mobil/exxon merger
If this merger is based (as claimed by the respective CEOs) on rationalisation of producers because of declining consumption of oil how does this affect the timeline on the 'tank is empty' equation? rgds jock
In Bolivia (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 15:53:23 -0500 From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: In Bolivia From an observer in Bolivia This morning I joined some union friends in a surprise visit to a local glass factory that employs 80 people. Until 3 years ago, all workers had contracts, benefits, etc. According to the managers, this was untenable. So they shut the factory, fired everyone, and rehired 80 people 2 weeks later. About 20 were given contracts, and of those 8 were charged with contracting another 7 people each of the line production. The 8 each have a work group that is paid by the piece. In the words of the owners, these 8 groups are are "micro-enterprises, "that is, small business "owned" by the group boss, which sell services to the plant. Now the plant it doing pretty well. Raw glass for melting is brought in by an informal army of people -- the bosses suggested 500 families "benefit" from the "ant work" of collecting and selling used and broken glass to the factory. Workers wear shorts and sandals as molten glass is hefted and shifted about. 4 people carry the semi finished glasses to a tempering oven on the ends of long steel forks, the tines wrapped in asbestos cord. The asbestos cord is wrapped by hand, and changed 2-3 times daily. Imagine: 4 people scurrying about, dodging other workers, machinery, pools of water and powerlines, as fast as they can with glass at 600 degrees celcius on the end of asbestos wrapped rods. Just watching scared the caca out of me. The sound of the oven is deafening; over it the company play loud cumbias to "entertain" the workers. One woman we spoke to was requried to work until 2 days prior to giving birth; the child lived for 6 days. About 30% of the production is bought by intermediaries who export it to Italy and Germany. The glasses are advertised as "ecological" (recycled glass!) and "hand made by craftsmen". Average monthly wages -- excuse me, remuneration for the sale of services by micro-enterprises -- are around 65-80 US dollars. Poverty AND poison. From A writer in Bolivia
Invitation (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 12:21:08 +1300 From: janice [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Invitation Invitation to an international meeting in Paris, 11-12 December 1998 Dear friends, You should already have received an email from us, introducing the ATTAC association, which was created in France at the end of last June to campaign against the "dictatorship of the financial markets". The aim of this current message is to invite you to attend an international congress to be held in Paris on the 11th and 12th December, 1998. Before outlining the object of this congress in detail, a few words on the development of ATTAC. In France, the association has already inspired very significant interest. Although it was originally launched by various associations, newspapers and trade unions, it is now citizens and activists who are taking the initiative. We have almost 5,000 full members, dozens of local committees are being created each week and more than a thousand individuals attending our first general meeting in La Ciotat. The association's success has exceeded our wildest hopes. ATTAC's membership is made up, not only of individual citizens who wish to participate in the campaign, but also of many trade unions and organisations which have taken out collective membership. Outside France - in Brazil, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, etc. - associations like ATTAC are being formed. However we cannot pretend that ATTAC's rapid development, in France and elsewhere, is the answer to all the questions that face us. The contacts we have made in various countries have made us acutely aware of the sheer multiplicity of preoccupations and questions that need to be addressed. In Asia and Latin America, the plans imposed by the IMF have caused social disaster and have inspired significant and widespread opposition. In other countries and among other interest groups, it is the campaign against the MAI that has inspired them to combine their energies. Elsewhere, it is the campaign against third world debt that is mobilising activists. The multiplicity of the subjects being addressed and the scale of the mobilisations now taking place seem especially significant to us, coming, as they do, at a time when the world is facing a crisis that is not only structural, economic and financial, but also political. The time has come to organise on practical and concrete grounds: the taxation of capital, rejection of IMF schemes, opposition to the MAI or any other accord of the same kind, etc. It is time to put forward social alternatives to neoliberalism. As a first step, we believe that it is vital to open the way to the widest possible convergence of networks and social and activist forces. We are working on two initiatives: 1. A "contra-Davos", to be held at the end of January 1999 in Switzerland. We shall assemble in this temple of ultra-liberalism to demonstrate that there are alternative voices - voices that can bring about effective resistance. This scheme for a "contra-Davos" is under way, organised by various independent networks and organisations. The idea is that each initiative should be a step towards a common goal, coming together on an international scale. 