Re: [Marxism] Unionization rate drops to 6.9% in private sector
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-23, at 6:45 AM, Lenin's Tomb wrote: The reality is that unionisation is low because the working class was defeated by a combination of imperialism, the domestic slaveocracy and the peculiar binding force of anticommunist nationalism. The major defeats for organised labour and the Left in the country as a whole in 1919-21, then in the South in 1934-6, then as a result of the anticommunist purges in the period from 1947-56, then from 1978 onward have all shared different combinations of these elements. Actually, for most of the period described above, through to the end of the twentieth century, the unionization rate rose steadily in line with US global manufacturing supremacy. Trade unions were born, grew, and fought their most militant battles prior to their legalization ( and subsequent institutionalization) by the bourgeois state, so repression of the trade unions and the left - which has been a constant feature of the conflict between the classes, varying only in degree and overtness in accordance with the tempo of that conflict - does not in itself serve as an explanation for the low rate of unionization. The preciptious decline in unionization in the core capitalist countries seems to have been due primarily to a) the increase in the relative weight of the service sector, which is structurally more difficult to organize, and b) the revolutionary advances in transportation and communications technology since the 80s coupled with the opening of vast new pools of cheaper labour in the former Soviet bloc, China, and elsewhere. This combination predictably led to a flight of Western industrial capital and the relocation of production in these new more profitable zones of exploitation. The decline in trade union density, bargaining power, consciousness, and combativity is an effect of these deeper changes, as is the correspondingly more adverse relationship of forces between capital and labour and, within the unions, between conservative officialdom and opposition caucuses. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Slow news day
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-23, at 11:55 AM, Einde O'Callaghan wrote: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE70M0QC20110123 I'm sure that nobody on this list is surprised that the Turkey - sorry Turkel - Commission has given the Israeli Defence Force a clean bill of health. Hence the subject line... Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [LBO] Surowecki on unions
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (The link to this New Yorker article was posted to the lists moderated by Julio Huato, Doug Henwood, and Michael Perelman, and provoked some lively discussion. The article and my comments may also be of some interest here.) On 2011-01-13, at 10:56 AM, Jim Devine wrote: Julio Huato: Opinions on this piece? http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/01/17/110117ta_talk_surowiecki Louis Proyect wrote: I'm surprised that it appeared in the wretched New Yorker. my god, this article is straightforward journalism. And it seems accurate. Unfortunately, it isn't that accurate, except with respect to what everyone already knows: that a majority of Americans are hostile to unions. But Surowiecki, like many liberals and radicals, including myself until recently, gilds the lily with respect to public support for unions under the New Deal. While it remains true that a majority of Americans, unlike today, supported the right to organize unions and to strike, a central tenet of Surowiecki's piece - that the general public applauded labor’s new power, even in the face of union tactics that many Americans frowned on, like sit-down strikes is very misleading. In a fascinating and what I regard as a groundbreaking paper published last August, “Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936–1945”, two UCal Berkeley political scientists, Eric Schickler and Devin Caughey - examined more than 400 polls by Gallup and others, including more than 200 questions relating to trade unionism, and found that most Americans in that period not only frowned on the illegal sit-down strikes, but supported state intervention to end them, were more sympathetic to employer demands for what we today call right to work laws than the closed or union shop, and favoured stripping the new CIO unions of their wartime strike rights and drafting strikers into the army. Surowiecki undoubtedly drew on the paper for his article. If so, he should have known that the more than seventy per cent of those surveyed in a 1937 Gallup poll, on which he rests his claim about mass support for labor's power under the New Deal, was a result recorded a year earlier, in July 1936 - BEFORE the sit-down strikes in the auto plants in the cold winter of 1936-37. This is a rather egregious error. Prior to the strikes, a stunning 76% responded affirmatively to the question, are you in favor of labour unions? But, as Schickler and Caughey report, in the 1937 Gallup poll, AFTER the strikes and the strike wave which it unleashed in other heavy industries, half of the respondents reported that their views had changed; of these, 70% claimed to be more negative towards unions than they had been six months earlier. During the sitdowns, polls showed a majority of Americans, particularly in the Southern states, favoring the use of force to end them. A minority of unionized workers, the unemployed, and the unskilled - those who had a real material stake in the outcome - were notably opposed. Schickler and Caughey also observe correctly that the closed shop was (and remains) a major concern for unions since the open shop would undermine their ability to gain and maintain a substantial membership base across industries. But here too poll results indicated that even during the New Deal a healthy majority of the public opposed both the closed and union shop and instead favored the open shop. They continue: Public concern about union power and tactics continued throughout the war years. For example, across a range of polls from 1941 to 1945, more than 70% of respondents supported banning strikes in war industries. In April 1944, 68% supported drafting strikers, with just 22% opposed and 10% undecided. These data suggest that the 'no strike' pledge made by union leaders following Pearl Harbor, while criticized by some observers for taming shop-floor activism (Glaberman, 1980; Lichtenstein, 1987), may well have been a necessary concession to a hostile public and Congress. The paper is accessible at: http://web.me.com/devin.caughey/Site/Research_files/SchicklerCaugheyLaborOpinion.pdf I would encourage everyone to read it in full, not only for its detailed exhumation of public attitudes to trade unionism, but also to the New Deal in general. This passage in particular caught my eye: Taken as a whole, our results suggest two ways in which the contours of public opinion posed obstacles to a social democratic agenda in the late 1930s and 1940s. First, the survey evidence suggests that at an abstract level, there was widespread skepticism towards further bold domestic policy innovations in both the South and non-South after 1937. Second, organized labor—arguably the key
Re: [Marxism] What makes Arizona's killer just a loner, not a terrorist?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-13, at 1:58 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: Loughner was *not* a terrorist. He was a psychotic who was not inspired by anything remotely resembling a political cause. He resented Giffords because she couldn't answer his question about the use of grammar in mind control of the population. This poor soul argued with his algebra teacher about how the number 8 was actually the number 16. Or, alternatively, as the Counterpunch article you posted earlier observes: The alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, is not only of the white middle/working class, his addled mind is a gross exaggeration of its contradictions and confusions. Of course Loughner is probably crazy, but his mental health—and even his ideology—are not the point. What matters is that the conflict over this frayed class alliance—and all the political vitriol it has generated by Tea Partiers and others—pointed his illness toward Gabrielle Giffords. Maybe these two conflicting interpretations can serve as a coda to what someone else has described as an overlong discussion. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Loughner's last close friend said that he ignored TV and talk radio
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == While there is no clear indication that Loughner was directly influenced by right-wing ideology - it still remains to be seen whether he was or wasn't - there seems little doubt, based on his emails and the testimony of those who knew him, that his rage, confusion, incoherence, virulent misogyny, attraction to guns and the military, dark suicidal thoughts, and immersion in a white community feeling itself under threat from an alien race(s), all fit the profile of the authoritarian personality described by Adorno and others which is typically attracted to right wing causes. I don't believe anyone has gone so far as to describe him as schizophrenic. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Loughner's last close friend said that he ignored TV and talk radio
