Re: Pakistan.....
At 04/10/01 21:08 -0700, you quoted And what can he hope to achieve? What can he realistically ask the general to provide? It depends on how he can facilitate communications with Vajpayee. Blair will be active *and discrete* in this area. WTC should persuade India that it cannot safely resist terrorism without a new dispensation. Blair and his team have the methodology to smooth this over. Chris Burford London
International civil society
Penners The post-presidential roles performed by ex-Finnish head of state Martti Ahtisaari have been discussed here before, mostly in connection with the International Crisis Group, co-headed up by ex-Foreign Minister of Australia Gareth Evans. Another outfit Ahtisaari has got himself involved with on a collaborative leadership basis is the East West Institute, which exists to defuse tensions and conflicts which threaten geopolitical stability while promoting democracy, free enterprise and prosperity in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and other states of Eurasia. It was founded in 1981. Overlapping with the Trilateral Commission in terms of personnel and goals, among the superstars featured on its board of directors is John Edwin Mroz, President and Founder; Thorvald Stoltenberg (ex-UN Bosnia person and Trilateralist, as indeed were all UN Bosnia persons -- is he any relation to outgoing Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg?), Joseph Nye (Kennedy School of Government, see posts passim, and neoliberal international relations theorist), Jacques de Larosiere, Rita Süssmuth, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher. No doubt this forum will be stepping up a gear in the months to come. You can check out its site at http://www.iews.org./ Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Capitalism fails conservatives
Solid foundation is needed to withstand shaky times The Freedom Forum's strategy worked well in the bull market but has since suffered. Financial Times, Oct 4, 2001 By ROBERT CLOW The Freedom Forum, an Arlington, Virginia-based foundation, thought it was being pretty conservative putting most of its assets in Standard Poor's 500 stocks. For a while, the strategy worked well. The Freedom Forum has had a return of more than 10 per cent a year on its portfolio since it was founded in 1991. But earlier this week the foundation announced it was laying off staff and pulling back from its international commitments in London, Johannesburg, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires. The reason was that the Freedom Forum's investment portfolio has declined in value from Dollars 1bn to Dollars 700m over the past two years. The foundation was not prepared for the US stock market to decline for two successive years, said Charles Overby, Freedom Forum's chairman. We were prepared for a 10 per cent drop and then coming back a bit, he said, adding that there had been only four back-to-back decreases in the whole of the 20th century. The Freedom Forum is an international foundation devoted to free speech and free press. It was founded by Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today and former chief executive officer of Gannett Co as the successor to a foundation formed in 1935 by the newspaper publisher Frank Gannett. Mr Overby is optimistic about the future of the Freedom Forum's finances. I am confident the market will come back, he said. But he said that one possible lesson of the Freedom Forum's setback for other foundations might be: Don't expect to operate at the peak of the stock market forever. Todd Petzel, chief investment officer of the Commonfund, a foundation and investment adviser to other foundations, puts things rather differently. I think when they are building their portfolio they should think about their downside, he argued. He said that some of the more sophisticated foundations ask themselves how many bonds should they buy to insure a steady income stream through four down years of equity returns. The Freedom Forum's problems point to two major lessons for foundations, Mr Petzel suggested. In the last two years what you saw was people who had thoughtfully put money aside in defensive strategies got a little bit of a cushion, he noted. The Commonfund and many other foundations invest in hedge funds, real estate and private equity as non-correlated assets that ought to provide a cushion against an equity market downturn. Of the Freedom Forum, Mr Petzel said: They just did not have any shock absorbers. The second lesson, he argued, was that foundations should rebalance their portfolios back to their original asset allocation. Many foundations saw equities swell as a proportion of their total assets as the stock market rose, while bonds and other investments fell by comparison. Those investors who made an effort to sell equities and buy more bonds as the bull market progressed will not have lost so much. Preserving and protecting a steady cash flow is all the more important if a foundation has long-term commitments, as the Freedom Forum did. The Forum could arguably have provided better for those operations by owning more bonds, which would have provided a steady income stream. Many of the foundations that took more defensive positions during the bull market are buying stocks now to take advantage of their low valuations, Mr Petzel said. Mr Overby said that the Forum's investment strategy would probably remain largely the same. There certainly is no single investment strategy that is a cure for all your investment needs, said Mr Petzel, but he still argued for a diversified approach. If (investors) have assumed that the market is going to bounce back, I think they have got to ask the question, what if it does not? Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=trueid=01 1004002133 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Shareholder value vs. corporate governance
