The Nation's "First Principles" series, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich locates political obstacles to tackling the problem and also suggests the economic and political restructuring necessary to redress it. As the postwar social compact grows ever more frayed, Reich notes, the problems of the "down-waging" and "down-benefiting" of America must be placed at the heart of a democratic politics. --The Editors At this writing, Bill Clinton has a headache that may or may not prove fatal to his presidency. But in his State of the Union address he gave a bravura performance, emphasizing everything that is good about America today and, by implication, everything that's good about him. And he has much to brag about: The budget is balanced. Unemployment is down, as is crime. For the first time in history, this nation has no major rival around the globe--economically, politically, even ideologically. We are, indisputably, Number One. What the President failed to mention, understandably, is that almost seven years of economic recovery has done remarkably little for people in the bottom half. Sure, they have jobs, but they had jobs before the last recession, too. The real news is that the median wage--the take-home pay of the worker smack in the middle of the earnings ladder--is still less than it was before the last recession, adjusted for inflation. More people are in poverty. At the same time, the upper reaches of America have never had it so good: Their pay and benefits have continued to rise and their stock and stock options have exploded in value. The President's pollsters warn him not to mention that America continues to split. It's not what people want to hear. Remember Carter's "malaise"? Republicans, for their part, don't feel comfortable talking about it because they don't have any solutions they find palatable. Corporate America isn't particularly eager to talk about it or even sponsor television programs or advertise in magazines that dwell on it. America is strangely immobilized. Rather than giving us the confidence we need to move forward, the overall good economic news, combined with a rare period of world peace and global pre-eminence, seems rather to have anesthetized us. But what happens when the good times are over? Future generations looking back on this era will ask why--when today's Americans had no hot or cold war to fight, no depression or recession to cope with, no great drain on our resources or our spirits--we did so little. Little, that is, relative to what the situation demanded. Little, relative to what we could have done. Did we simply assume that the economic expansion would last forever, and that the disparities would automatically shrink? Did we deny the problem to begin with? Or ha d we simply resigned ourselves to the inevitability of a sharply two-tiered society? The budget deficit began to vanish last year, even before the White House and Congress reached agreement on how to make it do so officially. Corporations and top earners did so well that more tax revenues poured into the Treasury than had been foreseen. But rather than being dedicated to what has been most neglected and is most needed--universal health care, child care, better schools, jobs for the poor who will lose welfare, public transportation and other means of helping the bottom half of our population move upward--most of this windfall went to the wealthiest members of our society in the form of tax cuts. The proposals put forward by President Clinton in his State of the Union speech are steps in the right direction but, in truth, their scale is very small relative to the problems they address. Bolder advances were hoped for. One must be careful not to sound overly critical. Few things grate more unpleasantly upon the ear than a liberal whine. Republicans and many commentators will claim that the President has gone back to his original, liberal agenda, and will attack him for failing to indicate exactly how he will pay for what he proposes. He wants to dedicate any budget surplus to shoring up Social Security. But Social Security is not nearly in the dire straits some have made it out to be. And--dare we say it again?--deficits are not bad in and of themselves, certainly not if the money is spent on making more Americans more productive and fuller members of our society. The most important thing the United States could achieve now is to get back on the track we were
New Book: Unions and Workplace Reorganization (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:12:42 -0800 (PST) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Progressive Economists' Network [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: New Book: Unions and Workplace Reorganization (fwd) For immediate release New Book Explores the Trends in Workplace Reorganization Ever since Henry Ford introduced the assembly line and the five-dollar day, U.S. employers have had to pay close attention to how the organization of a workplace and relationships between managers and workers affect economic performance. Employers continue to search for ways to harness employees' energy to achieve maximum efficiency and profit. Unions and Workplace Reorganization edited by Bruce Nissen (Wayne State University Press; $22.95 hardcover; pub. date: February 4, 1998) critically reviews trends in workplace reorganization and develops perspectives on how unions should respond to these trends. Wide in scope, the eleven essays in this collection evaluate and react to the AFL-CIO's 1994 policy statement "The New American Workplace: A Labor Perspective," which is included as a chapter in this volume and is treated as the official position of the U.S. labor movement. Presenting divergent viewpoints and analyses, the contributors discuss the main stances debated or adopted by unions struggling with workplace change. Topics include international comparisons, legal issues, practical experiences with the implementation of or resistance to certain programs, experiences in the public sector as well as comparisons between the private and public sectors, and broad ideological and programmatic visions. The very fate of unions in this country may depend on their ability to deal effectively with the challenge of workplace restructuring; thus, Unions and Workplace Reorganization addresses many of the most important issues currently facing the U.S. labor movement. Bruce Nissen is the assistant director at the Center for Labor Research and Studies at Florida International University. He is the author of Fighting for Jobs (State University of New York Press, 1995). He coedited the anthologies Grand Designs (ILR Press, 1993) and Theories of the Labor Movement (Wayne State University Press, 1987), and edited U.S. Labor Relations 1945-1989 (Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990). To order a copy of Unions and Workplace Reorganization, please visit your local bookstore or call 1-800-WSU-READ. ### Alison Reeves Marketing Manager Wayne State University Press The Leonard N. Simons Bldg. 4809 Woodward Avenue Detroit, MI 48201-1309 Tel: (313) 577-4603 Fax: (313) 577-6131 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Canadian banks (fwd)
Can anybody help this student reporter/researcher? Seems to be looking for the other side of the argument. What are people saying about Canadian banks, the proposed merger, etc. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:05:53 -0500 From: Chris Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Arthur Cordell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Canadian banks Mr. Cordell, I am a student at McGill University writing for the McGill Tribune. I am investigating whether or not Canadians are justified in berating the Big Six banks for their profit levels, user fees etc. Do we have a banking monopoly in Canada? Would more competition be desirable? I am looking for a seasoned view that represents the average Canadian consumer in these respects. I would like a response as soon as possible. Thank you. Christopher Allen (514) 844-5331 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Irish Times on French unemployed movement (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 11:59:29 -0800 (PST) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Progressive Economists' Network [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Irish Times on French unemployed movement (fwd) The Irish Times WORLD NEWS Thursday, January 22, 1998 Jospin shivers in winter of discontent Lara Marlowe looks at the unemployment protests that are still gathering momentum and are not confined to those without work France: It wasn't the storming of the Bastille, but when a crowd of unemployed protesters invaded Fouquet's, an expensive restaurant on the Champs-Elysée, earlier this week, their cries of "we're hungry, we're hungry" resonated through France's guilty social conscience. Among the 83 people arrested at Fouquet's was Helyette Besse, known as the "Mama" of the 1980s extremist group Action Directe. The Revolutionary Communist League, Trotskyists, gay, lesbian and ecologist fringe groups have also played a prominent role in France's five-week old revolt of the unemployed, which has presented the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, with his biggest crisis since taking office last June. Only a tiny proportion of France's four million unemployed have participated in the demonstrations, and many of the protesters are not even unemployed. Yet a majority of French people say they sympathise with the movement, and Mr Jospin was last night forced to explain his economic and social policy in an attempt to calm the rebellion. His popularity rating, though still high at 51 per cent, has dropped six points, and his Green and Communist coalition partners have sided with the demonstrators. The government was slow to react when activists began occupying unemployment benefits offices in Paris, Brittany and the south of France the week before Christmas. With most of the cabinet on holiday, the crisis received little attention. On January 9th, Mr Jospin offered a billion franc (£119 million) emergency fund for the joblesÿ s. Protest organisers sniffed at the offer - just as demonstrators rejected sandwiches or a meal in the staff canteen at another stylish Paris restaurant, La Coupole, last weekend; the Coupole crowd stood their ground and got oysters, steak and even a bottle of champagne from a restaurant client. On January 10th, riot police forcibly expelled demonstrators from more than a dozen dole offices across France; but the cycle of sit-ins and expulsions continued. A week later, Mr Jospin offered another carrot: a special committee to study the protesters' demand for a F1,500 (£179) increase in the minima sociaux - France's financial net for tÿ he poor and unemployed. There are eight different categories of minima sociaux including the RMI (minimum insertion revenue) and the ASS (specific solidarity allocation). Recipients number 3.3 million - six million counting their families - and all live near the official poverty level of F3,200 (£380) per month. Mr Jospin told parliament this week that France's 12.4 per cent unemployment rate - one of the highest in Europe - is "the central question of our society". He has kept campaign promises made last spring to create 350,000 government jobs for youths and to initiate a 35-hour working week. But he is firmly committed to monetary union, and an increase in welfare benefits could doom France's participation. Mr Jospin has been careful not to inflame public opinion against EMU by blaming the Maastricht criteria for his refusal to cave in to the revolt. The benefits increase demanded by protesters would cost F70 billion (£8.33 billion) - an unacceptable added budget deficit and tÿ ax burden, Mr Jospin said. Furthermore, such an increase would mean that some unemployed people would earn more than the minimum wage of F5,259 (£626). Sounding uncharacteristically like a liberal free marketeer, Mr Jospin said: "We don't want a society of assistance, but a society founded on work and productive activity." For once, the right-wing opposition applauded. The right is not so keen on Mr Jospin's plan for a 35-hour working week, which will be debated in the National Assembly on January 27th. A study released yesterday by the OFCE, an independent economic forecasting group, said the 35-hour week could create 450,000 new jobs by 2000. Another study carried out for the French Central Bank and leaked yesterday to Le Monde said the law could create over 700,000 jobs in three years. But business management groups fiercely oppose the law, claiming it will actually worsen unemployment. To encourage