2. A global conference, to be held during the summer of 1999, bringing together activists from all backgrounds. This assembly of several thousand participants, where associations, trade unions, intellectuals and leading journalists will mix with "ordinary citizens", could have considerable impact. Such a meeting, which could be held in Paris in late June or early July 1999, would allow experiences to be shared and common campaigns to be agreed. It would be open to anyone who wanted to participate and would be supported by sponsorship at all levels. Participants from the richer countries (Europe, North America, etc.) would pay their own way. Invitations to others would be sent out, not by any central organisation, but by local activist groups, associations and trade unions in Europe. These decentralised invitations would allow for the widest possible cross-fertilisation, encounters based upon common interests and meetings in the towns from where the invitations originated. The main purpose of the conference of 11-12 December in Paris would be to discuss this project. The first item on the agenda would be a general discussion directed towards the adoption of an agreed text that we could all use in further initiatives, at international and local scale. (You should have received, in our earlier email, the text of the ATTAC charter, which could provide a possible starting point for this discussion.) The conference would go on to discuss what initiatives should be taken, including concrete proposals
Re: More Angell Dust
Thanx for the posting. Angel's papers represent a different view. One that is important to understand. We are trying to have Ian Angell as a guest on the FW list. Mike Gurstein is in contact with Angell. Stay tuned. If it happens it is likely to be soon and it is likely to LIVELY. In the meantime why not review some of Angell's articles? They are compelling in their directness and frankness. No weasel words here. arthur cordell I thought some might be interested in this comment on Angell Dust: Hi Caspar, some background information on Professor Ian O. Angell: 1) A very short bio with picture: http://www.lse.ac.uk/experts/information/angelli.htm 2) A list of papers: http://www.csrc.lse.ac.uk/Academic_Papers/List_of_Papers.htm The second article on that list appears to be an older version of the paper that you sent me a copy of. From reading some of his stuff i think that he is serious as far as the facts and trends are concerned that he comments on. I suspect that he does what Jonathan Swift did, namely speak out the usually unspoken in order to help us be/become aware of the moral questions we will have to face in the context of technological and social development (perhaps hoping we will make moral decisions that balance the "raw" evolution that he defines in terms of power). I think someone like him, who is willing to think things through, is doing us a great service. A "side thought": there is a book (i have forgotten who the author is) called "A Criminal History of the World" - in it the author says, like Angell in one of his papers, that our view of criminality is misguided and thus leads to ineffective action... I relish living in this present time where i have access to seemingly limitless information (i am not sure that this bounty will always be there for me), and i am, like Angell, Theobald, and others, convinced that the kinds and magnitude of the changes we are already beginning to see will be psychologically unmanageable for many, perhaps most people, presently alive... All the best: Hendrik * END of FORWARDED MESSAGE * Caspar Davis Victoria, B.C., Canada A wall of infinite dimension stands before the course of human evolution. It is the finitude of the earth and its resources. --Steve Morningthunder
nettime short-term capital (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 12:19:22 -0500 From: t byfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: nettime short-term capital Praise to Alan Greenspan, for Protecting the Rich by Michael M. Thomas This column is being written in advance of the Great American Holiday of Thanksgiving, but won't appear until afterward. Still, the sentiment is there. Herewith, a few chestnuts which, in a just world, would be stuffed up the orifices of the turkeys concerned. Let us give thanks for the good fortune that enabled (so reports a well-placed Greenwich, Conn., source in disgust) various, perhaps most partners of Long-Term Capital Management to move key assets into their wives' names before the firm's collapse. The sort of assets that keep a lad and lady climbing in and out of limousines, the funds necessary to call for the check opening night at Daniel, the golf club subscriptions paid up, the Costa Ricans assiduously clipping the manicured hedges and lawns, the money that lets the partners' wives