Bondholders in US company try to block takeover Financial Times, Oct 3, 2001 By ROBERT CLOW Bondholders in a US packaging company have filed a suit to block its acquisition by a US rival in a case that could prove an important test of US bankruptcy law. Under the terms of Temple-Inland's Dollars 786m (Pounds 671m) offer for Gaylord Container, the target's equity holders would get Dollars 100m, but holders of its senior debt would get only 73.5 per cent of the face value. Bondholders argue that the deal could turn US companies' capital structure on its head. In a corporate insolvency, shareholders are normally paid nothing until bondholders have their obligations satisfied in full. This puts an equity holder at the top of the capital structure and senior debt at the bottom, said Wilbur Ross, the veteran bankruptcy specialist, who manages the two hedge funds which are suing Gaylord and Temple-Inland. State Street Bank Trust Company and Fleet National Bank are also named in the suit as trustees of Gaylord's debt. The legal tussle could have broader implications for US mergers and acquisitions advisers who have been looking for ways to buy companies without paying the full price for debt trading at below face value. Mr Ross said that the bonds had change of control provisions, obliging Gaylord to buy them back at more than par if the company was taken over. By putting Gaylord's equity holders ahead of its senior debtholders the deal threatens one of the cornerstones of US insolvency law. In US corporate insolvency, equity holders interests are always subordinated to holders of bank debt and subordinated notes. Mr Ross and other bondholders could block the deal simply by not tendering their notes. Temple-Inland's offer does not become effective unless 90 per cent of the notes are tendered. But, in that event, Gaylord has agreed to pay Temple-Inland a Dollars 20m break-up fee, as well as covering its expenses. Payment of that Dollars 20m fee would reduce the cash available to pay the company's bondholders. Mr Ross's funds are attempting to have that break-up fee set aside too, arguing that it is fraudulent for a company which has already been declared in default of its debt by Moody's Investor Service to agree to make that payment. Temple-Inland and Gaylord declined to comment. Full article at: http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?print=trueid=01 1003001991 Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
New economy bull
The troubles with technical trends Professionals have lost sight of the risks but cannot blame day traders for the outcome, writes Barry Riley Financial Times, Oct 05 2001 For eight years I contributed a weekly Financial Times column - recently labelled Investment Watch - on developments in the fund management industry. I closed the series in August, but in the context of the stock market slump I would like to draw out some themes and explain how technical trends in the asset management industry, especially in equities, may have caused trouble. Too many professionals have lost sight of the risks being run. Instead, they have focused on a particular definition of active risk (also called tracking error). It is measured, using complex models, in terms of the standard deviation of expected investment returns compared with the benchmark index. It is precise, but it gave clients no inkling that the stock markets had become highly risky by the end of the 1990s. The atrocities of September 11 prompted a further slide in equities, but many stock markets had already tumbled from their peaks by September 10; the World Index was down 32 per cent in dollar terms. Those eight years took in a stock market bubble. This in part reflected favourable economic trends, and especially growth in corporate profits. But the scale of the price rise also reflected uprating. When I started writing the column, the SP 500 offered a dividend yield of 2.7 per cent and a price/earnings ratio of 23, falling to 16 in 1995: at the market peak in March 2000 the yield was just 1.07 per cent and the p/e ratio had reached 35. This bubble was often presented at the time as being created by day-trading amateurs, but it can be better viewed as a collective mistake by investment professionals. How did it happen? Here are a number of the themes I discussed during the late 1990s: * Indexation and its closet clone benchmarking. * Distortions arising from capitalisation-weighted indices. * Risk control applied through tracking error estimates. * Increasing focus on investment styles. * Prevalence of short-term performance measurement. To this list could usefully be added some characteristic failures of client protection. The managers' business risks were usually controlled more carefully than the clients' investment risks. The pay and bonuses of asset managers rose rapidly, and many cashed in through takeovers of their firms. Many asset management firms are now in disarray. Most have depended on a steadily rising stock market and have no strategy to cope with adverse circumstances. A new category of alternative asset managers has sprung up, hedge funds. These pose their own problems, especially through the generation of high volatility, which has recently caused problems for regulators. But they represent an important reorientation from relative risk towards absolute risk. The relative risk concept was a fundamental cause of the great bubble. Ironically, it has now even spread into bonds: a curious paper from JP Morgan's emerging markets research team a few weeks ago, entitled The Argentine Portfolio Dilemma, discussed why bond fund managers were being drawn into wildly risky Argentine paper because otherwise they would suffer high tracking errors against emerging market bond indices in which Argentina has a weighting of about 20 per cent. This has uncomfortable echoes of the stock market distortions of the late 1990s. In more normal conditions, overpriced stocks and sectors would be sold by value-oriented portfolio managers. Across continental Europe, the telecoms sector generated similar huge distortions, largely because of weighting technicalities related to low free floats. Through entirely artificial shortages of stock, both France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom achieved phenomenal prices, before the inevitable reversals. Now there is a global economic recession in the offing. It has become evident that herd behaviour caused by the risk reduction procedures of big institutions can be disruptive and lead to irrational valuations. There has also been a failure of the various agents who stand between the corporate sector and investors. Investment banks, for instance, fed the mania through initial public offerings of quite unsuitable companies, and promoted ill-conceived mergers. All the while, analysts, many employed by the same investment banks, were encouraged to publish what turned out to be quite unrealistic forecasts of earnings. None of this provides a decent excuse for asset managers. They are supposed to base their decisions on rational analysis, and should act in the interests of their clients. True, there can be variations on these themes. Running overtly speculative portfolios on a short-term basis in a bubble for mutual fund clients is a different matter from pursuing prudent long-term strategies for, say, pension funds. Unfortunately, the clients are rarely made fully aware of the risks being run on their behalf.
