Re: [Marxism] Can somebody translate into English a debate which looks likely had occured on Russian TV?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * on Freitag, 14. August 2015 at 21:31, Anthony Brain via Marxism wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zqTCLvayrc The only thing I can say on this that its from a series of Documentary Films by Vremya, the main evening newscast program by Channel Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vremya The format of a discussion of a moderator with two experts in the studio with phone in from the public lets think that it is at least somewhat controversial, maybe even leaning towards defending stalinism. But my Russian is by far too weak for discerning what the different people do say. Another publication prompted by the 70th anniversary of the assination of Trotsky. There will be more on all media. Cheers, Lüko Willms _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Latin American Currencies Are Hit by Rate Fears and China’s Yuan Move
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * WSJ, August 18 2015 Latin American Currencies Are Hit by Rate Fears and China’s Yuan Move By CAROLYN CUI Currencies in major Latin American countries are tumbling in the face of falling commodity prices, a sluggish growth outlook in China and fears of an imminent rate increase by the Federal Reserve. This year, the Colombian peso has lost 21% of its value against the dollar, hitting a record low, while the Chilean peso and Mexican peso have depreciated by 12% and 10%, respectively. Latin America has been at the forefront of a global selloff in emerging markets ahead of an expected increase in U.S. interest rates as the American economy improves. With rates low in the U.S., investors had flocked to emerging markets, where yields were higher and assets denominated in foreign currencies held out the promise of potential profits. Many economies in the region also rely heavily on exports of commodities, and, therefore, the economic strength of China, which in recent years has been a big consumer of commodities. The latest bout of currency weakness was in part triggered by last week’s devaluation of the Chinese currency. A cheaper yuan would hurt China’s purchasing power for commodities produced in Latin America, such as copper and oil. China is the biggest consumer of Chile’s copper, while Colombia and Mexico ship a significant amount of crude oil to China. On Monday, prices of copper and oil futures both fell to six-year lows on fears of weaker Chinese growth. “These headwinds have really concentrated on Latin American currencies,” said Nick Verdi, a foreign-exchange strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York. Emerging-market currencies, as a whole, have been losing value as the dollar has rallied this year. Weakening economic growth in the world’s developing countries, coupled with the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates, has put downward pressure on the currencies. Due to the lack of growth and the central banks’ easy monetary-policy stances, these currencies will remain under pressure as the Fed approaches its first rate increase, analysts say. “What we need to stabilize the currencies is growth [in the region], and after growth, a tightening cycle. But the earliest [we can get it] is probably sometime next year,” said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America strategy at investment bank Jefferies Co. in New York. Some analysts say the weaker currencies are also a result of heightened investor interest in Latin America. Some long-term investors have bought up Latin American stocks and bonds amid the recent slump, and, at the same time, have made bearish bets against those currencies as a way to hedge the potential downside risk. These hedges put downward pressure on the currencies. “You have a lot of foreign investors, even local investors, hedging the currency exposure, which gives you a second round of weakness in the currencies,” said Mario Castro, a Latin America strategist with Nomura Securities. During the first seven months of the year, Latin America was the largest recipient of investment flows among all emerging-market regions, eclipsing emerging Asia, according to the Institute of International Finance. In total, foreign investors purchased a net $62.9 billion in equities and bonds in Latin American countries, compared with $57.8 billion for Asia. Within the region, Chile and Mexico stood out as investors’ favorites. In Chile, investors have been comforted by the country’s political stability and low debt burden, thanks to years of fiscal discipline. The government is also able to tap a stabilization fund accumulated during years of high commodity prices to help the economy. Standard Poor’s Ratings Services says Chile had saved about 12% of its gross domestic product as of June 2015. In July, Chile saw an inflow of about $4.5 billion, according to Scotiabank. A recent report by SP says the Chilean government’s net debt will probably stay low despite plans for more international issuance. It expects the net debt level to remain below 7% of GDP over the next three years. Investors have been watching Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet’s recent reforms, which have hurt business confidence. The reforms include increased taxes to pay for an education overhaul, as well as plans to strengthen unions and make changes to the constitution. For Mexico, investors are betting on its exporting sector to benefit from a rebounding U.S. economy, due to the close trade ties between the countries. Meanwhile, spreads between Mexican government bonds and U.S. Treasurys remain attractive, with the spread on the
