End to European Coal and Steel Community
Yesterday a ceremony marked the end of the European Coal and Steel Community. This no doubt acknowledged the triumph of the ideas of its founders, including the non-Leninist socialist Jean Monnet and the French Christian democrat Robert Schuman. It is an example of a progressive reform within the capitalist system, that has made war between the former European empires of France and Germany impossible, and has gone on to the European Common Market, the European Community, and the Eurozone, which now challenges the dollar for hegemony of the world economy. This remarkable success within a short space of human history, has been of benefit to the working people of Europe, and of the world, not withstanding the imperialist nature of the new EU. Perhaps it was also a by-product of the strength of the communist movement in western Europe and the need for capitalism to show a more peaceful and progressive face. It is a triumph of the vision of people like Jean Monnet that markets should be regulated and answerable to the democratic will of the people, and that negotiation and cooperation between capitalist enterprises under this degree of social foresight is progressive. Chris Burford London
Re: Re: reformism
At 22/07/02 10:13 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: I am not arguing against reforms, but reformism is a difficult path. There is a strong groundswell for reforming corporate finance, just as there was for campaign finance reform. The final reforms are usually very unsatisfactory, often designed to quell the immediate call for reform and little else, unless there is an organized force demanding reforms. Indeed. Very tricky. But if we just call for socialism, we may miss the opportunities a) to win the battle of democracy when capitalism off balance b) fail to drive home its weakness in effective agitational rather than general propagandist terms c) fail to see the opportunities in the contradictions between different sections of capital, to press structural changes which can be built on later. One aspect of the DoMT article which surpised me but which I think is valid is the distinction David Coates drew between the ongoing struggle for immediate demands within the capitalist system and the stategy of reformists, which, like the strategy of revolutionists actually wants a fundamental change in the system - they just differ about how it is going to come about. I agree with Juriaan that we need a wider debate about what we really want and the obstacles on the way, than can just be summed up in the polemical positions that Lenin used at the time he was writing. Chris The disinformation media complicates any hope for meaningful reforms. The Repug capture of congress shows how easily even mild reforms can be swept away. In closing, the term reform leaves a nasty aftertaste now that it has been co-opted to mean making everything market-friendly. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brown dismisses Tobin tax
Brown dismisses Tobin tax plan Heather Stewart Tuesday July 23, 2002 The Guardian Chancellor Gordon Brown cold-shouldered anti-globalisation protesters last night as he rejected calls to penalise currency speculators to raise cash for developing countries. Appearing before the House of Lords economic affairs committee, Mr Brown said this so-called Tobin tax on foreign-exchange transactions had big problems attached to it. Increasing the flow of aid to developing countries came down to whether there is political will on the part of governments to contribute more to international aid, not to levying new taxes. The Chancellor's chief economic adviser, Ed Balls, added that the Treasury was very unpersuaded that a Tobin tax would help to limit the kind of damaging currency speculation that fuels financial crises. It's not at all clear the Tobin tax is stabilising; in fact, it could well be destabilising, he said. Well-designed, short-term capital controls could actually be more effective. Mr Brown's objections will disappoint campaigners, who had hoped support was building for the Tobin tax, after the European Commission announced it was examining the issue last September. Yesterday's hearing was part of a long-running inquiry into globalisation, and Mr Brown used it as an opportunity to reinforce his view that much more needs to be spent on ensuring all countries reap the benefits of wider global trade. If countries are to be asked to pursue more stable policies, we must be prepared to do more on development aid, he said, suggesting western governments might need to double their contributions. He also criticised US moves to introduce tariffs on steel imports, and support farmers with a multi-billion dollar subsidy package. Bringing agricultural protectionism to an end is one of the great issues of our time, he said, insisting that the EU will have to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, its own system of farming subsidies.
East resists US falls
A gap may be opening up in the present financial crash. One day,s news can be blown away by another, but the news in London this morning is that the eastern exchanges have resisted the impact of yesterdays falls on Wall Street. The prediction this morning too is that London will open higher. This appears to be driven by attention to results that reflect the activity of the regional economies rather than the momentum of global speculative finance capital. We may be seeing increased attention to the economy of living labour as opposed to dead labour. We may find that the USA is finally going to experience a disproportionately large devaluation of its mass of accumulated capital, instead of expecting the burden always to fall on other parts of the world. Perhaps then the USA will not this time, magnanimously step forward as the spender of last resort in the global economy. Provided that other parts of the world take political advantage of this, it could mark the first set back to US hegemonism for a long time. I hope US citizens will see that this could be progressive. Chris Burford London
Query: WorldCom and Internet
G'day all (perhaps especially Ravi), There was a bit of indignation in parts European when KPNQwest went under, as parts of their Ebone operation (referred to as 'internet backbone') were duly shut down. Why won't this happen to WorldCom's UUNet (also referred to as 'intenet backbone' and credited with accommodating half the world's net-traffic)? Is there enough redundancy in the otherwise bloated telecommunications infrastructure of metropolitan America to take the slack? What is the technical nature of this backbone (do they refer to the switches, proprietory protocols ... )? Are any arguments about consigning basic infrastructure to the vagaries of 'the market' (eg. a couple of executives, a finance engineer or two, mebbe a pet auditor and a few million 'investing' ignorami)? Have words like 'natural monopoly' and 'public good' come up? And am I over-reacting? Cheers, Rob.
Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
Reformism 2 Many of us have learnt a little Lenin. The question of reform versus revolution and Reform or Revolution is posed incorrectly for this phase of the class struggle, meaning on July 23, 2002. World Com went belly up over the weekend and 17 thousand workers are hitting the bricks. CEO's are in hiding because they played the "ultimate gamblers game" - speculation. And you thought Blackjack was hard to win at. Rather, the question is understandable when grasped as the revolutionary struggle for reform. The revolution is occurring in the economy or the infrastructure. The revolution has been underway for two decades in the form of what is called the technological revolution. How is society to be re formulated on the basis of this revolution means the revolutionary struggle for reform of social relations. All reforms and efforts to reform are legitimate arenas of struggle. Here is what Mr. Lenin stated in clarifying the task of the advocates for a society of associated producers. "Let us begin with socialist activity. One would have thought that the character of communist (Social-Democratic) activity in this respect had become quite clear since the Social-Democratic League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in St. Petersburg began its activities among the St. Petersburg workers. The socialist activities of Russian Social-Democrats consist in spreading by propaganda the teachings of scientific socialism, in spreading among the workers a proper understanding of the present social and economic system, its basis and its development, an understanding of the various classes in Russian society, of their interrelations, of the struggle between these classes, of the role of the working class in this struggle, of its attitude to wards the declining and the developing classes, towards the past and the future of capitalism, an understanding of the historical task of international Social-Democracy and of the Russian working class. Inseparably connected with propaganda is agitation among the workers, which naturally comes to the forefront in the present political conditions of Russia and at the present level of development of the masses of workers. Agitation among the workers means that the Social-Democrats take part in all the spontaneous manifestations of the working-class struggle, in all the conflicts between the workers and the capitalists over the working day, wages, working conditions, etc., etc. Our task is to merge our activities with the practical, everyday questions of working-class life, to help the workers understand these questions, to draw the workers' attention to the most important abuses, to help them formulate their demands to the employers more precisely and practically, to develop among the workers consciousness of their solidarity, consciousness of the common interests and common cause of all the Russian workers as a united working class that is part of the international army of the proletariat. To organize study circles among workers, to establish proper and secret connections between them and the central group of Social-Democrats, to publish and distribute working-class literature, to organize the receipt of correspondence from all Page 330 centers of the working-class movement, to publish agitational leaflets and manifestos and to distribute them, and to train a body of experienced agitators -- such, in broad outline, are the manifestations of the socialist activities of Russian Social-Democracy. Our work is primarily and mainly directed to the factory, urban workers. Russian Social-Democracy must not dissipate its forces; it must concentrate its activities on the industrial proletariat, who are most susceptible to Social-Democratic ideas, most developed intellectually and politically, and most important by virtue of their numbers and concentration in the country's large political centers. The creation of a durable revolutionary organization among the factory, urban workers is therefore the first and most urgent task confronting Social-Democracy, one from which it would be highly unwise to let ourselves be diverted at the present time. But, while recognizing the necessity of concentrating our forces on the factory workers and opposing the dissipation of our forces, we do not in the least wish to suggest that the Russian Social-Democrats should ignore other strata of the Russian proletariat and working class. Nothing of the kind. The very conditions of life of the Russian factory workers very often compel them to enter into the closest relations with the handicraftsmen, the industrial proletariat scattered outside the factory in towns and villages, and whose conditions are infinitely worse. The Russian factory worker also comes into direct contact with the rural population (very often the factory worker's family live in the country) and, consequently, he cannot but come into close contact with the rural proletariat, with the many millions of regular farm
The new EU
Chris Burford: This remarkable success within a short space of human history, has been of benefit to the working people of Europe, and of the world, not withstanding the imperialist nature of the new EU. Perhaps it was also a by-product of the strength of the communist movement in western Europe and the need for capitalism to show a more peaceful and progressive face. It is a triumph of the vision of people like Jean Monnet that markets should be regulated and answerable to the democratic will of the people, and that negotiation and cooperation between capitalist enterprises under this degree of social foresight is progressive. The Euro-Zone is a victory for the ruling class, not the working class. It is part and parcel with the privatization and deregulation that have swept Europe in the past 20 years as it seeks to compete as a bloc with US capitalism. Jobs and social services have been slashed in an effort to make this new emerging supra-national imperialist bloc leaner and meaner. It has produced xenophobia and racism because of working class insecurity anxious to blame the outsider for stealing jobs. The Euro-Zone goes hand in hand with the onslaught against Eastern Europe which has rapidly been turned into a maquila zone to Western Europe much as Mexico and Central America has become for the USA. When impudent Yugoslavia decided that this was not an acceptable choice, NATO bombed them into submission. Rather than looking at the Euro-Zone as a progressive reform, the attitude of comedian Rik Mayall might be more appropriate, who dressed as Hitler, said: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer in an anti-Euro TV ad. The comedian then reappears saying in English: Euro? Oh yes please. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: reformism
In a message dated 7/22/02 10:04:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As soon as you ask certified revolutionary critics of reformism what specific policies for social change they propose, what they specifically aim to do here and now (not just political positioning on issues of the day), chances are that they will list a number of reforms which they hope will have wider popular appeal. So the issue is never one of reforms or no reforms, or reform vs. revolution, but what kind of reforms and how they are campaigned for to advance revolutionary or socialist objectives. The real problem, which is scarcely addressed by the certified revolutionaries, concerns what policies and behaviours actually advance us towards a socialist society, and how socialists can gain and maintain hegemony over the liberals and conservatives (tendencies which you will have before and after a revolutionary overturn). Reply I am changing my language and style of presentation to acknowledge that we are not "certified" but an advanced intellectual sector on behalf of the working class in all its diversity. Socialist objective at this phase of the class struggle are those advanced on the basis of the changes in the economy and this current phase i the decay of capital. The fight for free drinking water that is clean is a revolutionary demand. To speak about "before" and "after" a revolutionary overturn is legitimate, but a question of the revolutionary process as insurrection. Insurrection is a phase of the revolutionary process, that society undergoes in reformulating social relations to correspond with a new mode of production. We are simply not at this phase. The revolutionary struggle for reform - say the anti-tax movement, involves the assertions of various class forces, but the working class has an opinion about the money taken out of its paychecks. I can quote another part of Lenin from 1909 or "Theses On Fundamental Tasks" but why? Anyone that accurately describes World Com's collapse on the basis of gambling for profit motive is a winner in America. Pen-L is an advanced detachment of intellectual activity. The specific policy of the revolutionaries should be "victory of the working class in its current struggle." It like . . . the beat goes on man. What scares the hell out of me is the demand to know what everyone thinks and is doing on every question, which in the last period lead to the demand for everyone to go to the factory. This division appeared as a so-called elitist revolutionary vanguard - which they were, and the so-called common people. We cannot go back or forward to the factory system because it is historically obsolete. All roads lead to the society of associated producers - more or less. (Molotov) What about the revolutionary struggle for reformulation? It is a struggle because it is a socialized - collective, process. Thanks for letting me see myself and be myself. "Thank you for letting me, be myself . . . . again." Sly and the Family Stone Melvin P.