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-12, at 6:51 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: ...I describe him as schizophrenic based on the evidence. So does the psychiatrist interviewed in Salon.com. So does another psychiatrist interviewed on CNN, but she is not unwilling to take the political context into account: BLITZER: So what makes a schizophrenic, even a paranoid schizophrenic, become dangerous? LIPMAN: It isn't even a paranoid schizophrenic, but it's especially a paranoid schizophrenic. Schizophrenics as a whole are not dangerous. A psychopath would be more dangerous. But a paranoid is afraid more than anything else, Wolf, that someone is out to get them. BLITZER: Are they hearing things? Are people talking to them in their brains? LIPMAN: Some have hallucinations and some have delusions. But the key here and the connection to Giffords is that if someone believes that the government is out to get them in a delusional way, that it's filling their mind and running through their mind, and around them is rhetoric which is hostile and chaotic, research shows that it makes the symptoms worse, that because they are paranoid and believe that people are out to get them, they believe in the threat, and in that case they act on it. And that's what I believe. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1101/11/sitroom.01.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Loughner's last close friend said that he ignored TV and talk radio
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-12, at 9:55 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: ...if someone stabbed a stranger on the street because Jesus commanded him to, we wouldn't connect this act to Christianity. A complete stranger, no. The act would be incomprehensible. It would have no evident relationship to Christianity. But if the target were an abortion provider, we might well say that the delusions which triggered the murderous act were shaped by his fundamentalist Protestant or Catholic milieu, and that the target was not a random stranger on the street, an unfortunate victim of a deranged mind. This is what I understood the psychiatrist on CNN to be saying. Loughner deliberately targeted Giffords, the widely-publicized metaphorical target of white Republicans in Arizona, and there is enough his ramblings which evoke right-wing themes, to suggest that his evidently schizophrenic behaviour can't entirely be disassociated from the social and political climate which nurtured it. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Arizona
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-10, at 5:50 PM, Mark Lause wrote: I think it's hard to take the issue of mental health out of the social context. Essentially, disturbed people don't usually take action with guns. The context made that much more permissible and acceptable than otherwise would have been the case. And the target was not random. Also, there are suggestions made by Juan Cole piece which I don't think can be entirely ignored that among the concerns that came to dominate him (Loughner) as he moved to the Right was the illegitimacy of the “Second Constitution” (the 14th Amendment, which bestows citizenship on all those born in the US, a provision right-wingers in Arizona are trying to overturn at the state level). Loughner also thought that Federal funding for his own community college was unconstitutional, and he was thrown out for becoming violent over the issue. He obviously shared with the Arizona Right a fascination with firearms… Cole could have added Loughner's effort to volunteer for the military as another marker. Giffords' father obviously thought the context was a contributing factor. Asked if his daughter had any enemies, he replied bluntly – “Yeah. The whole Tea Party.” In fact, how can a young white person - even one as disturbed as Laughner, perhaps especially as disturbed as Loughner - not be influenced by the racism which pervades that community, racist bigotry which virulently expressed itself in the recent congressional campaign against Giffords, peculiarly singled out by Palin and her followers who can't or won't distinguish between conservative and liberal Democrats? Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Arizona
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-10, at 6:47 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: In fact, how can a young white person - even one as disturbed as Laughner, perhaps especially as disturbed as Loughner - not be influenced by the racism which pervades that community, racist bigotry which virulently expressed itself in the recent congressional campaign against Giffords, peculiarly singled out by Palin and her followers who can't or won't distinguish between conservative and liberal Democrats? Let's be clear about something. This shooting is being used to promote the kind of civility that the Obama administration seeks, one in which the differences between the Republicans and Democrats would be papered over in the national interest. It is just a variant on the scary Tea Party rhetoric that is used to stampede people into voting for Democrats. Just tonight, Chris Matthews made a point about the extreme left and the extreme right jeopardizing democracy, governance, etc. It is the same crap that Jon Stewart promotes. It's predictably being used by the Democrats for partisan purposes, and more broadly by establishment politicians and commentators to encourage moderation in the wake of rising popular anger and polarization produced by the economic crisis, but that doesn't negate the point made above. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The end of the imperialist epoch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Without describing it in these blunt terms, Financial Times economic columnist Martin Wolf argues below that far away the biggest single factor about our world is the ending of Western imperialist domination of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This is a controversial thesis, particularly among Marxists and in the face of US military power, but since 1980 the relative rates of growth in output and per capita incomes between the advanced capitalist countries and their former colonies and semi-colonies have reversed dramatically. Although the statistical evidence varies, there is no dispute that in China, the epicentre of this historic change, output over the past three decades has risen from around 5% to 20% of US levels, with the trend having accelerated sharply over the past five years. As Wolf notes, citing Ben Bernanke, the aggregate real output of emerging economies was 41 per cent higher than at the start of 2005. It was 70 per cent higher in China and about 55 per cent higher in India. But, in the advanced economies, real output was just 5 per cent higher. For emerging countries, the 'great recession' was a blip. For high-income countries, it was calamitous. One can dispute Wolf's attribution of the reversal to the adoption of pro-capitalist policies by China and India, which he sees as driven by the globalization of markets and technology, and he neglects the widening disparities of income which have accompanied the process, but his conclusion is one which is now widely shared: In the past few centuries, what was once the European and then American periphery became the core of the world economy. Now, the economies that became the periphery are re-emerging as the core. This is transforming the entire world. The overheated Chinese economy may or may not be heading for an imminent bust, but as Wolf also notes, even world wars and depressions merely interrupted the rise of earlier industrialisers. If we leave aside nuclear war, nothing seems likely to halt the ascent of the big emerging countries, though it may well be delayed. -MG * * * In the grip of a great convergence By Martin Wolf Financial Times January 4 2011 Convergent incomes and divergent growth – that is the economic story of our times. We are witnessing the reversal of the 19th and early 20th century era of divergent incomes. In that epoch, the peoples of western Europe and their most successful former colonies achieved a huge economic advantage over the rest of humanity. Now it is being reversed more quickly than it emerged. This is inevitable and desirable. But it also creates huge global challenges. In an influential book, Kenneth Pomeranz of the University of California, Irvine, wrote of the “great divergence” between China and the west. He located that divergence in the late 18th and 19th centuries. This is controversial: the late Angus Maddison, doyen of statistical researchers, argued that by 1820 UK output per head was already three times and US output per head twice Chinese levels. Yet of the subsequent far greater divergence there is no doubt whatsoever. By the middle of the 20th century, real incomes per head (measured at purchasing power parity) in China and India had fallen to 5 and 7 per cent of US levels, respectively. Moreover, little had changed by 1980. What had once been the centres of global technology had fallen vastly behind. This divergence is now reversing. That is far and away the biggest single fact about our world. On Maddison’s data, between 1980 and 2008 the ratio of Chinese output per head to that of the US rose from 6 to 22 per cent, while India’s rose from 5 to 10 per cent. Data from the Conference Board’s “total economy database”, computed on a slightly different basis, indicate that the ratio rose from 3 to 19 per cent in China and from 3 to 7 per cent in India between the late 1970s and 2009. The comparisons are uncertain, but the direction of relative change is not. Rapid convergence on the productivity of advanced western economies is not unprecedented in the era following the second world war. Japan was the forerunner, followed by South Korea and a few small east Asian dragon economies – Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Japan had already begun to industrialise in the 19th century, with remarkable success. After its defeat in the second world war, it restarted at about a fifth of US output per head, roughly where China is today, to reach 70 per cent in the early 1970s. It attained a peak of close to 90 per cent of US levels in 1990, when its bubble economy burst, before declining again. South Korea started at 10 per cent of US levels in the mid-1960s to reach close to 50 per cent in 1997, just before the Asian
