Doug Henwood wrote:
Why exclude interest?
Because it's not part of surplus value, and hence it sends the
capitalist class the wrong price signals about where to derive profits.
It's an expense, no? U.S. corps have been flush with cash, at least
until very recently. If you told a CEO or a stock trader that there
was a profitability crisis they'd think you're insane.
That's the heart of this crisis: the Wall St idiots kept reinvesting in
fictitious capital (dot coms, real estate, etc etc) because they get
their jollies from profits, not from surplus value extraction. Hence
capitalist crisis tendencies worsen, even while profit rates appear to
have recovered, thanks to speculative bubbling. Doug, did you never
bother with Das K? Or Limits to K?
Do you not get a bit wary of relying upon bourgeois stats? Does it
not perhaps distract you from underlying crisis tendencies, dear
comrade?
We've disagreed on crisis tendencies for the last 16-17 years, and
I've turned out to have been right.
No, you've been *way too sanguine*. And as probably the finest lefty
business journo we have, this has led to quite a bit of confusion, comrade.
I don't know how this one's going to turn out, but I'd say there's a
good possibility it could get ugly. But who knows at this point? If
you say "Falling rate of profit! Crisis around the corner!" for 20 or
30 years during which profits are mostly rising and such a crisis
doesn't materialize, what have you gained?
And if it does materialise because (as people like Harvey have written)
there has been lots of crisis *displacement* not crisis resolution, then
you owe it to your many readers to go back to the drawing board, Doug.
(By the way, all this banter is a reflection not of snarkiness - though
it may seem so - but frustration that old friend Doug still, after all
of this, seems wedded to bourgeois categories which prevents him from
discerning the system's underlying laws of motion.)
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