From: Fred Feldman I am not necessarily in disagreement with your assessment. I assume it is an assessment and not just a prediction, since you are not claiming to be either the late Jeane Dixon or Nostradamus.
^^^^ CB: Yes, my assessment is based in a sort of dumb empiricism of the last couple of decades, not a sophisticated empiricism worthy of the economists on this list. I mean no big recession, depression, by the way. Not one of the little recessions that have come in recent years. PEN-L is known for seeing signs of recession, recession mongering. And usually in recent times no big downturns have come to the US. There was a crash in Southeast Asia, Russia, Brazil stagnation in Japan etc. I just figure that the US financial dictators and their economists and bankers have figured out how to use their international financial and corporate power to prevent big recessions in the US. I don't know how they do it, but they get the result. I don't think its' the Invisible Hand operating just in the US , well in a sense it is the invisible hands, but not mysterious , other worldly hand, but the hand of the big bourgeoisie, educated and trained by all the experience of capitalism over the decades, and applied practically by those with the most ability to effectuate any economic move they make. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie taken to a new level of exactness and control. The dictatorship being seated in the US. Their methods are a bit more scientific than gimmicks. ^^^^^^^ I assume you did not send your prophecy -- if that is what it was -- to the Weekly World News, which specializes in such political insights. ^^^^^^^^ CB: It's more of a PEN-L type comment. It's sort of PEN-L pessimism upside down. ^^^^^^^ Wbat is the analysis that brings you to this conclusion, in contrast to the crash-mongering of Mike Whitney et al (the fact that they crash-monger does not mean that a crash is not happening, since even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I firmly believe a crash is coming. I do not believe in eternal "stagnation" a la Monthly Review. But I have learned from experience that this bias (however well-founded) cannot govern my response to conjunctures. . However, I think it may be true that the gimmicks that have kept US capitalism on top -- invariably responded to with disaster-mongering by the Whitney et al -- may be running out of gas: ^^^^^^^ CB: That might be why they invaded Iraq ( smile) ^^^^^ the government deficit, the trade deficit, the weak dollar, the "debtor" status of US capitalism, the debt bubble and all the other bubhles which have kept the US economy at the top of the capitalist food chain internationally, outsourcing, moving US companies as a whole to semicolonial countries which must sign free trade pacts in exchange, may be losing steam/ ^^^^^^^^^ CB: Yea, but they always seem to come up with another bubble filled with steam, and they just float on to more and more profits and money. How much total money is there now ? The whole thing is like a bubble or maybe its a balloon. ^^^^ At bottom, in my view, because of the underlying decline in the value of products due to the increased productivity of labor -- the historical tendency of the rate of profit to decline (this is called deflation, but is not simply the opposite of inflation, which can coexist with it -- the two phenomena have different causes and characteristics). Maybe this is beginning to assert itself more fiercely in defiance of the gimmicks which have served so well in the past. While (as a person who no longer feels able to say, "I predict" with the old savoir faire), I acknowledge that leftists (including myself) have underestimated the profffpfimd strength of imperialism, above all US imperialism. But what is the concrete and factual analysis that leads Charles to his conclusion, which I think could be true, but cannot derive from the facts available to me at the moment. Fred Feldman -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 9:25 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] No recession I predict that the current financial crisis will not lead to a recession in the US economy. Charles >>> raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/12/2007 3:15 PM >>> On Nov 12, 2007 5:54 AM, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Actually, many accepted that prices were way out of whack, and were > terrified of the systemic implications and the possibilty of their being > caught in the inevitable downdraft. So in that sense their own survival > and > that of the economy has been a real concern. But, as you point out and as > is > always the case, this larger class interest was subsumed by the multitude > of > particular ones competing to turn a quick profit and to make the most > timely > exit, and there has not yet been a model developed to resolve the > contradiction. Chuck Prince, formerly of Citigroup described the bubble nicely earlier in the year: "When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing." -raghu.