Re: Lost in nostalgia
In a time of fiscal restraint bureaucracies will do just about anything to augment their budgets. On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Tom Walker wrote: 12:02 NASA CONFIRMS SEN. JOHN GLENN TO GO INTO SPACE AS PAYLOAD SPECIALIST. Couldn't have anything to do with nostalgia, could it? What does it say about the public relations of the space program -- until recently the epitome of futurism -- when it begins to recycle its relics? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Prosperity and Justice
As co-host of this list I concur with Sally. I don't think we need to get into a pushing and shoving match over the merits of capitalism vs. any other ism. This territory has been gone over many times. Other lists may be the appropriate place for this discussion. A negative outcome of the sort of discussion you are proposing is, invevitably, labelling, naming and, finally, name calling. Thanx for being a good netizen and going along with the wishes of your cyber-hosts. arthur cordell On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, charles mueller wrote: A year ago I would have thought that an Internet discussion comparing the relative merits of socialism versus capitalism was at best a waste of time. Now, after considerable experience with a number of lists, I'm no longer so sure. Any kind of reform requires a cadre of advocates, a group of people with a deep emotional distaste for injustice. This is not, alas, a universal or even common sentiment. When one encounters an individual or group that is keen on justice--however peculiar one might think the proposed remedies--congratulations are in order on that first basis alone. This list had, the last time I checked, 538 members. I have no idea how many of them are, like Eva Durant, Marxists. The objective of the members, though--if I understand their postings over the past months--is a luminous one, a society that is prosperous, nurturing of the environment, and just, i.e., one with a fair distribution of its income and wealth. I suspect, then, that each of our 538 members is trying to answer a key question: What 'system'--socialism, capitalism, or other alternative-- has the PRACTICAL potential to most closely approximate that ideal society we're all seeking? Notice the term 'practical potential.' Communism/socialism/collectivism has a tragic history--one that continues unabated in such countries as Castro's Cuba and North Korea--as I emphasized in my last post here. But is that terrible track record of the first historical test of collective ownership of the means of production just an error of judgment on the part of its first practitioners, a small mistake in the locus of management control? Eva Durant says yes. 'State monopolies that are not controlled directly by the EMPLOYEES have nothing to do with the Marxist principles, whether they are based on collective or on private property relations. THAT'S why they were a failure.' Control, she tells us, should also reside in 'the whole community democratically,' thereby motivating all to 'participate and innovate.' Her bottom line is this: 'With safeguards for democracy, built from the bottom with universal democratic control, SOCIALISM would be more viable and the NEXT logical step.' She 'knows where socialism WENT WRONG in the past and, with safeguards for democracy,' it can be fixed. So what exactly is Eva's case, her cure for what has been wrought so far by Marx's followers, e.g., Lenin, Stalin, Castro, et al? 'Employee' control, the 'whole community democratically,' and 'safeguards for democracy' can make socialism an effective engine for prosperity, environmental integrity, and economic equality in the world's 200 countries? In my view, it's an illusion. If I'm welcome here, I'll be happy to present the case for COMPETITIVE capitalism. I've been told, though, that I'm no longer welcome to post to this group (below) . I hope Sally Lerner and her colleagues will reconsider. Charles Mueller, Editor ANTITRUST LAW ECONOMICS REVIEW http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller Charles - Can I ask you once again to stop posting to the Futurework lists. Your interests are important, but just not that relevant to our subscribers Sally Lerner .
Re: Prosperity and Justice
On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Charles J. Reid wrote: Well, Arthur, I posted my disagreement with your position in a previous post. We've talked about Justice for 2300 years since Plato, too. Wanting to escape a relevant discussion does not seem to me to be a good motivation for your decison, one essentially advoating censorship and "political correctness." [I really would like to understand minds that think this way, but I'm sure I never will.] My ultimate conclusion is: if we are going to talk about the future, and how we are going to move in a direction of greater justice for all the worlds peoples, we need to be inclusive, and allow everyone to participate in the discussion. It's very tedious, I know, especially in light of the agitation of late-comers to the forum (which, while I don't post too much, I've belonged to for 2 years). Let me urge you to end the requirement of intellectual conformity to participate on this forum. We'll all be better off for it in the long run. -- CJR Not pressing for intellectual conformity or whatever. But I do suggest that those who want to explore the various isms in some depth do so as a side discussion. Have you ever been in a large conversation where the thread keeps changing, but is more or less on point. A side conversation springs up in the corner. The participants think it so important that they want everyone in the room to participate in the new thread. Some do, some don't. Some are too polite to say anything. I suggest that those who are off to the side looking at isms and justice continue to do so--but as a side conversation. Not being politically correct, just not interested. thanx arthur cordell
French unemployed protest (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 09:40:39 -0800 (PST) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LABOR-L [EMAIL PROTECTED], Progressive Economists' Network [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: French unemployed protest (fwd) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 98 01:35:41 UT From: "Paul Burns" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: French unemployed protest PARIS (Reuters)-Several hundred jobless protesters broke into a Paris financial market on Tuesday, flinging papers about and lighting a small fire outside to dramatize their call for higher unemployment benefits. The protesters, some of them masked, took over the main hall of the Bourse du Commerce commodity futures market and ransacked offices upstairs before leaving of their own accord after talks with French officials. Trading at the domed exchange was unaffected by the protest, the latest in a series of seizures of public buildings by militant unemployed who say the Socialist-led government is not doing enough to help them. The protesters spray-painted slogans on the walls such as "Death To Speculators" and "Give Us Some Money To Live!" Earlier on Tuesday, several thousand protesters marched through Paris to the CNPF employers' association headquarters to press their campaign for work. Police estimated the group at the Bourse du Commerce to be about 800 protesters, but market officials spoke only of 300. "These people invaded the Bourse du Commerce and sacked and pillaged the interior violently, after which people working in the building were forced to leave the premises under threat," a police communique said. "The main door and some windows upstairs were broken, but we can't say yet how much damage was done to the offices," said Jean-Christian Sema, legal and administrative affairs director for the Bourse du Commerce. "We have seen the same thing before with the farmers when they were protesting about cuts in subsidies, "a futures exchange official said. Doors to ground floor futures pits were blocked to prevent disruption to the market. Riot police equipped with helmets, shields and tear gas rushed to the scene to deal with the protest, but did not enter the building in the Les Halles quarter. Leaflets from jobless groups and office stationery from trading companies littered the floor of the exchange after the protesters left.
Theobald speech text for Toronto (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:04:35 -0800 From: Robert Theobald [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: text of speech to be given in Toronto After considerable soul-searching, I have decided to send this lengthy e-mail to you. It is the text of a speech which I shall give in Toronto. While the first third covers familiar ground, I believe that the rest is quite new and that the whole represents a new level of clarity for me. I see a couple of uses for this material. First, you may want so suggest to people in the Toronto area that they may want to come to the meeting to be held at the OISE at 4pm on Monday January 19th: the address is 252 Bloor Street West. Second, you may have some people to whom you want to provide a shorter statement than that contained in Reworking Success about why immediate, fundamental change is required. You are welcome to distribute this in any way which seems useful. THE HEALING CENTURY. It is my intention to bring you a message of hope today. I shall argue that we are capable of making a profound positive shift in our thinking over the next few years. The heart of this shift would be for us to conceptualize the twenty-first century as the healing century just as the twentieth will certainly be defined in the future as the economic century. I shall prove that only a change toward a more caring and compassionate culture at all levels from the personal to the ecological can avoid massive breakdowns. Given that my audience is drawn primarily from the arts community, I shall propose at the end of my speech that the change we require must be driven by the arts. We are in need of a profound shift in the mythic structures on which we draw and this can only occur outside our rational and logical frameworks. I am all too well aware, however, that the message of hope I intend to send will only be welcome to those who are aware that the current directions of the global culture are unacceptable and unsustainable. If you still believe that our current commitment to maximum economic growth and international competitiveness, based on ever-increasing technological competence, will solve our problems then my message will seem pessimistic and, indeed, highly negative. My whole discussion this evening is based on my belief that we face a series of unavoidable crises which are already visible to those who care to look beyond the dominant headlines. These crises are due to our past successes rather than our failures. We have achieved what we wanted to. We have so far failed to recognize that it is now time to move