[Marxism] Commentaries on Israeli society
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 1. A biting satire on the ubiquitous charge of anti-semitism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Sdkps0Quofeature=player_embedded 2. Women's rights under attack An Israeli activist who defied orthodox Jewish custom by leading a group of women in open prayer at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall has been told to expect years in prison for breaching the peace. […] There are now over 100 state bus routes, many of them in Jerusalem, that offer segregated services requiring women to sit in the back. Israel's High Court yesterday ruled that the practice could continue. Many offices in the city also keep the sexes apart while a growing number of clinics require men and women to book appointments on different days. […] As they broke into song at a recent gathering, the men's section grew more restive as resentment started to stir. A bearded man, his black cloak marking him as ultra-orthodox, shook a fist at the women and yelled: Burn in hell, you dogs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8243726/Female-Israeli-activist-could-be-sent-to-prison-for-praying-at-Wailing-Wall.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Andrew Cuomo bares his fangs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-06, at 12:52 PM, James Holstun wrote: As the Fiscal Policy Institute (http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/) has been arguing for decades, wealthy New Yorkers are shockingly under-taxed, since they have been engaging in skillful class struggle in Albany. From the FPI's latest report: In recent years, New York State has had the most unequal income of all 50 states...For the years 2006-2009, New York State has had the highest Gini index value among all states, indicating the greatest degree of inequality. In 2009, New York was followed by Connecticut, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida...New York City leads the 25 largest cities in the United States in inequality. It was followed in 2009 by Dallas, Chicago, Boston, and Houston. Given its degree of inequality, if New York City were a nation, it would rank 15th worst among 134 countries with respect to income concentration, in between Chile and Honduras. Wall Street, with its stratospheric profits and bonuses, sits within 15 miles of the Bronx—the nation’s poorest county. -- Grow Together or Pull Further Apart? Income Concentration Trends in New York, Fiscal Policy Institute, December 13, 2010 http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_GrowTogetherOrPullFurtherApart_20101213.pdf Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] John Mearsheimer: Obama continues imperial policies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2011-01-04, at 4:24 AM, r...@riseup.net wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis, What is the connection then between nationalist, neo-realist views and your idea of socialist revolution, or, what's the point of sending neo-realit trash over a Marxist email listserve, unless to say, this is what the enemy thinks? -Rob But anyone with whom you do not fully agree is either an ally, a false friend, or an enemy, and in each case it's important to know what they think, why they think it, and in which category they belong, no? If they're influential like Mearsheimer, all the more reason to understand and assess the current of opinion which they represent. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] More on global capital's Chinese turn
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Wall Street Warms to China Story By GREGORY ZUCKERMAN Wall Street Journal January 2 2011 Visiting China was considered an indulgence for most financial executives just a few years ago. But when Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Warren Buffett, J.P. Morgan Chase Co.'s James Dimon, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Co.'s Henry Kravis and Carlyle Group's David Rubenstein all visited China in recent months, the trips were seen as something else entirely: crucial steps to keep their respective companies growing. China has been important to global economic growth for years, of course. The country likely emerged as the world's second-largest economy in 2010. It is expected to show close to 10% growth in both 2010 and 2011. Until recently, however, China was something of a sideshow for many financial professionals. Global growth was key to China's health, and the country had an impact on many economies. But China didn't seem to matter much to most deal makers and wealth creators. That's all changing. China is opening its markets, slightly loosening the reins on its currency, and is emerging as a key to the future of almost every Wall Street firm. It's also a linchpin of the investment strategies of a growing number of hedge- and private-equity funds. Consider that global initial public offerings of Chinese companies amounted to $104 billion in 2010, according to data-tracker Dealogic, up from $54 billion in 2009. Last year's tally amounts to $126 billion if Hong Kong companies are included, though it includes domestic markets not fully accessible to foreigners. By comparison, less than $34 billion of U.S. IPOs took place in 2010, the second consecutive year that Chinese companies topped U.S. companies in IPO issuance. Bankers that didn't participate in Chinese IPOs risked seeing smaller bonuses. No Chinese investment bank has emerged as a global power, reducing alibis for not establishing a presence in deals available to foreigners. Meanwhile, mergers-and-acquisitions specialists are racing to China to work with companies like China National Offshore Oil Corp., known as Cnooc, and China Petroleum Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, among the biggest deal makers in 2010. Chinese companies completed 3,235 acquisitions valued at nearly $190 billion, or 9% of all global deals in 2010. That was more than any other nation except the U.S. and more than the $162 billion of deals by U.K.-based companies. China also was the second-most frequent target of purchases by foreign companies in 2010, after the U.S. In currency markets, analysts say more traders are laying big bets on whether the yuan will be allowed to appreciate further in 2011. Stock-trading volume on Chinese and Hong Kong exchanges now rivals that of U.S. markets. And some strategists, such as Tobias Levkovich of Citigroup, view the Shanghai market as a leading indicator for U.S. shares. The Chinese economy is expanding so quickly it's helping to offset stagnant growth elsewhere in the world for a growing number of companies. And Chinese demand increasingly drives global commodity prices and shares of commodity providers. That all helps explain why some of the largest investors are boosting wagers on—and against—China. The bulls say power will continue to shift to developing makets from developed countries. They cite China as exhibit A of this trend, arguing there are more opportunities in China and elsewhere in Asia than in the U.S. or Europe. Already, some of the hottest investments over the past year, including rare-earth shares like Molycorp Inc. and Rare Element Resources Ltd., get their mojo from tightening Chinese controls or rising demand in the country. Daniel Arbess, who runs a hedge fund for Perella Weinberg Partners, has been profiting by buying shares of global companies helped by Chinese growth, a strategy he calls Shake Hands With China, and betting against those having a hard time competing with Chinese rivals. Mr. Arbess is focused on companies like Solutia Inc., Apple Inc. and Yum Brands Inc. that are growing quickly in China, as well as those that produce commodities in demand in China. For example, Yum, the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands, saw same-store sales rise in each division for the first time since the end of 2008. China enjoyed a 6% gain, while the U.S. and other international locations posted 1% growth. But many investors find it challenging to directly wager on China. Few companies have enough shares outstanding, or trade with sufficient activity, to make larger investors feel comfortable making a substantial investment. A relative lack of financial and regulatory transparency also is a hindrance. A recent incident is a reminder of the need to be wary: China Gas