the politics of statistics
BLS Chief On Verge of Becoming A Statistic Administration Looking To Replace Commissioner By John M. Berry Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 5, 2001; Page A35 The Bush administration is seeking a replacement for Katharine G. Abraham as commissioner of labor statistics, traditionally a nonpolitical job. Abraham's second four-year term as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is responsible for such high-visibility and sensitive economic data as the consumer price index and the nation's employment and unemployment figures, expires a week from Saturday. If she is not reappointed, it would be the first time in the history of BLS that a commissioner who wished to stay on was not reappointed regardless of a change in administration. Abraham was originally appointed by then-President Bill Clinton. Asked about the situation, Abraham said, I do feel very proud of the bureau's record over the past eight years. I would be happy to stay on for a third term. At this point, I have not been asked to do so. In recent months, administration officials have approached more than a half-dozen well-known economists. Most have turned them down for a variety of reasons. Labor Department spokeswoman Susan Hensley said the events of the past month have delayed a decision. Abraham was asked to stay on as acting commissioner but declined, Hensley said. This is a presidential term appointment and she has had an opportunity to serve two full terms, Hensley said, adding that Abraham has been an excellent public servant with an outstanding background. One labor economist who expressed interest in the job, Daniel S. Hammermesh of the University of Texas, said he was approached early last summer. But he said he cautioned the official who called that he had written an article published early this year in which I lambasted President Bush's economic plan, which included the income tax cut later passed by Congress. I never heard from them again, Hammermesh said. Marvin Kosters, a labor economist at the American Enterprise Institute who was on the White House staff in the Nixon and Ford administrations, was also asked if he were interested. I thought about it quite seriously before saying no, said Kosters. My family has a great interest in my having more time available rather than less, and that job takes a great deal of time. Kosters was nominated for the position in April 1992 by then-President George Bush, but a majority of the Democratic members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee opposed him and no confirmation hearing was held. The BLS job is nonpolitical in a way, but nothing is really nonpolitical, Kosters said. Given what I learned about the way the world worked from that experience, it never occurred to me that this administration would not look for someone to replace Abraham. But Janet L. Norwood, who was commissioner from 1979 to 1991, stressed the necessity of keeping the job out of politics to maintain public confidence in the statistics published by BLS. Norwood was nominated by a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, and then reappointed twice by Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The government needs the BLS in that carefully defined nonpolitical role, Norwood said. That's why the tradition of continuity is so important even when there is a change in administrations. That shows the nonpartisan nature of the job. They ought to reappoint Katharine and continue that long tradition, she said. Abraham, 47, was a professor at the University of Maryland for six years before moving to BLS in 1993. She holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. Prior to the Maryland post, Abraham taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During her BLS tenure, extensive research concerning the accuracy of the consumer price index was done, laying the groundwork for several changes in the way the CPI is calculated. However, a commission created by the Senate Finance Committee and chaired by economist Michael J. Boskin of the Hoover Institute issued a report sharply criticizing BLS for statistical deficiencies in the price index, and the issue became highly politicized for a time. Ernst R. Berndt, a professor of applied economics at MIT's Sloan School of Management and chairman of the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, praised Abraham's work. Katharine defended the BLS very aggressively around the time of the Boskin commission's report being released, and since then she has done an excellent job, he said. Among the other economists who have been approached are Derrick Neal of the University of Wisconsin; former Congressional Budget Office director June O'Neill, now at Baruch College in New York; and Barry R. Chiswick of the University of Illinois at Chicago. William G. Barron Jr., acting director of the Bureau of the Census and a former deputy and acting commissioner of the BLS, also was interviewed.
Re: Blair's evidence against Bin Laden
Seymour Hersh was interviewd on NPR the other day and he spoke of his numerous high up contacts in the CIA revealing to him that there's noo way a white paper could be drawn up by the administration today, there just isn't enough evidence that's convincing enough. I think he has an article coming out in this months New Yorker. Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822 On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, Ken Hanly wrote: The evidence is detailed at: http://www.pm.gov.uk/ I would be interested in people's response. There is not too much that is new. A lot of the evidence has nothing specific to do with the attacks on Sept 11 but relate to earlier attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole. A considerable amount of background is also provided including bin Laden's declaration of Jihad against the US. The general strategy is to simply point out that bin Ladn is head of a large terrorist group, that is committed to a jihad against the US that includes terrorist attacks, and that he and the group are prime suspects in several other attacks. There is a final note that there is even more compelling evidence that is too sensitive to share.. Just a few specific remarks and questions: The evidence states specifically that bin Laden claimed responsibility for attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole. I was under the impression that while he applauded them and claimed that they were in accordance with the jihad against the US that he was not responsible for them. Is this incorrect? Part of the evidence is that bin Laden made a phone call that says that an attack would take place in two days. This evidence was discovered AFTER the attacks. This makes absolutely no sense to me. I posted a source earlier that said that a call to bin Laden's mother had been intercepted in which he said that there would be an attack in two days. Surely this makes more sense. The call was intercepted at the time that it was made. It would be known then wouldn;t it. What gives? The picture the evidence gives is that bin Laden is something like the CEO of a terrorist organisation and as such of course he is involved in planning major attacks. But if he is how is it that intelligence sources are unable to to know what is going on? Furthermore one of the hijackers is said to have been involved both in the USS Cole attack in some way and in one of the embassy bombings. Surely you would think that intelligence sources would be keeping good track of this guy. How could he come to the US and take part in a hijacking undetected? The evidence does not make intellligence services look even minimally competent. Cheers, Ken Hanly
Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: fiscal policy
Did you get these income and savings #s from FoF? Christian - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 3:19 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18104] Re: RE: Re: RE: fiscal policy Forstater, Mathew wrote: Doug - so are you expecting that when figures for the current period come out, there will not be a reduction in aggregate income, only a change in the proportions of spending and saving? There may well be a reduction in aggregate income, but over the last 4-5 months, the personal savings rate went from 0.9% to 4.1% - still a ways from the long-term average of over 8%. So it could definitely go higher in anxious times. And as for investment, well as every Keynesian knows, confidence is extremely important to investment, and that's basically the motor of the system. Doug
BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, OCTOBER 4, 2001: Almost 100,000 U.S. workers lost their lives over a 16-year period as a result of work-related injuries, according to two new documents released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The leading causes of job-related deaths were motor vehicle crashes, homicides, machine-related incidents, falls, electrocutions, and being struck by falling objects. The number of fatal job injuries decreased from 1980 through 1995 by 28 percent. The average annual fatality rate declined by 42 percent. Male workers had a job-related fatality rate 11 times higher than the rate for female workers. Workers 65 and older had the highest fatality rate of all age groups in every industry and occupation (Daily Labor Report, page A-5). Data compiled by the Bureau of National Affairs in the first 40 weeks of 2001 show that the weighted average first-year wage increase in newly negotiated contracts is 4.1 percent, compared with 3.8 percent in 2000. The median gain for these settlements was 3.5 percent, compared with 3.3 percent last year (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). New claims for unemployment benefits shot up last week to the highest level in 9 years as layoffs from the terror attacks took their toll on the travel and tourism industries. The Labor Department reports that for the work week ending September 29, new jobless claims jumped by a seasonally adjusted 71,000 to 528,000. That came on top of a 64,000 increase in claims the week before, which pushed claims to levels not seen since 1992. The sharp rise in claims over those 2 weeks reflects the rippling impact the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington are having on a labor market that was already suffering because of the country's more than yearlong economic slump. The big advance in the latest claims figures, a government analyst says, in part comes from layoffs in the airline, tourism and other travel-related businesses (Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-economy.story?coll=chi%2Dbusine ss%2Dhed). The number of jobs in New York City has probably plunged by 28,000, and is likely to drop by at least 40,000 more this year -- maybe by 87,000, if the national economy stumbles into a severe recession, writes Leslie Eaton in The New York Times (page B1). The unemployment rate, already edging up to 5 percent, could end the year as high as 6.7 percent, and might hit 8 percent by the end of next year. All of these statistics come from Economy.com, which specializes in regional financial data. The number of layoff announcements by U.S. companies rose to its highest monthly level this year in September, a new report says. September is the largest job-cut month so far in 2001, the report says. Announced job cuts totaled 248,332 in September, up 77 percent from August when companies announced 140,019 layoffs, outplacement firm Challenger Gray Christmas said. The number of layoff announcements in September is also more than 4 times greater than during the same month last year (Reuters, http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2001-10-04-challenger.htm). House appropriators Oct. 3 swiftly marked up the fiscal year 2002 spending bill covering the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education after congressional and White House negotiators reached an agreement that sets a total discretionary level of spending for the current fiscal year. The Labor Department fared well under the agreement on the Labor-HHS measure, receiving slightly more than $11.9 billion in discretionary spending for FY 2002. This is up from slightly more than $11.3 billion requested by the Bush Administration and up from the close to $11.7 billion allotted for FY 2001The Bureau of Labor Statistics' budget in the measure is more than $1 million higher than the administration request (Daily Labor Report, page AA-1). Business in the nonmanufacturing service sector economy grew slightly in September, indicating almost no change in economic activity, according to a survey released Oct. 3 by the National Association of Purchasing Management (Daily Labor Report, page A-3). DUE OUT TOMORROW: The Employment Situation: September 2001 application/ms-tnef
The strange death of liberal international theory
Apropos of the queries on Realism etc. in international relations. The essay isn't long; from the latest issue of the European Journal of International Law: http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol12/No3/art1.pdf
BLS Daily Report
RELEASED TODAY: Payroll employment fell by 199,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Sharp job losses continued in manufacturing, and employment also fell in services, wholesale trade, and retail trade. New jobless claims for the week ending Sept. 29 jumped to 528,000, an increase of 71,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 457,000, according to figures released by the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration. The increase of 71,000 exceeded most analysts' expectations in reaching a nine-year high (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). U.S. companies in September announced a total of 248,332 job cuts, 77 percent higher than in August, according to a report from the outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray Christmas Inc. released Oct. 4 (Daily Labor Report, page A-8). Recent data on consumer spending, investment outlays, trade, and overall economic activity for July and August show the economy was going from bad to worse--and was most likely in recession--before the Sept. 11 attacks took place, according to a report released Oct. 4 by the Economic Policy Institute. The report, Prosperity Wasn't Just Around the Corner, disputed reports from financial experts who have indicated the economy was on its way to recovery before the attacks. EPI's economists said evidence indicates the economy slacked in July and August compared to prior months (Daily Labor Report, page A-4). Initial jobless claims rose 71,000 last week, more than double forecasts. The jobless rate for workers with unemployment insurance rose to a seven-year high of 2.7%, and the less volatile four-week moving average of claims climbed 29,500 to 453,500 last week. In addition, many people facing layoffs are unprepared, with slim personal savings and high debt ( The Wall Street Journal, pages A2 and A6). The Bush Administration is seeking a replacement for Katharine G. Abraham as commissioner of labor statistics, traditionally a nonpolitical job. Abraham's second four-year term as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics expires a week from Saturday ( John M. Berry, The Washington Post, page A35). application/ms-tnef
Re: A request and a suggestion.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would it be possible for the list members to add their e-mail addresses to their signatures? there is at least one good reason why folks do not do this any more: spammers collect addresses of people from usenet and mailing list posts. some of the better list software now create archives that blank out a section of the sender's address to make it unusable. of course there are other ways for spammers to collect addresses from list posts, but it is still worthwhile to make their job difficult, if only a bit more. as for getting the list member's address you can find it in the headers of each message that is sent to the list, in all the popular mailreaders today: mozilla, netscape, eudora, outlook, etc. if you use mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org/ - warning: this is pre-release software) you can even copy that header using a helpful popup menu right from the header and paste it into the recepient field of your response. Further, some discussions are so inherently anglo-american that it is impossible for me to comprehend what is going on. Here is an example: Michael Perelman wrote: Do religious zealots usually frequent lap dancers??? Ask Jimmy Swaggart. I understand Michael perfectly but I don't understant Doug. Who the hell is this Jimmy Swaggart? http://www.jsm.org/ i dont follow a lot of these references either, to be honest, but then again i dont follow the habermas stuff very well either, and as a newbie, i am just glad to be humoured around here! the question i have for michael perelman is: do economics professors and theorists usually frequent lap dancers? ;-) --ravi man is said to be a rational animal. i do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. more often i have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the 2nd degree. -- alasdair macintyre.