keep shopping without missing a beat. For His bounties to such as these, thanks be to God. Let us also give thanks for the New Deal, which set the precedent for the Welfare and Family Assistance programs to which the immediate victims of Long-Term Capitals failure can thankfully turn this holiday season: the firms secretaries, its clerks and back-office help, including the boy who made sure the caviar in the executive refrigerator was the proper temperature (before the sturgeon eggs were hastily redistributed along Round Hill Road, that is). For His mercy in looking out for the little people, thanks be to God. Let us raise our voices to give thanks on behalf of these people, and their families, and the banks that hold the mortgages on their modest houses in Pelham and Stamford, and the issuers of their credit cards. They are probably in no mood to celebrate Thanksgiving themselves, in no mood to rejoice that through the miracle of sheer good timing, the children of John Meriwether's partners will still get their holiday ski trips and BMWs while their own will go toyless (try explaining to a 7-year-old that food stamps under the tree is the way Christmas is supposed to work in a proper postmodern capitalist economy). But it is the will of God, as we have been told since 1982, that the rich set a motivating example to the less fortunate. Such is the gospel of Comparative Advantage. For giving even to the least among us the eyes to see that it must be so, thanks be to God. Let us give thanks for a system that permits the fat cats to strut in Armani after failed trillion-dollar desperation bets on mortgage-backed securities, and the bankers who financed those bets with money backed by the taxpayers to get in their Thanksgiving paddle tennis in Locust Valley, while the little people who availed themselves of the mortgages that back those securities may lose their houses, along with the (Van Heusen) shirts off their backs. No risk, no reward: ah, yes, thanks be to God. Let us give thanks that we don't have to trouble our own digestions by demanding certain knowledge that we ought to have. Such as (this time I'm going to put it in capital letters): WHAT DID GREENSPAN KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT? Or this one: Why has no list of the investors in Long-Term Capital, the true beneficiaries of the bailout, been published? Might anyone or any institution affiliated with The New York Times or other major media have been an investor in Long-Term Capital? For seeing that our minds not be clouded with such questions (let alone the answers), or by silly, misleading terms like "fraudulent conveyance," thanks be to God. Let us give thanks indeed for our great media. An uninformed polity is the key to global capitalism and those who pluck the sweetest harmonies from its strings. People who know nothing can be made to believe anything. The mystic chords of memory must be raised to a frequency only dogs can hear. Such is the gospel of postmodern capitalism, its Beatitudes and Commandments, as vouchsafed to Alfred E. Newman as he slouched toward Bethlehem on his skateboard to be born, unworried to the very last. Such is the gospel our media go forth to spread; Such is the work of the Lord--apparently. There is not one among us who should not daily kneel and say: For Barbara Walters and our anchor people and our talking heads, for Peter and Tom and Dan and Jerry (as in Springer), for newspapers that give us the skinny on the latest in vulval depilatory fashions while children grow hungry and white-collar criminals gorge, thanks be to God. Let us indeed give thanks for the wisdom and vision of Alan Greenspan. Is it thanks to Thy enlightenment, perhaps visited
Fwd: Re: advertising barter feeding internet growth
Dear futurework people. This is about a community response to the Y2K problem. Is this an important issue? I admit to not having paid it much attention. David X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.2 (16) Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 09:05:56 Subject: Re: advertising barter feeding internet growth From: Terry Cottam [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave econ-lets' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Terry Cottam [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Greetings again, people in LETS dream land. In the back of our minds, we know the dream is about to be either shattered or take a radical new direction. We know that barter will be part of the new dream. Will LETS, Microsoft or any other e-currency? If power, fuel, telecom, and/or computers become scarce or unreliable, they will either localize and go low-tech or die. This is what we will increasingly confront in 1999-2000. Please read the letter below. Is there such a group in your town or city? If not, it doesn't matter where you are, let me suggest you start one, pronto. There is very little leadership at the top, anywhere. It's all bottom-up. There many success stories, including Nelson, BC and Boulder Colorado (more at http://y2k.inode.org/prepare.htm , http://cassandraproject.org ) but time is becoming very short. For instance, we really don't know how much time we have before our currencies