[Marxism] Fwd: The Inevitable Putin/Le Pen Alliance Is So On - The Daily Beast
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The party led by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is moving into Moscow’s orbit. And it has everything to do with domestic politics. Last month, a delegation of ten French members of parliament, mainly from the center-right main opposition party Les Républicains visited Russia and Crimea in a trip destined to “understand how the population really lives” and fight “disinformation from Western media.” The visit was organized, and apparently funded, by the “Russian Foundation for Peace,” an organization headed by Leonid Slutsky, a Duma member of the ultra-nationalist LDPR, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party. Slutsky, who has been sanctioned by the E.U. and U.S., praised the visit as “the largest delegation of Western politicians and parliamentarians since the “Crimean Spring.” full: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/18/the-inevitable-putin-le-pen-alliance-is-so-on.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Boycott the witch hunt into Australian trade unions
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Boycott the witch hunt into Australian trade unions Labor and the unions could refuse to have anything more to do with the Royal Commission into trade unions because of Heydon's perceived bias. This opens up those who have been subpoenaed and refuse to appear to fines of up to $1000 or six months imprisonment. Although this is a strict liability crime, if the person has a reasonable excuse for not appearing then that is a defence. And what could be more reasonable than not appearing at a Royal Commission because of the perceived bias of the Commissioner? Read more here. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/08/18/boycott-the-witch-hunt-into-trade-unions/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: A Child of Two Empires in an Age of Nuclear War - The Los Angeles Review of Books
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I first heard Roosevelt’s famous day that will live in infamy speech while sitting on the steps of the circular staircase at the old Japanese embassy in Washington. I was nine years old. I would encounter those words again in March 2003 in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece written by the esteemed establishment historian Arthur Schlesinger, who served in President John F. Kennedy’s cabinet. Schlesinger wrote, “Franklin Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy.” The occasion was the American invasion of Iraq, which initiated a war of choice against a country that posed no threat to the United States. The United Nations declared the invasion illegal. Secretary General Kofi Anan stated: “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal.” The UN Charter was forged to create a bulwark against aggression “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.” We have committed terrible crimes — aggression, torture, detention without trial, the use of chemical weapons and depleted uranium against civilians, continuous drone terror — yet no one has gone to jail and there are few signs that our rampage will end any time soon. We’re now in late summer. The year is 2015. I’ll soon be 83 years old. My memories of the distant past grow ever sharper and more distinct, while finding my glasses is one of the day’s pressing challenges. Much as I would like to believe otherwise, the portents for those I must soon leave behind are not promising. Our “leaders” have again turned a blind eye to the dangers we face. Nuclear war continues to threaten our survival. Fukushima continues to bleed nuclear waste into the ocean. Japan was able to rebuild after the war, but we are fast approaching ecological and climate-tipping points from which our best scientists warn there will be no return. Vast resources are wasted on the “military industrial congressional complex,” to use President Eisenhower’s phrase, while the imperatives of empire and the corporate state threaten the liberties our massive armaments are theoretically intended to defend. War and aggression remain constants in international relations. full: https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/a-child-of-two-empires-in-an-age-of-nuclear-war _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: CADTM - Greece and beyond: Capitalism versus Democracy in Europe