on and to seize the new opportunities which are currently available to us. We urgently need to rework our concepts of success. Fortunately, the Chinese have taught us that crises bring both danger and opportunity. Danger predominates when we ignore changing realities as our dominant communication systems are doing today. Opportunity emerges when we commit to breaking the psychic trance that numbs us at the current time. I hope this evening to support the mindquakes we need if we are to see the radically different world which is already emerging around us. The first part of my talk will deal with the economic, social, environmental, moral and spiritual crises of our time. I shall show that there must be profound shifts if we are to avoid the breakdowns that threaten our future. I shall move rapidly through this part of my talk realizing that I shall not convince you by my arguments if you are not already in sympathy with what I am saying. The second part will deal with the processes that will support the discovery of a radically different future. But before I can even start on the description of the crises I need to say why we have no choice but to move rapidly in new directions. The core reality of our time is that we live in a period of rapidly increasing stress. It has developed because the twentieth century has seen a profound change in all the realities of our world but neither our institutions nor our visions have kept up. At the beginning of the century, the population of the world was 1.6 billion. It is now 5.6 billion. We have moved from an empty world to one which is already pressuring space and resources and will do so more severely even if the most hopeful assumptions about population growth are realized. And yet there are still powerful voices that refuse to support the need for decreasing births as rapidly as possible. In this same century, we have moved from a world where natural resources, especially air, land and water were relatively abundant, to one where shortages loom and are already causing havoc in certain parts of the world. At the same time, it is clear that the wastes from our technological, industrial culture are having severe impacts on the quality of the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe: many diseases are becoming more
Re: Future of work lists. (fwd)
Greetings from Ottawa where there is much ice but where things are slowly getting back to normal. Sally and I have talked about how to respond to 'future of futurework' and here is our response. == We are all looking for leadership, each in our own way. Sally and Arthur have been hosting this list and have been setting some broad directions. You, the participants, have it within your own power to take the list in new ways. Ways that accord with the ideas suggested. Conversations evolve. Lists evolve. As long as things don't veer too far away from the original intent of the list then Sally and Arthur are happy to provide a cyber-home for the discussions. === arthur and sally
Destroying National Currencies (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:29:27 -0500 From: Michel Chossudovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Destroying National Currencies DESTROYING NATIONAL CURRENCIES by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of "The Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. The author can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa 1997. All rights reserved. Since the onslaught of the debt crisis in the early 1980s, the IMF has played a central role in exchange rate policy often requiring indebted Third World countries to devalue their currency by 50 percent as a "pre-condition" for the subsequent negotiation of a loan agreement. IMF sponsored currency devaluations have invariably resulted in abrupt price hikes and a dramatic compression of real earnings. What is distinct in the cases of Korea, Indonesia and Thailand is that the devaluation (which preceded the bail-out agreement and the imposition of sweeping macro-economic reforms) had not been explicitly demanded by the Washington based bureaucracy. Rather it was the result of speculative pressures on currency markets exerted by the large merchant banks and financial institutions (through the use of a variety of speculative instruments). In the context of the Asian financial crisis, "institutional speculators" (rather than the IMF) have come to play an indirect role in the process of macro-economic reform. In other words, international banking and financial institutions have (in a de facto sense) dictated country-level foreign exchange policy, --ie. through the deliberate manipulation of currency markets. In this context, "institutional speculators" are involved in "setting the stage" for the subsequent IMF bail-out operation. They are also involved in routine consultations with the Bretton Woods institutions pertaining to the various components of the macro-economic reform package included in the bail-out agreements (eg. the deregulation of Korea's financial sector and the opening up of Seoul's bond market to foreign capital). In turn, the same Western and Japanese financial and banking institutions (routinely involved in currency and stock market speculation) are the creditors of Asia's central banks. They also hold large amounts of short term debt and have, therefore, a vested interest in averting loan default by Asian financial institutions. Not surprisingly, these same Western and Japanese financial institutions have pressured G7 governments to implement the bail-out operations of which they are the ultimate beneficiaries, --ie. the 57 billion dollars under the IMF sponsored agreement with the Seoul government will be used to reimburse Korea's creditors. How will these multi-billion dollars operations be financed? The contribution of the Bretton Woods institutions and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) constitutes but a fraction of the total. The largest contributions to the bail-outs are from G7 governments, requiring the issuing of vast amounts of public debt. In other words, G7 governments have come to the rescue of the merchant and commercial banks by accepting to finance the bail-out, yet to undertake this objective, G7 national treasuries are obliged to issue large amounts of public debt which is invariably underwritten by the large merchant banks. In other words, the "beneficiaries" of the bail-out are also the underwriters of the public debt operation required to finance the bail-out. An absurd situation: G7 governments are "financing their own indebtedness"... While the bail-outs are conducive to the building up of public debts (in both the Asian and G7 countries) --thereby reinforcing the stranglehold of the creditors over the conduct of economic policy-- tens of billions of dollars of public money are transferred into the hands of private financial institutions leading to an unprecedented accumulation of private wealth. In turn, the macro-economic reforms imposed in the context of the IMF sponsored bail-outs are conducive to a dramatic collapse of the real economy leading to the impoverishment of millions of people. Michel Chossudovsky Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, K1N6N5 Fax: 1-613-7892050 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alternative fax: 1-613-5625999
The IMF Korea Bailout (fwd)
-- Forwarded message --
Date: Thu, 01 Jan 1998 14:44:16 -0500
From: Michel Chossudovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The IMF Korea Bailout
THE IMF KOREA BAILOUT
by
Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of "The Globalisation
of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network,
Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. The author can be contacted at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky Ottawa 1997. All rights reserved.
In late November 1997 following the dramatic plunge of the Korean won on
the foreign exchange market, an IMF team of economists led by Mr. Hubert
Neiss was rushed to Seoul. Its mandate: negotiate the terms of a
"Mexican-style bail-out" with a view to "restoring economic health and
stability".
An important precedent had been set: the IMF's standard "economic medicine"
(routinely imposed on the Third World and Eastern Europe) had been launched
for the first time in an advanced industrial economy... The details of the
economic reform programme, however, had already been decided in advance in
consultation with the US Treasury, Wall Street's commercial and merchant
banks as well as with major banking interests in Japan and the European
Union.
A Letter of Intent ("Memorandum on the Economic Program") was put together
in a hurry on behalf of the government with virtually no analysis of the
broader causes of the financial meltdown. (The "policy solutions" had
already been decided upon: no analysis was deemed necessary).
A covering letter was drafted with the help of IMF officials dated December
3 and signed by the Governor of the Bank of Korea, Mr. Kyung shik Lee and
the Minister of Finance Mr. Chan yuel Lim. The Memorandum included the
usual Policy Framework Paper (PFP) imposed by the Bretton Woods
institutions on indebted Third World nations. (See International Monetary
Fund, Korea, Request for Stand-by Arrangement, Washington, December 3,
1997, The text of the IMF Agreement together with the "Memorandum on the
Economic Program" was published by Chosun Korea, Seoul, December 1997 at
WWW.chosun.com).
The Managing Director Mr. Michel Camdessus was in Seoul during the final
days of negotiation; the IMF's mission was briskly wrapped up on December
3d after a one week stint; a "proposed decision" on the stand-by
arrangement had already been drafted by IMF staff for adoption by the IMF
Executive Board on the following day (December 4th). In close consultation
with IMF negotiators, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank had
also sent in their own teams. A World Bank package with stringent
conditionalities on "financial governance" was announced on December 18th.
A Safety Net for the Creditors
On Christmas Eve December 24th, officials from six leading US commercial
banks including Chase, Bank America, Citicorp and J. P. Morgan were called
in for talks at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The "big five" New
York merchant banks (Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and
Salomon Smith Harney) were also involved in these discussions on South
Korea's short-term debt. (Financial Times, 27-28 December 1997, p. 3).
Almost simultaneously, some 80 European creditor banks under the
chairmanship of the Deutsche Bank were meeting behind closed doors in
Frankfurt while Japan's big ten banks (which account for a large portion of
Korea's short term debt) were involved in high level discussions in Tokyo
with Mr. Kyong shik Lee, Governor of the Bank of Korea.
No Capital Inflows under the Bailout
The bail-out (to be financed by G7 governments, the IMF, the World Bank and
the Asian Development Bank) will evidently not result in capital inflows
into Korea: it largely serves the interests of the international banking
community, enabling US, European and Japanese banks to cash in on Korea's
short term debt. In turn, Korea will be locked into the servicing of this
debt under the Agreement until the year 2006.
The Macro-Economic Agenda
The IMF programme derogates Korea's economic sovereignty, it plunges the
country virtually overnight into a deep recession. The social impact is
devastating. The standard of living has collapsed; the IMF programme
depresses wages and creates massive unemployment. (Wages expressed in US
dollars have already been cut in half as a result of the devaluation). The
Agreement also requires the government to introduce "labour market
flexibility" including procedures for compressing wages and shedding
"surplus workers".