collapse from the "IMF-fluenza" that has felled Japan, Russia and Brazil. When it reaches the West, it will spread quickly, and community cooperation may be immensely more difficult. We've always wanted to knit together our neighbourhoods. Now is the time to do it, block by block. The Utne Reader Y2K Citizens Action Guide tells you how (http://www.utne.com/y2k ). My very best wishes to Richard, Michael, Andy, Mary and everyone else I've shared the dream with over the years on this list. Terry Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 03:59:10 -0800 (PST) From: "John O'Brien" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: URGENT To: Terry Cottam [EMAIL PROTECTED] URGENT!! Yesterday I recieved a letter from Clancy Priest, who heads Chico IT dept. CP is in charge of the city's Y2K efforts and heads a Y2K Task Force, whose members include the Police Chief, Fire Chief, City Attnorney and Risk Manaager. This taks force "meets as needed to address specific problems regarding Y2K" CP "joined the City in January, 1996 The City has set aside $100,000 for replacement of systems which are found to be noncompliant. As you can imagine, Y2K testing and verification is a time-consuming and tedious task, which the City is currently in the middle of performing." So it has taken from 1-96 to 12-98 to get to the MIDDLE of the task? Does this mean they will have to squeeze another 35 months of work into 12 months? Meets as needed? Once a day? Twice a day? Or monthly? Bimonthly? How much time do those people have to study the issue, to plan for citizen action? $100,000 for replacement The City IT staff now has 6 persons; they are working like dogs right now. When will they discover noncompliant systems? When will they find time to install those systems and test them? "In response to your concern about educating the public, the City Manager has requested that we use the City's web page to inform and educate City residents. We are currently collecting information from various sources, and we will shortly have detailed information on the web page describing steps that citizens can take to ensure that they are adequately prepared for January 1, 2000. As this date draws nearer, there will be additional press releases and other education efforts to inform the broader public about what steps they can take to insure that Y2K occurs as safely as possible for everyone." #1: Who is spending the time to put up a redundant Web site? Wouldn't links to the many organizations do the same? Cassandra Project? Etc. Did the City every consider using Y2K Action Group as a resource? #2: Press releases just don't cut it. The "broader public" --ie the larger numbers of citizens who don't use the internet for info-- aren't going to pay much attention to a press release in the E-R, assuming they see it at all. #3: "As this date draws nearer..." it will be too late for the broader public, and the narrower, unprepared public, to take non-panic stricken steps to ensure their safety. This is NOT reassuring. Vague, non-specific pr like this is convincing only to those who believe that "THEY" will make everything okay, that there is no need to worry, feel uncomfortable, make any plans, or other wise assume responsibility for ensuring their own safety by taking rational intelligent steps toward same; these words cheat us all by ensuring that the reader feels no need to get to work on creating the safety of their community. YOU NEED TO HELP ON THIS. You can email CP at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ALSO, I am nearly finished with the mailing list for the
Re: (FW) Data and projects (simulation)
Hi Mike all, I've been away, and just got to your post. I'm familiar with the World Game site. It is likely that their software is not nearly as comprehensive nor as flexible as the Global System Simulator one. For those interested in receiving a detailed description of the system, I have it in pdf format (Adobe Acrobat needed - freely available online) (approx 50 pgs with data charts, references) (Douglas: I urge you to have a look before attempting to re-invent the wheel.) There is also a "concept" paper(14 pgs incl references) also in pdf format. I will fwd these to anyone who would like them. Please email me off-list. Below is a brief overview: Steve -- APPROACH To fulfill its mandate, the Global Systems Centre has adopted an approach based on the use of computer-based simulators that takes advantage of recent developments in our understanding of adaptive systems and advanced telecommunications technology. Unlike the first generation of global models, the simulator approach is open to adaptation or learning. The simulators are designed in such a way that the system of feedback loops necessary to assure consistency among the constituent processes of the system is incomplete: those feedbacks embodying the behavioral responses that are subject to adaptation are excluded from the simulator because they are not knowable. Consequently, the possibility of inconsistency or disequilibrium arises. Disequilibium is indicated by tensions that must be resolved by the user of the simulator. In this way the user becomes an integral part of the system as the source of novelty for adaptation, not an observer of a closed system. The work of Ilya Prigogine shows the indeterminacy of systems far from equilibrium and the possibilities of adaptation through the emergence of higher levels of order.