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * by Michael Lowy Let us have a closer look at some of these all-powerful “experts”. Where do they come from ? Mario Draghi, the head of the Central European Bank, is a former manager of Goldman Sachs; Mario Monti, former European Commissionar, is also a former adviser to Goldman Sachs. Monti and Papademos are members of the Trilateral Commission, a very select club of politicians and bankers that discuss what to do next. The President of the European Trilateral is Peter Sutherland, former European Commissionner, and former manager at Goldman Sachs; the vice-president of the Trilateral, Vladimir Dlouhy, former Czech Minister of Economy, is now adviser to Goldman Sachs for Eastern Europe. In other words ; the “experts” in charge of saving Europe from the crisis used to work for one of the banks directly responsible for the sub-prime crisis in the United States. This doesn’t mean that there is a conspiracy to deliver Europe to Goldman Sachs, it only illustrates the oligarchic nature of the “experts” elite ruling the Union. full: http://cadtm.org/Greece-and-beyond-Capitalism _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Racism and the “Overhunting” hypothesis | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * From the green capitalist: When seventeenth-century New England towns are compared with those of the nineteenth century, with their commercial agriculture, wage workers, and urban industrialism, the transition between the two may well seem to be that from a subsistence to a capitalist society. Certainly Marxists wedded to a definition of capitalism in terms of relations between labor and capital must have trouble seeing it in New England towns. Most early farmers owned their own land, hired few wage laborers, and produced mainly for their own use. Markets were hemmed in by municiple regulations, high transportation costs, and medieval notions of the just price. In none of these ways does it seem reasonable to describe colonial New England as 'capitalist.' And yet when colonial towns are compared not with their industrial successors but with their Indian predecessors, they begin to look more like market societies, the seeds of whose capitalist future were already present. The earliest explorers' descriptions of the New England coast had been framed from the start in terms of the land's commodities. Although an earlier English meaning of the word 'commodity' had referred simply to articles which were 'commodious' and hence useful to people - a definition Indians would readily have understood - that meaning was already becoming archaic by the seventeenth century. In its place was the commodity as an object of commerce, one by definition owned for the sole purpose of being traded away at a profit. Certain items of the New England landscape - fish, furs, timber, and a few others - were thus selected at once for early entrance into the commercial economy of the North Atlantic. They became valued not for the immediate utility they brought their possessors but for the price they would bring when exchanged at market. In trying to explain ecological changes related to these commodities, we can safely point to market demand as the key causal agent. The trade in commodities involved only a small group of merchants, but they exercised an influence over the New England economy beyond their numbers. Located principally in the coastal cities they rapidly came to control shipping and so acted as New England's main link to the Atlantic economy...But the famers had their own involvement in the Atlantic economy, however distant it might have been. Even if they only produced a small surplus for market, they nevertheless used it to buy certain goods from the merchants - manufactured textiles, tropical foodstuffs, guns, metal tools - which were essential elements in their lives. The grain and meat which farmers sold, if not shipped to Carribean and European markets, were used to supply port cities and the 'invisible trade' of colonial shipping...Taxes [also played a role and] had the important effect of forcing a certain degree of colonial production beyond the level of mere 'subsistence', and orienting that surplus toward market exchange. But the most important sense in which it is wrong to describe colonial towns as subsistence communities follows from their inhabitants' belief in 'improvement', the concept which was so crucial in their critique of Indian life. Colonists were moved to transform the soil by a property system that taught them to treat land as capital. Fixed boundaries and the liberties of 'free and common socage' assured a family that improvements belonged to them and to their heirs. The existence of commerce, however marginal, led them to see certain things on the land as merchantable commodities. The visible increase in livestock and crops thus translated into an abstract money value that was reflected in tax assessments, in the inventories of estates, and in the growing market...Here was a definition of transferrable wealth few precolonial Indians would probably have recognized: if labor was not yet an alienated commodity available for increasing capital, land was. ...Because the Indians lacked the incentives of money and commerce, [Europeans] thought, they failed to improve their land and so remained a people devoid of welath and comfort. What the Europeand failed to notice was that the Indians did not recognize themselves as poor. The endless accumulation of capital which they saw as a natural consequence of the human love for wealth made little sense to them. Marshall Sahlins has pointed out that there are in fact too ways to be rich, one of which was rarely recognized by Europeans in the seventeenth-century. 'Want,' Sahlins says, 'may be 'easily satisfied' either by producing much or desiring little.' Pierre Biard, who noticed