Re: New economy bull
From: Michael Keaney [EMAIL PROTECTED] The troubles with technical trends Professionals have lost sight of the risks but cannot blame day traders for the outcome, writes Barry Riley Financial Times, Oct 05 2001 ... Now there is a global economic recession in the offing. It has become evident that herd behaviour caused by the risk reduction procedures of big institutions can be disruptive and lead to irrational valuations. Dog bites man -- read all about it! Carl _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Re: fiscal policy
I wrote: The news tells us that the US may soon institute $60-$75 billion in new anti-recession relief in the form of tax cuts and emergency spending in the near future. If the multiplier is 5, then the impact would be $300 to $375 billion. If, as more likely, the multiplier is 2, that's only about $130 billion in terms of raising GDP. But the actual GDP is about $10 _trillion_. So the $130 billion is only about 1.3% of GDP. That's not enough to prevent a rise in the unemployment rate is it? Doug Henwood writes: That's a big stimulus program - the biggest fiscal stimulus in at least 40 years, according to estimates I just saw from Wall Street guru Ed Hyman of ISI. A lot of it is targeted at the lower and middle income brackets, too. Bush is proposing a more aggressive stimulus program than the Dems or the AFL-CIO did. the last doesn't surprise me, given the way the Dems and Dose became born-again fiscal conservatives. It may be the biggest fiscal stimulus program in at least 40 years compared to other fiscal stimulation, but how does it compare to the apparent fall in the economy, which seems to be one of the steepest falls in at least 40 years (and the perhaps most surprising to the usual suspects among forecasters)? When I sent the missive above, I was in a hurry and didn't get to finish my thought. If we can interpret the 1.3% stimulus/GDP ratio as implying a 1.3% increase in the rate of growth of real GDP (all else constant), then Okun's Law can be applied: a one percent growth rate of real GDP sustained over a year will lower the unemployment rate by about 0.4 percentage points. Optimistically assuming that the Okun's Law constant is instead 0.5, a 1.3% one-year stimulus would lower the unemployment rate by 0.65 percentage points, say, from 5 percent to 4.35 percent. Though the unemployment rate stayed constant this month, that mostly says that monthly statistics can be deceiving. The economy seems to be driving the unemployment rate up by more than 0.65 percentage points this year. Mat writes: so much emphasis on 'consumer confidence' 'investor confidence' 'market psychology' etc that you get the feeling they think that there will be a 'psychological multiplier' or something Krugman has been very scornful toward those who invoke expectations or business confidence to justify their proposals -- and rightly so, since expectations can be used to justify almost anything -- but of course he does it too. Doug writes: And as for investment, well as every Keynesian knows, confidence is extremely important to investment, and that's basically the motor of the system. That's a crude form of Keynesianism. Optimistic expectations (about future profitability) -- and cheer-leading by our fearless leaders -- won't do much if the businesses face extreme unused capacity, the results of previous over-building, and high debt/revenue ratios. and: There may well be a reduction in aggregate income, but over the last 4-5 months, the personal savings rate went from 0.9% to 4.1% - still a ways from the long-term average of over 8%. So it could definitely go higher in anxious times. I don't see why the historical average is relevant. A sudden increase in the savings rate of the sort you report has clear recessionary impact. It's not just anxiety, as seen in the following: More Debt, Fewer Paychecks Spell Trouble for Economy [L.A. TIMES, October 5, 2001] Outlook: A prolonged consumer retrenchment could exacerbate a recession. By LESLIE EARNEST [!!], Times Staff Writer As layoffs mount and the nation teeters toward a recession, consumers' heavy debt load is looming as a serious risk for many American households and the economy. Consumers who have been spending freely--relying heavily on their credit cards--have been propping up the U.S. economy. But credit card delinquencies hit a 29-year high recently, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks further eroded consumer confidence and the job market. Jobless benefits claims reached a 10-year high last week, the government reported Thursday. And many economists are expecting today's labor report to show that businesses slashed about 70,000 jobs in September, a figure that does not include the tens of thousands of layoffs announced by airlines and hotels after the surveys. In the previous six months, about 264,000 jobs evaporated. More debt and fewer paychecks spell trouble because the combination makes consumers retrench. And consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the economy. Delinquencies are going to rise, bankruptcies are going to rise, and they're going to cut back on their spending, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at RFA Dismal Sciences, a consulting firm in the Philadelphia area. A sharp increase in defaults and bankruptcies could make banks reluctant to generate loans. If that happens, Zandi said, the problems for the economy are going to grow very deep. for the rest, see:
Re: Re: A request and a suggestion.
At 11:07 AM 10/5/01 -0400, you wrote: the question i have for michael perelman is: do economics professors and theorists usually frequent lap dancers? ;-) I never inhaled. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
New economy bull
G'day Carl, ... Now there is a global economic recession in the offing. It has become evident that herd behaviour caused by the risk reduction procedures of big institutions can be disruptive and lead to irrational valuations. Dog bites man -- read all about it! It does seem the markets are particularly skittish at the moment. The sad business over the Black Sea and the (now officially denied) rumour of a second anthrax case both occasioned instant dumps. Right now, a bloke with a good tan could leave his briefcase at the office door for a minute, and cause Great Depression II. And Yahoo thinks Argentina will be in the news again over the next couple of days. It's just getting harder and sadder over there and it seems the further cuts those imaginative US economists are demanding just can't be pulled off without some major street action. Starvation is just 'bearish consumer sentiment' until the hungry march, then it gets upgraded to 'uncertainty' ... Oh, one regularity on Wall St is that, mass terrorism or not, the golden rule remains that an Al cut is worth a four-day rally. I really don't know why the man bothers ... Cheers, Rob.
