At the risk of a round of raspberries I'll tell my Cambodia story.
I was a thoroughly cynical campus radical when Nixon
did his television number on why he had to invade
Cambodia, to protect American lives. I was in
my dorm with none-too-radical dorm-mates. After
it was over I said ho-hum and
No, you have us mixed up with Levy. Our motto is:
Tables 'R Us.
mbs
Max, is it true that a billion here a billion there, and pretty soon
you're talking about real money is carved in the marble arch at the main
doorway of the Economic Policy Institute's edifice?
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I don't watch Leno too often, but they had a great bit
on this last night, intercutting the Stewart interview with
shots of a knife mutilating the cabbage to the tune of
Psycho background music.
mbs
Stewart Gets Sliced Up
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 26,
hey kids, won't this be fun . . .
http://www.maxspeak.org/Hot_Buttons/chomsky.htm
mbs
*
Max B. Sawicky
http://www.MaxSpeak.Org
BLOG: http://www.MaxSpeak.Org/gm/index.htm
Let us not neglect the fact that the *Estate* tax
(there is no inheritance tax) collects about $30b
a year right now, so it isn't doing much in the way
of redistributing wealth. What's more, regressive
loopholes in the income tax are huge compared
to Estate tax revenue. I even surprized myself
The former taxes the dead donor.
The latter taxes the recipient. The difference
could be huge, depending on the details.
mbs
BTW, what's the difference between the estate tax and the inheritance
tax?
JD
-Original Message-
From: Ian Murray
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 6/13/2002 9:52 AM
The larger question is misconduct by a law enforcement
agency that is acquiring increasing powers as we speak,
not the possible details of a domestic dispute. We should
keep our priorities straight.
mbs
While clearly the verdict in this trial is
appropriate, in that the FBI and the Oakland
I'm more afraid of the FBI than of Earth First.
No tree-hugger ever denied me my constitutional rights.
mbs
The largest question of all is Did any of the Earth
First work on the north coast save even one tree from
the timber industry?
tim
--- Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote
How long was 'right away'?
suspiciously,
max
Tim gives a very hard edge to a serious controversy. I was interviewed by
a woman writing a book about the role of the hubby-bomber. He makes it
sound as if those who doubt his guilt think that the FBI planted the bomb.
I doubt that many
LP said:
is making a calculated effort to appear leftish. Charles Peters shares
Kuttner's Democratic Leadership Council politics.
As some here know, Kuttner is on the board of the organization
that employs me. So you can make of that whatever you like.
All I want to say is that Kuttner,
Kuttner, tompaine.com, and Moyers are political
comrades. How much more 'left' one is than the
other is a trivial question. How left they all are
compared to your ideal, or to what you think
is defensible, is more to the point.
By the way, Paul Starr, TAP co-editor, is notably less liberal
I guess they could have been following them.
If not, it strikes me as pretty good evidence.
mbs
I think that it was 5 minutes or so.
On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 01:47:08PM -0400, Max Sawicky wrote:
How long was 'right away'?
suspiciously,
max
The only evidence
against the FBI
Neither punchy nor accurate. An inheritance tax is not the same
as an estate tax. Better would have been, we tax one in a thousand
dead people. The rest can rest in peace.
mbs
And Gramm saying death shouldn't be a taxable event is too. The NYT
quoted that, balanced by a liberal saying
Tariffs were an important source of Federal revenue
in the olden days.
mbs
\
Tariffs were, as Schumpeter put it, 'the household remedy' of the
Republican Party. -- Charles P. Kindleberger, THE WORLD IN DEPRESSION,
1929-39, University of California Press (1973), p. 133.
the footnote is to a
My impression is the AFL-CIO was pro free trade until the
early 1980's, when Bluestone/Harrison and others began
writing about the vanishing 'middle class.'
mbs
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Devine, James
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this one, Louis.
Whoever created the Noreena Hertz character is clearly a satirist of the
calibre of Mark
Twain. dd
She's kinda-young, kinda-wow, she's anti-globalization,
she's Jewish, she goes to demo's, she writes economics
tracts . . .
Analytical Perspectives, Budget of the U.S. Government -- FY2003,
page 48, Table 3-4, National Wealth
mbs
Almost all Intro texts include a section on types of business,
sales, etc.,
they they all show that propritors are numerous, but essentially
irrelevant
when it comes to sales and
Part of properietors' income is really a quasi-wage, and part of
wage salary at the top is really a quasi-capital payment.
I would say net interest paid (not personal interest received)
and rent belong too.
mbs
For the NIPA aware.