[Marxism] Fwd: Venezuela: ‘Terrorised by oil price drop’ - FT.com
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * When a frustrated mother threw a mango at Nicolás Maduro in April, hitting him on the head, she could never have guessed the outcome: the Venezuelan president promised his homeless attacker a new apartment. Others are not so lucky. Lolimar Gelis and her family lost their home in 2010 when a mudslide destroyed their shanty town, forcing them to take shelter at a military garrison in the west of the capital, Caracas. Despite appeals to the country’s leaders, the family is still waiting to be rehoused via a scheme launched by Mr Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. The Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela was originally designed to help the families affected by the disaster. But its scale — to erect 3m homes by 2019 — transformed it into a grand project. One that supporters say will meet the country’s soaring housing needs and critics deride as an expensive act of electoral politics that the country — which holds the world’s largest oil reserves — can no longer afford. “They promised us a house, and after years we have got nothing,” says Lolimar’s daughter, Diveana. “Now they are threatening to kick us out of the shelter. In the current economic crisis, I fear we are not going to get a house.” She is almost certainly right. Amid lower oil prices, Venezuela is struggling to maintain the social spending that characterised the Chávez era. Crude accounts for 96 per cent of export revenues: a halving in the oil price over the past 14 months means revenues have slumped by about $36bn compared with the average of the previous two years, when the government raked in almost $79bn. full: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c9c4b05c-0b81-11e5-994d-00144feabdc0.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A dispatch from the looney-bin
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Silliness to be sure but i hope these reports aren't true: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/19356-is-there-systematic-ethnic-cleansing-by-kurds-in-north-east-syria 18 авг. 2015 г., в 8:21, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu написал(а): POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Kurdish Leaders Join Imperialist Onslaught Down With U.S. War Against ISIS! The U.S. bombing of reactionary ISIS forces in Syria is the latest episode in the imperialist wars and occupations that have laid waste to Iraq and other parts of the Near East and touched off spiraling communal and ethnic bloodletting. Since the start of U.S. operations against ISIS in northern Iraq on August 8, scores of civilians as well as hundreds of fighters have been killed. Cynically launched in the name of “humanitarian” assistance to Shiites, Kurds, Christians, Yazidis and others threatened by the ISIS cutthroats, the imperialist onslaught is aimed at reinforcing the U.S. hold over the Near East, with the Obama administration offering the prospect of many more years of war. It is the duty of class-conscious workers everywhere, particularly in the U.S., to oppose the bombing campaign and all other wars and occupations carried out by the imperialists. Hands off Iraq and Syria! All U.S. forces out of the Near East! full: http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1055/isis.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/shalva.eliava%40outlook.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A dispatch from the looney-bin
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https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/officials-islamic-state-arose-from-us-support-for-al-qaeda-in-iraq-a37c9a60be4
On 18 August 2015 at 13:26, Shalva Eliava via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:
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Silliness to be sure but i hope these reports aren't true:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/19356-is-there-systematic-ethnic-cleansing-by-kurds-in-north-east-syria
18 авг. 2015 г., в 8:21, Louis Proyect via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu написал(а):
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Kurdish Leaders Join Imperialist Onslaught
Down With U.S. War Against ISIS!
The U.S. bombing of reactionary ISIS forces in Syria is the latest
episode in the imperialist wars and occupations that have laid waste to
Iraq and other parts of the Near East and touched off spiraling communal
and ethnic bloodletting. Since the start of U.S. operations against ISIS in
northern Iraq on August 8, scores of civilians as well as hundreds of
fighters have been killed. Cynically launched in the name of “humanitarian”
assistance to Shiites, Kurds, Christians, Yazidis and others threatened by
the ISIS cutthroats, the imperialist onslaught is aimed at reinforcing the
U.S. hold over the Near East, with the Obama administration offering the
prospect of many more years of war. It is the duty of class-conscious
workers everywhere, particularly in the U.S., to oppose the bombing
campaign and all other wars and occupations carried out by the
imperialists. Hands off Iraq and Syria! All U.S. forces out of the Near
East!