The IMF Agreement consists in tearing down Korea's banking system while
creating conditions which enable the speedy acquisition of the most
profitable industrial assets by foreign capital. The Agreement lifts the
ceiling on individual foreign ownership to 50 percent by the end of 1997
and 55 percent by February 1998. The IMF Agreement requires further trade
liberalisation as well as the opening up of the domestic bond market to
foreign
letter to rubin (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 14:27:43 -0800 (PST) From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LABOR-L [EMAIL PROTECTED], Progressive Economists' Network [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: letter to rubin (fwd) Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 17:21:13 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: letter to rubin (fwd) Below is a letter Ralph Nader and I sent earlier today to Robert Rubin. Please distribute as appropriate. Robert Weissman Essential Information | Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ralph Nader Robert Weissman P.O. Box 19312 Washington, D.C. 20036 December 31, 1997 Secretary Robert Rubin Department of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20220 Dear Secretary Rubin: One of the more disturbing traits of the architects of economic globalization is their penchant for secrecy and apparent disdain for democratic processes. This modus operandi is problematic on procedural grounds alone, but also because it tends to foster policies that serve narrow corporate interests over broader taxpayer, consumer, worker, environmental and other citizen interests. Your involvement and leadership in the ongoing South Korean/Citicorp bailout illustrates the perils of top government officials crafting policy with very little democratic influence and virtually no public debate. One result is that the "national interest" is typically confused with corporate interests -- here the particular financial corporate interests of Wall Street. This is a natural outgrowth of Wall Street's intimate involvement in the process leading up to the announcement of the various South Korea bailout packages and the effective avoidance of any public disclosure and debate over the bailout. To be clear, there is no doubt that the globalization-induced Asian financial crisis and the South Korean meltdown in particular were and are serious problems. And there is no doubt the problems are complicated by the fact that, in globalized financial markets, perception is reality, at least to some significant extent in the short term. However, as serious problems, they merit open debate and explanation of policy choices by government officials -- not stealth meetings, secret decisions, concealed information, intentionally obscure comments from you and other officials and sudden reversals of policy. The priorities of democracy must be elevated over those of "the market" -- and if that sounds like an impossibility to you, then you should say so, in order to dispel illusions about the legitimacy of the decisions being made. As you may recall, in the first weeks of the South Korean crisis, you and members of the Clinton administration repeatedly asserted that U.S. funds would be involved in the South Korea/Citicorp bailout only as "a second line of defense." On December 3, South Korea and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to a $55 billion loan package in which South Korea agreed to substantial economic conditions. Of that $55 billion, $20 billion was committed by the United States, Japan and several other nations. The U.S. contribution was $5 billion, drawn from the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a pool of money on which the president can draw without approval by Congress. That $20 billion, including the U.S. share, was specifically characterized as a "second line of defense" to be used only after the multilateral development bank money was exhausted. You continued to assure the American people that U.S. taxpayer money would not be put at risk. On December 24, in what may become known as the Great Christmas Eve Reversal, the Clinton administration agreed to lend South Korea $1.7 billion next month as part of a $10 billion emergency loan package. In exchange for the loan, you extracted a series of additional South Korean economic conditions which are of questionable benefit to the South Korean economy, though of certain advantage to big U.S. banks and other corporations which will now be able to acquire majority stakes in South Korean firms at firesale prices. It is not surprising that to you globalization has certain imperatives, including taxpayer-guaranteed bailouts for overextended foreign conglomerates and financial institutions when they start collapsing, as well as their private U.S. corporate creditors. But the manner in which the loan packages have been crafted do not build public confidence for the administration's efforts. The packages have been drafted in secret. There was no genuine possibility for critical discussion, since up to the Christmas Eve Reversal, you had expressly disavowed the very policies you proceeded to adopt in what the New York Times called an "about face." The U.S. monies put at risk were drawn from a fund over which Congress does not exercise appropriation powers, denying the legislative branch
questions
Good wishes to all on the FW list. If you feel boredom coming on in the new year, you may wish to ponder some of the questions below. arthur cordell The New York Times News Service [hr]TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1997[hr] In an On-Line Salon, Scientists Sit Back and Ponder AT his Web site, called Edge, John Brockman, a literary agent for many scientists and an author himself, tries to achieve what he calls ''electronic discourse at the highest level'' with people of ''the third culture'' -- scientists and other researchers who, he says, ''are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meaning of our lives, redefining who and what we are.'' To mark the first anniversary of the site (http://www.edge.org), Mr. Brockman posed a question: ''Simply reading the six million volumes in the Widener Library does not necessarily lead to a complex and subtle mind,'' he wrote, referring to the Harvard library. ''How to avoid the anesthesiology of wisdom?'' He answered the question with other questions -- by inviting participants to submit ''the question you are asking yourself.'' Here are some of their queries. They and others are now available at Edge. What is the crucial distinction between inanimate matter and an entity which can act as an ''agent,'' manipulating the world on its own behalf, and how does that change happen? -- PHILIP ANDERSON Physicist and Nobel laureate Princeton University Is the universe a great mechanism, a great computation, a great symmetry, a great accident or a great thought? -- JOHN D. BARROW Astronomer, University of Sussex How can we build a new ethics of respect for life that goes beyond individual survival to include the necessity of death, the preservation of the environment and our current and developing scientific knowledge? -- MARY CATHERINE BATESON Anthropologist, George Mason University How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? -- STEWART BRAND ''Whole Earth'' catalogues founder Which cognitive skills develop in any reasonably normal human environment and which only in specific sociocultural contexts? -- JOHN T. BRUER President, James S. McDonnell Foundation What is the mathematical essence that distinguishes living from nonliving, so that we can engineer a transcendence across the current boundaries? -- ROD BROOKS Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, M.I.T. Do humans have evolved homicide modules -- evolved psychological mechanisms specifically dedicated to killing other humans under certain contexts? -- DAVID BUSS Psychologist, University of Texas How will minds expand, once we understand how the brain makes mind? -- WILLIAM H. CALVIN Neurophysiologist, U. of Washington Any musically aware listener will know of music that breaks out of established forms or syntax to profound effect -- my personal favorites include Beethoven's ''Eroica Symphony,'' Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde,'' Schoenberg's ''Erwartung,'' Debussy's ''Apres Midi d'un Faune.'' What is the most that we can ever say objectively about what those composers are discovering? -- PHILIP CAMPBELL Editor, Nature If ethnicity and the human use of biological cues (and cultural and linguistic cues) to indicate social identity are parts of our evolutionary legacy, it makes it that much harder to eradicate ethnocentrism and racism. Can we do it? -- RACHEL CASPARI Anthropologist, University of Michigan If Gordon Moore was correct in his prediction that the amount of information storable on semiconductor chips would double every 18 months, over time is time more or less valuable? -- LUYEN CHOU President, Learn Technologies Interactive What is information and where does it ultimately originate? -- PAUL DAVIES Physicist, University of Adelaide, Australia What might a second specimen of the phenomenon that we call life look like? -- RICHARD DAWKINS Evolutionary biologist, Oxford A crowd can empty a football stadium in minutes, solving what is an intractable computational problem and exhibiting large-scale adaptive intelligence in the absence of central direction. Why are decentralized processes ubiquitous throughout nature and society -- evolution, itself, is such a process -- and why do people remain so distrustful of them that they will sacrifice their autonomy and freedom for centralized solutions? -- ARTHUR DE VANY Behavioral scientist, University of California at Irvine How on earth does the brain manage its division of labor problem -- that is, how do the quite specialized bits manage to contribute something useful when they get ''recruited'' by their neighbors to assist in currently dominant tasks? -- DANIEL C. DENNETT Philosopher, Tufts University What do collapses of past societies teach us about our own future? -- JARED DIAMOND Biologist, University of California at Los Angeles Medical School Throughout its history, the scientific
correction
Edupage, 28 December 1997. Edupage, a summary of news about information technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. [Note: A number of readers have informed us that the prose poem written by the "Anonymous" author who was the honorary subscriber in our last issue of Edupage was actually written by an Indiana writer named Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) who specialized in sentimental verses. The work we quoted (called "Desiderata" and still in print) is really quite sweet, though it's been widely parodied as well as turned into saccharine by-products, including records, posters, etc. We had never previously heard of Mr. Ehrmann, and came across his poem only recently -- not in an old church in Baltimore but, less poetically, in a new pizza house outside of Atlanta.] Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
message
Some soothing thoughts for turbulent times... From Edupage... The following words were found in Old St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, Maryland (dated 1692): Go placidly among the noise haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly clearly, and listen to others, even the dull ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
income gap (fwd)
Wall Street Journal WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1997 Income Gap Between Rich and Poor Grows Nationwide By Michael M. Phillips Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON -- The gulch between rich and poor families has grown wider overÿ the last two decades in virtually every state in the Union, but the trendÿ has eased somewhat during the economic boom of the 1990s, a new study reported. The economic distance between rich and poor families has grown most sharplyÿ in Connecticut and New York since the late 1970s, while the poor have gaineÿ d ground in Alaska and North Dakota over the same period. During the last decade, poor families in Arkansas, Colorado and Minnesota have caught up thÿ e most, while poor Arizonans have been falling behind the fastest. The study, by the liberal-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,ÿ shows that the incomes of the richest fifth of families with children outpaced the incomes of the poorest fifth in 48 states and the District ofÿ Columbia between the late-1970s and the mid-1990s. In 44 states and Washington, D.C., the poor saw their incomes shrink during that period. "The main finding of this study, and most surprising, is the increase of income inequality is so pervasive in almost every state," said Kathryn A.ÿ Larin, a policy analyst at the center and one of the report's authors. "Oveÿ r the long term, the gap has been widening between rich and poor." Interestingly, however, during the last decade the poorest fifth gained ground on the richest fifth in 13 states. One such state was Minnesota, where the poorest fifth had an average annual income of $14,655 during theÿ 1994-96 period, while the richest fifth earned an average of $120,344. Thatÿ ratio -- the rich earned 8.2 times as much as the poor -- ranked Minnesotaÿ the state with the 10th-lowest amount of income inequality. "Most of our poor are working poor, so they tend to be a little better off,ÿ " said Matt Shands, director of the nonprofit Minnesota Budget Project in St.ÿ Paul. Economists generally blame the long-term growth in inequality on several factors: technological changes that make highly skilled workers better rewarded, the weakening of unions, the decline in many manufacturing industries and the rise of service jobs, and, to a lesser degree, competition from foreign producers and poorly paid immigrants. But the authors of the new report concede they are hard-pressed for an all-encompassing explanation for the variation among the states. Maine, which has relatively low inequality, has lost manufacturing jobs inÿ shoes and textiles, but perhaps at a slower pace than many other states --ÿ meaning there are still well-paying jobs available to for high-school graduates. Maine also was relatively poor in the 1970s, with many residentsÿ engaged in low-paying fishing and logging jobs. "A job at Wal-Mart paying $ÿ 7 an hour with some benefits isn't a half-bad job in the Maine context," saidÿ Christopher St. John, executive director of the nonprofit Maine Center forÿ Economic Policy in Augusta. Even in Maine, however, the gap between rich and poor has grown over the last two decades. The top fifth of Maine families with children earned 6.5ÿ times more than the bottom fifth in 1978-80. By 1994-96 that ratio had jumped to 8.2. In New York, the top fifth of families earned 19.5 times as much as the poorest fifth in 1994-96. Only the District of Columbia saw sharper incomeÿ differences. Possible reasons: Upstate New York has sat out the 1990s economic boom, and New York City is a traditional entry point for lowpaidÿ immigrants. But the situation in New York may be even more extreme than the study reveals. The Census Bureau data used by the authors don't include such noncash benefits as food stamps in the incomes of the poorest residents. More importantly, however, at the upper end the data exclude capital-gainsÿ income and individual earnings beyond the first $100,000. With Wall Streetÿ booming, the rich in New York are probably substantially richer than the study indicates. "This is probably even worse than it looks," said Deborahÿ A. Ellwood, senior policy analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute in Albany,ÿ N.Y. California, which has seen many new jobs created in low-wage apparel manufacturing, and Arizona, with its elevated school-dropout rate combinedÿ with an influx of educated workers from other states, also rank high in inequality. The authors concede that states can do little to address the underlying economic trends that have contributed to the income gap. But they advise that states take steps to ameliorate the symptoms, including adoption of more progressive taxes and gearing welfare reform to move former recipientsÿ into jobs with income-growth potential. Journal Link: For the full text of