post 9-11 activism
full piece at: http://www.thenation.com Signs of the Times by NAOMI KLEIN [snip] Many political opponents of anticorporate activism are using the symbolism of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks to argue that young activists, playing at guerrilla war, have now been caught out by a real war. The obituaries are already appearing in newspapers around the world: Anti-Globalization Is So Yesterday, reads a typical headline. It is, according to the Boston Globe, in tatters. Is it true? Our activism has been declared dead before. Indeed, it is declared dead with ritualistic regularity before and after every mass demonstration: our strategies apparently discredited, our coalitions divided, our arguments misguided. And yet those demonstrations have kept growing larger, from 50,000 in Seattle to 300,000, by some estimates, in Genoa. ... Thus the modern activist challenge: How do you organize against an ideology so vast, it has no edges; so everywhere, it seems nowhere? Where is the site of resistance for those with no workplaces to shut down, whose communities are constantly being uprooted? What do we hold on to when so much that is powerful is virtual--currency trades, stock prices, intellectual property and arcane trade agreements? ... In the weeks since September 11, we have been reminded many times that Americans aren't particularly informed about the world outside their borders. That may be true, but many activists have learned over the past decade that this blind spot for international affairs can be overcome by linking campaigns to famous brands--an effective, if often problematic, weapon against parochialism. These corporate campaigns have, in turn, opened back doors into the arcane world of international trade and finance, to the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and, for some, to a questioning of capitalism itself. But these tactics have also proven to be an easy target in turn. After September 11, politicians and pundits around the world instantly began spinning the terrorist attacks as part of a continuum of anti-American and anticorporate violence: first the Starbucks window, then, presumably, the WTC. New Republic editor Peter Beinart seized on an obscure post to an anticorporate Internet chat room that asked if the attacks were committed by one of us. Beinart concluded that the anti-globalization movement...is, in part, a movement motivated by hatred of the United States--immoral with the United States under attack. In a sane world, rather than fueling such a backlash the terrorist attacks would raise questions about why US intelligence agencies were spending so much time spying on environmentalists and Independent Media Centers instead of on the terrorist networks plotting mass murder. Unfortunately, it seems clear that the crackdown on activism that predated September 11 will only intensify, with heightened surveillance, infiltration and police violence. It's also likely that the anonymity that has been a hallmark of anticapitalism--masks, bandannas and pseudonyms--will become more suspect in a culture searching for clandestine operatives in its midst. But the attacks will cost us more than our civil liberties. They could well, I fear, cost us our few political victories. Funds committed to the AIDS crisis in Africa are disappearing, and commitments to expand debt cancellation will likely follow. Defending the rights of immigrants and refugees was becoming a major focus for the direct-action crowd in Australia, Europe and, slowly, the United States. This too is threatened by the rising tide of racism and xenophobia. And free trade, long facing a public relations crisis, is fast being rebranded, like shopping and baseball, as a patriotic duty. According to US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick (who is frantically trying to get fast-track negotiating power pushed through in this moment of jingoistic groupthink), trade promotes the values at the heart of this protracted struggle. Michael Lewis makes a similar conflation between freedom fighting and free trading when he explains, in an essay in The New York Times Magazine, that the traders who died were targeted as not merely symbols but also practitioners of liberty They work hard, if unintentionally, to free others from constraints. This makes them, almost by default, the spiritual antithesis of the religious fundamentalist, whose business depends on a denial of personal liberty in the name of some putatively higher power. The battle lines leading up to next month's WTO negotiations in Qatar are: Tradeequals freedom, antitrade equals fascism. Never mind that Osama bin Laden is a multimillionaire with a rather impressive global export network stretching from cash-crop agriculture to oil pipelines. And never mind that this fight will take place in Qatar, that bastion of liberty, which is refusing foreign visas for demonstrators but where bin Laden practically has his own TV show on the state-subsidized network
New American War Motto
Just read a suggestion for a new National Motto in a ltter to the editor of the Minneapolis Tribune, Oct. 5: Spend your money--maybe you'll get your job back! suggeted by James Johnson, Minneapolis. Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
What to do with Bin Laden....
Fwd: Subject:What to do with Bin Laden What to do with Bin Laden The problem is what do you do with him even once he's found? Kill him - he becomes a martyr... Don't kill him - he's a hero to the extremists Solution: Capture him alive, convict him of his crimes, sentence him to his punishment. What punishment you ask? Why a full blown sex change of course! And then send him back to his home of Afghanistan to live out the rest of his life as a woman under the Taliban government Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba --- End of forwarded message --- --- End of forwarded message ---
Defining Terrorism
By Michael Kinsley Friday, October 5, 2001; Page A37 Now may seem like an odd moment to be worrying that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. If ever there was a man of violence who didn't pose this issue, it is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is triply easy to classify. First, the attack of Sept. 11, assuming he was responsible for it, was on a murderous scale that makes quibbling over definitions seem absurd. Second, his political vision is the opposite of freedom: a repressive clerical state. Third, his method is terrorism in the narrowest definitional sense. It is designed to spread terror, almost apart from any larger goal. Nevertheless, the definition of the word terrorism is a problem in what we'd better start calling the war effort. It's a problem for journalists: Reuters has banned the word in reference to Sept. 11 and CNN officially discourages it. Both news outlets have chosen perversely to hide an admirable concern for the safety of their reporters behind an idiotic moral relativism. Who are we to judge? Etc. The definition of terrorism is a problem for law enforcement and civil liberties. If we're to compromise our liberties over it without turning our country into a police state, we want the definition to be as narrow as possible and still do the job. The Justice Department's draft antiterrorism bill defines terrorism to include injury to government property and computer trespass, which seems way too broad. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times quotes the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Goss (R-Fla.), complaining that the bill could define terrorism to include bombing an abortion clinic -- a definition that will not strike many other people as unreasonable. Above all, the definition of terrorism is a problem because President Bush has chosen to define our mission as a war against terrorism, not just against the perpetrators of the particular crime of Sept. 11. And he has promised victory. True, he has limited his goal to victory over terrorism of global reach, but that is presumably a practical limitation, not a moral one. The advantages of defining the war as one against terrorism, not just Osama bin Laden, are obvious: It helps in rallying both the American citizenry and other nations , and if things go well it creates an opportunity to take care of other items on the agenda, such as Saddam Hussein. But the disadvantages are also obvious. First, unlike a war against Osama bin Laden specifically, a war against terrorism is one we cannot win. Terrorism is like a chronic disease that can be controlled and suppressed, but not cured. By promising a total cure, Bush is setting America and himself up to turn victory into the appearance of defeat. Second, using terrorism to win the support of other nations can backfire unless you have a definition you apply consistently. And there is no such definition. Defining terrorism was a major industry in Washington during the 1980s, when a definition was badly needed to explain why we were supporting a guerrilla movement against the government of Nicaragua and doing the opposite in El Salvador. No definition ever succeeded. The difficulty is coming up with a definition of terrorism that does not depend on whose ox is gored. Otherwise you are conceding that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. The concept of terrorism is supposed to be a shortcut to the moral high ground. That is what makes it so useful. It says: The end doesn't justify the means. We don't need to argue about whose cause is right and whose is wrong, because certain behavior makes you the bad guy however noble your cause. So what distinguishes terrorism? Is it the scope of the harm? Most terrorist actions are fairly small-scale compared with the death and destruction committed by nation-states acting in their official capacities. Even Sept. 11 killed fewer people than, say, the bomb on Hiroshima -- an act that many Americans find easy to defend. So can terrorism mean acts of violence in support of political goals except when committed by a government? This sounds deeply cynical, but makes a lot of sense. Giving governments a monopoly on violence is how we bring order out of chaos. No matter how successful we are in developing international courts to prosecute official behavior (such as the atrocities of Slobodan Milosevic) as crimes against humanity, governments will be held to a lower standard than freelance evil-doers for the foreseeable future. The difficulty is that looking for practical ways to get at furtive and elusive terrorists (or looking for sticks to beat other governments with) inevitably leads to the concept of state-sponsored terrorism. This gives you someone to attack -- and is often factually accurate -- but is a hopeless conceptual muddle if non-government is the key to defining terrorism. State-sponored also fails to distinguish the anti-Taliban rebel groups that we're flooding with help from
Re: New economy bull
At 01:51 AM 10/6/01 +, you wrote: the golden rule remains that an Al cut is worth a four-day rally. I really don't know why the man bothers ... in theory, he doesn't care about what happens to the stock market (or shouldn't care). He's supposedly trying to help Main Street, not Wall Street. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: What to do with Bin Laden....