[Marxism] Joint ventures go global on Chinese terms
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == China Squeezes Foreigners for Share of Global Riches By SHAI OSTER, NORIHIKO SHIROUZU And PAUL GLADER Wall Street Journal December 28 2010 BEIJING—Foreign companies have been teaming up with Chinese ones for years to gain access to the giant Chinese market. Now some of the world's biggest companies are taking a risky but potentially rewarding second step—folding pieces of their world-wide operations into partnerships with Chinese companies to do business around the globe. General Electric Co. is finalizing plans for a 50-50 joint venture with a Chinese military-jet maker to produce avionics, the electronic brains of aircraft. The deal with Aviation Industry Corp. of China would give GE access to a Chinese government project aimed at challenging Boeing Co. and Airbus in the civilian-aircraft market. General Motors Co. established a joint venture this year with SAIC Motor Corp., its longtime partner in China, to produce and sell their no-frills Wuling-brand microvans in India, and eventually in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets as well. The two deals show China Inc.'s growing international ambitions, as well as its increasing leverage over foreign partners. To make the GE deal happen, GE Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt made an extraordinary concession, agreeing to fold into the venture all of GE's existing world-wide business in nonmilitary avionics. GM, in its deal, contributed technology, its manufacturing facilities in India and use of its Chevrolet brand name in that market. Several forces are motivating China's foreign partners to strike global deals that would have been unthinkable a few years back. China's big government-backed companies now have enormous financial resources and growing political clout, making them attractive partners outside China. In addition, the Chinese market has become so important to the success of multinational companies that Beijing has the ability to drive harder bargains. But such deals also carry risk. Several earlier joint ventures inside China have soured over concerns that Chinese partners, after gaining access to Western technology and know-how, have gone on to become potent new rivals to their partners. Foreign partners are seeing they will have to sometimes sacrifice or share the benefits of the global market with the Chinese partner, says Raymond Tsang, a China-based partner at consultancy Bain Co. Some of the [multinational corporations] are complaining. But given the changing market conditions, if you don't do it, your competitors will. Big energy companies, too, have been pursuing international deals with Chinese companies. China has supplanted the U.S. as the world's biggest energy consumer, making access to its market vital for global companies. Foreign firms hope that teaming up with Chinese companies abroad will help on that front. Foreign companies supply technology and experience, and their Chinese partners provide geopolitical clout, low-cost labor, and easy access to credit that China's government-backed companies enjoy. State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. was one of the first foreign oil companies to sign a major contract in Iraq. BP PLC teamed up with it last year for a $15 billion investment to increase output at the giant Rumaila field. Over the summer, Royal Dutch Shell PLC joined with PetroChina Co., a publicly traded subsidiary of China National Petroleum, on a $3.15 billion acquisition of assets from Australian energy company Arrow Energy Ltd. China has been gaining clout in some resource-rich parts of the developing world where U.S. companies don't have strong footholds, partly by spending lavishly on infrastructure projects, and it can help broker deals in places like Venezuela and Myanmar, where it has good relations. In financial services, foreign banks long have coveted access to China's fast-growing securities business. China has allowed a number of companies into the market in recent years through joint ventures, with their stakes capped at about 33%. Chinese regulators also restrict which parts of the securities business they can do. Crédit Agricole SA already is involved in such a joint venture through its Asian brokerage arm, called CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, but it is a minor player in China. In May, its investment-banking unit announced a preliminary deal with China's government-owned Citic Securities Co. to form a joint venture beyond China's borders. The French company plans to contribute CLSA and other pieces of its international operation. Citic Securities would throw in its small international unit, based in Hong Kong. Crédit Agricole hopes that helping Citic Securities realize its international ambitions will enable the French bank to
[Marxism] Is this as bad as the Great Depression?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (Long article with many links) Underneath the Happy Talk, Is This As Bad as the Great Depression? Washington's Blog WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2010 The following experts have - at some point during the last 2 years - said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression: • Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke • Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (and see this and this) • Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker • Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin • The head of the Bank of England Mervyn King • Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz • Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman • Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead • Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O'Rourke (updated here) • Investment advisor, risk expert and Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb • Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber • Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker • Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto • Billionaire investor George Soros • Senior British minister Ed Balls How could that possibly be, when the stock market has largely recovered? (Let's forget for a moment that the stock market rallied after 1929, but then crashed in a double dip). To find out, we'll look at a couple comparisons to get an idea of what is going on in the rest of the economy. And then we'll compare the government's efforts in the 1930s to today. […] Full: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The beginning of the end of dollar hegemony
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Beginning of the End of Dollar Hegemony By RANDALL W. FORSYTH Barron's December 17 2010 When the monetary history of the year coming to an end is written decades from now, the headlines of European debt crisis and Federal Reserve's adoption of QE2 may turn out to be mere footnotes to the bigger story: 2010 could be a watershed marking the beginning of the end of the dollar-based, Western-centric monetary system. To be sure, suggestions that the system dubbed Bretton Woods II should be supplanted by a new regime began in 2009. China proposed the creation of a new, multinational currency for international transactions and as a reserve asset. This year, the idea of reform was advanced by World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who proposed in a widely read and commented-upon Financial Times op-ed piece a cooperative monetary system that reflects emerging economic conditions. That would include the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and the renminbi -- plus gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values. Zoellick's November commentary followed the outbreak of the so-called currency wars, as Brazil's finance minster dubbed the tensions in the foreign-exchange markets resulting from Fed's liquidity expansion through the purchase of $600 billion of Treasury securities, dubbed QE2, for the second phase of quantitative easing. The downward pressure on the dollar from the surfeit of greenbacks was viewed by finance officials abroad from Asia to Europe as well as Latin America as tantamount to a competitive devaluation to boost the U.S. economy while beggaring its neighbors. The ire aroused internationally by QE2 has been compounded by events that demonstrate there really is no ready substitute for the dollar as an international reserve currency. The hope had been for the euro to provide a viable alternative to the dollar, and for a time the single currency seemed to growing into that role. Prior to the financial crisis of 2008-2009, for a time more global bonds were issued in euros than dollars. But the European sovereign debt crisis has resulted in what German Chancellor Angela Merkel called serial bailouts of first Greece last spring and now Ireland. The current crisis lays bare the contradictions that have beset the euro from the start: monetary union without fiscal union, not to mention nationalistic animosities going back decades, even centuries. How long the serial bailouts can paper over these things remains to be seen. Dissatisfied with the options of the dollar or the euro, the ascendant economic powers are essentially cutting