Charles,
>However, I must disagree, if you are saying Marxist theory never tried to
>explain periodic crashes of the capitalist market, although periodic crises is
>not the main thing Marx explains .
I realize that I was not clear...
I agree marxist theory explains periodic crashes. And I agree that marxist
theory is relevant to the current crisis. But I also think that some aspects of it
are not explained by the marxism I know (please, do correct me if I'm wrong, I
don't claim to be a specialist of marxism at all).
>CB:
>Couldn't this be a continuation of something that started in the spring ?
Of course, but the piece you forwarded links what's happening to profit
warnings and there were not many of those this spring. My conclusion is that
they are other reasons for the movements of stocks prices than the changes in
the profit reports.
>CB: Maybe the author calculated it. What do you say is happening to the
>return of investment in c and v ? Staying the same, going up ?
Frankly, I don't know. Especially since so much depends on your definitions. I
don't even understand if the author's figure was about a sector or not.
What I conclude from indirect evidence is that return on actual investment has
been on the rise for around twenty years (but maybe this has reversed lately).
But it seems that the claims on these returns (debt, etc.) have increased even
more so that the average return on money been sustained only by further
indebtement.
>CB: How do you know ? What are your stats ?
No direct stats. Only stuff like wages, commodity and asset prices, interest
rates, amounts of outstanding debt, etc. You don't have to have a nice sound
stat to replace the one you criticize. It's better to have no stat than a phony
one.
As to the financial transfers I mentionned, what I'm saying is that lots of profits
are the product of them (especially for tech companies). An example is
companies loaning money to their customers so that they can buy their
products. This is no big deal while most customers can be relied on to pay
later, but if they're not the profits are fictitious. Another example is companies
making money on advertising from other companies which are losing money
and paying with borrowed money. As to aggreated statistics, look at the data
on indebtement in the US (and indebtement of the USA also).
>So, now are you saying
>Marx explained it "materialistically" ?
What I was saying clumsily is that this guy (and Marx AFAIK) doesn't explain
why individual capitalists or the capitalist class sometimes produces more
only to lose more money.
> Marx knew about finance and its relationship to the "material". See Capital
> Vol. III.
The reference is too broad. If you could be more specific about where Marx
talks about investment bubbles...
>CB: Where have you been ? It is coming from everywhere and everybody.
Not in the USA obviously.
And it's not coming from everybody. The piece you forwarded talks about
people saying something else (like Gordon).
>CB: But if they are buying a lot of NEW TECHNOLOGY companies that are
>not making profits, as discussed in the part of the article that you clipped out,
>then there would be a net loss of profits to the whole class of capitalists
>specifically reflected in the companies doing the buying up.
I don't get what's so special about "new technology". Anyway, the losses are
there whether the companies are bought by a profitable company or not.
Someone has to pay for them anyway.
>CB: Read the next sentence: " In doing so, its profits fell."
What fell is its disposable income, not its profits. Of course, the profits may
have fallen too (depending on how you account them and other factors) but
what the author did was to substract the cost of aquisition from the profits, right?
>CB: In other words, you agree.
Yes. I don't have to disagree with everything the author said, hopefully.
>>What do asset prices have to do with Marx's TRPF?
>>
>Marxists don't say that capitalists' behavior is not in response to the
>phenomenal level of profits. Finance is used to paper over contradictions ,
>and this delays crises. But eventually the real factors tear through the paper,
>as far as explanation.
Look, the problem here is whether we should think of stock-market gains as
profits or not. I think not, especially from a marxists perspective. Those are not
"real" profits coming frm "real factors", but financial profits.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you implying that asset markets
are efficient (reflecting "real" values)?
>CB: You keep switching hats between capitalist and Marxist economics.
The paper you forwarded does exactly that IMO and that's why I also do that.
Besides, I don't like much ideological posturing and don't mind taking good
stuff from both sides.
>You seem to want to be anti-Marxist, ...
No, I don't. Really. I think that some marxists doesn't explain some things well.
But I make mistakes all the times and could be wrong about the relevance this
particular explanation. I'm just writing down the problems I have with it. Sorry if
I've been too rude but I can't make sense out of some parts of it.
Julien
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