Re: Letter from Sao Paulo
Thanx for your sobering message, Ed. As I was reading it I kept bouncing back and forth between conditions and problems. Is Heliopolis (and others) a condition (which will continue) or is it a problem (something can be done about it). If its a problem, than what must be done to 'fix' it? It's a cold overcast day here in Ottawa and my mood must reflect the weather: I fear that the Heliopolis' of the world reflect aspects of the human economic/political condition. I just can't imagine the political/economic/environmental things that would have to be changed to provide long term remedies (the kind of remedies that my middle class mentality sees as remedies). arthur cordell
[isg] Contribution from Harlan Cleveland #1 (fwd)
And here is some background on Harlan Cleveland. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 20:52:07 -0800 From: Brooks Jordan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [isg] Contribution from Harlan Cleveland #1 Dear Participants, We would like to begin our inquiry this week by sharing with you some thoughts about information from Harlan Cleveland, President of the World Academy of Art and Science. With Harlan's guidance, we have chosen two sections from his booklet "Leadership and the Information Revolution" (1997). In the first, he discusses the special properties of information. In the second, he poses some major questions of our time that these information properties might help us find new answers to. We have sent the sections as a separate message. Harlan wrote "Leadership and the Information Revolution" based on a series of talks he gave at the United Nations University's commencement of its new International Leadership Academy, hosted by the Government of Jordan in Amman. A special thank you to Harlan for helping us broaden and deepen our conversation on the Information Society and Governance. Please take a few moments to read about Harlan Cleveland and The World Academy of Art and Science. About Harlan Cleveland Harlan Cleveland, political scientist and public executive, is President of the World Academy of Art and Science. A Princeton University graduate in 1938, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in the late 1930's; an economic warfare specialist (in Washington, DC) and United Nations relief and rehabilitation administrator (in Italy and China) in the 1940's. In 1948 he joined the Economic Cooperation Administration, where he served as Director of the China Aid Program, then developed and managed U.S. aid to eight East Asian countries, and later became (as Assistant Director for Europe of the Mutual Security Agency) the Washington based supervisor of the Marshall Plan for European recovery in its fourth year, 1952. In early 1953 he left Washington to become executive editor, and later also publisher, of "The Reporter" magazine. In 1956 he was appointed dean of the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He was a delegate from the State of New York to the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. During the 1960's Harlan Cleveland served as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs in the administration of President John F. Kennedy, and in 1965 was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as U.S. Ambassador to NATO, serving in that post also under President Richard Nixon until May 1969. From 1969 to 1974 he was President of the University of Hawaii, of which he is now President Emeritus. From 1974 to 1980 he developed and directed the Program in International Affairs of the Aspen Institute, with headquarters both in Princeton, New Jersey, and in Aspen, Colorado. During 1977-78 he was also chairman of the U.S. Weather Modification Advisory Board. In 1979 he served for one semester as the Distinguished Visiting Tom Slick Professor of World Peace at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. During the 1980's, he served as the founding dean of the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, a graduate school, research institute, and one of the nation's early centers for leadership education. He concurrently served two three-year terms as Trustee-at-Large of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He retired in 1988 as Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, where he still has an office in the Humphrey Center. Professor Cleveland has been a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science since 1977, and in 1991 became its president, a position he still holds. In 1994 he hosted in Minneapolis, preceded by four international workshops, a major gathering of the World Academy Fellows on "The Governance of Diversity." Also in 1994, he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of VITA (Volunteers in Technical Assistance), while it was planning the first operational low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite designed to serve the two-thirds of the world's population still "beyond the last telephone pole." He is now Honorary Chairman of VITA. Harlan Cleveland has authored hundreds of magazine and journal articles, and eleven books, mostly on executive leadership and world affairs. The latest is "Birth of a New World: An Open Moment for International Leadership (1993). Other recent books include "The Knowledge Executive: Leadership in an Information Society" (1985, republished in paperback 1989), and "The Global Commons: Policy for the Planet (1990). From 1987 to 1993 he wrote a fortnightly column on world affairs for the "Star Tribune," Newspaper of the Twin Cities. About The World Academy of Art and Science The World Academy of Art and Science was established in 1960
[isg] Contribution from Harlan Cleveland #2 (fwd)
I am forwarding a post from another list that seems relevant to futurework. arthur cordell -- Forwarded message -- Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 20:52:47 -0800 From: Brooks Jordan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [isg] Contribution from Harlan Cleveland #2 The following is excerpts from Harlan Cleveland's "Leadership and the Information Revolution." Section 1 is from pgs 15-16 and Section 2 from pgs 8-9. Section 1 In my opening comment last Sunday, I suggested that information will be playing the prima donna role in economic history that physical labor, stone, bronze, land, minerals, metals, and energy once played -- and that this would require us "to revise all sorts of assumptions we have treated as 'solid' [because they had to do with things] but now turn out to be fragile and flawed." The trouble seems to be that we have carried over into our thinking about information (which is to say symbols) concepts developed for the management of things -- concepts such as property, depletion, depreciation, monopoly, market economies, class struggle, and top-down leadership. The same is true of much of our inherited thinking about privilege, discrimination, equity, and fairness. This is, I know, a pretty comprehensive list of crumbling concepts, but I mean quite literally what I'm saying. For a start, it helps to stop treating information as just another thing, a sort of commodity with pseudophysical properties, and look hard instead at what makes it so special. For information, the product of human brainwork, is fundamentally different from all its predecessors as civilization's dominant resource. 1. Unlike tangible resources, information expands as it's used. Information tends toward glut, not scarcity. Our common complaint about information is not skimpy rations but overload. 2. Information, as it expands, is less hungry for other resources than were the earlier engines of economic growth. By and large, the higher the tech, the less wasteful of energy and physical raw materials. Computers, for example, get smaller, more powerful, and use less electricity all at the same time. A friend in the aluminum industry has charts and calculations to show that "the smarter the metal, the less it weighs." Not "the limits to growth," but something more like "the growth of limits," is the essence of modern economic history. 3. Information is substitutable. It can and increasingly does replace land, labor, and capital. Information workers, using computers hooked up to worldwide telecommunications, don't need much real estate to do their work. Robotics, automation, and computer/communication office systems displace not only factory and agricultural workers but whole levels of middle-management work as well. Any machine that can be put to your use by computerized communication doesn't have to be in your own inventory. 4. Information is readily transportable at, almost, the speed of light-and evidently, by telepathy or prayer, much faster than that. Hence the passing of "remoteness," which becomes more a matter of personal choice than geography. 5. Information is porous, transparent. It leaks; it has an inherent tendency to leak. The more it leaks, the more we have, and the more of us have it. The straitjackets of government "classification," trade secrecy, intellectual property rights, and confidentiality of all kinds fit very loosely on this restless resource. 6. Information is shared, not exchanged. It may look like an exchange transaction when someone buys a book, a magazine, a software program, a symbolic artifact, or permission to access a database. But what is being bought or sold is the delivery mechanism; any message delivered is also retained by the seller, who shares it with the buyer. Section 2 These six simple, pregnant propositions, multiplied and spread around the world and down the generations, are bound to provide new answers to some of the biggest "why" questions about the exciting times just ahead of us. For example: · Why, in our communities, our nations, and our world, nobody can possibly be in general charge -- of anything. · Why diversity, more and more, will be the law of life and of leadership on this planet. · Why people will just have to find ways to be different, yet together -- not only in Bosnia and the Middle East, but also in Washington and Tokyo and New Delhi and Rio and Berlin and thousands of other mixed up places. · Why we'll have to change our ways of thinking about work -- and probably even chop away the linkage between "working" and "making a living." · Why the rapid globalization of ideas and markets will require new policies and international agreements for governance and business, for art and science, for culture and communicat
Alistair Cooke on stock crashes (from BBC) (fwd)
For those market watchers. Some perspective/background. BBC News Online: World: Letter From America The Crash of 1873, 1929, '87, '97. Friday, November 7, 1997 Published at 14:24 GMT The Crash of 1873, 1929, '87, '97. Until last Monday, there was no question in my mind what had to be talked about this week: the very delicate topic of China and America. But Monday was the day when the skies went dark at noon and scared, you might say, the living daylights out of everybody. And at 3.30 in the afternoon, the President of the New York stock exchange did something that had been done only twice before - immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy, and then again after the wounding of President Reagan. It was feared that if trading was allowed to go on, the market might reel into chaos. The market always closes at 4pm, but on Monday the gavel fell and the bell rang at 3.30. By that time, stocks had plunged 554 points - the largest absolute number ever - 46 points more than the well remembered drop almost exactly ten years ago. But the experts were quick to point out that in 1987, the volume of the market was much smaller and the percentage drop was over 22% whereas on Monday, the drop was just over 7%. It used to be as late as a dozen years ago that a drop as small as 30 points in the market would be the lead item on the television evening news. But the bull market has been going on so long and the recovery from bigger drops so swift that, till now, even a 90 point drop comes late in the news. Until last Monday. 554 - scared everybody for a night and a day, though Tuesday's rousing rally offered a temporary gasp of relief. Throughout all of Monday and on into the American night, during which the Hong Kong market starts up again, all that time we saw on our screens - like the endless credit crawl of a long film - a running procession of figures - the battle casualties on the exchanges of the countries that matter most these days to Americans: Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, Tokyo, Berlin. (How the life of man - and woman - has changed since the days when we woke up in the morning and seized the newspaper to see what happened to the Franc and the Pound.) Well, to a hard-nosed observer, resigned to the fact that what happened to him was happening to everybody else - the most cold-bloodedly interesting thing about the whole event was the trotting out by the experts of all the judgements, the usual phrases, that have been used after every stock market crash since 1929 - maybe since 1873 when, the most famous historian wrote: "Over-production of goods, over-capitalisation of property and railroads and feverish speculation in all sorts of corporate enterprise (does it sound familiar?) brought the financial panic of 1873." It took the country four or five years to get to its knees again. Towards the end of last Tuesday, when the 554 drop was a fact to accept and explain, the experts were first telling us in a breathless tone, not to panic and then the sages came in. What had happened had been a "long overdue correction", a balancing act, an attempt to seek a healthy haven and - I love this - "a shaking out of weak money and those investors with no spine." Asked to define a spineless investor, the man said, "Investors who cannot stand the strain on a daily basis." The ones, I guess, who at the first plunge were desperate to sell. Tuesday, when the market bounded back over 300 points, we heard about "a smart recovery" - "a wild rally" - and another favourite - "an opportunity". By Wednesday, when the rally was more modest but apparently on its way up, we heard such technical gobbledegook as "the shorts getting squeezed" and "money taking a flight to quality." And with two or three more wobbly days to ponder the deeper meaning of all this, the experts dared to use our own sort of English. "Is," asked one sage, "Is the bull rolling over?" The second wizard replied slowly, "Well, I think the bear is coming out of hibernation." By the end of the week it was the consensus of the Wall Street wizards that the market had taken - might still be taking - if not a rout, at the very least, one man said, a "haircut." I imagine that everywhere around the globe today, people are wanting to believe that the whole scare is over and that the early discovery of a healthy market level will save us from the hobgoblin, the nightmare that haunts us all whenever there's a halfway dramatic fall in the stock market - the ghost of 1929. In listening this week to bankers, brokers and other financial magicians about 1929, I find a surprising general belief that on the so-called "Black Thursday", October 24th, the market crashed with a bang, and that was the beginning of the Great Depression. It didn't happen that way. And since so few people are alive - even among the wizards of Wall Street - who were there at the time, it might be useful for one who remembers it