out these middlemen. Just Wednesday, Micex, Russia's largest securities exchange, began trading in the ruble vs. the Chinese renminbi. It was largely symbolic given the volume traded was equal to about $700,000. More importantly, Russia and China have agreed to settle their bilateral trade of about $50 billion in their respective currencies. That means Chinese importers don't need to obtain dollars to buy oil from Russia. Nor does Russia need greenbacks to buy Chinese goods. The vast majority of international trade has been, and continues to be, conducted in dollars. Financial markets also are dominated by dollar instruments, even if they trade in London or Singapore or any number of financial centers around the world. But less so than before. It used to be that if an emerging market such as Brazil wanted to borrow, it would have to issue dollar-denominated bonds because of lack of international confidence in its currency, which had been devalued and replaced numerous times over the year. Now, Brazilian government bonds denominated in the real are so sought after by international investors for their double-digit yields in an appreciating currency that the government has put a tax on foreigners wanting to buy the securities. But the biggest development has been in the burgeoning in so-called dim-sum bonds -- securities denominated in renminbi by non-Chinese borrowers. Issuers include blue-chip U.S. corporations such as Caterpillar (ticker: CAT) and McDonald's (MCD.) That's a huge, but largely under-appreciated development. Because the rest of the world uses the dollar for transactions and a store of value, the U.S. has been able to take advantage of that. Indeed, the greenback is America's most successful export. So, Americans get the goods, allowing us to consume more than we produce, simply because the rest of the world wants our paper. That fuels the U.S. credit expansion that covers the gap between Americans' savings and U.S. investment, including for residential real estate. Without money from abroad, there would not have been
[Marxism] Contradictory US working class consciousness in the Great Depression
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Polling showed large majorities in favor of the Roosevelt administration, federal power over the states, spending on social programs, higher wages and controls on profits, tighter regulation of industry and agriculture, and public ownership of the energy and defence industries. At the same time, if these early polls are to be believed, only a tiny percentage of Americans described themselves as socialist, more, if forced to choose, would have opted for fascism rather than communism, most were hostile to unions even at the peak of the strike wave, and support for further spending waned as the federal deficit increased. -MG How a Different America Responded to the Great Depression by Jodie T. Allen, Senior Editor Pew Research Center December 14, 2010 Were confirmation needed that the American public is in a sour mood, the 2010 midterm elections provided it. As both pre-election and post-election surveys made clear, Americans are not only strongly dissatisfied with the state of the economy and the direction in which the country is headed, but with government efforts to improve them. As the Pew Research Center's analysis of exit poll data concluded, the outcome of this year's election represented a repudiation of the political status quo Fully 74% said they were either angry or dissatisfied with the federal government, and 73% disapproved of the job Congress is doing. This outlook is in interesting contrast with many of the public's views during the Great Depression of the 1930s, not only on economic, political and social issues, but also on the role of government in addressing them. Quite unlike today's public, what Depression-era Americans wanted from their government was, on many counts, more not less. And despite their far more dire economic straits, they remained more optimistic than today's public. Nor did average Americans then turn their ire upon their Groton-Harvard-educated president -- this despite his failure, over his first term in office, to bring a swift end to their hardship. FDR had his detractors but these tended to be fellow members of the social and economic elite. Still, as now, the public had some reservations about the stretch of government power and found little consensus on specific policies with which to tackle the nation's troubles. Broadly representative measures of public opinion during the first years of the Depression are not available -- the Gallup organization did not begin its regular polling operations until 1935. And in its early years of polling, Gallup asked few questions directly comparable with today's more standardized sets. Moreover, its samples were heavily male, relatively well off and overwhelmingly white. However, a combined data set of Gallup polls for the years 1936 and 1937, made available by the Roper Center, provides insight into the significant differences, but also notable similarities, between public opinion then and now. Bear in mind that while unemployment had receded from its 1933 peak, estimated at 24.9% by the economist Stanley Lebergott, it was still nearly 17% in 1936 and 14% in 1937. By contrast, today's unemployment situation is far less dismal. To be sure, despite substantial job gains in October, unemployment remains stubbornly high relative to the norm of recent decades and the ranks of the long-term unemployed have risen sharply in recent months. But the current 9.8% official government rate, as painful as it is to jobless workers and their families, remains far below the levels that prevailed during most of the 1930s. Still, despite their far higher and longer-lasting record of unemployment, Depression-era Americans remained hopeful for the future. About half (50%) expected general business conditions to improve over the next six months, while only 29% expected a worsening. And fully 60% thought that opportunities for getting ahead were better (45%) or at least as good (15%) as in their father's day. Today's public is far gloomier about the economic outlook: Only 35% in an October Pew Research Center survey expected better economic conditions by October 2011, while 16% expected a still weaker economy... However, the most striking difference between the 1930s and the present day is that, by the standards of today's political parlance, average Americans of the mid-1930s revealed downright socialistic tendencies in many of their views about the proper role of government. True, when asked to describe their political position, fewer than 2% of those surveyed were ready to describe themselves as socialist rather than as Republican, Democratic or independent. But by a lopsided margin of 54% to 34%, they expressed the opinion that if there were another depression (and
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-07, at 8:58 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: Obama: On the way to a failed presidency? By Katrina vanden Heuvel Tuesday, December 7, 2010; Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the Democratic Party left him before he left the party. Like many progressive supporters of Barack Obama, I'm beginning to have the same feeling about this president. Consider what we've seen since the shellacking Democrats took in the fall elections. On Afghanistan, the administration has intimated that the 2011 pullout date is inoperable, with the White House talking 2014 and Gen. David H. Petraeus suggesting decades of occupation. On bipartisanship, the president seems to think that cooperation requires self-abasement. He apologized to the obstructionist Republican leadership for not reaching out, a gesture reciprocated with another poke in the eye. He chose to meet with the hyper-partisan Chamber of Commerce after it ran one of the most dishonest independent campaigns in memory. He appears to be courting Roger Altman, a former investment banker, for his economic team, leavening the Goldman Sachs flavor of his administration with a salty Lehman Brothers veteran. […] The subject line is another easy cheap shot at disillusioned liberals which misses the larger point that the article is further evidence of the rapidly growing distance between the Democratic leadership and the base of the party, particularly its important layer of more politically aware activists and public intellectuals. Krugman, Reich, Stiglitz, Frank Rich, Eugene Robinson, Olbermann, Maddow, vanden Huevel and others speak for a constituency larger than themselves, which at the present time is of more interest to me than their personal foibles, past histories, or to-be-expected illusions about reforming the Democratic party. Pity there is no longer a working class socialist left in and around the Democratic party, a bourgeois reform party supported by the unions and their various allies, with the connections, understanding, energy and organizational skills needed to advance the process further. Rather than delight in the dashed hopes of liberal public intellectuals, a more serious approach would pay careful attention to their political trajectory as a reflection of developments at the base. In this vein, I was struck by a recent comment from another angry disillusoned liberal, the economist James Galbraith: The Democratic Party has become too associated with Wall Street. This is a fact. It is a structural problem. It seems to me that we as progressives need — this is my personal position — we need to draw a line and decide that we would be better off with an under-funded, fighting progressive minority party than a party marked by obvious duplicity and constant losses on every policy front as a result of the reversals in our own leadership. A third party of any significance is not presently on the agenda, and won't likely be without a preceding faction fight inside the DP, or so it seems to me, but this is very strong language and the fact that the idea is even being floated in leading liberal circles suggests that something deeper and unprecedented is going on in the party than I had reason to believe. But to find this material - much more interesting, IMO, than the predictably boring denuciations of the DP leadership and ridicule of public liberals so prevalent here - you have to look for it, and with a mind open to all possibilities. