Dear pen-l
Today I emailed Micheal and asked for a particular person to be removed from
pen-l. It is not an action that I took without thought.
The person has seen fit to send email that I have sent to pen-l in the past
(Feb 1997)
and also another list (pkt) to senior staff in my university as
Dear Pen-L and Pkt
If any one is interested you can read the paper I am giving
at Ed Nell's conference in New York on Monday at
http://econ-www/economics/research/bse-openeconomy.pdf
it is in pdf. it explores the open economy considerations of my Buffer Stock
Employment model of Full
Interesting story Louis but how do you account for the practice
whereby some tribes in the plains used to stampede whole herds
of bison over cliffs as a quick way of killing them and then
picking only bits and pieces of the bodies below. Incredible
waste and lack of concern for their natural
This, along with the disappearance of the saber-tooth tiger, is another one
of those "gotchas" that figures prominently in the right-wing repertory.
Hutchinson, in "Remaking of the Amerind", wrote that the Crow once drove
700 buffalo off the edge of a cliff. This anecdote has made the rounds of
At 15:48 22/01/98 -0800, you wrote:
Before you give the Pope too much credit, he is a far cry from Pope John.
Also, the rhetoric is not far from that of Solzhenitsin (sp?). The Pope
has supported just about every repressive regime around the world. He was
the first to recognize the Haitian
I said:
why castro would even have the old bastard in cuba amazes me.
Jim said in reply:
Response: I think it was more in the order of a tactical compromise
for the purpose of achieving some kind of leverage or authority to
help end the social systems destabilization campain and embargo that
On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Louis Proyect wrote:
Where are the Louis Armstrongs or Charlie Parkers of today?
Denis wrote:
Hip-hopping or DJ-ing in the 'hood, that's where. I've always felt that
Listen to marcus miller "tales" (1995). he attempts to stylise a link
b/tw the old and the new jazz.
At 02:54 PM 12/26/97 -0600, you wrote:
On Fri, December 26, 1997 at 12:04:02 (-0800) James Devine writes:
...
where/how can one get FSF software? does it run on IBM compatibles, with
Win95, etc.?
The ftp location is prep.ai.mit.edu, in the directory pub/gnu. Many
of the programs can be built
I liked Louis's probe. I am very interested in the struggles of NA and Aust
Aboriginal to remain a culturally intact group.
I guess he was suggesting that we have to see what the implications are of
applying historical materialism in marx literally when perhaps such
applications
go counter to
Dear Pen-L
Here is the address on my WWW server where you can read my paper
that I will present in Chicago (the agenda was circulated by Matt
in the last day or so.
The Title:
The Buffer Stock Employment Model and the NAIRU - the Path to Full
Employment.
Two formats are available:
HTML
Doug's prompts have interested me a lot - more than a lot of recent
pen-l topics.
Replying to louis (who has given us some excellent articles
on environment/economic issues, thanks): Doug said:
Two points. First, a sustained unemployment rate of below 5% does seem to
be having the desired
2) Where was Camilla yesterday?
tampon hunting.
wasn't he pretending to be contrite at the funeral?
of-course, he was really thinking "how the fuck do i get
to marry her, be king, and fend of the tabloids now?"
kind regards
bill
--
##William F. Mitchell
At 02:39 PM 9/6/97 -0700, you wrote:
Sid says that we should give Disome credit. Maybe so. The National
Football League is filled with "caring" athletes, many of whom have
agents who give them charities as vehicles to get better reputations.
My only offering about the whole sordid business
At 05:23 PM 7/14/97 -0700, you wrote:
bill mitchell wrote:
Econometrics is a highly sophisticated art form and has an aesthetic
aspect that takes some beating. the beauty of the data and the models
and the dynamic interactions and covariances and the wonderful
patterns of long and short run
At 02:03 PM 7/14/97 -0700, you wrote:
Jim Devine writes,
But models and econometrics can give one a greater understanding of what
may be true.
And Eric writes
As any formal model and any econometric study depend on
untestable and/or artificial ancillary assumptions I'm not sure how
one can
At 02:17 PM 7/6/97 -0700, you wrote:
I have removed Karl from pen-l. Although I have had private
communications asking me to do so, I waited until the sentiment seemed
stronger. I think that we have reached that point.