If you want to come up with a crude estimate for the
what about a corporation whose business is rental real estate
that includes improvements to the land?
max
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Eric Nilsson
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 5:23 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:
Part of profits are paid to households too.
I don't see how you can include profits but not net interest paid.
mbs
Doug wrote,
Net interest is figured as what biz pays to households, right? It's
an expense for business and an income for households.
Yes indeed that is the case. I guess
Exerpt from petition in support of
. . . Dr. Ilan Pappe, who holds a rank roughly equivalent to a tenured
Associate Professor, criticized the institution (University of Haifa) and
its procedures following the nullification of a highly controversial
Master's thesis that documented the fates of 5
duly noted, but they link to the White House, the Fed, NBER, and Brookings.
and they don't link to EPI or any other left thing. not good.
mbs
s
rollins college/winter park florida, six member dept includes:
charles rock
eric schutz (who was - and may still be - on pen-l, check out
Saw LP's note and took a look at this.
Screamingly obviously a Dem Party site, but not your
ordinary DP thingy. They post stuff from Cynthia
McKinney, including her comments on Mumia.
Cynthia's looking pretty good these days, what with the
brouhaha now about 'what Bush knew.'
Note -- many of
MJ: The truthabout Doug 'I'm no pacifist' Henwood is that he, too, is in
favour of US policy, that is, Henwood favours the policy of bombing Afghan
towns and cities, he favours the random and/or mass slaughter of Afghanis,
he favours the destruction of whatever remains of the social
are you serious about me listing Chico? All I saw there
were a lot of guys who had run out of shaving cream.
mbs
Chico State, where Gene Coyle lectured.
Open for business.
*
Max B. Sawicky
http://www.MaxSpeak.Org
BLOG: http://www.MaxSpeak.Org/gm/index.htm
sounds like Joan Robinson.
[who said it?]
...confusion forces practical economists to explain the determination of
interest by opportunity cost reasoning - a particular rate of interest
being set by the 'pure' rate yielded by the riskless government bonds,
with inflation, risk, and
Oh these brits they're sharp.
Giddens: In the US, Bush won - by the skin of his teeth -
only because Ralph Nader took away votes from Al Gore.
LOL. Everyone knows it was Monica Moorehead's fault!!
mbs
(Posted to Marxmail by Ed George)
[Anthony Giddens is the man generally accredited
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15403
The Enron nine
By William Greider
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=13260
://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/bp121.html
Max Sawicky
EPI
Following the deficit debate, I've been hearing about this day
of reckoning for 12 years. It must be getting really close!
I'd say the key issue in all this is the Bubble. U.S. assets still
seem to be over-valued.
As for the accounting scandal, it may be that the ingenuity of
Euro and
Don't know. After the tornado takes me, I'll ask him.
Maybe he was referring to a consideration inhibiting
a possible decision by foreign governments. - mbs
Bob Eisner used to point out that those holding dollar-denominated
assets who started to bail out ran the risk of taking a bath as the
I've been thinking about this a bit more.
What follows is today's hypothesis. Next
week, who knows.
If you look at it from one end, there was
little to recommend Israel as a client state,
in and of itself, relative to other states. Why
not make Egypt a military collossus on
behalf of the U.S.?
my latest.
mbs
http://www.epinet.org/Issuebriefs/ib176.html
Title: Business Week Restates the Nineties
[Apologies for html, but you need it for the charts. This came up a week or so ago. Dean finally finished this, after my
egging him on. Feel free to circulate, with credit of course to Dean Baker,
Center for Economic and Policy Research. mbs]
If all the energy going into condemning Greens, Trots, and
what-not was devoted to thinking how the moderate left could
fashion a stable, governing, productive majority, it might just
happen.
In the end, Gore and Jospin, despite huge advantages in
money and media coverage relative to their left
If it's not too obvious, it seems worth saying that the
Middle East complex of issues -- fundamentalism, terrorist
attacks on the U.S., oil, and Palestine -- is what will
dominate U.S. political discourse for some time to come,
much in the way that SE Asia did in decades past. The
future
I've worked with BEA people in the past. A friend of mine in
Gov refers to them as righteous technicians. They are
resolutely without political bias in their work. All of their
procedures are vetted by panels of outside experts.