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-07, at 7:00 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/7/10 6:59 PM, Lajany Otum wrote: Or as Richard Greener wrote in the article to which Gary was referring: If we start now there's time for a reliable, truthful, electable liberal-progressive Democrat to emerge. To which I wrote Richard: I think the chances for a socialist revolution are more auspicious. Both, of course, are equally inauspicious possibilities at the present time. The issue is whether going through the experience and inevitable frustration of trying to elect a liberal-progressive Democrat will lead your friend Richard and others like him to finally break with the party and start a new one to its left, or will drive him out of politics altogether. As we know, previous efforts of Marxists - including most famously, Lenin's advice in relation to the Labour Party - to enter bourgeois union-based reform parties in order to turn the base against the leadership as a prelude to a revolutionary split from it all ended in failure. But, so for that matter, have attempts to batter the DP and social democratic parties from the outside through the creation of Potemkin village progressive and revolutionary socialist parties which have also gone nowhere. All of these failures, however, took place in a period when capitalism was expanding and, despite periodic crises, providing its working classes with steadily improving living standards. The mistaken assumption of the radical left was that the period was revolutionary, that the working class would become increasingly immiserated, and that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions. That long period of expansion and relative prosperity and job security has now ended in the advanced capitalist countries, and in the US is reflected in the inability of the Bush and Obama administration to resolve its mounting domestic and foreign policy crises. These have produced the tea party on the right and the growing disaffection within the Democratic party. Whether and how far these political developments will progress will depend on whether the bourgeoisie succeeds in containing these crises or whether they continue to deepen. Whether a future radicalization would begin inside the Democratic party, the seeds of which seem to me to be appearing, or outside of it, as most Marxmailers believe, is something we can only know in retrospect. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Pressure mounts for European fiscal union
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-06, at 1:14 PM, S. Artesian wrote: This is essentially the EU version of the Brady Bond scheme, and like the Brady Bond scheme, it will not end the crisis. The EFSF is supposed to work like this Brady BUND scheme-- issuing debt, but skipping the swap part, simply transferring the funds to the recipient along the terms of the bailout agreements. On 2010-12-06, at 1:23 PM, S. Artesian added: Forgot to add, what gave the Brady Bonds their bite was the haircuts forced upon purchasers of the sovereign debt of the countries involved. While sovereign debt became a problem for Ireland, and may be one for Portugal, the current predicament of capital is unlike the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s and 90s in that sovereign debt is not the source of the major manifestation of the problem. That manifestation is bank exposure to private commercial, real estate, and consumer debt compounded by bank exposure to other banks-- and to other banks's exposures. Thanks for your comments, always thought provoking. The proposed new facility is designed to replace the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) which was set up last spring to borrow on behalf of the weaker member states backed by the guarantee of the stronger ones. But the EFSF, as you note, skipped the swap part. The European Debt Agency (EDA) proposal would compensate for this important omission by giving the EDA the power to swap its stronger E-bonds at a discount for the junk held by the European banks and other investors. Effectively, it would force haircuts on the holders of distressed debt, as your addendum points out in relation to the Brady bonds. It is hoped this would stem the crisis where the EFSF has failed, and help mollify the widespread and intense demand across Europe that the banks rather than the workers be made to pay for the crisis which they caused. Whether the scheme would involve the swap of underwater Irish and other corporate bonds as well as the sovereign debt held by the banks is unclear and would remain to be seen. I suspect private sector paper would be included, as in the US, given how implicated it is in the crisis. It also would remain to be seen how deep the discounts would bite, which would depend on the relationship of forces between the European authorities and the bondholders - including how desperate the latter are to rid themselves of their toxic assets and to avoid the alternative staring at them: the breakup of the eurozone from which the European banks and others have benefited handsomely despite the current turmoil. But so far it's only the public brainchild of the governments of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Italy. It's how far Germany is prepared to move in this direction, if at all, which counts. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Pressure mounts for European fiscal union
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Dec 6, 2010, at 2:47 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: But so far it's only the public brainchild of the governments of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Italy. I wasn't aware that Belgium *has* a government. Last I looked, it had one. :) You may may have misunderstood the reference as being to the European Commission headquartered in Brussels. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Brazil would recognize a Palestinian UDI
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (The PA is using the threat of a unilateral declaration of independence next year as a negotiating tactic with the US and Israel. It is most unlikely to follow through, and even if it did, the move would be purely symbolic as the Palestinians don't have the military means to back up statehood. If a UDI were to be recognized by Brazil, China, Russia, Iran and other states, however, it could serve as as a diplomatic counterpoint to BDS in further delegitimizing Israel and its occupation of Palestinian territory. Brazil's public announcement of support for the Palestinian position is also further evidence of the US's weakening hold on its former client states.) Brazil recognizes Palestinian state on 1967 borders Agence France Presse December 3 2010 BRASILIA — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders Friday in a public letter addressed to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. The decision came in response to a personal request made by Abbas on November 24, according to the letter published on the foreign ministry's website. Considering that the demand presented by his excellency (Abbas) is just and consistent with the principles upheld by Brazil with regard to the Palestinian issue, Brazil, through this letter, recognizes a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, it said. The letter refers to the legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people for a secure, united, democratic and economically viable state coexisting peacefully with Israel. The international community backs Palestinian demands for a state in most of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, all territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. But the United States and most Western governments have held back from recognizing a Palestinian state, saying it should be brought about through a negotiated peace agreement with Israel. Abbas visited Brazil in 2005 and 2009, and Lula made the first ever trip by a Brazilian head of state to Israel and the Palestinian territories in March of this year. In a parallel statement, the government assured relations with Israel have never been more robust. Brazil has offered to help mediate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which were briefly revived in September before grounding to a halt over the resumption of Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fed Explains...