Deflation (fwd)
Subject: Deflation Business Week Magazine November 10, 1997 THE THREAT OF DEFLATION Still worried about inflation? Perhaps you should consider a new economic storm gathering in Asia With markets rebounding from the Oct. 27 Asian shock, it's only natural to wonder what all the fuss was about. Was it, after all, simply a wild overreaction? Don't bet on it. Even if the markets remain calm, the crisis in Asia that spurred the sell-off signals a deep change in how the global economy works. Thanks to a building binge throughout Asia, continuing economic expansion in the U.S., and recovering economies in Europe, production everywhere is running ahead of consumption. That's even true in the U.S., where consumer demand remains strong (chart, page 58). Today, for the first time in years, there is worldwide overcapacity in industries, from semiconductors to autos. And the excess supply will get even worse as Asia tries to export its way out of trouble. The result: The global economy may well be heading into a new era-- an era of deflation. Prices for goods are falling or stagnant around the world. In the U.S., industries with stable or falling wholesale prices account for two-thirds of manufacturing production. And in many parts of the world, such as Japan, overall goods prices have been falling (chart, page 59). ''Fundamentally, something has changed in the economy,'' says John F. Smith Jr., chairman and CEO of General Motors Corp. ''In today's age, you cannot get price increases.'' For investors, corporations, and workers, deflation is a mixed blessing- -and a potential danger. Productivity growth lets companies boost profits even as prices fall. Living standards can rise even when wages don't grow much, since the same paycheck can buy more clothing, more TVs, a better car. And low inflation in the U.S. has been an economic windfall. With inflation at bay, the Federal Reserve has held off raising interest rates, extending a cycle of expansion longer than most economists thought possible. What's more, both stock and bond markets can thrive with mild deflation. From 1865 to the 1890s, prices dropped 1% to 2% annually and ''the real return in the stock market was remarkably the same as in other periods,'' says Jeremy J. Siegel, a Wharton School professor who wrote the best-selling Stocks for the Long Run. Adds James W. Paulson, chief investment officer of Norwest Investment Management Inc.: ''A mild deflation or stable deflation, slightly below zero, but not a collapse, is bullish for long-term financial assets.'' Mild and stable--not rapid. Rapid deflation can do enormous damage very quickly. The danger is that falling prices and wages make it much more difficult for leveraged companies and households to pay back their debts. In the worst case, a wave of business and personal bankruptcies sets off a chain of failures throughout the entire financial system. Investment and growth collapse. ''In the new era, the risk is deflation, not inflation,'' says Edward E. Yardeni, chief economist for Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. BIG RISK The Great Depression of the 1930s was exactly this sort of deflationary spiral. From 1929 to 1933, prices fell by 10% annually. Even moderately leveraged companies went under, the banking system was devastated, unemployment soared, and the economy and the stock market went into a deep swoon that was only ended by World War II. The biggest danger for the global economy today may be the prospect of a sustained deflationary downturn in East Asia. In recent months, countries such as Thailand and Malaysia were forced to depreciate their currencies in order to keep the prices of their goods competitive on world markets. But the cuts exacted a huge cost: Higher import prices, falling domestic demand, and lower wages for workers, which further smother domestic demand. In Thailand, for example, employers are cutting wages by up to 15%, and many will not pay bonuses in December. What's worrisome for the rest of the global economy is how deflationary pressure can spread. The country immediately at risk is Japan, which has been flirting with serious deflation throughout the 1990s as huge real estate and stock market losses crippled its financial system. Now, it is in danger of being sucked into a deflationary maelstrom, as it tries to compete in Southeast Asia where it does 40% of its business. At the moment, the U.S. doesn't face the same risk. The difference between mild price declines and runaway deflation is largely determined by the state of an economy's financial system. ''Deflation only creates a problem if balance sheets of financial and nonfinancial firms are already in a weakened state,'' says Frederick S. Mishkin, a former New York Fed economist who teaches at Columbia Business School.
Re: FW Todays surprise recovery in the market
On Tue, 28 Oct 1997, Thomas Lunde wrote: When the Dow opened this morning, Tues Oct 28, it looked like a losing day, by noon the market was climbing and finished over 300 pts. I was speculating, was it traders from other markets in the world who picked the US and Canadian markets as the most probable to remain secure or was it American Funds snapping up bargains? Or was it firms buying back their own stocks. Would be curious to know where the intitial burst of buying came from, the burst that set off the recovery. arthur cordell
Re: FW Todays surprise recovery in the market
Someone, perhaps on this list, uses this quote in their closing sig. Seems appropriate for the times, the market, the economy. arthur cordell = This is the common failing of all mankind: Never to anticipate the storm when the sea is calm. - Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince"
Financial Crisis
Some background reading that may be especially interesting these days. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 13:16:51 -0400 From: Michel Chossudovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS by Michel Chossudovsky The writer is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and has written widely in issues of international finance and macro-economic reform. He is the author of "The Globalization of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms", Third World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa 1997. All rights reserved. (This text can be posted, for publication in printed form, contact the author). The author can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED], fax: 1-613-7892050. Black Monday October 19, 1987 will be remembered as the largest one day drop in the history of the New York Stock Exchange overshooting the collapse of October 28, 1929, which prompted the Wall Street crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. In the 1987 meltdown, 22.6 percent of the value of US stocks was wiped out largely during the first hour of trading on Monday morning... The plunge on Wall Street sent a "cold shiver" through the entire financial system leading to the tumble of the European and Asian stock markets... Almost ten years later on Friday August 15, 1997, Wall Street experienced its largest one day decline since 1987. The Dow Jones plummeted by 247 points. The symptoms were similar to those of Black Monday: "institutional speculators" sold large amounts of stock with the goal of repurchasing them later but with the immediate impact of provoking a plunge in prices. Futures' and options' trading played a key role in precipitating the collapse of market values. The tumble on August 15, 1997 immediately spilled over onto the World's stock markets triggering substantial losses on the Frankfurt, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo exchanges. Various "speculative instruments" in the equity and foreign exchange markets were used with a view to manipulating price movements. In the weeks that followed, stocks continued to trade nervously. Wide speculative movements were recorded on Wall Street; billions of dollars were transacted through the NYSE's Superdot electronic order-routing system with the Dow swinging spuriously up and down in a matter of minutes. The Asian equity and currency markets declined steeply under the brunt of speculative trading. In a three week period the (Hong Kong) Hang Seng Index had declined by 15 percent. The Japanese bond market had plunged to an all time low. In turn, billions of dollars of central bank reserves had been appropriated by institutional speculators. (The Thai Central Bank lost more than ten billion dollars of its official reserves in the period extending from June through September 1997). Business forecasters and academic economists alike have casually disregarded the dangers alluding to "strong economic fundamentals"; G7 leaders are afraid to say anything or act in a way which might give the "wrong signals"... Wall Street analysts continue to bungle on issues of "market correction" with little understanding of the broader economic picture. In turn, public opinion is bombarded in the media with glowing images of global growth and prosperity. The economy is said to be booming under the impetus of the free market reforms. Without debate or discussion, so-called "sound macro-economic policies" (meaning the gamut of budgetary austerity, deregulation, downsizing and privatisation) are heralded as the key to economic success. The realities are concealed, economic statistics are manipulated, economic concepts are turned upside down. Unemployment in the US is said to be falling yet the number of people on low wage part-time jobs has spiralled. The stock market frenzy has taken place against a background of global economic decline and social dislocation. Table 1: Single-Day Declines on Wall Street (Dow Jones Industrial Average, percentage change) October 28, 1929 -12.8% October 29, 1929 -11.7% November 6, 1929-9.9% August 12, 1932 -8.4% October 26, 1987 -8.0% July 21, 1933 -7.84% October 18, 1937 -7.75% October 5, 1932 -7.15% September 24, 1931 -7.07% October 19, 1987 -22.6% A New Financial Environment A new global financial environment has unfolded in several stages since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in 1971. The debt crisis of the early 1980s (broadly coinciding with the Reagan-Thatcher era) unleashed a wave of corporate
IFABE Conference in Vancouver (fwd)
For those who may be interested. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:13:58 -0500 From: Mike McCracken [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "McCracken, Mike" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: IFABE Conference in Vancouver ACTION: Read this and forward it to others on your E-Mail list that might be interested. Timely distribution is key!! Thanks. Even if you are not able to come please help us to make this conference a success. Thanks, Mike On November 16 through the 19th there will be an exciting meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, sponsored by IFABE (International Federation of Associations of Business Economists), CABE (Canadian Association for Business Economics) and the Association of Professional Economists of Britsh Columbia. Speakers include: Jeffrey Frankel, US Council of Economic Advisors, Paul Romer, Stanford U. Shigemitsu Sugisaki, IMF Alan Winters, World Bank Keikichi Honda, Sun Microsystems Japan (formerly chief economist of Bank of Tokyo) William Witherell, OECD Carol Carson, IMF J.S. Wells,Statistics Canada Enrique Sanchez, Nationsbank Richard Lipsey, SFU and many others. The event is taking place just before the APEC meetings, providing a real opportunity to meet many of the delegates and to sense the dynamism of the various APEC countries. WARNING: HOTEL SPACE IS AT A PREMIUM IN VANCOUVER BECAUSE OF THE APEC MEETINGS. MAKE YOUR HOTEL RESERVATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. WE WILL HAVE TO RELEASE THE UNCOMMITTED ROOMS SHORTLY. For a copy of the program and a registration form go to the Web site at: http://www.cabe.ca/ifabe97 Looking forward to seeing you there. -- Mike McCracken (613) 238-4831 voice (613) 238-7698 fax mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.informetrica.com
Re: Challenging Assumptions in your discipline
On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Harry Pollard wrote: whole science rests on these two assumptions. In half century of teaching adults, no-one has successfully responded to "Come up with two examples of people not described by both Assumptions". They are: "Man's desires are unlimited"; "Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion". No exceptions allowed! The first, of course, means that that their can be no such thing as unemployment - which might lead to some rewarding questions. The second accounts for some behavior that we are sometimes affronted by. It seems to me that neither statement can be proved or disproved. As assumptions one could just as well pose the opposite: 'desires are limited' 'desires satisfied with greatest exertion' Or 'desires appear unlimited since they change over time' 'desires satisfied with different levels of exertion, depending on the physical and mental state of the individual', etc... arthur cordell
Cable channel changes (fwd)
This is for Canadians who have noticed that the new cable offering drops without notice the ONLY non-commercial news service via cable. Broadcast News seems to have disappeared. If this change bothers you, send along a similar formal complaint. Note: the CRTC fax number is: 819-994-0218. If you send in a formal complaint to the CRTC, add your full name, address and phone number at the bottom of the complaint. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 12:18:26 -0400 From: acordell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cable channel changes Note: the new cable channel selection effectively eliminates the only non-commercial news available. Broadcast news was a text scrolling of news that was available on Channel 54. It provided a non-commercial news, sports, weather overview. No voice-over, just gentle music. Please register this email as a vote to bring it back.