[Prigogine 1984]. Evolutionary systems are described by Erwin Laszlo in the following terms: The evolutionary paradigm challenges concepts of equilibrium and determinacy in scientific theories; and it modifies the classical deterministic conception of scientific laws. The laws conceptualized in the evolutionary context are not deterministic and prescriptive: they do not uniquely determine the course of evolution. Rather, they state ensembles of possibilities within which evolutionary processes can unfold. [Laszlo, 1987] Simulators are primarily learning devices that extend our powers of perception; they do not predict what will happen nor do they prescribe what should happen. Just as flight simulators support learning how the aircraft responds to the controls, global systems simulators may be used for exploring the responsiveness global systems to potential societal actions involving population growth, life-style and technology. Simulators are descriptions of complex systems representing the interrelationships among the processes that constitute the system; they combine observations of past states of the system with scientific understanding of processes. As such, simulators are explicit and communicable representations of the mental models that guide our perceptions and actions. Unlike verbal or mathematical descriptions of systems, simulators are active and can be experienced. Learning how the system works arises from the experience of using the simulator. The user will come to appreciate the complex system-as-a-whole behaviour as it emerges out of dynamic interactions among relatively well understood processes such as manufacturing, consumer demand, technology and energy use. Four properties are important if the global systems simulators are to be effective in this role: Controllability - the user must be able to experiment with control settings that make "the airplane fly safely, or crash" Transparency - the question "why" must be answerable at all levels; for example, allowing the learner to observe cause and effect, and also allowing a view of the deeper logic in a simulation which shows how variables are related Realism - the simulator must correspond to the real world without oversimplification Adaptability - new understanding and new data must be incorporated as they become available.
WP: World Bank Turns Up Criticism Of the IMF (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 12:27:37 -0500 From: Robert Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of list STOP-IMF [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: WP: World Bank Turns Up Criticism Of the IMF (fwd) World Bank Turns Up Criticism Of the IMF By Paul Blustein Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 3, 1998; Page E01 The World Bank fired an extraordinary barrage of criticism yesterday at its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, denouncing as misguided the high interest rates and other painful austerity policies the IMF required several Asian countries to pursue in exchange for international bailouts. In a report and in public comments at a news conference, World Bank officials sharply escalated a long-festering dispute with the IMF that has flared periodically since the advent of the Asian financial crisis. The World Bank's dissension has irritated and embarrassed the IMF and its supporters in the Clinton administration because it has bolstered criticism from many private analysts of the IMF's performance in managing the crisis, and aroused fears among some fund officials that their authority is being undermined. Bank officials refrained from mentioning the IMF by name. But there was no mistaking their references to the policies favored by the fund, which is headquartered across the street from the World Bank in downtown Washington and was created at the same 1944 conference that led to the founding of the bank. The two institutions usually operate in tandem, with the World Bank lending for long-term development projects and the IMF providing short-term loans to tide over countries experiencing economic crunches. Joseph E. Stiglitz, the bank's chief economist, was exceptionally scathing in assessing the results of the high interest rate policies adopted at IMF insistence by Thailand, South Korea and other Asian nations after investors began fleeing those economies in the summer and fall of last year. High interest rates were supposed to restore investor confidence and stop the plunge in those nations' currencies by offering returns attractive enough to lure investors back in. "In fact, what one wound up with was both" suffocatingly high rates and collapsing currencies, Stiglitz said, because investors apparently concluded that the Asian economies would fall into deep recessions and the nations suffer social unrest. His arguments echoed a bank report issued yesterday, which contained a chart showing "no simple connection" between higher rates and stronger currencies in Southeast Asia over the past 1 1/2 years. Citing