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-05, at 11:31 AM, S. Artesian wrote: As for China. China was unaffected? By what? By the same need as other central banks to swap currencies with the Fed in order to allow their banks and corporations to meet their dollar-denominated obligations after private sources of USD funding dried up. More broadly speaking and needless to say, we have differing appraisals of how China and the US have respectively experienced the financial crisis and its aftermath to date. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Brazil would recognize a Palestinian UDI,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-12-05, at 3:12 PM, DW wrote: The term Client State is a bit in-exact. I think after the US supported coup in 1964, Brazil most likely a 'client state', which is true in many respects for most countries undergoing a US supported coup. But in terms of political economy, no, I wouldn't say that. Not that it didn't enjoy a neo-colonial relationship, especially vis-a-vis the dollar and, US controls of Brazilian exports to the US. A client state is a state like Bosnia or Kosovo today, one where the entire politics of the country is run by the US Embassy. Nothing happens without the US' OK. The state *depends* on the US as opposed to only be influenced by it… How can a state be at the short end of a semi-colonial relationship with a major imperialist power and still be anything other than politically subject to it as a result of its capital, trade, and military dependence? I can accept that there are greater and lesser degrees of dependence, but in the final analysis it seems to me a client state, loosely defined, is one which can't pursue an independent foreign policy and whose economic development is still largely dictated by the needs of the imperialist state and its multinationals. I'm far from being as informed as you and Nestor on its history, but how did Brazil under Vargas, Kubitschek, Quadros, or Goulart depart in any meaningful way from this template, even though attempts were made? The shifts in the global economy over the past decade, particularly the development of China and other alternative markets and sources of supply, is what has allowed Brazil and other developing nations to pursue economic and foreign policies independent of or at odds with those of the United States. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A new spectre haunts the WSJ
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-11-16, at 12:45 PM, Intense Red wrote: One can find many aspects of China and its economic policies to criticize. But on the other hand: Beijing's response was swift: development of domestic polysilicon supplies was declared a national priority. Money poured in to manufacturers from state-owned companies and banks; local governments expedited approvals for new plants. […] Imagine, the WSJ complaining that laissez-faire capitalism is not as effective in addressing problem areas as a planned capitalism is. (Damned competition! :-) In the 30's, many capitalists favourably compared the fascist one-party states and growing planned economies where things got done quickly with their own clamorous dysfunctional bourgeois democracies and depressed crisis-prone economies. You can read yesterday's mostly envious WSJ piece on China in somewhat the same light. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Role of the Army
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here's one Marine Corps Major General I'd be prepared to posthumously absolve: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The system that protects capitalism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-11-02, at 9:50 PM, sobuadha...@hushmail.com wrote: The anguished liberals on MSNBC are speculating that if Paul is true to his crazed principles then it is within his power to filibuster raising the federal debt ceiling triggering the default of the US debt and an international financial meltdown. Whether this ideological doomsday scenario unfolds sooner (rather than later) the ranks of the overt racist, birther, vile cretins in power is growing by the hour. Armageddon, however, is not on the agenda: * * * Business Looks to Republicans to Block Rules, Taxes By Mark Drajem Bloomberg Nov 3, 2010 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-11-03/business-looks-to-republicans-to-block-obama-on-rules-taxes.html The Republican gains in Congress mean U.S. companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Wellpoint Inc. may be able to weaken or block what they consider President Barack Obama’s anti-business policies on health care, the environment, taxes and financial reform. Republicans will use their perch as the new majority in the House of Representatives to try to eliminate funding for parts of Obama’s health care bill opposed by business as well as curb regulations and government spending, Jay Timmons, senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based lobbying group, said in an interview before the election. […] More-ambitious goals sought by some lawmakers and businesses, such as completely overturning Obama’s health-care overhaul, probably will remain out of reach for Republicans. Obama still wields veto power, and Democrats retained control of the Senate, though Republicans cut into their lead. High-profile objectives, like repealing the health-care measure, won’t progress past “symbolic, messaging votes,” said Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber. The Washington-based Chamber, which led the fight against Obama on health care and financial regulation and budgeted a record $75 million promoting pro-business candidates, says it hopes the acrimony of the election campaign can be put aside and Republicans can work with Obama to cut the deficit, promote nuclear power and energy efficiency, and pass long-stalled free trade agreements. Other items may gain support from both the administration and Congress, such as scaling back business taxes imposed by the health-care bill, providing highway funding, creating renewable- energy standards and boosting nuclear power, he said. “There is a potential here for some bipartisan movement,” Josten said. Following are assessments of what the new Congress means for selected industries and issues. FINANCE […] Republicans’ new power gives them the ability to shape more than 240 rules that may be needed to implement the Dodd-Frank law, including regulations establishing the direction and independence of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Rulemaking by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other agencies on bank capital standards, derivatives and proprietary trading also will draw increased scrutiny. […] The regulatory oversight and ability to weaken rules may benefit banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase Co., and Bank of America Corp., all of which lobbied against elements of the Dodd-Frank law, saying they would hurt profits. On housing, Republicans including Hensarling say they want a free-market approach that would phase out federal support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies taken over by the government after their losses soared. A legislative stalemate may be fine with financial companies as well as investors, said Alison Williams, a Bloomberg Research analyst. “In general, investors just want gridlock so the government will be less of a threat,” she said. HEALTH CARE House and Senate Republicans have written at least 30 bills that would roll back provisions of the health-care overhaul Obama signed into law in March. Such efforts may help Wellpoint and rival health insurers escape regulations on how much they spend on patient care and let Boston Scientific Corp. and other medical-device makers dodge $20 billion in tax increases over the next decade. […] DEFENSE House Republicans have pledged to cut $100 billion in domestic discretionary spending, the outlays set by Congress on a yearly basis that aren’t mandated by law. Don’t look for them to take the ax to defense spending very soon, though. Wary of the growing military might of China, Republicans are likely to be more aggressive in spending in ways that respond to that country’s capabilities in naval warfare, ballistic missiles and air power, even if the overall U.S. defense budget doesn’t increase. [..] That would