This is the least entertaining part of pen-l, but at least it is an
issue
a sinha wrote:
Another example from Australia: Now it has become
almost impossible for a migrant worker to bring his or her family. Even
Australian citizens marrying foreigners are simply unable to be united with
their families
this is not true. there are around 60,000 new entrants coming
Dear Louis
there is a coding error on line 26.
kind regards
bill
to each other. I bet your model doesn't have that. And one last thing, my
model uses computer techniques to make sure that everything is
logical. Here's the software that I use:
#!/usr/local/bin/sybperl
$zero1 = "0";
$zero2 =
Anders wrote (in part):
Our side could use some more dreamers. I can't tell you how many political
actions I've been involved with where the lefties involved will Talk the
Big Talk (Revolution, etc.) while fighting for a couple of lousy crumbs.
Almost nobody is gutsy enough to say, "we want
depending on institutions and other things economic. jim has done a
fine job of describing this.
But the fact that the "long run" will never come doesn't mean that
we should ignore the NAIRU completely; to avoid silly
terminological squabbles, however, let's follow bill mitchell to
call i
Most of the stuff on Pen-L is garbage! But if you insist on refusing
Cockroach and other issues that i post. Well, take Pen L. and shove it up
your ass. Now you either take me off your list or leave it alone!
Because what your are doing is banning Trotskyists and kissing the asses of
the
do any of pen-l's ozzies* have any comments on the events
reported over pen-l concerning Bougainville?
*"ozzies" is ozzy slang for aussies.
OZ Bill here. the situation in Bougainville (B) is pretty complicated. The
people have been trying to take on a couple of huge multinational companies,
Lynn Turgeon writes: Passell also concludes that most people
seem to win as a result of overall deflation just as most people
seem to lose from overall inflation and therefore tend to go
along with fighting inflation as a national policy. No wonder
there is inertia among Japanese
Lynn Turgeon writes: Passell also concludes that most people
seem to win as a result of overall deflation just as most people
seem to lose from overall inflation and therefore tend to go
along with fighting inflation as a national policy. No wonder
there is inertia among Japanese
Towards the reforging of a Communist International!
Bob your tirade has nothing to do with anything that will be achieved on an
international basis. merely internecene ego struggle from the reading of it.
and i admit that the sort of rhetoric you engaged was the stuff that turned me
off the
Louis: What a joke! Does anybody think that Barclay Rosser would be
posting all of that highly detailed information about Hungary and China
to the Marxism list if having this at his fingertips was not part
of his job?
Big fucking deal. Do you think that if I wasn't paid to administer Unix
Louis: What a joke! Does anybody think that Barclay Rosser would be
posting all of that highly detailed information about Hungary and China
to the Marxism list if having this at his fingertips was not part
of his job? Here, you want some highly detailed technical information
from me?:
Ken said the following:
COMMENT: Agreed that the Cuban economy is in considerable trouble
surely two of the main causes of this are: i) the US led isolation
of the Cuban economy from profitable export markets, even to the point
of alienating the US's own trading partners through extraterritorial
Louie, still dishing up the "i'm just an ordinary guy who knows
better than anyone what is radical and just goes about being one
in an unassuming ordinary way" talk, i note.
the list is called pen-l. progressive ECONOMISTS net list. got it.
it is not unreasonable that economists might talk about
Dear Pen-l
I am interested in doing some econometric work on labour managed firms in
tandem with a person who has done some theoretical work.
Can anyone (paul p. and my old mate barkley - come in spinners) advise me
on the state of data.
and whether anyone has any they could let me use.
Doug writes questioning Stigs appointment to the WB:
are the probems of the third world the result of
information asymetry?
well after 14 years or so of SAPs the WB probably thinks it has finally rid
itself of the Third World and if it hasn't quite done the job then it guesses
AIDs will do
bill, bill, bill,
I am very sympathetic to green concerns and the need
to radically alter the system to deal with them. But,
please, let's not undermine the case with nonsense data.