the case of Thailand, Stiglitz contended that once the panic was underway, it made little sense to increase interest rates to prevent an additional decline in the Thai currency, the baht. Real estate companies "were dead" because of a sudden collapse in property prices, "and further devaluation would not have made them deader," he said. Exporters, meanwhile, might be hurt to some extent by a declining baht, which made their foreign debts harder to repay, but they would also be helped because their products would become more competitive, Stiglitz said. "You ask the question, 'Who are you protecting?' " by raising rates, Stiglitz said. "You're protecting firms that have gambled" that the currency would remain stable. "Who is paying the price? . . . Workers who are going to be put out of jobs." The IMF declined to respond to the World Bank's latest broadside, just as it did in early October when the bank's president, James D. Wolfensohn, delivered a speech laden with implicit criticism that IMF-led rescues were insensitive to the needs of the poor. But the fund has vigorously defended high interest rates as a necessary evil in many cases to keep currency declines from becoming ruinous. In the IMF's view, the approach has worked. At a news conference in late September, for example, Michael Mussa, the IMF's chief economist, contended that South Korea and Thailand -- after initially balking at raising interest rates -- had restored investor confidence by driving rates sharply higher and holding them there for several months. Both economies, which are showing signs of bottoming out, have eventually been able to lower rates, he said. "Those who argue that monetary policy should have been eased rather than tightened in those economies [when the crisis erupted] are smoking something that is not entirely legal," he added. The bank's report was not entirely devoted to criticism of the IMF. The main section contained a forecast that global economic growth will slow by more than half in 1998, to a 1.8 percent annual rate, followed by a 1.9 percent rate in 1999. There also is a "substantial risk" of a global recession, the report warned, if Japan should fail to revive its economy, or if stock markets should crash in the United States and Europe, or if funds to emerging markets should dry up completely. In the report and at the
Re: Burson-Marsteller: PR For The New World Order
I'd like to try to keep this thread alive. I'm surprised that my posting of Vaclav Havel's speech didn't generate a peep from FWers. He had some important things to say about the mass media(among other things). He suggested that it may be more influential than politicians on the general state of mind. I agree. Marshall McLuhan did as well: "Any understanding of cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments" Herbert Schiller isn't quite as cryptic: "It is not necessary to construct a theory of intentional cultural control. In truth, the strength of the control process rests in its apparent absence. The desired systemic result is achieved ordinarily by a loose though effective institutional process. It utilizes the education of journalists and other media professionals, built-in penalties and rewards for doing what is expected, norms presented as objective rules, and the occasional but telling direct intrusion from above. The main lever is the internalization of values." [P.8, Herbert I. Schiller, CULTURE INC; Oxford, 1989. ISBN 0-19-506783-5] Perhaps we can work this into our simulation. Do you think you can learn to play poker(really play poker) by simulating money with match sticks? Brian McAndrews -- McAndrews wrote on Nov. 27th: Marshall McLuhan said that the third world war would not be miltary war; it would be an information war. I think it has started; who do you think is winning. Orwell called it the Ministry of Truth. Brian McAndrews
G7 Solution to Global Financial Crisis (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 12:26:42 -0500 From: Michel Chossudovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: G7 "Solution" to Global Financial Crisis THE G7 "SOLUTION" TO THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS: A MARSHALL PLAN FOR CREDITORS AND SPECULATORS by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of "The Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms", Third World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. (The book can be ordered from [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa 1998. All rights reserved. To publish or reproduce this text, contact the author at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Following the dramatic nosedive of the Russian ruble, financial markets around the World had plummeted to abysmally low levels. The Dow Jones plunged by 554 points on August 31st, its second largest decline in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. In the uncertain wake of "black September 1998", G7 ministers of finance had gathered hastily in Washington. On their political agenda: a multibillion dollar plan to avert the risks of a Worldwide financial meltdown. In the words of its political architects US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown: "we must do