Re: FW Stocks and the economy
On Sat, 11 Oct 1997, Thomas Lunde wrote: All these people depend on promoting confidence. They sit on telephones talking to other players like themselves, generating the same kind of false enthusiasm for the flavour of the day or they go on talk shows and dramatically predict their opinion of the current state of the market. Well, what I've said so far is not very profound and reflects a contrary viewpoint. I guess what I would really like to know is how come the market has proven so resilient when it is so often shamelessly promoted for profit for a few and losses for many? Of course nobody really knows. My guess is that inflation has been kept at bay because productivity is not getting passed along in wages but is going to keep prices constant in the face of worldwide competition. Margins are slimming and so there is the continuing worry of earnings. Perhaps more important is the surge of mutual fund money keeping stock prices high. This could turn out to be a sad turn of events. Sort of like a land boom that goes bust. Boomers are worried about their futures...governments seem to be saying 'you are on your own.' So every availble personal surplus goes to mutual funds (who play against each other) thereby driving up (or maintianing) stock prices. Market players see stocks rise and feel they were right to get in early, latecomers afraid of being left behind are now throwing money into the market. What will cause the bubble to burst? Probably an exogenous event: mideast sparks that threaten oil prices, sudden demise of Greenspan. Or, it could take some time. Consider a decade or so from now as people begin to convert mutual funds to cash for their 'golden years.' All of a sudden markets are no longer rising but are falling. Seeing this boomers rush to convert their mutual funds so they too can enjoy their 'golden years.' Busts are made of this. arthur cordell
Greider (fwd)
The New York Times October 1, 1997 WHEN OPTIMISM MEETS OVERCAPACITY By William Greider An edge of anxiety has crept into the celebration of America's supposed triumphant economy. Maybe because it's autumn. Manias and panics in the financial markets typically occur in October or November, for very human reasons. When the days are growing shorter, investor optimism may shrivel with the leaves. Or perhaps the new uneasiness stems from a creeping recognition that deeper disorders are stalking the global economy -- deeper than the business cycle. A friend notices increasing references to the "O word" and the "D word" -- overcapacity and deflation. Neither term is in the usual lexicon of economic observers. They hark back to earlier eras, when booms mysteriously turned into busts. Early this year, an article in The Wall Street Journal announced that the globalized economy had entered a "new era" of stronger, trouble-free prosperity. In August, the newspaper revised the outlook. Actually, The Journal reported, many industrial sectors are burdened by dangerous levels of overcapacity, too much potential output and not enough buyers. This glut, it said, promises ugly shakeouts ahead -- failing companies, more closed factories -- if not something worse. For the same reason, a cover story in The Economist summed up the global auto industry this way: "Car firms head for a crash." The industry will be able to produce nearly 80 million vehicles by 2000 for a market of fewer than 60 million buyers. The imbalances create downward pressure on prices and reduce return on sales. More factories must close, more large companies will merge or fail. The Financial Times reported that, thanks to the deluge of investment, even a hot market like China is now stuck with overcapacity, from cars to chemicals to electronics. A couple of years back, every multinational rushed to build plants there and catch the wave of China's rising consumption. Now factories, not consumers, are overabundant. Some respected Wall Street observers are now expressing concern, as the glut of productive capacity drives down prices and, eventually, profits. James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, noted a general glut in areas as diverse as semiconductor plants and aircraft factories. "There are too many hotels in Phoenix and there is too much manufacturing capacity in China," he wrote. If a general deflation does occur, whether sudden or gradual, it will generate a negative cycle of falling prices and wages, depressing output and financial values, from real estate loans to stocks and bonds. William H. Gross, the respected managing director of Pacific Mutual Investment Company, which manages more than $90 billion in bonds worldwide, now pegs the risk of a general deflation at 1 in 5 over the next several years. "My deflationary fears are supported by two arguments -- exceptional productivity growth and global glut," Mr. Gross said. He cites twin causes: real wages, both in the United States and abroad, cannot keep up with the rapid growth of new production -- that is, there won't be enough demand to buy all the excess goods. And emerging economies create aggressive new players eager to outproduce and underprice everyone else. Why did the euphoria suddenly dim? The abrupt stall-out of Southeast Asia's booming young economies was a consciousness-raising event. It began as a financial crisis in Thailand, then swiftly spread to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines. (The Asian debacle resembles Mexico's, except this time Japan is financing the bailout.) The visible disorder that gets official attention involves finance -- dramatic currency devaluations, overexposed banks, the sudden flight of foreign investors. But the underlying cause, as some acknowledge, is overcapacity. Thailand is a classic illustration of how financial markets can get ahead of reality and destabilize the real economy of producers and consumers. Bankers and investors are so busy lending and investing and bidding up prices that they don't see that the new factories they're financing may not be able to sell their output. The typical explanation for gross overcapacity is that misguided managers and their bankers got carried away. That truism does not explain much. Here's another explanation: The overcapacity problem is driven by globalization itself, as it interacts with technological innovations. The fierce cost-price competition leads companies to take measures -- cutting labor costs, modernizing production, trading jobs to gain access to hot markets - - that both erode the worldwide consumption base and create excess output. As established companies struggle with the imbalances, new competitors enter the market. South Korea intends to be a major player in autos and
Re: Join the team
On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Tom Walker wrote: 22. Today's corporate culture says if you don't join the rest of the 'team' that stays late or takes the laptop home, you just don't fit in and you might as well get out. Agree. Actually the implicit message seems to be: if you are not ready to play along, there is plenty of place available on the lower tier of the two tier society.
Re: Debt prosperity
On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Tom Walker wrote: 18. People who have prospered owe something back to the community that has enabled them to prosper. Question is what community do these people feel they belong to. Local, national, global, their affinity plan--including frequent fliers, the BMW car club. arthur cordell
Re: Polarized society
On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Tom Walker wrote: 17. Canada is becoming a polarized society. The gap between good jobs and bad jobs is now accepted as a fact of life by corporate and political leaders. Agree. There is a lot of tut tutting about this but there is virtually nothing being done to study why we developed a middle class, what it took to maintain it, why it is slipping away and what we can do about this. Tom, each of your insights has a number: what about the others...I only see 3 or so of these one-liners. arthur
Re: How much is enough?