Re: Re: reformism
In a message dated 7/22/02 10:14:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I am not arguing against reforms, but "reformism" is a difficult path. There is a strong groundswell for reforming corporate finance, just as there was for campaign finance reform. The final reforms are usually very unsatisfactory, often designed to quell the immediate call for reform and little else, unless there is an organized force demanding reforms. Reply Yea, because the world keeps changing faster and in front of our understanding of that, which has "fu**ed" around and changed again. Miyachi Tatsuo "be" messing with my head attempting to navigate a course based on a fundamental analysis of the mode of exchange and accumulation as distinct from the changes in the mode of production. During this period of flux reformism is a difficult path because we have not pass this way before. There is a saying that a camel is a horse made by committee. Democracy is the committee system. My way is your way and that of a million others. Reformulation is a most difficult path because "I" - me in my individuality, have the right way and you impose your right way on my correct way. And I cannot stop you. I used to read literature from an "anti-competition group" who had mathematical model to disprove competition amongst the human species. This was during the "New Age" period but they probably still exist. It was a bunch of professors that made a hell of a lot of sense. I hope all of them did not become stock brokers because today "their ass is out." Reform versus Revolution is so tired. Melvin P.
Re: Re: positional goods
In a message dated 7/22/02 10:20:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I notice 4 execs. from Freddie and Fanny Mae. I am not sure how much connection they still have with the federal government -- I assume that it is much less than the Post Office -- but both sell stock now. Shows you how privatization works. Yea, but who got it? Although everyone is selling stocks. I swear I got out over a year ago and still got hurt. In a market selling stock, the stock seller is a good job. Wait a minute. Does this have something to do with the saying "that in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king?" I ain't buying sh*t. I am going to put together a little money to short. This ain't a reform but survival Melvin P. .
Humans wired to cooperate
NY Times July 23, 2002 Why We're So Nice: We're Wired to Cooperate By NATALIE ANGIER What feels as good as chocolate on the tongue or money in the bank but won't make you fat or risk a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission? Hard as it may be to believe in these days of infectious greed and sabers unsheathed, scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy. Studying neural activity in young women who were playing a classic laboratory game called the Prisoner's Dilemma, in which participants can select from a number of greedy or cooperative strategies as they pursue financial gain, researchers found that when the women chose mutualism over me-ism, the mental circuitry normally associated with reward-seeking behavior swelled to life. And the longer the women engaged in a cooperative strategy, the more strongly flowed the blood to the pathways of pleasure. The researchers, performing their work at Emory University in Atlanta, used magnetic resonance imaging to take what might be called portraits of the brain on hugs. The results were really surprising to us, said Dr. Gregory S. Berns, a psychiatrist and an author on the new report, which appears in the current issue of the journal Neuron. We went in expecting the opposite. The researchers had thought that the biggest response would occur in cases where one person cooperated and the other defected, when the cooperator might feel that she was being treated unjustly. Instead, the brightest signals arose in cooperative alliances and in those neighborhoods of the brain already known to respond to desserts, pictures of pretty faces, money, cocaine and any number of licit or illicit delights. It's reassuring, Dr. Berns said. In some ways, it says that we're wired to cooperate with each other. The study is among the first to use M.R.I. technology to examine social interactions in real time, as opposed to taking brain images while subjects stared at static pictures or thought-prescribed thoughts. It is also a novel approach to exploring an ancient conundrum, why are humans so, well, nice? Why are they willing to cooperate with people whom they barely know and to do good deeds and to play fair a surprisingly high percentage of the time? Scientists have no trouble explaining the evolution of competitive behavior. But the depth and breadth of human altruism, the willingness to forgo immediate personal gain for the long-term common good, far exceeds behaviors seen even in other large-brained highly social species like chimpanzees and dolphins, and it has as such been difficult to understand. I've pointed out to my students how impressive it is that you can take a group of young men and women of prime reproductive age, have them come into a classroom, sit down and be perfectly comfortable and civil to each other, said Dr. Peter J. Richerson, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California at Davis and an influential theorist in the field of cultural evolution. If you put 50 male and 50 female chimpanzees that don't know each other into a lecture hall, it would be a social explosion. Dr. Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich and colleagues recently presented findings on the importance of punishment in maintaining cooperative behavior among humans and the willingness of people to punish those who commit crimes or violate norms, even when the chastisers take risks and gain nothing themselves while serving as ad hoc police. In her survey of the management of so-called commons in small-scale communities where villagers have the right, for example, to graze livestock on commonly held land, Dr. Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University found that all communities have some form of monitoring to gird against cheating or using more than a fair share of the resource. In laboratory games that mimic small-scale commons, Dr. Richerson said, 20 to 30 percent have to be coerced by a threat of punishment to cooperate. Fear alone is not highly likely to inspire cooperative behavior to the degree observed among humans. If research like Dr. Fehr's shows the stick side of the equation, the newest findings present the neural carrot - people cooperate because it feels good to do it. In the new findings, the researchers studied 36 women from 20 to 60 years old, many of them students at Emory and inspired to participate by the promise of monetary rewards. The scientists chose an all-female sample because so few brain-imaging studies have looked at only women. Most have been limited to men
New Video on the Steady State Revolution
THE STEADY STATE REVOLUTION: UNITING SCIENTISTS AND CITIZENS FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY A high-quality, 14 minute video distributed at less-than-cost to get the word out! Go to www.steadystate.org for more information, or simply send $7 to: Brian Czech 5101 S. 11th St. Arlington, VA 22204 Sending an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] normally ensures that the video is in the mail even before the payment is made. The video is based on the books: - Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop Them All - The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy Brian Czech Arlington, VA USA www.steadystate.org
Re: Consumer Credit Card Debt
In a message dated 7/22/02 10:37:05 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The interesting dilemma of finance capital is that, on average, only about 3.5-4.0 percent of consumer credit card accounts are delinquent. Consumer borrowers of the world could unite and have a debt payment strike/moratorium and bring these financial divisions to their knees. If only ten percent of consumer credit card accounts were in default, it could create a major financial crisis--such is the nature of the tyranny of the minority in post-industrial capitalism. And, by the way, some of the reasons that credit cards continue to be so profitable is: (1) consolidation (top ten corps account for 80% of outstanding credit card debt; (2) resale of consumer debt through securitarized bond sales throughout the global capital markets; (3) cross-marketing of other products through conglomerate subsidiaries and/or allied retailers; (4) international expansion (China is #2 market after US and Korea is the fastest growing ma! r! ket) and (5) squeeze of indebted consumers through rising nonfinance fees and 'sticky' interest rates due to fewer competitors and scarcity of new consumer markets (except for college student 'niche'). By the way, I am an expert witness in a civil suit against FIRSTUSA which has Enron like potential if the judge permits our discovery requests. Also, it appears that the market "access" that U.S. corps have been demanding and are receiving under WTO is now becoming a concern rather than a panacea because European and Asian households are not particularly interested in increasing consumption of American products. As a result, some new international projects are being formed with the objective of how to increase U.S. exports and thus reduce the U.S. trade deficit. Social scientists are being recruited to study global trends in consumer savings, cultural impediments to willingness to incur 'American style" debt, and marketing campaigns that successfully encourage greater consumer consumption without accompanying increases in household income. Love that data. I am old school dog - Leninist bla, bla, bla. Classical crisis of capital. The consumer is of course the Hero of the economy but a Hero ain't nothing but a sandwich - to be eaten alive by capital. Keep that data coming. I am going to die owing everybody everything. Melvin P.
Re: bankruptcy rate
In a message dated 7/22/02 10:37:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: quoth Doug: People have been saying things like this since the 1970s, yet debt continues to rise. Why is it different this time? (It may be, but I'd like to hear why you think it is.) one thing is the labor market, with rising unemployment. It may not continue to rise (who knows?) but it definitely is going to stay high for a few years. I also think that wages will start falling soon, too. Reply The technological underpinning of the economy has changed. Daa! Wages will fall because the value of commodities has fallen and its reflection is deflation. Deflation reflection must assume the form of exchange called price. Price is not value which we both agree on. Deflation is in the wing and if I am right - which to me is obvious, I can get a scholar and perhaps another pension to cover the one I already have. Debt has risen but so has the polarization and creation of the new class outside employee and employer relations and this is not a transition from feudalism. It is a new historical time frame. Melvin P.
Re: Re: reformism
In a message dated 7/22/02 12:26:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: An activity which increases the political strength of the working class (as a whole) might be called reform without the suggestions of "reformism," which ought (perhaps) be confined to changes (from whatever source) that enhance the workings of the capitalist system (whether or no they enhance the quality of life for some or many workers). Enhancing capital is to enhance the relations of production. Enhancing the relations of production only means quantitative expansion of the system called capitalist production relations. It is not a question of quality of life, because the various strata in society experience quality of life different. Enhancing capital means expanding the system qualitatively. This does not mean the depth of the market but its expansion into areas unknown or feudal areas. This time frame is spent and lost to history. Sixties years ago you worked on the farm. This time frame is spent as a historical category. Get with the program friend. Melvin P.
Re: Options spin....
In a message dated 7/22/02 2:17:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As anger grows over CEO compensation/looting, beware of spin. For example, last week, WSJ ran a brief article on how the fall of the stock market upsets the culture of options. In the article, the writers noted, "Boosted by outsize grants in the top ranks, Microsoft employees averaged a whopping $416,353 in stock-based compensation in 2000." Reply Your persistent ideology of theft is refreshening. Capital is theft by definition. And thieves destroy that which has no return - reup, value and profits to them. The peoples of America understand that and need to hear it. Microsoft is below $60, which is a problem. Microsoft's fusion in the market will be an indicator of the way up for investors. I don't fight trends but seek to understand maters from the standpoint of revolutionary change in the economy. Melvin P.
Re: The Line
In a message dated 7/22/02 2:24:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Technical analysis views the corporation as a share price line on a graph. Commodities to exist socially must establish themselves as exchange values. This means that it is immaterial as to whether they are cars or rubber ducks. The essential point is that they are exchange values. This is alienation and fetishism. Actually, their manifestation as value is fundamental. Value can and does assume the mode of exchange value, not the other way around. "Alienation and fetishism" is articulated by Marx as a specific stage in the development of commodity production, that causes men to see social relations as relationships between things. For commodities to exist is not a question of exchange relations but of property relations as the fundementality. Articles are transformed into commodities under specific historic conditions of exchange - not the other way around. This is the big question but I am confident because the historical literature has been researched and studied for many years. Exchange and the emergence of commodities are a unity with a fundamentality that makes development possible. Commodities are articles first and undergo a transformation into commodities or exchange values. Here is the biggie. Melvin P.
Jordan set to ink free trade deal with Iraq
The Times of India TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2002 Jordan set to ink free trade deal with Iraq AFP BAGHDAD: Iraq, which has signed a series of free trade agreements with its Arab neighbours recently amid US threats against its regime, agreed on Monday to increase its business and economic cooperation with Jordan. The Iraqi trade minister Mohammed Mahdi Saleh signed an agreement to enlarge business and economic cooperation with his visiting Jordanian counterpart Salah Bashir, the state INA news agency reported. Bashir, who arrived Friday leading a trade delegation, has met with several senior Iraqi officials, including deputy prime minister Hekmat Ibrahim al-Azzawi, and the industry and minerals minister, Mayssar Raja Shalah. He was earlier in the day quoted in Jordan's Al-Doustour daily as saying Jordan would follow the example of other Arab states in signing a free trade agreement with Iraq -- despite Western press reports it is a likely staging post for a threatened US strike on Jordan's neighbour. The Jordanian and Iraqi governments are determined to seal a free trade agreement, Al-Dustour quoted Trade and Industry Minister Salah Bashir as saying during a four-day visit to Baghdad. The deal will be signed in Baghdad soon at the heads of government level, Bashir told the paper, without elaborating on when Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb would visit Iraq. The minister recalled that the two countries were already bound by a trade agreement dating back to 1957, which grants duty-free access for certain goods and has helped make Iraq Jordan's main Arab trade partner. A free trade agreement would provide the two countries' private sectors with more scope to strengthen bilateral trade, he said. Jordanian exports to Iraq reached 230 million dollars in 2001. An agreement for the current year provides for that to rise to 260 million. Jordan also relies on its sanctions-hit neighbour for all its oil supplies and is expected to import some 5.5 million tonnes of Iraqi crude this year, Under their current oil arrangement, Jordan receives half the oil supplies for free and half at a preferential rate below market prices. Jordan benefits from a special exemption from the 12-year-old UN trade embargo on Iraq, granted in deference to the two countries longstanding ties. It is also a favoured supplier of Iraq under the six-year-old UN oil-for-food programme, which allows for the import of essential supplies. Amman would be the 11th Arab government to sign a free trade deal with Baghdad, in a trend that has sparked mounting concern in Washington. Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen have all already ratified such agreements. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury
From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] Today in our antiquated UK system Tony Blair is to declare that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be Rowan Williams. Williams was savaged in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last week -- which is certainly a point in his favor -- by, as I recall, the chaplain of the London Stock Exchange. That the LSE would have a chaplain isn't antiquated so much as timelessly funny. Carl _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury
I wasn't even aware that it was legal for the Church of England to be led by a Welshman. dd -Original Message- From: Carl Remick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 23 July 2002 15:17 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28341] Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] Today in our antiquated UK system Tony Blair is to declare that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be Rowan Williams. Williams was savaged in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last week -- which is certainly a point in his favor -- by, as I recall, the chaplain of the London Stock Exchange. That the LSE would have a chaplain isn't antiquated so much as timelessly funny. Carl _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ___ Email Disclaimer This communication may contain confidential or privileged information and is for the attention of the named recipient only. It should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. (c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates. Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
Re: Re: Re: Options spin....