For years there have been hysterical forecasts made on the
basis of misunderstood data. Just to pick
Doug wrote:
I've never proposed banning anyone. I said I would not publish a piece that
argued for the nonexistence of physical reality in any journal I edited.
While I am not necessarily advocating (completely) political correctness which
accompanied post-mod thinking there is this sentiment
Speaking of performativity.
while i was out training this morning (on my cycle) i sure has hell thought i
went up a steep hill. and when i thought i was over the other side, i sure as
hell thought it seemed easier to peddle fast. and when i returned home (or what
i think is home) i sure as hell
Obviously, but one complicating point: according to the LA Times exit poll,
48% of women (race unspecified) voted for Prop. 209. From looking at the
exit poll figures, it looks like only a third of the California electorate
consists of white men, and not all of them voted Yes. Even if all white
This last condition does point to the competition inherent in the condition
of wage labor and the possible discriminatory use of unions to protect jobs
for a favored group or "race." But I wouldn't expect a dogmatic Marxist
like you to be critical of unions. Of course ultimately the answer to
Rakesh says:
Or is it that the more whites (an interesting category) feel that they may
lose political power due to their impending minority status, the more they
will insist on the right to maintain prejudices "for their own"? Is this
why California has been the site for both Props 187 (the
Dear Pen-L
I went to a university once.
Once of the lecturers there hated me.
He/she kicked me out of the class.
I won't tell you why.
So fuckin what!
kind regards
bill
--
## William F. Mitchell
### Head of Economics Department
Sorry for the empty message i just sent. the mailer is giving a little trouble
today.
anyway, the new idea i comment on is "People and Their Ideas".
jim said:
My criticism (explicit or implicit) of the Post-Modernist
authors and their tradition are NOT personal attacks. There's
a big
I think pomo is seen as difficult to engage because it's core concept is that
there is more than one truth. If one can't preach the ultimate truth, then
one can't be a hero. If one can't be a hero, one will take her/his toys and
go home.
Maggie said the above.
the trouble with truth and
verne said:
Anti-intellectualism has a long lineage in America that rarely gets
mentioned in this now tedious debate. Economics qua economics is as
subject to the politics of expertise and the vernacular as is "discourse
analysis". This is why we need (political) public intellectuals, like Mr.
A prerequisite for giving any theory hell by critiquing it is first
*understanding* that theory. I haven't heard Doug give a critique of *any*
of the writers that he refers to. I have only heard him *dismiss* those
writers and their theories. Perhaps he does have a critique of
post-modernism but
At 5 pm on Friday Chuck said:
I heard that the Fed is putting interest rates up. Didn't know
who said it, but one rumour is enough to keep us going for
another day
whatdyamean. i also heard that Clinton changed toothpaste brands
yesterday. Maybe he knew something we didn't then?
later
bobbie
Obviously, I have a preference for issues that concern directly
the third world; but, overall speaking, in the 'global context' we
are submerged, there is little that would not influence in one way
or another, at the end, the lifes of people in the third world (and
viceversa). I have to admit
4. why censoring the USA for the whole world is a breakthrough.
Though of course we wouldn't even be talking to each other like this if it
weren't for the Pentagon.
there is a fallacy in this argument Doug. you assume there is a uniqueness to
phenomena. but path dependency can be non-unique
Tomorrow, I hope that I can remember myself, I am going to ask all posters
from the U.S. to hold off posting to pen-l to encourage those from other
countries to introduce themselves or to tell us how pen-l could serve them
better.
We have probably 100 people from outside of the U.S. We get
I'm afraid to say this, but isn't a USA-free day a case of (gasp)
CENSORSHIP?
if so, it's a good idea. Maybe, some time, we could have a USA-free
day for the world as a whole, not just for pen-l.
i warming up for when us OZ types and etc will rule pen-l for 24 hours at
least. (note
This is a very good proposal to give us one day a week for picnic. I would
like to add to his proposal this one: We should have one day a week
"European Forum," One day "Asian Forum," and one day "Third World Forum."
We shoud set aside one day to air each forum. The US posters should be
silent
Suppose one is teaching intro econ to "typical" (?) university students,
which means mainstream range of conservative, and some liberal ideas,
including many who will either in school or later go into "business."