On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Tom Walker wrote: 13. The monetarization of work and needs draws attention away from the crucial question: how much is enough? Some years ago a biologist told me that humans vis a vis the planet are like a pest. They will overshoot and collapse. For pests that are in the process of overshooting, there is never enough.. arthur cordell
US census data (fwd)
Tuesday September 30 6:36 AM EDT America's Rich Get Richer, Poor Barely Gain By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON (Reuter) - America's richest got much richer last year but the middle class and the poor gained only a little more wealth, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Monday. "The rich are getting a lot richer, the poor are getting a little richer," said Dan Weinberg, who heads the bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division. Weinberg said the number of poor people in the United States -- families of four who live on $16,036 or less -- was about the same as in 1995: 36.5 million, or 13.7 percent of the total U.S. population. Weinberg said in a telephone interview that it was too soon to tell if the poverty figures showed a hiatus in an upward trend or if they represented a change in direction. The median household income in the United States rose by 1.2 percent to $35,492 while the richest Americans' household income rose by 2.8 percent, adjusted for inflation. The poorest households took in only $57 more in 1996 than in 1995, representing no essential change, Weinberg said. Over the long term, median household income had increased about 15 percent since 1967, and poor households gained about 14 percent over the same period. But the nation's richest households gained 46 percent in income since 1967. The census figures were announced the day after Forbes Magazine released its annual list of the richest Americans, which was once again topped by Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, whose net worth was estimated at $39.8 billion. The bureau also found that 10.6 million American children, or 14.8 percent, were without health insurance in 1996. The children were among 41.7 million people in the United States who lacked health insurance. President Clinton hailed the reported increase in middle-class income, saying at a White House news conference that this was in line with his strategy "to preserve the American dream, restore the hopes of the forgotten middle class, and reclaim the future for our children." The president noted the increase in uninsured children, but said many of those would be eligible for coverage "under the balanced budget's historic $24 billion child health initiative, which takes effect this week." While acknowledging the positive aspects of the census numbers, economist Jared Bernstein of the liberal Economic Policy Institute said the figures pointed up a slow recovery from the last recession, especially for men. Earnings for men who worked full-time, year-round, fell nearly 1 percent between 1995 and 1996, bringing their earnings to 7.1 percent less than they made in 1989, the pre-recessionary peak, Bernstein said. The typical U.S. family's income has still not reached 1989 levels. "The president's right to point out that we're climbing out of a hole, but he's neglecting to point out that we're not out yet," Bernstein said in a telephone interview. He said the story was more positive for women, who have regained earnings levels they had in 1989 -- but median earnings for women who worked full-time all year were lower to start with and even in 1996 equaled only 74 percent of the median earnings for full-time, year-round male workers. That ratio is the all-time high for women. "Clearly those who are trumpeting the accomplishments of the economy in 1997 are disconnected from typical workers whose experience has been one of greater insecurity, wage erosion -- particularly for men -- and stagnant living standards," said Bernstein, whose institute is funded in part by labor unions. Marvin Kosters of the conservative American Enterprise Institute agreed with Clinton's rosy take on the census report, but said that in light of other optimistic economic news, including a rising stock market and tight labor market, the question was: "Why isn't the news better than it is?" =
Re: Temporary Suspension
FWers are asked not to post to the list. In the changeover a glitch occurred. While 90percent of posts will get through there is a continuing housekeeping problem back at the server. Many addresses are bouncing back to Sally who must go through them to determine whether they there is an error in the system or whether they are 'bad' addresses in which case they are struck from the list. Sally is away until the 22nd of this month and unless we want to have a *very large* number of emails waiting for her, we should postpone posting until her return. arthur cordell On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, cmueller wrote: A couple of members have called my attention to a list notice I somehow missed, one asking for a temporary suspension of posts pending some kind of technical changeover. No problem there. While Arthur didn't put his objections to my posts on that basis, I'm certainly prepared to accept that interpretation--rather than attempted censorship. Since his posts are coming through well, I assume the technical changeover is complete and that all members, including me, are therefore welcome to resume posting. Charles Mueller, Editor ANTITRUST LAW ECONOMICS REVIEW http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller
Re: Unmoderated List?
On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, cmueller wrote: Arthur Cordell has in effect asked me to stop posting to this list. According to the introductory material I was sent, it's an "unmoderated" list, open to all. It's not the moderated FW-L or "quiet room" for working groups. I'm reluctant to believe that censorship is being practiced here via the "jaw-boning" of those whose views are somewhat different. Perhaps cmueller has gotten a little carried away. He seems to be active in a number of lists. Somehow he adopted the habit of forwarding to *me* posts to his other lists. I asked once, politely, to stop forwarding me his postings. The second time my tone was not so polite. It is this interchange that cmueller refers to. Altho' now that he mentions the relevance of his posts to this list I find that he is going over the same ground needlessly. arthur cordell
International Symposium on Technology and Society (fwd)
This may be of interest to some FWers. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 14:39:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Agre [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: International Symposium on Technology and Society Resent-Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 14:39:52 -0700 (PDT) Resent-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 15:13:19 + From: Joe Herkert [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: call for papers--ISTAS'98 Wiring the World: The Impact of Information Technology on Society International Symposium on Technology and Society 1998 (ISTAS '98) Indiana University-South Bend South Bend, IN June 13-14, 1998 Expanded technological capabilities is creating a world in which data, information, and knowledge can be accessed from anywhere by almost anyone, and used for almost any purpose, good or bad. As the tools of such information technologies as the Internet, multi-media computers, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence mature, the implications of these technologies for public policy and society remain little understood. The general theme of ISTAS '98 is to examine and identify these emerging issues. Call for Papers Contributions are encouraged for topics related to this general theme: * Information Warfare. * Intellectual property issues and information technology. * The impact of information technology on education, schools, and universities. * Information technology and the workplace. * Equity issues with the distribution of information technology resources. Papers are also welcomed in traditional technology/policy areas: * Environmental, health, safety and peace-related implications of technology. * Social, economic, and ethical issues involving energy, information, and telecommunications technologies. * History of technology. * Systems analysis in public policy decisions. Research methods for technology-policy analysis. ISTAS '98 invites significant contributions on these and other topics. Submit a one page abstract for a paper or poster, or a proposal for a paper session or panel discussion to the Chair at: EMAIL: Karl Perusich, Ph.D., ISTAS '98 Chair [EMAIL PROTECTED] MAIL: Karl Perusich, Ph.D., ISTAS '98 Chair c/o IUSB Division of Continuing Education 1700 Mishawaka Ave. South Bend, IN 46634 DEADLINES: Abstract Submission:January 15, 1998 Notification of Acceptance: March 15, 1998 Camera Ready Copy:May 15, 1998 SPONSOR:IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology Co-Operating Institutions: Purdue School of Technology IUSB Division of Continuing Education Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs * Joseph R. Herkert Division of Multidisciplinary Studies Box 7107, North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina 27695 voice: 919-515-7997 fax: 919-515-1828 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/j/jherkert/jrh.html Past President, IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/j/jherkert/index.html *
APEC labour forum (fwd)
fyi -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 16:38:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: APEC labour forum International Forum: Workers Rights Democratic Development The Canadian Labour Congress and the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development will organize a labour forum within the framework of the 1997 People's Summit on APEC. The Forum will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia on November 20-21, 1997. The objective of the Forum is to strengthen collaboration between trade unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and labour support groups on the issues of labour rights and human rights. The Forum is comprised of two main components, The Tribunal on Workers Human Rights and the Conference on Workers' Human Rights Democratic Development. Guests and speakers include: (* denotes confirmed participant) Luis Anderson - trade union leader Warren Allmand* - human rights activist P.N. Bhagwati - supreme court justice Edward Broadbent* - human rights advocate Irene Fernandez* - human rights advocate Han Dongfang - trade unionist Pharis Harvey* - labour activist Ranee Hassarungsee* - women's rights advocate Charles Kernaghan - labour activist Apo Leung - labour activist Francisco Sionel Jose* - author Yayori Matsui* - women's rights advocate Pierre Sane* - human rights advocate ' Bob White* - trade union leader THE TRIBUNAL ON WORKERS HUMAN RIGHTS (Open Event) November 20, 1997 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Plaza of Nations, Vancouver Six workers from six different APEC countries will testify before a panel of internationally renowned judges and the assembled delegates to the Peoples' Summit. The testimonies will emphasize the individual and collective experiences of workers in the context of the global economy and will focus on the following issues: freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining; migrant workers rights; workers in free trade zones; child labour; discrimination against women; forced labour. To receive a conference registration kit: Margaret Blamey The Canadian Labour Congress 1176-8th Avenue New Westminster, B.C. Canada V3M 2R6 Tel: 604-524-0392, Fax: 604-524-5165 email [EMAIL PROTECTED] or Carole Samdup International Centre for Human Rights Democratic Development 63 de Bresoles Montreal, Quebec Canada H2Y 1V7 Tel: 514-283-6073, Fax: 514-283-3792, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] THE CONFERENCE ON WORKERS HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT (By Registration ONLY) November 21, 1997 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Landmark Hotel , Vancouver In order to develop a better understanding of the relationship between trade union rights and democratic development, the conference delegates will exchange strategies for improving respect for workers' rights, and seek to improve coordination of future initiatives. 9:00 - 9:45:Opening Plenary A brief plenary will precede a series of workshops. The plenary will introduce the context in which the workshop issues will be addressed, that is; an overview of findings at previous APEC Labour Forums in Kyoto and Manila, a briefing on developments within the Asia-Pacific Labour Network, and an analysis of the relationship between human rights and democratic development. Copies of the judges recommendations from the Workers' Tribunal will be circulated to the delegates during the plenary. 10:00 - 3:30: Simultaneous Workshops: * Making Transnational Corporations Accountable: Will examine such issues as codes of conduct, monitoring, consumer campaigns, government regulatory mechanisms and the practices of corporations in the world today. * Trade Unions and Democratic Development: Will look at the role of trade unions in fighting for democracy and how repression of trade unions is an assault on democracy. * Organizing Experiences in the Informal Economy or the Challenge of Subcontracting: Will focus largely on women who are found at the end of the subcontracting chain in both developed and developing countries including domestic workers, agricultural labourers, and migrant workers. * The International Trade Union Movement and Human Rights Groups Working Together: How can we collaborate, take part in joint initiatives and understand each others' mandates, commonalities and differences? Can the Asia-Pacific Labour Network and the broader NGO community develop specific joint initiatives for APEC in 1998? * International Trade Agreements and Labour Rights: Will compare and analyse different trade agreements and the politics of protecting labour rights. What networking strategies have been successful? What are the limitations and strengths of social clauses? * Migrant Workers: The workshop will focus on issues related to the re-integration of migrant workers, and discuss the regional and international efforts
test
test.1
test fw-l
fw-l test.1