In a message dated 7/22/02 3:00:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wonder what they could be talking about? Maybe it's the fact that electronics declined in price. You can get dvds and printers for approx. $100.00. Or maybe they're talking about the fact that the Internet leveled some ground for judicious shopping. Or maybe they're referring to all those automated telephone answering algorithms we all enjoy so much. I don't know. Maybe they mean that if the Chinese coolies weren't busting their socialist guts, no one in the US could afford to buy a pair of jeans. I don't know what they're talking about. Are CEO's workers? Of course they are! They just work 500 times harder than you. That's why they make so much money. Joanna And when the CEO's are pushed into the working class everyone acts surprised as if they have never read the Communist Manifesto. Professors and proletarians get more respect in American today than CEO's, although everyone sells their labor to capitalist. Yes, CEO's make more money than the average proletarian. That is why they are called CEO's - because they are the big man that runs the organization competing for profits. When all the CEO's start losing it is not an individual matter but a question of the system. Theft - stealing is no longer enough to maintain me and mine/mind. Tell me the program of all of you associated peoples and what is an associated society of producers? Melvin P.
Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury
From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28342] RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 15:19:43 +0100 I wasn't even aware that it was legal for the Church of England to be led by a Welshman. dd When the heir to thethrone is the Prince of Wales? jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: RE: Options spin....
In a message dated 7/22/02 3:16:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It should be recognized that a lot of the efforts by US capitalists to cut costs by cutting wages and raising productivity did not actually end up causing higher profit rates. Some of this is because the bloated salaries of the CEOs were not counted as profits, but some of this is because of competition from capitalists elsewhere in the world, which became more intense in the late 1990s as the value of the dollar soared. So the rate of profit started falling in 1997. The relatively low unemployment rates of the late 1990s also made it harder to cut wages, so that the bosses couldn't compensate for the increased competition. The high dollar meant cheap imports, keeping the cost of living from rising. So, for a brief shining moment, there were real wage increases and poverty decreases. BUSINESS WEEK's (i.e., Michael Mandel's) stuff about the boom benefiting workers is partly based on the dates he chose for making comparisons. The problem is that this "good news for the workers" was based on an unsustainably high dollar, which corresponded to the current account deficit and steeply increasing US debt to the rest of the world. As the dollar falls, a lot of this is going away. The recession will make it difficult to resist wage cuts at the same time that prices will rise (as imports become more expensive and export-competition weakens so that US companies can raise prices again). Our friends in power will try to get us to pay the debt service. Ironically, it may not help the profit rate, which will likely be kept down by unused capacity and the effects of past over-investment (as in fiber optics). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Reply Correct, but this was the result of changes in the mode of production. A leap took place and we could not see the leap until after it happened because we are human. Melvin P.
RE: Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury
I certainly wasn't aware that it was legal for the Prince of Wales to be Welsh! twll din pob Sais. dd -Original Message- From: Justin Schwartz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 23 July 2002 15:22 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28344] Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28342] RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 15:19:43 +0100 I wasn't even aware that it was legal for the Church of England to be led by a Welshman. dd When the heir to thethrone is the Prince of Wales? jks _ Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ___ Email Disclaimer This communication may contain confidential or privileged information and is for the attention of the named recipient only. It should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. (c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates. Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
I am sorry that my initial question on market socialism made Justin Schwartz leave the mail group. I didn't want that. It didn't. I've been busy. I _do_ resent Michael P's telling to meto shut up because I have nothing new to say, unlike all the other sparklingly original ideas one finds on the list by others and on other topics every day. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury
From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Carl Remick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 23 July 2002 15:17 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28341] Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] Today in our antiquated UK system Tony Blair is to declare that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be Rowan Williams. Williams was savaged in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last week -- which is certainly a point in his favor -- by, as I recall, the chaplain of the London Stock Exchange. That the LSE would have a chaplain isn't antiquated so much as timelessly funny. Carl I wasn't even aware that it was legal for the Church of England to be led by a Welshman. dd The LSE chaplain didn't mention that, but I'm sure he would agree it is illegal :) Carl _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
RE: Special K
The article on Keynes was thought-provoking. I think that Brown is indeed a
neo-Keynesian from a liberal/social democratic background. Most of what he
seems to do is in keeping with Keynes' remedies.
However, Keynes' prescriptions are no panacea. Pre-War Spending in the US
and in Europe to escape the ravages of the Depression was sporadic and only
contributed to a slight recovery. The prime mover was surely the massive war
time spending? Unemployment rates in the US only dramatically recovered in
the very late 30s/early 40s.
We also have witnessed the failure of 'expansionary' policies in Japan to
deal with their deflation.
If the world economy is heading to a period of deflation, then I'm not
convinced that the sort of spend that Brown has promised will be sufficient.
It will certainly expand the economy to some extent but even assuming an
additional {real} £10 billion spend over a period of 5 years, and an average
wage of £25k per person, yields direct employment creation of only 80,000.
Assuming a multiplier of 1.5 yields a net employment creation of 120,000
over this time directly associated with the investment. [I'm assuming that
none of the additional £10 billion is for revenue expenditure]. That's
hardly going to make up for the job losses associated with the Agricultural
sector alone. Meanwhile, the Manufacturing sector is in meltdown and the
City will be hit hardest by the overall market contraction. In all
probability, Brown's spend will need to be multiplied many times over to
counteract a full-scale deflationary recession. [What really needs to be
done is for the UK to get involved in manufacturing - but there's no hope of
that under New Labour.]
The other problem with Keynesian intervention is that Government spending
tends to mess up the existing private sectors - not something which disturbs
my sleep, but something which Chancellor Brown is likely to be focussed
upon. Typically, spend will contribute to wage inflation in the construction
and building supply sides - which will impact on private sector expansion
projects and the overall inflation rate. There's a possibility that
intervention could result in a 'stagflation' scenario where headline
inflation creeps up (either through Governmnet spend or any shift in oil
prices) with the 'core production sectors' experiencing deflationary
pressures in parallel [now that's something to imagine]. The CBI who are
already crying about Trade Union militancy in Britain will get even more
annoyed - in fact, they greeted the proposal with a fair degree of caution
(even though the spend including a significant amount towards private sector
pockets through traditional and PPP procurement).
The last point to remember is that this spend is highly dependent on fiscal
income rising by about 5% per annum - not hugely likely unless Britain can
pull out of the contraction quite swiftly.
The other issue is the fact that the EU has swung to the Centre-Right over
the last few years - while we might expect Brown to be oriented towards
Keynes - we might not expect the same in France, or if as looks likely,
Germany should the Christian Democrats regain power. EU social policy has
been very much stunted by a centre-right bias and it just doesn't seem
likely that it could suddenly drift leftwards at a time when neoliberals
seem in the ascendent.
Brown's measures are in the right direction - but are way too small to
really impact on the big play. It's more about gesture politics for internal
consumption. £10 billion extra capital spend wouldn't even meet the
capital-build shortfall in Wales let alone the UK. The main problem is that
Government remains too small to really impact the large wealth creating
sectors - more than Keynesian economics will be required to address issues
such as poverty or to shockproof the British economy.
Sé
_
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Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbur y
0100 I certainly wasn't aware that it was legal for the Prince of Wales to be Welsh! twll din pob Sais. dd In Henry V, Shakespere has King Hal insist that he is Welsh. jks _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Re: Re: Re: reformism
I don't think anybody believes that calling for socialism is constructive. Most people don't want what they think socialism is. Organizing for change is very difficult to do well. It means that the organizers must find a way to articulate the progressive demands of people and use that success to create a dialogue between themselves and the people. Much of the discussion about reform revolves around a dialogue with those who hold the reins of power. On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 07:36:55AM +0100, Chris Burford wrote: Indeed. Very tricky. But if we just call for socialism, we may miss the opportunities a) to win the battle of democracy when capitalism off balance b) fail to drive home its weakness in effective agitational rather than general propagandist terms c) fail to see the opportunities in the contradictions between different sections of capital, to press structural changes which can be built on later. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
Justin Schwartz wrote: I _do_ resent Michael P's telling to meto you say tomato, he says tometo, bananas, banahnahs, havanna, havahnah, pater, mater, uncle, aunty; so if you go for scallops and he goes for lobsters, so all right no contest we'll order lobster for we know we need each other so we better call the calling off off, let's call the whole thing off! --ravi
RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbur y
Church of England not founded until three Henries later my friend. In related news, the current A of C is apparently of the opinion that any invasion of Iraq should be carried out by an international force rather than unilaterally by the USA, which suggests to me that I'm not as good at understanding scholastic casuistry as I thought I was. dd -Original Message- From: Justin Schwartz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 23 July 2002 15:49 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28350] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbur y In Henry V, Shakespere has King Hal insist that he is Welsh. jks ___ Email Disclaimer This communication may contain confidential or privileged information and is for the attention of the named recipient only. It should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. (c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates. Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
RE: Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28341] Re: progressive Archbishop of Canterbury Today in our antiquated UK system Tony Blair is to declare that the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be Rowan Williams. don't you think that Rowan Atkinson would be better for the job? JD
RE: Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28348] Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods I am sorry that my initial question on market socialism made Justin Schwartz leave the mail group. I didn't want that. It didn't. I've been busy. I _do_ resent Michael P's telling to meto shut up because I have nothing new to say, unlike all the other sparklingly original ideas one finds on the list by others and on other topics every day. jks is there really such a thing as an original idea? JD
Re: RE: Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
is there really such a thing as an original idea? JD Ask Michael. I wouldn't know. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
progressive Archbishop of C anterbur y
Church of England not founded until three Henries later my friend. Yeah, but Shakespeare's operating in a context where all royalty is anachronistically C of E, as you you perfectly well know, even if officially represent as Catholic. jks _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
RE: Re: Re: Yale men
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28376] Re: Re: Yale men He went to Yale Law, as did Clinton. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 11:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28376] Re: Re: Yale men Ford? He played football for Michigan, I thought. On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 11:13:07AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Anyway, it seems like the alumni association was embarrassed by being forced to engage in such deception, so that they've arranged for Yalies to run the White House a lot since then (Ford, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II). Jim -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Yale men
Ford? He played football for Michigan, I thought. On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 11:13:07AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Anyway, it seems like the alumni association was embarrassed by being forced to engage in such deception, so that they've arranged for Yalies to run the White House a lot since then (Ford, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II). Jim -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Yale men
At 01:08 PM 07/23/2002 -0500, you wrote: and boasted that not very many people had had a chance to cold cock a Mellon. what does that mean? Joanna
ivy education
So...following up on the Yale men thread...is the education given at the ivies worth it? I ask because a former lover who went to Princeton was very bitter about that aspect too. I also ask because I have a half-baked idea to send my daughter (now 8) to Vassar or one of the other women's ivies. So, those of you who had a taste, tell me, how was the education? The only pretentious university I know of is Stanford ( a lot of friends teach/taught there) and I wouldn't send my kids there even if it were free. Joanna
Re: Yale men
Title: Re: Yale men Doug writes: Yale has the track record so that's not an empty promise. when I was an u'grad in the early 1970s, I saw this booklet that the alumni association put out, bragging about the big achievements of Yale men (since Yale women had just started to exist, except in some grad programs). In order to make their track record look good, they combined the categories of President and Vice-President of the US. After all, at the time, the only Yalie President had been William Howard Taft, whose only achievement was as poster child for Weight Watchers. (I'm sure they double-counted him, since he was also a Senator and the Head Supreme for awhile.) Anyway, it seems like the alumni association was embarrassed by being forced to engage in such deception, so that they've arranged for Yalies to run the White House a lot since then (Ford, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II). Jim
Re: Yale men
Someone I knew in the '60s (I think his name was Jack Russell -- from Detroit) had gone to one of the big prep schools (Philips Exeter perhaps), and boasted that not very many people had had a chance to cold cock a Mellon. Carrol
Yale men