full: http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1055/isis.html
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * on Dienstag, 18. August 2015 at 19:27, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: has an unrealistic take on the amount of work it would take to modify Greek computer systems to handle a return to the drachma. Reading your article leaves me open mouthed unable to understand the problem which you seem trying to solve. I can't see one. One would simply declare all bank accounts to be in the New Drachma instead of Euro, and that's it. Either 1:1 or at a given exchange rate. Just as it happened in the other direction, when the national currencies where converted by a given exchange rate (fixed a few years before) to Euro. In the German case, the exchange rate was fixed to 1.95583 DEM/EUR. And the account was changed from being made out in DEM to made out in EUR. The GDR people had two changes in one decade, first from DDR-Mark to DEM, then from DEM to EUR. Cash was changed by the banks in the given exchange rate. What the fuck are you fantasizing about? The only problem is to have the neccesary amoung of coins and bills in the new currency, and producing that takes time. Cheers, Lüko Willms _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Recently I learned that an EBook on Amazon.com titled “Austerity, Greece’s Debt Crisis and the Theft of Democracy” included a chapter titled “The Information Technology Problem” that discussed my articles on Naked Capitalism and those of Australian economist Billy Mitchell who has an unrealistic take on the amount of work it would take to modify Greek computer systems to handle a return to the drachma. Joseph Firestone, the author of the EBook, has a PhD in Political Science from Michigan State, over 150 articles to his name, and an extensive background in IT but mostly at the management level. Right now he is the Chief Knowledge Officer of a company called Executive Information Systems, a title that most likely has something to do with Knowledge Management, his area of expertise. This is apparently a field that has emerged since 1991 but one that somehow managed to elude Columbia University where I worked from that year until my retirement in 2012. There will be something about it later in this article by another expert in the field. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/08/18/once-more-on-it-and-a-return-to-the-drachma/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Iran Deal Round Table
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/22310/imeu-interview_the-iran-nuclear-agreement-and-the- - Amith _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Well now Ralph- I side with Louis on the possible complexities of an IT project (been through a few myself), but it's one of those if you ain't been there, you wouldn't understand kinds of things. While the technological developments since the first trash 80 computer (and its ilk) have been truly incredible, Louis and others can easily make a list of multi-million dollar projects that failed miserably. Maybe, since I gather none of us is actually going to be in Athens programming the changes, we should just sit back and watch? (With fingers crossed, of course.) - Bill On 08/18/2015 4:41 PM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/18/15 2:12 PM, Lüko Willms wrote: * * Reading your article leaves me open mouthed unable to understand the problem which you seem trying to solve. I can't see one.Don't blame me. I once tried to explain to my mom what I did for a living. I should also say that when Peter Camejo used to try to explain butterfly spreads in covered option calls (or whatever the fuck it was he had in my portfolio), my eyes would glaze over as well. Come on, Lou, funny ha ha but you can do better. I'm not that good at bullet points either, but with a little time devoted to it there are relatively straightforward ways to make the complex intelligible - if that's really the problem here. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/quimbywm%40gmail.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Tale of Two Beaches - Tel Aviv and Gaza
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Irene Gendzier paints contrasting images of Tel Aviv and Gaza that deserve to be extended as they frequently apply to coverage of Israel and Gaza, as well as the West Bank, where Israeli policies of dehumanization and destruction are a constant feature of occupation. Turning away from its consequences, such as the burning of an infant and family in the Palestinian village of Duma on the West Bank in early August, is not an example of detachment but complicity. http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2015-08-18/irene-gendzier-two-beaches-tel-aviv-gaza/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * on Dienstag, 18. August 2015 at 23:07, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: I have written 3 articles now on IT issues relating to the Grexit. which I have not read because first Grexit doesnt interest me, and secondly because I can't see any IT issue with that catastrophy for the Greek workers, and thirdly because I do not break my head to solve political problems for the bourgeoisie. It is a bit hard to explain the issues to non-IT people but basically they involve understanding that mainframe systems are written in COBOL, some, and large parts of it, but the banks are working hard to change that. a language that is not easy to modify even when you have defined the requirements. depends on how good or badly written the program is. COBOL has been my specialty as application programmer, and I had written a handbook for my colleagues at that mainframe computer company on how to write