more to . . . limit the swings of booms and busts that destroy hope and diminish wealth."1 Announced by President Bill Clinton in late October, the G7 proposal to install a 90 billion-dollar fund "to help protect vulnerable but essentially healthy nations" from currency and stock market speculation will go down in history as the biggest financial scam of the post-war era. Hidden Agenda Skilfully presented to the international community as a timely "solution" to the global financial crisis, the establishment of a "precautionary fund" under IMF stewardship proposes to deter "financial turbulence spreading from country to country in a contagion process." The underlying objective is "to send a clear message to speculators that they may be taking big risks if they [short] sell a nation's currency."2 Yet in practice, the G7-IMF artifice accomplishes exactly the opposite results. Rather than "taming the speculator" and averting financial instability, the existence of billions of dollars stashed away in a "precautionary fund" (safely established in anticipation of a crisis) is likely to entice speculators to persist in their deadly raids on national currencies . . . The multibillion dollar fund was not devised (as claimed by its architects) to help nations under speculative assault; on the contrary, it constitutes a convenient "safety net" for the "institutional speculator." "The money is there" to be drawn upon and the speculators know it. If central banks in Asia or Latin America (in an abortive attempt to prop up their ailing currencies) were to contemplate defaulting on their (forward) foreign exchange contracts, the precautionary lines of credit (serving as a "backup") would enable banks and financial institutions to swiftly collect their multibillion dollar loot. In other words, the money "to bail out the speculators" would be readily available and accessible well in advance of a currency crisis. Moreover, the IMF sponsored "rescue operation" would no longer hinge upon clumsy ad hoc negotiations put together hastily in the cruel aftermath of a currency devaluation. Whereas the IMF would still be called in to impose even harsher economic measures, the bailout money would be "available up front": no nervous last minute meeting as on Christmas eve (24 December 1997) when Wall Street bankers met behind closed doors (under the auspices of the New York Federal Reserve Bank) to put the finishing touches on the renegotiation of Korea's short-term debt.3 Reducing Risks for Banks and Financial Institutions Rather than repelling the speculator, the existence of the precautionary fund significantly diminishes the risks of conducting speculative operations. Not surprisingly, the global banks and investment houses (well versed in the art of financial manipulation through their affiliated hedge funds) have unequivocally endorsed the G7-IMF policy initiative. Barely analysed by the global media, the scheme will reinforce the command of "institutional speculators" over global financial markets as well as their leverage in imposing ruthless macroeconomic reforms. A Marshall Plan for the Speculator A colossal amount of money has been allocated (from tax payers' wallets) to "financing" future speculative assaults: the 90 billion dollar scheme constitutes a "Marshall Plan for institutional speculators" representing an amount (in real terms) roughly equal to the entire budget of the Marshall Plan (86.6 billion dollars at 1995 prices) allocated between 1948 and 1951 to the post-War reconstruction of Western Europe.4 Yet in sharp contrast to the Marshall Plan, the money transferred under both the Asian bailouts (more than $100
request for information on simulations
I am looking for more information about economic and other large-scale simulations. I'd particularly like to find a mailing list where simulation may be discussed and web pages containing links to simulation resources. If you know of anything that might be appropriate please let me know, and please forward this message to other people or mailing lists who might be able to help. My apologies to anyone who gets multiple copies of this request. Thank you, dpw Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html
Re: request for information on simulations
Greetings ... I don't know if this is any help, but Ottawa has a number of sources that peddle large scale macro modeling. The Canadian Dept of Finance has a macro modeling system that they run their budget projections off of, but guard their system like it was the Crown diamonds. Likewise, there are a few think tanks that traffic in this type of information to help government department do various projections into the future, notably Infometrica (time-series statistics for the future, for those that belief in crystal balls). These organisations make their living from these numbers, so, again, I'm not sure what kind of cooperation you can expect. Cheers, Peter. On Thu, 3 Dec 1998, Douglas P. Wilson wrote: I am looking for more information about economic and other large-scale simulations. I'd particularly like to find a mailing list where simulation may be discussed and web pages containing links to simulation resources. If you know of anything that might be appropriate please let me know, and please forward this message to other people or mailing lists who might be able to help. My apologies to anyone who gets multiple copies of this request. Thank you, dpw Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html