joanna bujes wrote: One of the big things I learned at Yale was to have a visceral distaste for preppies and rich people, and for pretentious people in general. Yah, I often say that it was Princeton made a red of me. _These_ clowns think they have a God given right to rule world? Was it that infinite sense of entitlement that put you off? Or something else? Combined with gross incapacity. You never have the same respect for claims of privilege when you see it coupled with real dimwittedness and ill manners, and especially after you have seen it lying in a puddle of drunken vomit. One of the most amazing features of going to Yale is the way the place is set up to pamper you, to boost your ego, to convince you that the world is yours for the taking. And they've got the track record so that's not an empty promise. The whole place oozes big wealth and big power - in a tasteful way, of course. Doug Maybe Yale is more tasteful than Tigertown. ... jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: Re: RE: Re: Yale men
joanna bujes wrote: One of the big things I learned at Yale was to have a visceral distaste for preppies and rich people, and for pretentious people in general. Was it that infinite sense of entitlement that put you off? Or something else? One of the most amazing features of going to Yale is the way the place is set up to pamper you, to boost your ego, to convince you that the world is yours for the taking. And they've got the track record so that's not an empty promise. The whole place oozes big wealth and big power - in a tasteful way, of course. Doug
RE: Re: RE: Re: Yale men
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28368] Re: RE: Re: Yale men One of the big things I learned at Yale was to have a visceral distaste for preppies and rich people, and for pretentious people in general. Joanna:Was it that infinite sense of entitlement that put you off? Or something else? yup. JD
Re: RE: Re: Yale men
One of the big things I learned at Yale was to have a visceral distaste for preppies and rich people, and for pretentious people in general. Was it that infinite sense of entitlement that put you off? Or something else? Joanna
RE: Re: Yale men
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28366] Re: Yale men Eugene Coyle wrote: Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? Doug writes: I didn't take that course - maybe Jim Devine did. I got intro macro from James Tobin, money banking from Henry Wallich, intermediate macro from William Nordhaus, and none of them uttered a word on the topic. Tobin did do a pretty jazzy mime of pushing on a string, though. At Yale, the economics courses were pretty good, especially those by folks from the Growth Center. (There was a prof. named Vahid Nowshirvani, I believe, who talked a lot about dialectics.) In intermediate micro, they didn't teach us to be greedy, nasty, brutish, or short. Instead, they taught us that the constrained maximization model could give insights into all sorts of situations, including those involving altruism. Since I left, they opened a business school (though it was called something else, for respectability's sake). They probably have course on Greed 101. One of the big things I learned at Yale was to have a visceral distaste for preppies and rich people, and for pretentious people in general. Jim
Re: Yale men
Eugene Coyle wrote: Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? I didn't take that course - maybe Jim Devine did. I got intro macro from James Tobin, money banking from Henry Wallich, intermediate macro from William Nordhaus, and none of them uttered a word on the topic. Tobin did do a pretty jazzy mime of pushing on a string, though. Doug
Netscape
Title: Netscape Since I was having trouble with MicroSquat's Internet Explorer, I set up Netscape as my default web-browser. Strangely, since I don't own any, the program has a facility that allows me to check on my stocks easily. Because AOL owns Netscape, they include AOL's own stock as one of the default stocks shown. It looks like they made a bad decision on that one. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Hedge Funds
Below is an interesting piece on hedge funds. I want to make it clear that any media cut outs sent by me do not necessarily contain views etc that I share. © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd Short-selling hedge funds in the firing line again as stock markets crash Critics claim London market provides too liberal an environment for short traders By Nigel Cope, City Editor 23 July 2002 As stock markets continue to tumble, the search for someone to blame intensifies. Currently in the firing line are short sellers, who sell shares they do not own in the hope of buying it back more cheaply later on. Typically hedge funds, short sellers are blamed for driving prices down and increasing market volatility. They are the market's bad boys of the moment. David Prosser, chief executive of Legal General, has started a campaign against short selling, saying it disadvantages long-term savers. He is also proposing a tax on the practice as a means of discouraging it. Yesterday saw David Varney, chairman of the mobile phone network operator mmO2, wade into the debate. Lambasting the woeful adequacy of the disclosure rules relating to short selling, he urged more stringent regulatory procedures. Many in the markets and industry believe aggressive short selling is damaging interests of long-term investors, he said. Mr Varney said that in the eight months since mmO2's demerger from BT, more than 1.6 times its shares in issue had been traded in London. This was despite little change in its shareholder register. The obvious implication is that the shares have been lent to hedge funds and other institutional traders to enable them to trade, he said. But are short sellers really responsible for the precipitous fall in share prices? Or are they more a symptom than a cause? And is there a hidden business agenda behind some of the stances taken on this controversial issue? For example, Legal General stopped stock lending after the 11 September tragedy as a means of trying to starve hedge funds of the shares they need to sell short. But rivals, such as Barclays Global Investors, continue to offer the service as it generates fees. In theory, this would enable Barclays Global's huge Aquilla tracker fund to undercut LG's trackers with lower fees. In 1990 the total capital under management of hedge funds was less than $20bn (£13bn), says Hedge Fund Research in Chicago. Earlier this year the amount had mushroomed to $600bn. The growth has been fuelled by the greater fees that can be generated from hedge fund management. Falling markets have also increased the attractions as hedge funds can sell short as well as go long (ie buy shares with a view to them rising over the long term. Conversely most traditional pension funds operate long-only positions and cannot sell short). The criticisms of hedge funds are legion. They are accused of poor disclosure, limited regulation, favourable tax treatment from registering their operations offshore and exacerbating downward movements in shares. The collapse of Long Term Capital Management in the US in 1998, which sparked a global financial crisis, gave hedge funds an image problem that has been hard to shake off. The conflicts of interest are huge. If an institution lends stock to a hedge fund, it is likely to receive back a parcel of shares worth less than before. How is that in the best interests of pension fund investors? And the bulge-bracket investment banks are currently doing vast trades with hedge funds (often more than 50 per cent of their business). How does that service square with the services they are providing to traditional pension fund clients? Another criticism is that hedge funds benefit the super rich against the interests of ordinary savers. This is because most hedge funds that are aimed at private clients have a minimum £100,000 investment limit. The Financial Services Authority has conducted an initial investigation into the issue of short selling but said it sees no case to answer, so far. We have done some initial analysis which does not suggest an increase in short selling, the FSA said yesterday. We do not see short selling as a problem but we are continuing to monitor it. Hedge fund managers say they have been unfairly made the whipping boys of the bear market. Crispin Odey runs Odey Asset Management, which has $1bn of funds with 40 per cent of that in hedge funds. He says it is ludicrous to blame the market's woes on people such as him. The reason the market is going down is not because hedge funds are shorting the market. It is because the life insurers are being forced to sell equities and buy bonds, Mr Odey said. None of us [hedge funds] have naked bear positions. They are all hedged against long positions and they need to be because some of the rallies in a bear market can be so sharp. You can't make a lot of money out of being short as you can only make 100 per cent [if a share price falls to zero]. Going long you can make a multiple of your
patents backlash in biotech?
Gene patents inhibit innovation 14:05 23 July 02 NewScientist.com news service Patents on DNA sequences inhibit innovation and development and should be the exception rather than the norm, says a panel of leading UK bioethicists. In the past, biotech companies have said that without such patent protection they would not have the economic incentive to invest in expensive research towards new drugs. A discussion paper, produced by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB), says that too many patents are of doubtful validity because they are being issued for genetic discoveries that are not adequately inventive. It recommends a number of significant changes to the way patents in the field are granted in the future and to limit possible adverse effects of those already issued. The paper warns that the patents might inhibit innovation by increasing the cost of research to other scientists interested in the same sequence. If rights to several DNA sequences were needed, a company might decide not to develop a therapeutic protein or diagnostic test because of the number of royalty payments required. Also, the patent holder could withhold a licence to maximise their financial benefit or licence it exclusively to one licencee, they say. Protecting interests Patents are issued to protect the interests of the inventor. Those for DNA sequences last for 20 years. Biotech companies have rushed to find new DNA sequences to patent in the hope that therapeutic discoveries based on their sequences will produce financial rewards in the future. But the NCB paper say: Protection by patents of specific diagnostic tests which are based on DNA sequences could provide an effective means of rewarding the inventor while providing an incentive for others to develop alternative tests. In the case of genome sequencing, most scientific journals require the entire sequence data to be deposited in a publicly-accessible database, such as GenBank, before it can be published. One controversial exception was the human genome draft created by the private company Celera and published in Science in February 2001. Sue Mayer, from the independent think-tank GeneWatch, says: It's time for science institutions like Science to act and governments to intervene to prevent these discoveries being subject to monopolies and intellectual property claims. Gaia Vince
Re: Re: RE: Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
- Original Message - From: Eugene Coyle To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 9:40 AM Subject: [PEN-L:28358] Re: RE: Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods Devine, James wrote: is there really such a thing as an original idea? JD Original ideas are intellectual property. Gene == Gene, in the spirit of Ashleigh Brilliant, I took out a copyright on that phrase. I'll need you to send me a check for a cool $50k or my lawyers will be contacting you. :-) Ian
RE: Yale men
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28359] Yale men Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? not if they're in Skull Bones. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Eugene Coyle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 9:46 AM To: Pen-L Pen-l Subject: [PEN-L:28359] Yale men Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? We've been hearing a lot about Dubya. But another Yale man, William F. Buckley Jr. screwed his associates in an investment years ago. I recall the Wall St. Journal being upset by the scam but I don't remember the details. Gene Coyle
Re: Yale men
At 09:46 AM 7/23/2002 -0700, you wrote: Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? We've been hearing a lot about Dubya. But another Yale man, William F. Buckley Jr. screwed his associates in an investment years ago. I recall the Wall St. Journal being upset by the scam but I don't remember the details. Gene Coyle The Washington Post April 19, 1981, Sunday, Final Edition SECTION: Business Finance; F1 LENGTH: 1778 words HEADLINE: SEC Authorizes Suit Against Business Head Of Vocal Buckley Clan; SEC Authorizes Suit Against Businessman Leader of Buckley Clan BYLINE: By John F. Berry, Washington Post Staff Writer BODY: The Buckley family of Connecticut has gained a measure of fame over the years, mostly by force of the personalities of the clan's two most public members -- the glib political commentator and writer William F. Buckley Jr. and the conservative former U.S. senator James L. Buckley, now a member of the Reagan administration. For investors in its oil, gas and mineral interests, however, the family's most important member has been 61-year-old John W. Buckley. Until now, the businessman Buckley has assiduously avoided the kind of publicity that his brothers have courted while he quietly took care of the family's fortune. But that may end soon. After a 3-year federal investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission has authorized the filing by the staff of a civil suit alleging violations of federal securities laws by John Buckley, certain corporations and others. Under John Buckley's management, the legacy of founding father William F. Buckley Sr. over the years has helped finance the family's various conservative political, literary and economic endeavors and has given its members a social status that normally comes with old wealth. The family finances were managed through Catawba Corp., a company established in 1948 by the senior Buckley and operated out of a Manhattan brownstone.Catawba provided geological, geophysical, financial, accounting and other technical services to the six publicly owned companies that were allegedly directed by Buckley interests. When William Sr. died in 1958, each of his eight surviving children -- and their heirs -- were left a 9.8 percent interest in Catawba. They are: John, Priscilla, William Jr., Patricia Buckley Bozell, F. Reid, trustees for Carol Buckley Charlton, Jane B. Smith and James Buckley. Trustees for the estate of two deceased daughters, Maureen Buckley O'Reilly and Aloise Buckley Heath, hold 9.8 and 7.8 percent respectively. Benjamin W. Heath, the latter's widower, has a 2 percent interest, as does C. Dean Reasoner, a Washington attorney who also is a Buckley business associate. But Catawba was in turn financed by fees and royalties from the six companies whose stock was owned by the investing public but whose operations allegedly were directed by the Buckley interests. Because these companies were owned by the public, their operations -- including their relationship with Catawba -- were subject to the federal securities laws. In 1978, after the SEC began its probe, Catawba ceased offering the services to the publicly owned companies. Now, according to public records, the SEC suit alleging securities violations will name, in addition to John Buckley, his brother-in-law and business associate Heath, the lawyer Reasoner and Catawba. In public filings with the SEC, two Buckley-controlled companies said they were informed that the commission authorized a suit against them in connection with fees and royalties paid . . . Catawba. The six public companies, all in the oil exploration business, are Pantepec International Inc., Coastal Caribbean Oils Minerals Ltd., United Canso Oil Gas Co., Canada Southern Petroleum, Pancoastal Inc. and Magellan Petroleum Corp. A central question in the SEC's case and in a private stockholder suit already filed is what Catawba did to earn the fees and royalties. The lawsuit, filed in 1977 by a United Canso stockholder and still being litigated, alleged that the services purportedly furnished by Catawba were as well provided by United Canso's own staff, and . . . were often inadequately performed by Catawba or not performed at all. The 1977 suit by the two stockholders accused Catawba, John Buckley and others of defrauding the public company and the shareholders of $3.1 million in royalties paid Catawba in connection with the sale of United Canso's North Sea oil rights. A federal judge in Hartford, in denying a defense motion to get the law suit dismissed, wrote in an opinion that if the allegations in the complaint were proven, then some or all of the defendants were involved in illegal self-dealing and disloyalty of the highest proportion. That stockholders' suit apparently attracted the interest of the SEC, which soon after began a formal investigation. SEC officials refused to comment about the Buckley investigation.