COBOL programs compatible to all three operating systems and very different hardware architectures. I have made it a rule that no GOTO may be written without the corresponding COME FROM. In essence, converting existing banking systems to the drachma is like finding a needle in a haystack. Whenever a program refers to some currency amount that is being used as a limit (such as checking to make sure that an account has a certain amount to make it eligible for free checking), you have to make sure that it is adjusted for the drachma. For the number cruncher, it is irrelevant if the account is denominated in EUR or GRN (for Greek New Drachma). The program code might look like this: if account_total 1000 perform free_checking_rtn for one, I don't know in how far such primitive payment system as checks are still being used in Greece, but I know from news reports that many of the old age pensioners do not have bank accounts at all, but rely completely on cash. Here in Germany, payment by check is completely irrelevant. I have not filled out a single check form for at least a decade, maybe even more. Most payments, if not in cash, are done by direct transfer from account to account, or direct debit, or card payments with either direct debit or credit cards. That piece of code assumes that you are talking about 1000 euros but if you switch to a drachma, it would have to be modified to reflect a different amount such as 1. As said: For the number cruncher, it is irrelevant if the account is denominated in EUR or GRN (for Greek New Drachma). And: Greece joined the Euro only in 2001, two years later than the official start. The fixed exchange rate was 340.750 GRD (Greek Drachma) for 1 Euro, so the financial systems had been capable to deal with not simply one digit more, but 2 digits more than in Euro. And please consider that the biggest industry in Greece is shipping, and the shippers are accustomed to work in USD anyway, and to convert USD to GRD, and USD to EUR. A New Drachma (in my abreviation GRN) would not have to calculate such an odd exchange rate, but could start with a 1:1 relation to the Euro, before the GRN falls into the abyss of a 100:1 exchange rate of GRN/EUR. These odd exchange rates had been necessary because 19 countries had to synchronise their currencies to a common one. A country leaving the Eurozone for a solitary existence could easily start with a 1:1 conversion, and then let the new currency float against EUR, USD, GBP etc. When the Greek bankers and businesses have managed the transistion from GRD to EUR by 340.750:1, then they should be able to cope with a 1:1 change from EUR to GRN. And especially I can't understand why this which doctor Varofakis thinks that the devaluation of the Greek currency needs a new payment system. But, as I said, Grexit is something which I rather want to avoid, and I am not interested in preparing it. Cheers, Lüko Willms _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Unknown Citizen
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The Unknown Citizen W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973 (To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Work Policies May Be Kinder, but Brutal Competition Isn’t
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, August 18 2015 Work Policies May Be Kinder, but Brutal Competition Isn’t By NOAM SCHEIBER On Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, across the legal profession and the corporate world, a growing chorus of companies are singing the praises of a kinder workplace, announcing policies like generous maternity leave at Netflix, and Goldman Sachs’s rule against investment-banking analysts working on Saturdays. But a closer look at the forces that drive the relentless pace at elite companies suggests that — however much the most sought-after employers in the country may be changing their official policies — brutal competition remains an inescapable component of workers’ daily lives. In some ways it’s getting worse. “Jimmy Carter tried to get a rule in place for his executive White House staff to be gone and having dinner with their family in the evening, and it broke down,” said Robert H. Frank, a prominent economist at Cornell University who writes often for The New York Times. “In a competitive environment, that’s what you get.” As Professor Frank, who has written a book about the phenomenon known as winner-take-all economics, explains, the basic problem is that the rewards for ascending to top jobs at companies like Netflix and Goldman Sachs are not just enormous, they are also substantially greater than at companies in the next tier down. As a result, far more people are interested in these jobs than there are available slots, leading to the brutal competition that plays out at companies where only the best are destined for partnerships or senior management positions. This phenomenon was the focus of a recent New York Times article about workplace practices at Amazon. In the article, some current and former employees complained of 80-hour work weeks, interrupted vacations, co-worker sabotage and little tolerance even for those struggling with life-threatening illnesses or family tragedies. (Amazon has cast doubt on whether these practices are widespread at the company.) The account appeared to put Amazon at odds with recent workplace trends, but the reality, experts say, is not nearly so neat: Grueling competition remains perhaps the defining feature of the upper echelon in today’s white-collar workplace. If anything, analysts point out, Amazon offers at least one major advantage over many other companies, which is that its founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, has created a culture in which employees typically know exactly