It might not work. One of the great Afghani heroines, fearing that the warriors were about to retreat from a British attack ripped off her black veil (forget the proper name) and using it as a flag charged at the British lines only to be shot down. But this act supposedly inspired the Afghans to successfully counterattack. So maybe bin Laden could do the same against the US and/or its allies and become the first androgynous martyr. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Paul Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 1:11 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18140] What to do with Bin Laden Fwd: Subject:What to do with Bin Laden What to do with Bin Laden The problem is what do you do with him even once he's found? Kill him - he becomes a martyr... Don't kill him - he's a hero to the extremists Solution: Capture him alive, convict him of his crimes, sentence him to his punishment. What punishment you ask? Why a full blown sex change of course! And then send him back to his home of Afghanistan to live out the rest of his life as a woman under the Taliban government Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba --- End of forwarded message --- --- End of forwarded message ---
defining terror
great piece by kinsley. didn't congressman dick cheney classify mandela and anc comrades as terrorists? it gets so murky because don't you remember pres reagan touting the muhajadin as the Founding Fathers of their country. at any rate, which political affiliations will prevent a foreign student from getting into this country? i learned a lot--certainly as much from any prof--from a grad student with sympathies for don mattera and less so for joe slovo. will we not see the likes of him in our universities again? i know my govt wants to protect me, but i am not always clear as to what from. another thing: as we are told to bunker down because of threat of anthrax and a potential alliance between disaffected russian scientists and islamic jehadi, don't you think we should consider pulling US troops out from Saudi Arabia? i know thomas friedman doesn't think the US is robbing the Arab world via the House of Saud. He thinks we are there to protect its sovereignty from foreign attack. but saddam is now dust, and the gulf war proved that american troops can be mobilized from afar- -does the US have to occupy that land? Or would this be giving in to the terrorists, even if the majority of the arab people want that too? rb
Fw: Hart-Rudman sociological critique
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 11:17 AM Subject: Hart-Rudman sociological critique For members of PSN who have followed the Hart-Rudman reports, and its assessment and remedy for the Viet Nam syndrome (establishment of an Homeland Defense agency in anticipation of a destabilizing, massive terrorist attack on the continental United States), this establishment sociological critique of the Hart-Rudman studies may be of interest: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs2001/hartrud/hartrud.pdf The original Hart-Rudman reports on the Vietnam syndrome, domestic terrorism, and homeland defense agency can be found at www.nssg.gov. Dick Platkin
Re: Re: New economy bull
In which theory?? On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 10:56:39AM -0700, Jim Devine wrote: in theory, he doesn't care about what happens to the stock market (or shouldn't care). He's supposedly trying to help Main Street, not Wall Street. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Job Opening
We (Drew University) have an opening for an adjunct faculty member to teach a course in Spring semester on the social and economic development in Eastern Europe and Russia. The course can be as broad or narrow in its geographical dimensions as the faculty member desires, but it must include a section on Russia. While we are searching for an economist (Ph.D. or A.B.D.) to fill this position, the course will be taught in the context of a Russian Cultural Studies Program. Students in the course will be required to have taken at least an introductory economics course. All interested applicants should send a letter of application, curriculum vita, teaching evaluations, and a letter of reference to Prof. Jason Merrill, Department of German, Russian, and Chinese, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 by December 1, 2001. Inquiries can be made at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Drew University is an equal opportunity employer.