Yale men
Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? We've been hearing a lot about Dubya. But another Yale man, William F. Buckley Jr. screwed his associates in an investment years ago. I recall the Wall St. Journal being upset by the scam but I don't remember the details. Gene Coyle
Re: RE: Re: Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
"Devine, James" wrote: is there really such a thing as an "original idea"? JD Yes, but such can't be revealed on Lists until the patent/ copywrite comes through. Original ideas are intellectual property. Gene
Re: ivy education
So...following up on the Yale men thread...is the education given at the ivies worth it? I ask because a former lover who went to Princeton was very bitter about that aspect too. I also ask because I have a half-baked idea to send my daughter (now 8) to Vassar or one of the other women's ivies. So, those of you who had a taste, tell me, how was the education? The only pretentious university I know of is Stanford ( a lot of friends teach/taught there) and I wouldn't send my kids there even if it were free. My experience of Princeton in the mid-late 1970s was that the education was absolutely first rate. I got personal attention from Richard Rorty (a great teacher), Thomas Kuhn (a terrible one), Carl Schorske and Tony Garfton (history), John Wheeler (physics), John McPhee (writing), W.R. Connor and Michael Frede (classics)--just to mention some big shots. I found a fabulous mentor no one who never went there would ever have heard of. No less than the teachers, I went to school with amazing classmates. At least five of my immediate classmates that I know of have won McArthur grants. Lots who didn't were no less brilliant. I think it makes a diff that Tigertown is small and undergrad teaching oriented. If your kid is academically inclined towards the humanities, a liberal arts school is the way to go--Oberlin, Swarthmore, Grinnell, Williams. T-town, Brown, and Dartmouth are the most like that of the Ivies, and I think T-town is the best school of the lot, though people have a better time at Brown. jks _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Big K
Seems to me the main thing getting in the way of Keynesian pump-priming is the existence of multinational corporations and international financial markets (international capital mobility). J.
Re: Originality ?
Is there such a thing as an original idea ? I think yes, but original ideas are difficult to find. Normally it requires thorough knowledge of the relevant tradition or genre in order to recognise an original idea as such or be able to moot it, and in some fields of human endeavour it would appear that it is easier to be original than in others. Important probably is also from what point of view we evaluate a human artifact - most often originality combines with known techniques or sources. To some extent novelty is probably in the eye of the beholder, i.e. it relies on the specific way in which an artifact or behaviour happens to be observed. Our very own Karl Marx did not pretend to be very original in his writings on political economy - in fact he said something like, bar a handful of abstractions, I did nothing new. He was among the first to introduce an extensive apparatus of footnotes in his work on political economy, to indicate who said it first; presumably to strengthen his case thereby. An interesting question is whether modern capitalist culture actually reduces the human ability to be original (leaving aside the restrictions imposed by intellectual property rights). A centrepiece of the ideological defence of capitalism as progressive is, after all, its ability to stimulate innovation, but what is the relationship between actual innovation and potential innovation ? I.e. how much innovation that occurs, is never socially recognised or used in virtue of capitalist social relations ? J.
Re: Re: question
I was - it was a real last minute thing and I had to have my daughter apply make-up. If only people had wanted me on TV when I was young and beautiful! I usually turn down TV requests because I find the grief-to-content ratio too high. But Donahue is pretty good. He gives ample time to make points, doesn'tset up hopelessly polarized debates. I may actually start watching it. Ellen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And Why did Ellen not tell us to watch the Donahue show? Ian told me she was on. Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Re: Re: Re: Yale men
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28391] Re: Re: Re: Yale men Ford? He played football for Michigan, I thought. Right. But wasn't he Yale Law? jks I don't think Ford's status as a lawyer should be held against him. After all, he was pretty good by today's standards (Clinton, Bushes). JD
Re: question
And Why did Ellen not tell us to watch the Donahue show? Ian told me she was on. On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 05:41:37PM -0400, Ellen Frank wrote: Does anybody know who coined the term supply-side economics (or who takes credit for it, anyway)? Thanks in advance. Ellen Frank -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: question
Ellen Frank wrote: Does anybody know who coined the term supply-side economics (or who takes credit for it, anyway)? Thanks in advance. Ellen Frank Journal of Commerce March 30, 1987, Monday SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGES, Pg. 15A LENGTH: 809 words HEADLINE: JUDE'S GUIDE TO THE MEDIA BYLINE: STANFORD ERICKSON Journalist/economist Jude Wanniski has come out with his new MediaGuide. Mr. Wanniski published his first critical review of national U.S. publications and journalists last year to somewhat mixed reviews. We liked the effort last year and find this year's 374-page evaluation of the national print edia much better organized and a whole lot better written. A former associate editor with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Wanniski is known for having coined the term supply-side economics. To our way of thinking, as economists go, he's somewhat of a poor man's version of John Maynard Keynes. Not that he or Mr. Keynes might agree on many things economically speaking, but both he and the late Mr. Keynes are sort of renaissance types as much interested in the art of writing and politics as economics. Mr. Wanniski's book dealing with economics - The Way the World Works published in 1978 - was acclaimed by none other than the supply-side guru himself, Arthur Laffer, as the best book on economics ever written. If Arthur really believes that, he should change his name to Laugher rather than Laffer. -- Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: Re: ivy education
Doug H writes, . . . one's fellow students are an education in themselves. Classes were very lively - I wonder, however, whether this is _still_ true for the elite colleges. The increased competition now to get into such schools and increased attention to doing the right things during high school to get into an elite college might have changed the nature of the student body. Back in the good old days the less competitive nature of elite school admissions might lad led to a somewhat different student body. Well, I've been around law clerks for the last four years, which means in part people in their mid 20s, many of whom graduated from the elite schools as undergrads in 1994-2000. They seem pretty much like the better students at those schools when I attended Tigertown as an undergrad in the late 1970s. jks _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
question
Does anybody know who coined the term supply-side economics (or who takes credit for it, anyway)? Thanks in advance. Ellen Frank
Re: Re: Re: Yale men
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28376] Re: Re: Yale men Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 11:27:41 -0700 Ford? He played football for Michigan, I thought. Right. But wasn't he Yale Law? jks On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 11:13:07AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Anyway, it seems like the alumni association was embarrassed by being forced to engage in such deception, so that they've arranged for Yalies to run the White House a lot since then (Ford, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II). Jim -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Reformism V Revolutionary Methods
- Original Message - From: Eugene Coyle Devine, James wrote: is there really such a thing as an original idea? JD Yes, but such can't be revealed on Lists until the patent/ copywrite comes through. Original ideas are intellectual property. Gene === Before...the inventors can...establish a right of property in their inventions, they ought to give up all the knowledge and assistance they have derived from the knowledge and inventions of others. That is impossible, and the impossibility shows that their minds and their inventions are, in fact, parts of the great mental whole of society, and that they have no right of property in their inventions, except that they can keep to themselves if they please and own all the material objects in which they may realize their mental conceptions. [editorial in The Economist magazine 12-28-1850]
Re: RE: The D word surfaces
Devine, James wrote: I wouldn't call what happened in 1930 aggressive Fed easing. Though interest rates fell, it was mostly due to a fall in the demand for loans. The Fed wasn't interested in stimulating the economy. As Milton Friedman notes, the money supply fell during this period. The discount rate went from 6.0% in Sep 29 to 1.5% in Jun 31. That's not as aggressive as the Greenspan Fed, but that's nothing to sneeze at. And if the money supply is endogenously determined, Friedman's observation is just a tautology. Doug
Re: The D word surfaces
Carl Remick wrote: Analysts at research and money management firm Bridgewater Associates point out that this is the first time since 1930 that the stock market has fallen in the face of aggressive Fed easing. Um, this was reported in LBO #100, in May. Damn. Wish I made a quarter as much as Ray Dalio of Bridgewater does! Doug
RE: The D word surfaces
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28386] The D word surfaces I wouldn't call what happened in 1930 aggressive Fed easing. Though interest rates fell, it was mostly due to a fall in the demand for loans. The Fed wasn't interested in stimulating the economy. As Milton Friedman notes, the money supply fell during this period. Epstein and Ferguson [1984. Monetary Policy, Loan Liquidation, and Industrial Conflict: The Federal Reserve and the Open Market Operations of 1932. _Journal of Economic History_ 44(2) 957-83] present an excellent empirical analysis of the Fed's policies during this period, which indicated that the Fed was concerned with external balance -- and keeping on the gold standard -- rather than domestic prosperity and was unwilling to go against the interest of banks (except the small and less influential banks catering to farmers). The Fed waited a long time before any serious efforts to reflate because Conventional doctrine among businessmen, bankers, and economists in the period held that occasional depressions (or deflations) were vital to the long-run health of a capitalist economy. Accordingly, the task of central banking was to stand back and allow nature's therapy to take its course. As one well-known voting member of the Fed's Board of Governors, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, expressed it, the way out of a depression consisted of a sustained effort to 'liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate' [1984: 963]. Further, the inflationary experience of the U.S. during and immediately after World War I, though incomparable to that in Germany, encouraged deflation. The post-War inflation was scarier than that during the War, as U.S. bankers saw inflation as normal during war-time. On the other hand, the success of the post-War recession in taming said inflation (effectively stabilizing the price level until 1929) encouraged the use of deflation in later years. (This success, suffice it to say, was on the backs of the workers.) The Restoration had been successful so far, so why change orientation? Even though the deepening recession spurred calls for reflation, public works spending, the veterans' bonus, and so forth, concern with the gold standard restrained any Fed effort to reflate. This was especially true after the run on the dollar that followed Britain's leaving the gold standard. After the 1932 Glass-Steagall Act, on the other hand, the gold-standard constraint was loosened and the Fed moved to use open-market operations to stimulate the economy. But this program was abandoned in the face of three effects [Epstein and Ferguson, 1984: 968-83]. The economic collapse pushed banks to liquidate their loans and invest in short-term securities (especially T-bills), so that falling short rates directly and significantly hurt their earnings. The bankers then successfully lobbied the Fed to abandon expansionary policies. Second, a growing number of Federal Reserve branches resisted expansion since their gold reserves were threatened. Third, foreign depositors -- led by France -- started pulling their balances from U.S. banks, especially those in New York. In the end, the Fed was pushed to deflate. (an edited version of part of the paper seen at: http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/faculty/jdevine/depr/d0.html The Causes of the 1929-33 Great Collapse: A Marxian Interpretation, by James Devine in _Research in Political Economy_. vol. 14: pp. 119-194.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Carl Remick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:40 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:28386] The D word surfaces [Yikes. From today's CBS MarketWatch.] Analysts at research and money management firm Bridgewater Associates point out that this is the first time since 1930 that the stock market has fallen in the face of aggressive Fed easing. In that sense, we are in uncharted waters. Clinically speaking, a recession is an economic contraction brought on by tightening and ended by easing. A depression is a self-reinforcing economic contraction, perpetuated by debt liquidation in which central bank easing is impotent to reverse the contraction. Recent market action is symptomatic of depression, Bridgewater pointed out. [http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?column=Market+Snaps hotsiteid=mktw] Carl _ Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
The D word surfaces
[Yikes. From today's CBS MarketWatch.] Analysts at research and money management firm Bridgewater Associates point out that this is the first time since 1930 that the stock market has fallen in the face of aggressive Fed easing. In that sense, we are in uncharted waters. Clinically speaking, a recession is an economic contraction brought on by tightening and ended by easing. A depression is a self-reinforcing economic contraction, perpetuated by debt liquidation in which central bank easing is impotent to reverse the contraction. Recent market action is symptomatic of depression, Bridgewater pointed out. [http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?column=Market+Snapshotsiteid=mktw] Carl _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