where they stand. “It’s a super attention-rich environment,” said Marcus Buckingham, an author and founder of the firm TMBC, which advises large companies on employee evaluation and performance. “There’s a lot of critical attention. They’re almost never ignored.” The legal profession, one of the most brutal when it comes to pace and time commitment, illuminates the economic logic of a system where a large initial cohort of workers is gradually culled until only a small fraction are left. This small fraction then has access to the enormous wealth and prestige that survivors in this ultimate reality show are granted. The so-called Cravath system, named after the prestigious New York law firm known today as Cravath, Swaine Moore, began to be put in place in the early 20th century. The firm and its imitators hired a large class of entry-level associates from the top law schools in the country, then relentlessly sifted them out over a period of several years, at the end of which only the most brilliant and productive — historically about one in 10 or 15 — became partners. Those who did not make partner got first-rate legal training along the way, though, and were almost always able to land respectable jobs at lesser firms or as in-house corporate lawyers. For Cravath, it was also a plus: The partners made good money billing out its associates at top-of-market rates. Over the decades, an increasing number of young law school graduates have chafed at the punishing Cravath model. A recent report by the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, cited survey data of big-firm lawyers showing work-life balance to be a top concern. But because a partnership at the likes of Cravath, or Sullivan Cromwell, remains such a coveted prize, the top firms can still count on a large surplus of young lawyers willing to defer their personal lives for the better part of a decade for a shot at a partnership. “The model is alive and well and working wonderfully in major New York law firms,” said William Henderson, an expert on law firm economics at the Indiana University
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/18/15 4:41 PM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism wrote: Come on, Lou, funny ha ha but you can do better. I'm not that good at bullet points either, but with a little time devoted to it there are relatively straightforward ways to make the complex intelligible - if that's really the problem here. I have written 3 articles now on IT issues relating to the Grexit. Most of the people who have engaged with my arguments on Naked Capitalism are very experienced IT people like myself. It is a bit hard to explain the issues to non-IT people but basically they involve understanding that mainframe systems are written in COBOL, a language that is not easy to modify even when you have defined the requirements. In essence, converting existing banking systems to the drachma is like finding a needle in a haystack. Whenever a program refers to some currency amount that is being used as a limit (such as checking to make sure that an account has a certain amount to make it eligible for free checking), you have to make sure that it is adjusted for the drachma. The program code might look like this: if account_total 1000 perform free_checking_rtn That piece of code assumes that you are talking about 1000 euros but if you switch to a drachma, it would have to be modified to reflect a different amount such as 1. Finding code that relies on such evaluations is very difficult since programmers cannot be relied upon to name data in an appropriate manner. For example, 'account_total' is fairly meaningful but there's nothing to prevent a programmer from calling it a_tot. We spent a year at Columbia University in a Y2K conversion just locating date fields that had to be changed from mmddyy to mmdd. Good programming practices dictates calling fields something like acceptance_date in a student information system but nothing prevents a programmer from calling it a_dt. Shit happens. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (Got a chuckle out of this comment on my latest article, coming apparently from someone in the Communist Party in Virginia, of all places...) I have really enjoyed this series of articles Louis. As someone who is just starting out on the path of working in IT even I can attest to how a seemingly simple task can grow mind-bogglingly difficult given the quirks various software packages have. Combining those little quirks with integrated systems using various different technologies that would each require experts to evaluate and implement changes would indeed be very difficult. Sure, it could be done. However a change on this scale would require both time and resources that Greece probably doesn’t have if the switch were to work as intended and make the Greek economy competitive through devaluation. Without proper planning and sufficient resources I could easily see the entire Greek financial system grinding to a screeching halt. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Battle of Island Mound: the First Action by Black Soldiers in the Civil War
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * A local history presentation those interested in the subject may enjoy . . . http://cjonline.com/news/2015-08-11/battle-island-mound-first-fighting-civil-war-any-black-troops I wrote about these folks in _Race and Radicalism in the Union Army_ and regard them as one of the most interesting Federal regiments of the Civil War. Among its officers was Dick Hinton, the old Chartist who rode with John Brown in Kansas and, after the war, became an important founder of the socialist movement in the U.S. ML _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