Without doubt, you can spot all sorts of problems in
their
I think you missed Doug's sarcasm, or I have missed
his seriousness.
the public sector people are quite well educated. sometimes
they are given things to do that are impossible to do well.
but they still have to do them. they are not paid as well as
some in the private sector, but you would be
The other was his as well. Oz is lying to cover up so
he pinned it on the dead man.
how do you know?
don't you think there is enough to indict Sharon with,
even without the quote?
mbs
Cool. Looey for Provost of the UC university system,
BDL's boss. a guy can dream.
Peter Camejo = Green Party Gubernatorial wild card
Green Party can't be ignored, pundits Say
There's not many of them, but they certainly know how
to cause damage to the progressive agenda . . . he
said.
but according to the Cambridge UK folks, you can't measure
capital stock to begin with . . . To me the interest rate(s) is
more meaningful, since at least it is observed and is the
object of literal transactions, unlike capital.
profits are susceptible to what I suspect are flaky inventory
NEW DATA SHOW WELFARE FAILS TO HELP FAMILIES
MAKE SUCCESSFUL TRANSITIONS TO WORK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, April 16 2002
CONTACT: Nancy Coleman or Karen Conner, 202-775-8810
Report available online at http://www.epinet.org
From 1997 to 1999, while most of the nation experienced a surge
[right-left] ICDSM-Ireland - Solidarity with people of Palestine
PRESS RELEASE - OPEN LETTER
To Media - Politicians and to Friends
CDSM-IRELAND - SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLE OF PALESTINE
John Kelly Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic Ireland
at this point I had to
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/mar2001/nad-m30.shtml
What is your assessment of this article from the Fourth
International?
The object of Nader's critique is spending programs that
provide public subsidies to
corporations. I don't necessarily buy his position, but
it's a perfectly
New from EPI:
The unremarkable record of liberalized trade
After 20 years of global economic deregulation, poverty and inequality are
as pervasive as ever
by Christian E. Weller, Robert E. Scott and Adam S. Hersh
http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/sept01inequality.html
juicy excerpt:
. .
Feel the excitement.
SEATS ARE FILLING UP QUICKLY!
REGISTER FOR CONFERENCE AND DINNER ONLINE AT
http://www.ourfuture.org.
Campaign for America's Future
and
Institute for America's
But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it
is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more
likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show
them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he
REGISTER FOR CONFERENCE AND DINNER ONLINE AT
http://www.ourfuture.org.
Please count the young people for us Max: . . .
grassroots empowerment. Ultimately, it is up to our
generation to restore one person, one vote and get the
movement back on the track
N.B. You are sectually confused.
Challenge is Progressive Labor Party.
mbs
speaking of excitement, Max has an article in the issue of CHALLENGE that
came today, something about fighting recession, even though all
Those Who
Know are sure that the recession is dead and gone. (I have to
I appreciate the elaboration on Smith's moral philosophy,
but the context of this discussion was whether Nader
and populists were more like Smith than not.
My clipped summary of Smith emphasized the
contrast. No embroidery of Smith's moral thought
can find any contact with the basic thrust of
The observation about the populist theme of the many and the few,
in contrast to class, is accurate. So much the worse for hackneyed
class analysis. (Workers and peasants of the Bronx!)
The way the Pops chose to 'unrig' the market included a) nationalizing
the railroads; b) co-ops allowing
No doubt it is a politically useful 'man-bites-dog' story.
I would expect advocates to milk the study for all they can.
But as a word to those interested in the substance on an
intellectual level, my advice is there are much better
things to read.
mbs
'Living Wage' Laws Reducing Poverty
Thursday, April 4, 2002, 10 pm on PBS
(check your local listings):
Resistance: Untold Stories of Jewish Partisans
I saw a screening of this. It's pretty good.
Producer is a friend of mine.
mbs
if true, one reason could be the extent to which the
resistance was intertwined with the Soviets. the
documentary makes heavy use of Soviet archives,
including old reenactments that use Russian soldiers.
portraying both partisans and Nazi's.
mbs
a friend of mine -- an anthropologist named
I think it's slightly more sinister: the elite wants passive
donors to their
cause and support for Israel no matter what. Zionism and
standing-and-fighting are seen as mutually exclusive
alternatives. Further,
the Bund tradition of socialist or labor-oriented Jews is
anathema, whether
In related news, today Hell froze over.
PPIC aspires to be the Brookings of the West.
At this rate they'll never make it.
-mbs
-Original Message-
From: Industrial Relations Research Association
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Daniel J.B. Mitchell
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002
Well some people would say he didn't need any help.
I'm not into that literature, so I couldn't say.
But you know people who are, who could.
mbs
Hasn't Neumark discredited himself enough working with Berman?
I've been suppressed this way for years, so I can identify.