RE: Re: ivy education
Doug H writes, . . . one's fellow students are an education in themselves. Classes were very lively - I wonder, however, whether this is _still_ true for the elite colleges. The increased competition now to get into such schools and increased attention to doing the right things during high school to get into an elite college might have changed the nature of the student body. Back in the good old days the less competitive nature of elite school admissions might lad led to a somewhat different student body. Eric (public school product)
Re: ivy education
joanna bujes wrote: So...following up on the Yale men thread...is the education given at the ivies worth it? I thought so. I had some very good professors, and one's fellow students are an education in themselves. Classes were very lively - much more so than the University of Virginia, where I did grad English, and than just about any other college I've visited. Students weren't shy about talking - unlike UVa and the other places - and outside class, even lunch table and party conversation kept you on your toes. And the pampering counts for something too - it really builds confidence (and can turn it into arrogance). So, as much as I'm philosophically opposed to elite private education, I'm still a pleased alum. Doug
Re: Big K
Jurriaan Bendien wrote: Seems to me the main thing getting in the way of Keynesian pump-priming is the existence of multinational corporations and international financial markets (international capital mobility). The U.S., Japan, and the EU are all relatively closed economies, with imports only around 10% of GDP. The leakage argument is overdone. Doug
Consumer Credit Card Debt
The first issue concerning corporate fraud is the systematic practice of "inaccurate" billing. The GAO has estimated it is at least 10% and academic research in the area of medical billing estimates it at closer to 20%. In the suit against FIRSTUSA, we are charging them with violating their responsibility to adhere to the terms of consumer complaints under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In this case, a credit card company that has since been acquired by FIRSTUSA billed the plaintiff five times the original charges (about $500) and refused to follow-up on the complaint. Today, FIRSTUSA is claiming that the plaintiff owes $2000 plus about $5,000 in late/interest charges plus attorneys' fees--eventhough the merchants have been paid for the original credit card charges. This complaint has been ongoing for over 8 years and the plaintiff--ironically an accountant--has had her personal credit ruined. The point is how many consumers have been o! vercharged and are so intimidated by big corporations that they are willing to be extorted to maintain their "good" credit standing. If we can find where the corp deposits its fraudulently obtained revenues, then we can begin to trace the thousands of extorted consumers whose reluctance to fight their corporate "providers" will underlie a major class action suit. And, this is where it becomes very interesting. These fraudulent revenues have inflated the revenues and profits of FIRSTUSA which, not incidentally, had its books validated by none other than Arthur Anderson. Once we show that AA approved this accounting system, then you can expect an SEC investigation, fall in stock price, and shareholder suits. How many other corps could find themselves in such a situation? The ripple effect is even greater. I have been working with Congr. LaFalce to pressure the FED to take a more aggressive enforcement position on the 1975 Deceptive Credit Marketing Statute; Greenspan responded last month that he may rethink his reluctance to pursue more aggressive enforcement policies following some of my empirical examples. The reason that this is so important is that many corps are loathe to report the importance of finance revenues in their profitability. For example, Circuit City (major electronics retailer) for the first time reported that 53% of its corp revenues last year were due to its financing division. If the various deceptive credit marketing practices were reformed, many corps like Circuit City may end up in bankruptcy; for example, the highly touted 12 months of free credit translates into retroactive payment of interest charges in month 13! So, the credit web is actua! lly far more complex than the simplified discussion of the tenuous relationship between the stock market, corps, and consumers. Lastly, the strong dollar is not an explanation of different cultural attitudes towards savings and consumer debt. When US corps argued that Japan was restricting "market access," they expected that Japanese consumers would run to purchase American products. Instead, with the exception of young Japanese (esp. single women), they found that attitudes toward household saving influenced consumption patterns; US corps finally received "access" but had to figure out how to encourage higher levels of consumption. So, the new international research projects are examining different state-promoted programs that encourage household saving, societal attitudes toward consumer debt, and trends in consumer purchasing behavior. Hence, if American corps can find a way to get other societies to accept "American style" debt, they believe that they will sell more products and thus become the saviors of U.S. balance of trade crisis! and implicitly the engine of US job growth. Remember, Citibank is now "positioned" in 103 countries and would be happy to finance greater world-wide household debt in the "national interest" of a shrinking balance of trade deficit. bob Michael Perelman writes: Robert, could you please elaborate on this paragraph? Thanks. Robert Manning wrote: By the way, I am an expert witness in a civil suit against FIRSTUSA which has Enron like potential if the judge permits our discovery requests. Also, it appears that the market "access" that U.S. corps have been demanding and are receiving under WTO is now becoming a concern rather than a panacea because European and Asian households are not particularly interested in increasing consumption of American products. As a result, some new international projects are being formed with the objective of how to increase U.S. exports and thus reduce the U.S. trade deficit. Social scientists are being recruited to study global trends in consumer savings, cultural impediments to willingness to incur 'American style" debt, and marketing campaigns that successfully encourage greater consumer consumption without accompanying increases in household income. Wouldn't a big part of the explanation
Pricing knowledge
[Wall Street Journal 7/22/02] Accounting Rules Must Adapt to Idea-Based New Economy, by Alan Murray Talk of a new economy disappeared from polite conversation when the Nasdaq dropped below 2500. Today, the term is seldom used without a sneer. But members of Congress meeting this week to complete accounting-oversight legislation should remember this: There is a New Economy, in the form of companies whose value is determined far more by intangible assets than physical ones. And it will frustrate their best efforts to return corporate accounting to its former stolidity. There are some problems that can be fixed -- and likely will be fixed -- by the pending legislation. The standards-setting process needs to be strengthened. The Financial Accounting Standards Board's cave to industry and congressional pressure in the 1990s on the question of expensing stock options, as well as its failure to come up with a reasonable rule for the treatment of special-purpose entities, are clear signs that the board needs more independence and oversight. And WorldCom Inc.'s brazen shifting of current expenses to its capital account, or Global Crossing Ltd.'s use of swaps to boost its earnings, makes clear that auditors aren't doing their jobs as well as they should. But even if Congress fixes those problems, accounting will still be left with the challenge of dealing with a New Economy that doesn't lend itself well to Old Economy notions of economics, business practices and accounting. What's true about the New Economy -- even with the Nasdaq below 1300 -- is that it consists of products whose value depends far more on their intellectual content than on their physical characteristics. It is, in short, an economy based on ideas. And ideas, it turns out, are fundamentally different economic entities from widgets. During the boom years, everyone focused on the differences that worked to the advantage of business. Idea-based products, unlike widgets, can be endlessly replicated at little extra cost. And they often have network effects: If 10 people try to share a widget, its value to each will decline; but if 10 people use the same word-processing system, it becomes more valuable to each user as a standard for shared documents. The combination of low marginal costs and network benefits enabled companies with successful idea-based products -- Microsoft Corp.'s Windows is the ultimate example -- to earn astronomical profits. But now that the bust has settled in, investors are learning the downsides to New Economy products and companies. For one thing, ideas aren't easy to control. Good ideas are like air and water; they can have enormous benefit to society, but that doesn't mean they can be easily turned to profit. Think of Enron Corp. as the ultimate New Economy company. It sold off most of its hard assets and kept as its principal asset its superior models for assessing markets, says James V. Delong, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. But the company's accounting scandal quickly turned that asset to vapor. Moreover, developing ideas is a much riskier business than developing physical products. Spend $20 million on constructing a building and the odds are pretty good that, once you are done, you'll have a building worth close to $20 million. Spend $20 million on research and development and you may have a billion-dollar breakthrough, or you may have nothing. The challenges all this presents for the folks with green eyeshades is immense. A study by the Brookings Institution found that, back in 1978, the book value of the tangible assets of publicly traded corporations accounted for more than 83% of the market value of those companies. But today, that figure has fallen, by most estimates, to 30% or 40%. Most of the value in today's companies comes from intangible assets -- things such as patents, copyrights, brands, customer lists, unique organizational designs, processes, etc. And it is those assets, which tend to be incredibly volatile and difficult to value, that will continue to give honest accountants fits. As its future gets bandied about in Washington, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is working on an effort to provide better accounting for intangible assets. Halsey Bullen, senior project manager at the FASB who is heading up the project, says the board will release a draft of its plan at the beginning of next year and a final statement at the end of the year. The idea is to provide for better disclosure of intangible assets in financial reports. But anyone who thinks accounting for intangibles can ever provide the sort of solid information that Old Economy accounting provided should read the FASB's report on Business and Financial Reporting Challenges from the New Economy, available on the board's Web site (http://www.fasb.org/articlesreports/new_economy.shtml). (It's also a good antidote for insomnia.) Even with good accounting, investors are going to continue to have a hard time
Re: The D word surfaces
Devine, James wrote: I'd have to look again at this, but the Fed often has let the discount rate follow the market -- and market rates were clearly falling. According to Friedman Schwartz, market rates may have fallen more than the discount rate: Though discount rates fell absolutely [before Oct. 1930], it probably rose relative to the relevant market interest rates, namely, those on short-term securities with essentially zero risk of default. (_The Great Contraction_, p. 45.) Of course, Friedman wants to blame the depression on the Fed, since it couldn't have been the result of anything intrinsic to capitalism. It had to be bad state policy - stupid Fed and Smoot-Hawley. Doug
The D word surfaces
Title: The D word surfaces I wrote: I wouldn't call what happened in 1930 aggressive Fed easing. Though interest rates fell, it was mostly due to a fall in the demand for loans. The Fed wasn't interested in stimulating the economy. As Milton Friedman notes, the money supply fell during this period. Doug writes: The discount rate went from 6.0% in Sep 29 to 1.5% in Jun 31. That's not as aggressive as the Greenspan Fed, but that's nothing to sneeze at. I'd have to look again at this, but the Fed often has let the discount rate follow the market -- and market rates were clearly falling. According to Friedman Schwartz, market rates may have fallen more than the discount rate: Though discount rates fell absolutely [before Oct. 1930], it probably rose relative to the relevant market interest rates, namely, those on short-term securities with essentially zero risk of default. (_The Great Contraction_, p. 45.) In any event, one of the keys to what happened in the 1930s was the increase in rates (including the discount rate) after 1931, due to the UK's going off gold. The Epstein/Ferguson article that I cited emphasized this period, when the economy really crashed and the Fed should have done something much more. And if the money supply is endogenously determined, Friedman's observation is just a tautology. Right. The Fed's policy impact on monetary aggregates can best be seen by looking at high-powered money (monetary base), which was pretty flat from 1929 to 1933, which suggests very weak monetary stimulus, considering what was going on with the banks those days (panics). (Strangely enough, the last time I read MF, he was saying that the Fed shoud keep the MB constant, which would have allowed the great contraction of the money supply to have occurred after 1929.) In any event, I don't think the events of 1929 to 1933 could have been dealt with successfully using monetary policy. Jim
Re: Re: Yale men
The last paragraph of Louis Proyect's post about William F. Buckley, Jr. is what I dimly recalled. Buckley sold off his personal losing investments to a public company in which he was a major stockholder. A little different than what Dubya did, but in the same spirit of taking care of yourself by screwing another. I didn't recall at all (if I ever knew) the grander scheme of the Buckleys. Gene Coyle Louis Proyect wrote: snip Now it's the SEC's turn, and its suit apparently can be expected any day. This would mark the second time in as many years that a Buckley has had a run-in with the commission.In 1979, the SEC filed suit against William F. Buckely Jr. accusing him of violating the antifraud statutes for allegedly attempting to avoid personal bankruptcy by selling some of his losing personal investments to Starr Broadcasting Group Inc., a publicly owned company in which he was a a major stockholder. While neither admitting nor denying the allegations, the columnist as part of settlement agreement paid some $1.4 million to shareholders of the company.