Do you (I'm asking for your personal opinions here) teach that corporations
*must*
For those followers of New Zealand on the list, the following NZ
Press Association item will be of interest, particularly since the
period covers most of the economic restructuring which began in 1984.
(Note that Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) is the semi-commercialised,
but still state-owned,
What about spending per household on yachts?
Yeah, that's a serious question. NZ has, by far, the highest per capita
rate of recreational boat ownership. Boat ownership in NZ is certainly not
limited to the wealthy, moreover, and extends to a large percentage of
working class families.
Both
Jerry - i don't quite get it. his reaction to post to your mailperson about
being bombarded with multiple (did you really send 30 of each) emails back from
you seems appropriate. He gets the message with one returned mail...in the same
way you return normal mail if it is "not known at this
Susan wrote among other things.
Shutting off Tell is being as Stalinist
as a Stalinist. Requesting a self-imposed limit on postings/day for all
members may be a more civil way to address the problem,(unless the
anarchists among us decide to oppose such a rule!)
Count me among the
Robert
as for bill's antipathy towards unions, i'm with gompers: "MORE!"
(gompers was, after all, a socialist... ; ) i don't think unions
can ever go wrong by demanding more, as long as they do it for the
whole working class (including those not working) rather than some
sector, (like the
Michael
with this listprocessor you can block mail from certain users and domains.
the only problem is that the spam artists operate (usually) a moveable feast of
mail addresses.
in the first instance you can write to the postperson at the domain the mail
came from and request the account be
A question: do the "new," Rogerless Labour Party and their partners in the
Alliance have much in the way of a positive agenda, or are they just saying
No to Rogernomics and its National Party successor?
The following agenda is the best i remember:
Economy
Repeal further tax cuts (already
Doug in reply to Paul Z
We're not talking about Bill Gates hiring a few workers out of revenue to
perform unproductive labor. We're talking about giving half the U.S.
workforce a big fat raise - that is, bringing the minimum wage to within
hailing distance of the present mean. All the faux
A student asked why raise the minumum wage? He made the argument that any
rise in the minimum wage would shift product supply curves inward thus
leading to rising prices. This inflation would be exacerbated by rising
incomes which would shift product demand curves outward. So, the student
said,
Dear Pen-L and PKT
this was a report in the Sydney Morning Herald today detailing how our new
conservative treasurer conducts himselfit also says something about the US
economy.
kind regards
bill
October 3, 1996
Costello's global gaffe
By PAUL CLEARY, TOM ALLARD and JENNIFER
Fellow PENers,
Is anyone else irritated by the ceaseless, one-way rantings of
our comrade from Buffalo? Personally, I'm not quick to be bothered by
things like this. Deleting is easy enough. But when it's missive after
missive, apropos of nothing but his own "education" campaign, I think
Jerry wrote:
The rejection of classical music including operas by many also, I think,
has an anti-intellectual component to it.
well i think this depends on what cultural-economic enviroment you have
grown up in. classical music in the capitalist western world (say,
australia) tends very
, but not dominant as in later Romantic
concerti, was the high point of bourgeois individualism. Now products of
that high bourgeois moment entertains the higher salariat, but I doubt
their minds are much on the subtleties of the sonata form, or
soloist-orchestra relations.
yep.
and baahkla
Dear Trond
He wrote a book called society in man/man in society which was a standard
first year sociology text and very influential in the development of sociology
in the 1960s when it was still a young discipline.
the essential thesis was the simultaneous influence that we have on the society
Doug asks:
I hate to break up the flow of discussion on samuelson, summers, etal, but
I have a short economietrics question I need help with. I know there are
some metrics experts lurking out there. If you don't want to give yourselves
away, you can reply to me directly.
does this imply some
Jim writes (with deletions by me):
The fact that many (most?) two-adult heterosexual families are
nowadays dependent on both adults' incomes gives more women
economic some econonomic leverage they didn't have in the past.