--mbs
What's the sound of one side suppressing Marx? You have only to
listen to the silence.
Andrew Kliman
Comical blending into tragedy. My colleague
tells me the specific measure will have the opposite
effect desired, from the steelworkers' standpoint.
mbs
[this is getting comical]
World Fumes at U.S. Steel Move, EU Hits Back
GENEVA/TOKYO (Reuters) - The European Union pledged on
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/opinion/2741000.htm
Not so fast Sparky.
http://www.epinet.org/Issuebriefs/ib175.html
http://www.epinet.org/webfeatures/econindicators/jobspict.html
http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/bp121.html
mbs
[Maybe I should sue because of violation of my intellectual
property rights
(see
Max, I don't understand your point. It sounds like PK is leaning
in the EPI
direction on this one.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-Original Message-
From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 11:32 AM
People of color are strongly encouraged to apply.
Contact
Please direct all e-mail correspondence to Max Sawicky at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or fax inquiries and applications to (202) 775-0819.
Try a laxative.
mbs
I get one or two each day.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In a world in which transaction demand on the current account was the sole
basis for forex markets, with constant PPP and never a whiff of pricing to
market, then this type of analysis would make sense. We're not
in that world, however. Peter
AND . . . . ???
mbs
Depends on the price elasticity. If the price of jellybeans goes down,
do you spend more or less on jellybeans? But I should beg off on this.
I don't do trade. --mbs
Wouldn't a decrease in the total cost of goods lead to a *decrease* in the
demand for dollars? In which case, the rest of
What's the best book for an introduction/overview/tour d'horizon of
analytical marxism?
One citation only, please.
mbs
It's analytical Marxist. Most AMs, like me, do not believe that
Marx's value
theory is more than a heuristic, and think that the important and true
insights in Marx can
you left out the fun part. Nominal GDP actually fell,
but the price level went down more (3/10's%). We're
in a deflationary recovery. Will wonders never cease.
mbs
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Tom Walker
Sent: Wednesday, January
The mainstream argument is that exchange rates adjust
to wash away all tax advantages, whether legal or illegal.
Not being a trade person, the best argument I can
think of goes like this:
If you want to buy US goods, you need dollars to pay
for them. A cost reduction in said goods increases
Simplifying radically:
If the baseline budget projections show unemployment of 6.0,
and we say 4.5 is a reasonable standard, we need a stimulus
sufficient to move the rate 1.5 percentage points. OMB says
you need a percent of real GDP to get half a percent
less unemployment. So you need three
You're right. I'm using a conservative estimate of the
multiplier, which ironically implies a higher required
stimulus. Alternatively, I could use a more optimistic
estimate that would imply less need for stimulus. --mbs
So if the multiplier is 1.5, must we advocate a $333 billion
stimulus
I propose we continue this by your putting forward
four (or less, if possible) basic policy changes that
would make possible the reduction of the working day.
To hold up my end, I will do the same now:
Lower or no taxes on the first X dollars of labor
earnings, higher on the remainder
You're right. Now is a good time to talk about it.
That still leaves the heap o' work. -- mbs
I agree with you, Max, that the best time to raise the Time issue is when
the economy is in good shape. The problem then, however, is that no one is
worried much about unemployment and so it is off
I would say that keynesian demand management combined
with a good safety net, ample social insurance, and a new
agency that would rapidly resolve business bankruptcies and
redeploy their assets, would solve the underlying problems of
the capitalist system, if I only had a brain.
The problem here
I would like to announce that there is no way in Hell that I
would ever support J. Lieberman for president. Where
have you gone, Monica Moorehead?
mbs
In my dreams I imagine that an alert CBS journalist immediately asked
Lieberman Just how DO you want capitalism to be? And in my nightmares
I had the same thought, but reportedly the shipment included C4
explosives and other implements that go well beyond the needs
of a police force. Unless you think the PA feared aggression
from Jordan.
mbs
I don't get this: doesn't the Palestinian Authority have an army and a
police force?
when they feel compelled to address recession, they use
that claim. otherwise they try to change the subject to the
long-term need for investment, or they try to inveigle people
with the promise of giving you your money back.