RE: Re: The D word surfaces
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28400] Re: The D word surfaces Devine, James wrote: I'd have to look again at this, but the Fed often has let the discount rate follow the market -- and market rates were clearly falling. According to Friedman Schwartz, market rates may have fallen more than the discount rate: Though discount rates fell absolutely [before Oct. 1930], it probably rose relative to the relevant market interest rates, namely, those on short-term securities with essentially zero risk of default. (_The Great Contraction_, p. 45.) Doug: Of course, Friedman wants to blame the depression on the Fed, since it couldn't have been the result of anything intrinsic to capitalism. It had to be bad state policy - stupid Fed and Smoot-Hawley. The quote makes sense in the limited context, since the volume of discount loans didn't increase much. It's the larger-scale discussion where MF falls apart. His position is that if he'd been in charge, everthing would have worked out fine. JD
Re: End to European Coal and Steel Community
It is a triumph of the vision of people like Jean Monnet that markets should be regulated and answerable to the democratic will of the people, and that negotiation and cooperation between capitalist enterprises under this degree of social foresight is progressive. Chris Burford London With the ECU and a 'central bank' that is the most undemocratic and pro-capitalist in the world? Paul Phillips
Re: Humans wired to cooperate
At 23/07/02 09:14 -0400, Diane Monaco : NY Times July 23, 2002 Why We're So Nice: We're Wired to Cooperate By NATALIE ANGIER Scientists have no trouble explaining the evolution of competitive behavior. But the depth and breadth of human altruism, the willingness to forgo immediate personal gain for the long-term common good, far exceeds behaviors seen even in other large-brained highly social species like chimpanzees and dolphins, and it has as such been difficult to understand. Assuming that the urge to cooperate is to some extent innate among humans and reinforced by the brain's feel-good circuitry, the question of why it arose remains unclear. Anthropologists have speculated that it took teamwork for humanity's ancestors to hunt large game or gather difficult plant foods or rear difficult children. So the capacity to cooperate conferred a survival advantage on our forebears. Yet as with any other trait, the willingness to abide by the golden rule and to be a good citizen and not cheat and steal from one's neighbors is not uniformly distributed. If we put some C.E.O.'s in here, I'd like to see how they respond, Dr. Kilts said. Maybe they wouldn't find a positive social interaction rewarding at all. The longer evolutionary psychology remains in fashion, the less arbitrary is the overall effect. These subtler experiments use the model to give attention to features that are not prominent in the linear model of human ascent favoured at the height of rising capitalist. The need for cooperation is not at all surprising when you consider, as in other recent articles, that human beings were probably just as much likely to be hunted as hunters as the forests retreated in Africa. The great majority of humanoid lines in fact died out. In economic terms one of the most important features of the means of production is often the role it gives to greater human cooperation. That is quite consistent with marxism. That is why there is a contradiction between individualistic CEO's and the complex cooperative social activity of modern economic enterprises. That is why even capitalism will have to find ways of controlling their unpredictable and destabilising behaviour. It is costing billions of dollars at this moment of time. Chris Burford Lodnon
Pipeline politics in Bangladesh
The Hindu Monday, Jul 22, 2002 Pipeline politics in Bangladesh By C. Raja Mohan NEW DELHI JULY 21. Under pressure from the American energy companies to export its vast natural gas resources to India, Bangladesh is nearing yet another frustrating non-decision. A committee set up by Dhaka to examine the options on the utilisation of its gas resources is likely to submit its report next week. But don't hold your breath. Media reports from Dhaka say the Committee might avoid a clear position on gas exports. The panel could recommend that gas exports are all right if new fields are discovered. In other words, not now''. This will not please the American company, Unocal, which has been moving heaven and earth for a green signal from Dhaka on gas exports. Unocal wants to build a 1,363-km pipeline to move gas from the Bibiyanah gas field in North Eastern Bangladesh to the HBJ pipeline near Delhi. It will run through West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. Unocal has a simple case: the $1.2 billion project would bring in an estimated revenue of $3.7 billions to Dhaka over the next 20 years, and an immediate investment of about $700 millions. Jobs and development associated with such a mega project are extras. Unocal also believes that Bangladesh could become an energy hub allowing the transport of gas from Myanmar and North Eastern India to the energy-hungry mainland. Dhaka could just sit back and charge transit fees. But nothing is simple in Bangladesh, which is traumatised by the prospect of ``giving away'' its natural resources to India. In the wake of the Unocal proposal, the Bangla Supreme Court itself intervened to prevent an immediate decision. The Bangladesh National Party, now in power, was opposed to gas exports to India when in opposition. Once in power, it has shown some flexibility, under American pressure. Its move to set up a committee on gas utilisation was widely seen as a way of moving towards that difficult decision. But since when have committees taken bold decisions? *** The key question in the Bangla debate on energy exports is the following. How much gas is there? Ultra-nationalists in Bangladesh worry that there is not enough for future domestic consumption. Pragmatists, far fewer, say there is enough and then some for exports. Realists, almost extinct, know that unless Bangladesh exports some of its gas, it will not be able to able to pay the oil companies in dollars. Dhaka believes the gas reserves are around 16 trillion cubic feet. The U.S. Geological Survey in a recent report estimates there is additional 32 tcf of ``undiscovered reserves''. The oil companies argue that without a decision to export gas to India, there cannot be new exploration which could help expand the size of known reserves''. That brings us back to politics. Can Bangladesh really think big and act bold? Your guess is as good as mine. For the leaders of the Subcontinent have wallowed in poverty for so long that they do not know how to generate prosperity through cooperation. *** Yes, Unocal is the same company that wanted to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan. They tried hard to sell the idea to the Taliban, which was more interested in spreading Islamic revolution than making money. Amidst protests that it is dealing with the devil, Unocal finally pulled out of the project in the late 1990s. Unlike the petty minds in the Subcontinent, American oil companies have always dreamt expansively and took huge risks. Unocal continues to believe that eventually a network of pipelines will physically connect the producers and consumers of oil and natural gas in Asia from Indo-China to Turkey. *** Thanks to the defeat of the Taliban, the Afghan pipeline project is back in play. In May, the leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, the strongman of Turkmenistan, Sapamurat Niyazov, and Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, met in Islamabad to revive the plans for the Afghan pipeline. Unocal is yet to show its hand. But there is an interesting new player Russia in the Great Game of Central Asian pipelines. Around the same time as the triangular meeting in Islamabad, a high-powered delegation from Gazprom the Russian gas giant visited Pakistan to sound out the prospects. Russia believes it could play a key role in building pipelines from both Iran and Central Asia to the Subcontinent, and is stepping up its political and petroleum contacts with Pakistan. The Americans, meanwhile, have decided that Russia is a partner and no longer a rival when it comes to energy politics in Central Asia. After nearly a century of suspicion, Washington and Moscow are ready to work together; but going by the present form, New Delhi and Dhaka will rather fight petty on trade and transit than make money on mega projects. Sadly, grand thinking does not come easily to the Subcontinent. Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited
Re: Re: The D word surfaces
On Tuesday, July 23, 2002 at 18:58:14 (-0400) Doug Henwood writes: Devine, James wrote: I'd have to look again at this, but the Fed often has let the discount rate follow the market -- and market rates were clearly falling. According to Friedman Schwartz, market rates may have fallen more than the discount rate: Though discount rates fell absolutely [before Oct. 1930], it probably rose relative to the relevant market interest rates, namely, those on short-term securities with essentially zero risk of default. (_The Great Contraction_, p. 45.) Of course, Friedman wants to blame the depression on the Fed, since it couldn't have been the result of anything intrinsic to capitalism. It had to be bad state policy - stupid Fed and Smoot-Hawley. ... in the United States the fear of the Member Banks lest they should be unable to cover their expenses is an obstacle to the adoption of a wholehearted cheap money policy. --- J. M. Keynes, September 1932 This quote from Keynes is found in Monetary Policy, Loan Liquidation, and Industrial Conflict: The Federal Reserve and the Open Market Operations of 1932 by Gerald Epstein and Thomas Ferguson, in Ferguson's *Golden Rule*. According to Epstein and Ferguson: In the summer of 1929, output and employment in the American economy began falling. After the stock market crash in late October, the decline turned into a catastrophic rout. By mid-1930, the United States, along with many other countries, was clearly sliding into deep depression. Yet the Federal Reserve System, widely trumpeted in the 1920s as the final guarantor of financial stability, did very little to offset what soon developed into the greatest deflation in American history. For two long years the Fed maintained its posture of Jovian indifference. On occasion the New York Fed promoted very modest increases in liquidity; discount rates were lowered and flurries of open market purchases occurred, but nothing more. They note that in spring of 1932 the Fed came to life after passage of the Glass-Steagall Act and worked to infuse cash into the Reserve's member banks. However, this policy was short-lived and by the summer of 1932, the Fed effectively abandoned the new policy. The thrust of the essay is to highlight the potentially disastrous consequences of one of the Fed's most basic structural characteristics: its dual responsibility for both the health of the member banks and the welfare of the economy as a whole. Before launching into this effort, Epstein and Ferguson briefly review and critique standard accounts, including that of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz. Of this account, they point out: Friedman and Schwartz's account of the making of monetary policy in this period ... emphasizes domestic concerns and underestimates the role international economic considerations, especially a concern for protection of the gold stock and maintenance of the gold standard, played in the making of policy throughout most of the period of 1929 to 1932 although Friedman and Schwartz are correct in claiming the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act of early 1932 temporarily alleviated the free gold problem for the Federal Reserve System as a whole, they are mistaken in dismissing both gold and the international economy as constraints thereafter. To see how the international economy affected Fed policy after the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932, however, it is necessary to break with the tradition of analyzing the Fed's actions in terms of their effects on broad categories, such as the total gold stock, the balance of payments, or the national income. One must look in detail at the microeconomics of the banking sector to identify how various actions of the Fed potentially affected bank profitability at different points in time. If, following Stigler, Posner, and other recent analysts of the symbiosis of regulator and regulated, one gathers evidence on the policy preferences of private bankers and their interaction with the regulators, we find a ready answer to our ... central questions about the Fed's open market program of 1932. I won't reveal the details of why the Fed largely sat on its hands as the entire American financial structure collapsed, largely because of time constraints and tired fingers, but I think the analysis is quite stimulating. Bill
exporting academic freedom
[gotta stop those spillovers...] Export bill changes secure academic freedom EducationGuardian.co.uk Polly Curtis Tuesday July 23, 2002 Academics are this afternoon celebrating a triumph in the House of Lords after securing an amendment to the highly contested export control bill, which they say will protect academic freedom. Universities UK and the Association of University Teachers have battled with the government for a year to amend the bill to ensure there is no prohibition of the free transfer of academic ideas abroad. The final amendment, tabled by Lord Sainsbury, the minister for science, replaces a previous Lords amendment, which was thrown out by the Commons last month. Without any amendment, the bill gave the government wide powers to veto the transfer of ideas abroad, license foreign researchers working in Britain and stop the publication of research findings. It could have meant that academics would be restricted from exchanging routine research with colleagues abroad, including information already in the public domain. Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said in the House of Lords today: I'm glad to say that the amendment does what I hoped for - it provides real protection for the academic community for the teaching and research work carried out in our universities. Universities UK has been working hard for this. She added: This amendment resolves what at first seemed to be an unbridgeable gap between the voices heard in this Chamber. In its final form, the amendment guarantees academics' freedom to transfer ideas abroad in the ordinary course of scientific research. An AUT spokesman said although the government can still restrict the transfer of ideas under the bill, it can't do so without formally addressing the question of academic freedom.