(Men and women may not be competing directly in the marketplace,
but
Mike wrote:
Blair defines capitalism as the appropriation of surplus value. The only
way this is true is by tautology: all other forms of "surplus production"
are not surplus value -- only under captalism are forms of surplus production
surplus value, therefore... etc. etc. Consider what all
JIm wrote:
Though all class societies involve the appropriation of
surplus-labor, not all ruling classes appropriate surplus
_value_. For surplus-labor to be surplus-value, the
surplus-product has to be in the form of commodities. Though
Southern U.S. slavery produced a surplus of
Several people have mentioned the macro text by Carlin and Soskice. Can
someone please post privately or to the list the publisher so I can get a
review copy? Thanks.
Blair
The full title is Wendy Carlin and David Soskice
Macroeconomics and the Wage Bargain: A
Chris, did you ever try SOSKICE and CARLIN? I used them two years. They
were too difficult for my students but for any student who could handle them
I think that book is very good.
I agree with Mike here. HT is a disaster when it comes to basic
post-k, or even (spare the thought) radical
Right now I am very pressed. But to answer barkly
the measurement possibilities lie not in measuring things
the way you propose (that is, against some benchmark status
quo). Rather, some sensible work has been done in OZ on the
opposite thinking process. that is, with urban sprawl being
Marianne says:
In response to bill mitchell who saw "no problem" in aggregating capital
according to some common unit such as money:
Of course there is a problem: the dollar value of a piece of machinery
one year is not the same the next year--to calculate its value in a given
yea
us fanfare, including
swish (grace a Bill Mitchell) pamplets trumpeting these results. The
problem is that the pollsters have refused to release any information on
their methodology. These results don't jibe with other credible polling.
Second, just a few comments on some economics-related is
According to my Webster's 9th Collegiate dictionary,
"pommy" or "pommie" or "pom" is an Oz term [origins unkn. but in
1915] referring to Britons, esp. a British immigrant -- often
used disparagingly.
yes and prisoners of her majesty is the most popularly accepted version of the
meaning.
I
I thought that the main problem in aggregating capital was the lack of a
universal measure. For instance, using price is no good because price is
indeterminate when used on both sides of the equation. Other measures have
similar problems, for instance, how do you quantify both computers and
Nick asks (rather curiously), and never one to turn down a chance to talk about
something non-USA,
Any of our OZtralian colleagues want to comment on the new leader of the
Labour Party? Please ensure that your observations are intelligible to the
average pom.
The leader is Kim Beasley who is
Last week Anders Schneiderman of UC Berkeley posted a message to PEN-L and
many other lists critiquing Berkeley's Institute of Industrial Relations
(IIR) and Labor Center. The posting grossly misrepresents reality and contains
many false charges and inaccuracies. Many progressive faculty at
Terry advises
Eat the Rich.
Q: Are they vegetables or other non-meat derivatives?
Kind regards
bill
ps. i forget to mention the follow up to all my movies on farm yard animals
will be one on darl the fish who lives in the farm dam and evades and teases
the anglers who insist on getting
Michael P asked
Let me propose the following fantasy. Suppose that Clinton wins along with
a compliant congress. Someone transplants a clone of Gene Deb's backbone
and courage into Clinton. He then comes to pen-l and asks for advise for
ways to turn the country around without creating a
Jim posed raised the issue of the OZ movie Babe:
Q: why did so many voters vote for Buchanan?
A: They saw the movie "Babe" and decided that pigs aren't all
bad.
Further news flash: After the Academy of Motion Pictures
nominated 100 pigs for best female portrayal of a male part in
the movie
Doug from Amerika asks:
Subj: [PEN-L:2909] a question about Austrailia
Well i live in a place called Australia so i am not sure if that is close to
Austrailia but it sounds near enough.
I sent out the following request about a month ago and got no response. I'm
thinking it never went thru,
Increasing work intensity can increase productivity and reduce ULC. That is
why corps.spend so much time trying to intensify the work process. If a
worker tends two machines instead of just one, productivity increases and ULC
fall.
As a non-economist, this seems wrong to me. Intensification
What is the significance of this extraordinary revolt?
It is the first collective rebellion, on a national level,
against neo-liberalism. It is epoch-making. Beginning in mid-
November as an almost corporatist reaction of the public
service to the planned reform of the social security
Peter came back with this:
Rather than debate Bill point by point on PEN-L and bore the pants off
people I'll take up the issue directly with Bill if I get the time.
it is always so easy to say "oh, i won't debate this openly b/c i will bore
people" especially after you have called a person
ocial
wage expenditure. The right of unions to organise, the right to
collectively bargain and the right for workers to have protection in the
form of minimum wages and conditions are emerging as big election issues.