more on simulation, and replies to some comments
This is a reply to several more messages about my project to do a simulation of the world economy, but before I get on with replying, I'd like to clear up some possible misunderstandings. Since my post containing some tentative requirements analysis the silence has been deafening, with even Jay Hanson being mute on the subject. Looking back I realize that my message was impenetrably dense. It obviously needs a bit more explanation and motivation. First, my suggestion that you look at a spreadsheet as a model of what I propose may be misleading. Some people who use spreadsheets for ordinary business applications may be unused to the idea of using a spreadsheet as a programming language for writing programs that can simply go on and run by themselves. Usually people set up something on a spreadsheet and then change various numbers to see what will happen -- the result being a change from one static state based on the old numbers to another static state based on the new ones. That is, of course, their most common use. But it is quite possible to use a spreadsheet as a programming languages for dynamical programs that have a continuous loop, which runs until interrupted (or until a stable equilibrium state is reached). I hoped people could keep the spreadsheet model in mind as they read though my tentative requirements, but that may not have helped! The requirements themselves though stand on their own, however, and other models could meet them -- I just thought the spreadsheet model might ring a bell with somebody. Sorry if it didn't. The requirements I posted are just rough drafts, and already have probably proven just how rough they are by confusing people. Essentially, they boil down to this: I don't want to write some oversimplification, I want to write something that can be used for state-of-the-art models -- something without built-in limitations, that can be incrementally improved by adding better data. And I'd like to let them incorporate better data automatically by obtaining it from remote sites, so that the resulting simulation can be very large and powerful without requiring any of us to be experts. This should make it possible for a simulation based on this software to be a distributed simulation, making use of results obtained over the net. If someone was to use this software (or some other) to create a good simulation of the Canadian, U.S., or British economy, rather than doing it over again or manually downloading data from that other simulation, it should be possible for the simulator running the whole-world simulation to acquire or update it over the net on a regular basis. Does that help? Please give my your comments! And now to comments already received, most of them from just before I sent out my tentative requirements analysis. A couple of people commented on chaos and chaotic models. Brian McAndrews [EMAIL PROTECTED] asked: Didn't chaos theory grow out of weather forecasters being humbled by what their super computers were suggesting from simulations? Didn't it have to do with what happened when the number of decimal places being used were increased or decreased. Aren't measurements always approximations? I interpret this as an attempt to point out problems that may dog any attempt to model the world economy. It is worth considering this, but I don't worry about it too much. There is a big difference between simulations of something profoundly non-linear such as weather and simulations of processes that can have a more-or-less linear representation. Linearization is a process for using the tools of linear algebra to handle non-linear systems, and where it is applicable, good models can be used. Curve fitting, for example is quite often used to clean up or simplify noisy real-world data by fitting a curve to it, thereby creating a model that is simpler than reality but captures the essential relationships within the data -- and even though the curves fitted to the data are not just straight lines, linear algebra can be used to to do the fitting, after a suitable linearization is found. But weather is such a profoundly non-linear system that linearization is either impossible or doesn't help much. We may differ on this point, but I think the world economy is a much simpler system than the world's weather. I don't know any way to prove this other than to construct a simulation and try it, but I'd be quite surprised to see anything like the chaos seen with weather. On the other hand, the world economy does depend on weather, which therefore does need some representation in the model. Weather is just one of many sources of unpredictable data that will cause problems for any simulation. But the usual way to handle that is to use random number generation to supply such data and then rerun the model many times, and I think that should work OK. Mike Hollinshead [EMAIL PROTECTED], on the other hand, wrote: One major problem