Re: Re: Re: New economy bull
On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 10:56:39AM -0700, I wrote: in theory, he [Alan Greedspan] doesn't care about what happens to the stock market (or shouldn't care). He's supposedly trying to help Main Street, not Wall Street. At 12:28 PM 10/5/01 -0700, you wrote: In which theory?? the one that is put forth in the media and the textbooks. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: The commoner on the war
At 08:41 AM 10/3/01 -0700, you wrote: You might be interested in looking at the e-magazine, http://www.thecommoner.org It has a number of articles on the war as well as some interesting theoretical articles. Its previous issue concerned primitive accumulation. the latter had an article by Michael Perelman. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Event Studies
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also believe that this type of write-downs may happen faster now. But who will be that somebody who will have to eat the losses after the write-downs? Is this not also important in the nature or speed of the recovery? Best, Sabri Oncu It's the people holding the liabilities of the corporations to be re-structured that will have to eat the write-downs. And that means this is largely a question of intra-class struggle amongst members of the bourgeoisie. Half of households have never held any of a corporations' liabilities, and the most wealthy ten percent of households hold 80 percent of such liabilities. Why do you think the write-downs can come too fast, Michael? As I said, I see the danger of stagnation as resulting from them coming to slow. Very Best Wishes, Edwin (Tom) Dickens
Re: Re: Re: Event Studies
If write downs come too quickly, the process can destabilize the system -- since they necessitate real changes that can cause further write downs. On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 10:30:50AM -0700, edickens wrote: It's the people holding the liabilities of the corporations to be re-structured that will have to eat the write-downs. And that means this is largely a question of intra-class struggle amongst members of the bourgeoisie. Half of households have never held any of a corporations' liabilities, and the most wealthy ten percent of households hold 80 percent of such liabilities. Why do you think the write-downs can come too fast, Michael? As I said, I see the danger of stagnation as resulting from them coming to slow. Very Best Wishes, Edwin (Tom) Dickens -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Matahari
Paul Phillips said Why a full blown sex change of course! And then send him back to his home of Afghanistan to live out the rest of his life as a woman under the Taliban government ((( CB: I was thinking he might get a sex change as a disguise so he could escape.
Edward Said
according to a SLATE summary of an article in the WEEKLY [DOUBLE] STANDARD, An article scorns Edward Said specifically and post-colonial theory in general. As Said has watched his dream of an alliance between Western liberalism and Arab nationalism crumble with the World Trade Center, he has turned to the same Orientalist language he's spent his career attacking. For example, he recently derided the terrorists for their primitive ideas, magical thinking, and lying religious claptrap. is this true? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
traditional values
from SLATE -- And what could be a more traditional value than insensitive stupidity? The [Washington POST] reports that the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, said yesterday that the public and private relief agencies providing assistance to Sept. 11 attack survivors should not aid surviving members of gay partnerships. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Edward Said
Title: Re: [PEN-L:18153] Edward Said Jim Devine asks: according to a SLATE summary of an article in the WEEKLY [DOUBLE] STANDARD, An article scorns Edward Said specifically and post-colonial theory in general. As Said has watched his dream of an alliance between Western liberalism and Arab nationalism crumble with the World Trade Center, he has turned to the same Orientalist language he's spent his career attacking. For example, he recently derided the terrorists for their primitive ideas, magical thinking, and lying religious claptrap. is this true? primitive ideas, magical thinking, and lying religious claptrap are certainly true descriptions of bin Laden and his fellow Islamistic Crusaders. But since Said would certainly, and precisely correctly, use the same terms for Falwell, Robertson, and the rest of their fellow-travelers in the God Bless... crew, there's obviously nothing at all Islamistic about his expressing, not for the first time, this home truth. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things. Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
Re: Interest rates, crises, and marxist theory
At 04/10/01 23:54 +0100, I wrote: according to Marx's description of capitalist crises, interest rates ought now to be rising: Marx refers to a money famine. Yet the most perceptive conventional commentators are now pointing to a liquidity trap - that the central banks cannot reduce interest rates any further, and the rate is also reducing any incentive to invest further in capitalist enterprises. Can anyone explain and elucidate? Let me try, and ask for criticisms, if no one wants to leap in. Marx also argues The superficiality of [bourgeois] Political Economy shows itself in the fact that it looks upon the expansion and contraction credit, which is a mere symptom of the periodic changes of the industrial cycle, as their cause. Capital Vol I p633 Lawrence and Wishart) What has changed is the ability of the modern state, indeed on a global basis, to treat the symptom so vigorously by lowering state interest rates that they can cause a liquidity trap. Note how even with these low interest rates, Swissair has just gasped to a standstill, on the airports of the world, panting, not just for aviation fuel, but of course for the capital to buy it with. The man on the money market sees the movement of industry and the world market in the inverted reflection of the money and stock market and the cause becomes for him the effect. Engels Letter to Conrad Schmidt 27 October 1890. Does that salvage the honour of Marxism, even if it does not salvage the world economy? Chris Burford London
Media priorities
At this rate , in about six months from now, the amount of media coverage of the September 11 events will equal that of the coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial . CB
Re: Media priorities
Now that's going too far. A lot of hard working journalists busted their ass during the OJ Trial to make sure that nothing ever gets more coverage... Hey, what's OJ's take on 9/11? Sorry, I'm l think Charles, it comes down to the media squeezing as much blood money as it can outta this tragedy... steve On Fri, 5 Oct 2001, Charles Brown wrote: At this rate , in about six months from now, the amount of media coverage of the September 11 events will equal that of the coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial . CB
C-FEPS New Working Papers
Center for Full Employment and Price Stability University of Missouri, Kansas City New Working Papers L. Randall Wray (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Financial Instability, Working Paper No. 26, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, Kansas City, September, 2001. Sergio Cesaratto (Università of Siena), Antonella Stirati (Università of Siena), Franklin Serrano (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), Technical Change, Effective Demand and Employment, Working Paper No. 27, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, Kansas City, October, 2001. Ingrid Rima (Temple University), The Keynesian Revolution: Has It Reached China?, Working Paper No. 28, Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, Kansas City, October, 2001. http://www.cfeps.org/papers.html
Re: Re: Re: Re: Event Studies
That's where the Fed comes in. No corporation has to write-down liabilities that the Fed will give a bank the money to prop up. Michael Perelman wrote: If write downs come too quickly, the process can destabilize the system -- since they necessitate real changes that can cause further write downs.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Event Studies
You are correct, but then the Fed will re-inflate the bubble and then On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 01:21:28PM -0700, edickens wrote: That's where the Fed comes in. No corporation has to write-down liabilities that the Fed will give a bank the money to prop up. Michael Perelman wrote: If write downs come too quickly, the process can destabilize the system -- since they necessitate real changes that can cause further write downs. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