In this context it would be nice if "progressive economists" such as Bil
Hi
just updating the numbers i sent yesterday for those data boffins.
---
paid uptotal (includes unfinancial)
per cent of LF
1990
peter wrote
[deletions]
if you believe increased government borrowing tends to force up interest
rates, why wouldn't you believe that increased private borrowing tends to
do the same? In other words, if government debt raises interest rates,
private debt ought to do the same. Wouldn't
Jacqueline said:
[deletions]
She is highly critical of the notion that all that is termed "progress"
is good simply because it is "progress". Industrialism has done
irreparable damage to our environment, and because it was instilled by
the hands of men it was done so in such a way as to
Jim in attacking jerry said among other things:
It is THESE academics who are `fair game' on the Marxism List --
as I (for one) simply _cannot_ comprehend that an intellectual's
thought-work can be taken at all seriously, if he is not CONSTANTLY
testing it AGAINST REALITY.
why we are
The pricks have blown up another bomb.
on the paris news this morning (their time) greens protested, some left
politicians protested, but there was no trade union protest. the train
drivers were silent.
kind regards
bill
-
##William F. Mitchell
###
more of jerry:
I *don't want* to make this society work! When we "put in the effort to
the best of our ability" that makes valorization work and reproduces
capitalist social relations. It also, to the extent that it increases
the intensity of work, can put other people *out* of work.
well
Mike and Jerry sung out for some discussion of
how one copes with being a head of an academic dept,
especially in a time of budget stress. jerry had
earlier intimated that he believed that the "progressive"
becomes harsh in their IR management and soon becomes one of the ruling class.
to a
Jerry, reading marx as he typed, wrote:
I disagree with the above starting point. Firstly, the idea that state
employees are public servants is (excuse me) rather "lazy" in a marxist
sense. The state hires wage earners and controls their labor in a way
that is mirrored by the capitalist
Whenever i send something to pen-l lately i get this back. do others?
it is an automatic reply to the listserver. they are somewhat rude i
think.
Denise Stanley is on vacation until 12/15/96.
but more curious - this is one hell of a vacation - is this american for 15
December 1996?
sounds
Before we start a war about my little quip, let me confirm in spades that
i agree with everything jerry says here:
--
I would not give others the same advice. While I have no doubt that
Bill's story is factually correct in all of its details:
a) academic unions vary
I wasn't sure if i was mean't to assume that the sender was not on the list and
wanted this forwarded or not. if my assumption is wrong then i am of-course
sorry for sending private email to the list. but the ideas are worth reading.
even if they are supportive of my, seemingly, isolated
Doug wrote:
B. Mitchell (whose posts, except for those on France, I generally agree with,
responded to glevy's post with a list of mechanism that would force
a capitalist economy to function in a more Green friendly manner, by reducing
the profitability on less-Green production. Many of these
I wrote:
The Incomes and Prices Accord (in OZ)
. . . was based on national wage decisions for all workers. . . . Many deals
were in the form of increases in the "social wage" which were deliberately
intended to redistribute and realign factor shares in OZ towards
profits.
Eric asked in
Bob Naiman
P.S. As for the dismemberment of the United[sic] States, I vote yes. I
would hope we could give back most of the Southwest to Mexico; perhaps they
would allow San Fransisco and Austin to become international cities, like
Jerusalem(will hopefully someday be). The South can be an
here i go again about trade unions b/c i don't think the real issues have been
fully discussed.
while most people on the list have characterised my position as anti-strike,
that assertion would be wrong. i was obviously pro-strike and i said so. i said
anything that damages capitalism is fine by
peter robertson writes:
1. bill mitchell describes the econ. history of OZ (for the
uniniated, that's Australia):
1983-1989 - real wages cut, employment grew strongly, demand
expansion from govt.
1989-1991 - real wages cut, employment growth negative, tight
demand conditions.
1992-95 - real
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