re: Yale men
Is taking care of yourself by screwing associated investors taught at Yale? I didn't take that course - maybe Jim Devine did. I got intro macro from James Tobin, money banking from Henry Wallich, intermediate macro from William Nordhaus, and none of them uttered a word on the topic. Tobin did do a pretty jazzy mime of pushing on a string, though. Doug You have to go to the law school to learn this. Stephen F. Diamond School of Law Santa Clara University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
backsliding on democracy
http://hdr.undp.org/ To be released tomorrow. Here's a news report that's got a sneak preview of the issues: The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Democracies are backsliding, UN finds Barbara Crossette The New York Times Wednesday, July 24, 2002 New freedoms and better quality of life are said to be threatened UNITED NATIONS, New York After more than a decade of celebrating the births of dozens of new democracies, the United Nations warns this week that democratic gains risk being reversed in many countries as authoritarian leaders manipulate elections and millions lose faith in democratic systems. In dozens of nations, a democratic culture that allows room for political opposition, a free press and robust citizens' action groups is failing to develop or is being stifled, a report to be released Wednesday concludes. The study, Human Development Report 2002: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World, also found that economic slowdowns in many countries add to a popular perception that democracies cannot improve living conditions. Since 1980, 81 countries have moved into the democratic column, and indeed some 33 military governments have been replaced by civilian governments, said Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the United Nations Development Program, which published the report. In comments to reporters last week, he added that 140 of about 200 countries have held multiparty elections. The concern is that one multiparty election does not a democracy make, he said. The international cheerleaders for democracy have underestimated what it takes to build a functioning, properly rooted democracy. The United Nations Development Program's annual Human Development Report was created in 1990 to measure the progress of nations not in dry economic statistics but in the lives of ordinary citizens. Over the objections of some governments, in rich as well as poor countries, the report has become increasingly pointed in its criticisms of political chicanery, corruption and human rights abuses. The critical trend has been encouraged under Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The report ranks countries by quality of life, based largely on life expectancy, education and personal incomes. This year Norway ranks first, as it did last year, followed by Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Australia and the United States. The countries at the bottom of the index are all in sub-Saharan Africa: Sierra Leone, where life expectancy stands at barely 39 years, is worst, followed by Niger, Burundi, Mozambique and Burkina Faso. The report is scheduled to be posted online at www.undp.org. The report concluded that although a majority of the world's people live in at least nominal democracies, in 106 countries political freedoms and civil rights are limited, and civil wars within countries since 1990 have cost 3.6 million lives. About 2.8 billion of the world's 6 billion people live on less than $2 a day. More than 60 countries have lower per capita incomes now than they did in 1990. Democracy doesn't seem to be responding to the real agenda of the world's poor, Malloch Brown said. The report says that money politics serving special interest groups is of concern to voters in democracies as divergent as the United States, where corporate contributions rose to $1.2 billion in the 2000 election, and India, where 80 percent of funds for major political parties in a 1996 election came from large corporations. Voter turnout seems to be declining everywhere, the report found. Polls often show a dwindling confidence in democracy and the free market, most recently in Latin America, the report said. The failure of rich nations to expand free trade rapidly enough to make a difference to struggling economies is a factor in this, United Nations officials say. Sometimes, the report found, new democratic hopes unmet by elected governments lead to public disgust for the system and regression to military rule. Experts often cite Pakistan, where corrupt and inefficient elected governments in the 1990s were exposed and hammered by a free press. So there was little public opposition when General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999. More recently in Zimbabwe, a suspect election has contributed to a precipitous economic slide and laid the ground for political strife. Looking around the world, the report found banks, courts and government institutions under strain, often because of corruption or political pressures. It found electoral processes subverted by fraud as well as heavy-handed politics. Perhaps sensing their vulnerability, many governments are asking the United Nations Development Program for more help in handling law and order. The organization, which is involved in training police officers in Afghanistan, Mozambique and Haiti, will spend 60 percent of its aid budget this year on what is generally called governance - the proper functioning of democratic institutions, including Parliaments. Only
RE: Re: Re: The D word surfaces
Title: RE: [PEN-L:28405] Re: Re: The D word surfaces Bill, sorry about your tired fingers, but I think you're missing the point of the discussion between Doug and myself. That's okay, since I didn't really understand it either and got bogged down in detail. I quoted Epstein Ferguson to the effect that monetary policy hadn't been applied because of bank influence, agreeing with what you say below. On the other hand, Doug was saying that it was applied -- since the discount rate fell a lot -- but didn't work. As far as I'm concerned, both can be true: I don't think monetary policy works well at all in situations like 1929-32 or 2001-?. On the other hand, I don't think it was even tried in 1929-32. Both of these are strikes against the MF, since his theory is that (a) monetary policy rules the roost; and (b) if intelligent people like him run monetary policy, it will prevent depressions and similar mishaps. Jim -Original Message- From: Bill Lear To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 7/23/2002 5:59 PM Subject: [PEN-L:28405] Re: Re: The D word surfaces On Tuesday, July 23, 2002 at 18:58:14 (-0400) Doug Henwood writes: Devine, James wrote: I'd have to look again at this, but the Fed often has let the discount rate follow the market -- and market rates were clearly falling. According to Friedman Schwartz, market rates may have fallen more than the discount rate: Though discount rates fell absolutely [before Oct. 1930], it probably rose relative to the relevant market interest rates, namely, those on short-term securities with essentially zero risk of default. (_The Great Contraction_, p. 45.) Of course, Friedman wants to blame the depression on the Fed, since it couldn't have been the result of anything intrinsic to capitalism. It had to be bad state policy - stupid Fed and Smoot-Hawley. ... in the United States the fear of the Member Banks lest they should be unable to cover their expenses is an obstacle to the adoption of a wholehearted cheap money policy. --- J. M. Keynes, September 1932 This quote from Keynes is found in Monetary Policy, Loan Liquidation, and Industrial Conflict: The Federal Reserve and the Open Market Operations of 1932 by Gerald Epstein and Thomas Ferguson, in Ferguson's *Golden Rule*. According to Epstein and Ferguson: In the summer of 1929, output and employment in the American economy began falling. After the stock market crash in late October, the decline turned into a catastrophic rout. By mid-1930, the United States, along with many other countries, was clearly sliding into deep depression. Yet the Federal Reserve System, widely trumpeted in the 1920s as the final guarantor of financial stability, did very little to offset what soon developed into the greatest deflation in American history. For two long years the Fed maintained its posture of Jovian indifference. On occasion the New York Fed promoted very modest increases in liquidity; discount rates were lowered and flurries of open market purchases occurred, but nothing more. They note that in spring of 1932 the Fed came to life after passage of the Glass-Steagall Act and worked to infuse cash into the Reserve's member banks. However, this policy was short-lived and by the summer of 1932, the Fed effectively abandoned the new policy. The thrust of the essay is to highlight the potentially disastrous consequences of one of the Fed's most basic structural characteristics: its dual responsibility for both the health of the member banks and the welfare of the economy as a whole. Before launching into this effort, Epstein and Ferguson briefly review and critique standard accounts, including that of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz. Of this account, they point out: Friedman and Schwartz's account of the making of monetary policy in this period ... emphasizes domestic concerns and underestimates the role international economic considerations, especially a concern for protection of the gold stock and maintenance of the gold standard, played in the making of policy throughout most of the period of 1929 to 1932 although Friedman and Schwartz are correct in claiming the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act of early 1932 temporarily alleviated the free gold problem for the Federal Reserve System as a whole, they are mistaken in dismissing both gold and the international economy as constraints thereafter. To see how the international economy affected Fed policy after the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932, however, it is necessary to break with the tradition of analyzing the Fed's actions in terms of their effects on broad categories, such as the total gold stock, the balance of payments, or the national income. One must look in detail at the microeconomics of the banking sector to identify how various actions of the Fed potentially affected bank profitability at different points in time. If, following Stigler, Posner, and other recent analysts of the symbiosis of regulator
US Israeli politics
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia, is being attacked by AIPAC for supporting peace and justice in the Middle East. Some people are supporting her upcoming bid to remain on Capitol Hill. Seth Sandronsky Peace and Justice Forces Rally to McKinney By Frances M. Beal AIPAC, the American Israel Political Affairs Committee is tasting blood with the defeat of Earl Hilliard in Alabama. The U.S. Congressman had enraged the Zionist lobbying group by often voting against legislation that one-sidedly favored Israel and introducing a bill to drop sanctions against Libya and Iraq. AIPAC is now aiming its big financial and political fangs at Cynthia McKinney from Georgia's 4th congressional district. She faces a primary runoff on August 20th, which for all intents and purposes, determines the general election with an overwhelmingly Democrat constituency. Her stance on a balanced Mid East policy and her outspoken criticism of the Israeli occupation army has enraged AIPAC and it has arranged for hundreds of thousands of dollars to be poured into her opponent's campaign coffers. McKinney's Black female opponent is a former Judge who was appointed by Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia democrat who initially appointed this Jonetta come lately to the bench. He has joined the AIPAC chorus with an unprecedented assault on Democratic Party colleague McKinney. Thus, AIPAC is joined in this all-sided assault by the local and national apparatus of the Democratic Party because of McKinney's views on peace, human rights and civil liberties. The question posed sharply is whether progressives will permit AIPAC and the Dixiecrats to foist Israeli policy on voters as the defining issue for the mainly Black district in the Atlanta suburb McKinney represents. More importantly, will they tolerate AIPAC to further subvert 37 years of struggle to implement the 1965 Voting Rights Act by its use of the discriminatory campaign financing laws to oust an African American woman whose outstanding performance on a peace and justice agenda has earned her the hatred of the racists and the war mongers. Months of slanderous assaults have been directed at this first African American congresswoman from Georgia, including labeling her a loony for suggesting that the Bush Administration be investigated for what it may or may not have known and failed to act upon about the tragic events of September 11th. Even though she has been vindicated by subsequent exposures, the attacks on McKinney's intemperate remarks continue unabated. Black politicians, however, are beginning to feel threatened by outside support of Black stooges and have begun to mobilize on behalf of McKinney, the first African American female elected to the U.S. Congress from Georgia. The Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials (GABEO) unanimously adopted a resolution on June 22nd accusing Zell Miller of scurrilous comments and demanded that he repair his relations with the Black community by offering McKinney the same respect given to other elected leaders in the state of Georgia. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, on the other hand, has been unrelenting in it attempts to discredit McKinney. [She] has shown herself to be a fringe lunatic, well outside the congressional mainstream, writes Cynthia Tucker in a typical commentary. She asserts that McKinney is incapable of aiding Any cause, and exhibiting an astonishing level of hypocrisy writes, The plight of the Palestinians and their desire for an independent homeland is a serious cause deserving of thoughtful, mainstream advocates. Hilliard wasn't one and neither is McKinney. The problem with Tucker's own intemperate remarks is that there are no thoughtful, mainstream advocates prepared to take up the defense of Palestinian sovereign rights. But there are others, and they are determined to build a financial and political fight back to protect the outspoken advocate that is not afraid of AIPAC's vilification nor its financial war chests. Nevertheless, spirit and courage alone do not win campaigns in the year 2002. It takes grassroots organizing combined with financial support -lots and lots of financial support. A national grassroots campaign to provide Cynthia McKinney with the necessary funds to fend off AIPAC's blood lust has emerged from coast to coast. Peace and justice forces nationwide are combining with local Black political organizations to draw a line in the sand. Noting, We must stand by those who stand by us, CAIR-PAC, a Moslem based group has called for its members to step forward and donate to McKinney's campaign. Her victory will also give strength to those other members of Congress who also want to vote their conscience on issues relating to the Middle East CAIR-PAC concludes. Other Arab American groups are also soliciting their members for financial support for her re-election efforts. Typical of the peace forces galvanizing support
the inadequacies of democracy
Robert A. Dahl, whose new book's title asks the question How Democratic Is the American Constitution? (Yale; $19.95), is not a crank. He is the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale, and he is about as covered with honors as a scholar can be. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a corresponding fellow of the British Academy; a recipient of the Talcott Parsons Prize, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, and the James Madison Award of the American Political Science Association, of which he is a past president. He is the author of twenty-three books and textbooks, several of which are considered definitive landmarks in the field. His peers revere him. He has been called the premier democratic theorist of our time by Fred I. Greenstein, of Princeton; the premier analyst of democratic theory and democratic institutions writing today by James S. Fishkin, of the University of Texas; and the foremost political theorist of this generation by Theodore J. Lowi, of Cornell. Robert Dahl is eighty-six years old. He knows what he is talking about. And he thinks that the Constitution has got something the matter with it. http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?020729crbo_books