On the positive side, they do not invoke the Democratic canard
that
State revenue forecasts came in below expectations last year,
so retrenchment has already begun. As state legislatures begin
convening I suspect they will take a pessimistic view of revenues
(which probably are a lagging indicator anyway) and move
accordingly. There is little indication the
They say the recession is somebody else's fault and will be over soon.
mbs
%%
CB: Do supply-siders express an aim to lessen recessions'
unemployment etc by their tax cuts for capital, or do they say
recession is a necessary, good thing ?
thanks. I don't expect to resolve any debates
about Marx, or even to engage them. I don't
know anything about that stuff. All I could
hope to do is fairly evaluate JOC's theory
in light of subsequent experience. I don't
have a horse in the marx interpretation
contest, so in that sense I may
I would say the relevant test in this context is whether
the product kept flowing to customers at prices that
covered production costs. The California crisis is
clearly an example of consumptis interruptis, but no
role of Enron's bankruptcy in that crisis has been
raised, as far as I know. So I
You could read it that way, but whether or not
the affair does point to an inherent problem with
markets is another matter. Choice and imperfect
law creation/enforcement make illegal acts possible;
that doesn't mean the underlying arrangement isn't
the best available.mbs
Max, I read the
That's a useful distinction, but I would say it is the
commodity sector that 'works' as far as markets
go, and the other one that doesn't. The stability
of the intellectual-prop sector preserves its
inefficiency and unfairness. Market functionality
travels over the dead bodies of failed
Two different issues seem to be mixed in here.
One is market failure, the other is illegal acts by
Enron execs possibly linked to illegal acts by
the Bushies. The mere fact of a company failing,
even a large one, is not a market failure. Market
failures exist because markets keep functioning
in
Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War
appeared on PBS. I thought it was great, especially
for PBS.
to purchase, go to www.greatprojects.com\store
mbs
Do you know of any movies of significance, be they documentaries or
fictions, on the following subjects: the Sepoy Rebellion; the
I understand there is a new edition of this coming out.
I'm thinking of doing a piece on it and would like to know
of references to other works that refer or react directly
to O'Connor's book.
mbs
thanks. mbs
1. a long footnote reference in Mario Cogoy, International Journal of
Political Economy, vol 17, no 2 (1987) see last article. . . .
How do you know Karla Hoff? She's a nearly-new assistant prof
at U-Md. Does she have some rep I didn't know about? (I knew
she was a Stiglitz student.)
mbs
2)'[T]he evolution of economics as an academic profession is a case of
lock-in comparable to the peacock's tail. Sets of genes
Sorry if I misinterpreted.
I agree that corporate influence is an eternal problem,
but it is the least interesting one analytically.
Even if without any such influence, there is an
intrinsic problem of contracting in some areas simply
because running a contract system has costs,
both government
The Gov would have to organize a competitive bidding system,
evaluate contract proposals, monitor contract compliance,
enforce contracts, and have substitutes (possibly itself) in the
event of non-performance. It ain't like ordering pizza. Taxing
is definitely easier.
If the Gov is renting
I have yet to hear a Bushie express anxiety about the
trade deficit. The fact that foreigners own more U.S.
assets might mean little to the Bushies if they own the
foreigners.
mbs
A paranoid thought: what if George Bush's efforts to create a US-dominated
world government is an effort to
Don't own; just tax. Fewer headaches. -- mbs
I'm just wondering with which markets we should start our program of
public ownership. Bill
A desperate Jim D. writes:
Can someone tell me how to set up a filter under Microsoft Outlook?
Step 1: make sure you're in a mail folder (i.e., Deleted Items) with a
prospective filteree's post in the list.
Step 2: click on organize on the toolbar, or if you don't use the
Toolbar, click
If you value an asset according to a ROR above its long-run average,
doesn't that mean it is over-valued?
mbs
(chief asset: '96 Lumina)
This is not as silly as it sounds. The fact is that in 1929, the profit rate
had attained its cyclical peak (before a very steep cyclical decline). High
It's been discussed quite a bit, though not lately.
I'm a fan, in general. One problem is that it implies
a new pattern of location that could disrupt the lives
of people. If you rent in an area that should be high-
density, LVT would create pressure to turn your
home into something that
Reciting trends in wages and incomes doesn't get
you very far in politics, truth be known . . .
mbs
Subject: [PEN-L:20293] A little rant about NPR propaganda on
unemployment
I was listening to NPR this morning and they had a brief report on
unemployment benefits paid by states. They had an
Jeff Wenger, who does excellent work.
I was not referring to him in particular, but to us (incl this list) in
general.
mbs
who was this EPI economist?
jd
. . . Krugman's work is similar to that for an optimal tariff in that it
is
possible to, theoretically, identify a government intervention into trade
that makes the nation (doing the intervention) better off. But the
response of Krugman . . .
This parallels a layer of public choice thinking
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