[Marxism] Foreclosure Fraud For Dummies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lucid five part series, with links... http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/foreclosure-fraud-for-dummies-1-the-chains-and-the-stakes/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Diana Johnstone on the French protests
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-10-21, at 10:57 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote: Of course, the most powerful faction of the American bourgeoisie to embrace the tea party is the administration its supporters, who are delighted to have the tea party to run against. It's one thing to say that the Democrats are desperately using the tea party bogey to scare their base to the voting booth; something else to assert that the angry moblization of the Republican ranks - which is what the tea party represents - has been welcomed by the Obama administration and its black, hispanic, trade union, and other supporters. The tea party is both an expression of white racism and the unintended consequence of the administration's bank bailouts and failure to stem mounting job losses and foreclosures. We'll see in about two weeks time how delighted the Democratic leaders and their base will be to have (had) the tea party to run against. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Obama cancels trip because Americans c an’t tell Sikhs from Muslims
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/21/obama-cancels-trip-because-americans-cant-tell-sikhs-from-muslims/#ixzz131t2rV1A Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] From Jurriaan B. on Judis's article (depression, not a recession)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-09-07, at 9:00 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: Louis, […] The central problem is that the growth in final consumer demand in the US simply cannot be sustained at the previous level, and therefore economic growth is also lacklustre. But this situation impacts very differently on different strata of the population and different industries….a stratum of people - which I would estimate at roughly one-sixth of the population - is durably shut out of the goodies of life beyond survival. But other strata continue to do pretty well. You can see this easily if you break down the data by geographical area and by industry etc. The result is just a sort of ghettoisation or parcelization of society, the formation of twilight areas in some places, while other places continue to do pretty well. […] Jurriaan = Along the same lines from today's Economix blog in the NYT: SEPTEMBER 7, 2010, 6:00 AM A Tale of Three States New York Times By EDWARD L. GLAESER http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/a-tale-of-three-states/?pagemode=print The Bureau of Labor Statistics released national data on Friday for August that showed a relatively static employment situation. Private employment increased, government employment dropped, and the overall unemployment rate remained around 9.6 percent, which is where it has been since May. Regional unemployment patterns have also displayed remarkable persistence for more than a year. Two days earlier, the bureau reported metropolitan-area unemployment numbers for July, which remind us that we are in the Flo-Mi-Ca recession, where Florida, Michigan and California continue to contain the majority of metropolitan areas with truly terrible unemployment rates. Last week, The New York Times published an article describing New York’s resilience, which has been a long-term feature of this downturn, which may reflect the ability of dense concentrations of smart people to reinvent themselves. Given New York’s concentration in finance and the problems that affected that sector, its 9.6 percentage July unemployment rate does seem low, though still high relative to many other metropolitan areas. Boston’s unemployment rate was 8.4 percent in July and 8.3 percent a year ago. The unemployment rate in Texas has also barely moved; it was 8.3 percent in July 2009, 8.5 percent in July 2010. And the recession seems to have barely hit states like Iowa (6.5 percent unemployment rate), New Hampshire (5.8 percent), Wyoming (6.3 percent) and the Dakotas (3.5 percent for North, 4.3 for South). I continue to wonder why we poured stimulus money into these low-density, low-unemployment places. At the other end of the spectrum are Florida, Michigan and California — the epicenters of the downturn. Together, those states contain 39 of the 65 metropolitan areas in the 50 states with unemployment rates above 12 percent. They contained a majority of the areas with unemployment rates of more than 12 percent a year ago, as well. There are certainly places outside of this three-state group that have suffered greatly, like Nevada; Providence, R.I.; and especially Yuma, Ariz., which has an unemployment rate of 28.7 percent. But Florida, Michigan and California are the three large states with unemployment rates of 12 percent or more. Why has economic pain come to three states that are, in so many ways, completely unlike each other? One view is that their current suffering is the hangover of past success and a reflection of an abundance of people relative to economic activity. The case of Michigan is easiest to understand. In the early years of the 20th century, entrepreneurs in Detroit figured out how to massproduce the automobile inexpensively. Their car companies became money-making, job-generating machines. Millions came from old Europe and in the new South, lured by high wages paid in the factories of Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan. Between 1910 and 1960, when the United States population grew less than 100 percent, Michigan’s population increased 178 percent, to 7.8 million, from 2.8 million. The automobile industry then decentralized, and manufacturing plants opened in other states, often those with right-to-work rules. The car industry faltered in the 1970s, but this decline didn’t empty Detroit, because prosperous midcentury automobile workers had built a lot of good homes in Detroit, Flint and Dearborn. Those homes remained, even when the jobs disappeared. Because homes are a valuable asset, they remain occupied, often by disproportionately poorer people, even as employment in the area declines. A result of this
Re: [Marxism] Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-09-07, at 4:50 PM, Eli Stephens wrote: Actually much more interesting than the headline claim was this (again, if accurate): I was, I admit, also surprised to hear him express such sympathy for Jews, and for Israel's right to exist (which he endorsed unequivocally). I refer in particular, of course, to the second half of the sentence, not the first. = I saw nothing in the article (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel-to-ahmadinejad-stop-slandering-the-jews/62566/) to suggest, as Goldberg does, that Castro unequivocally endorsed Israel's right to exist. The only quotes bearing on the subject which Goldberg directly attributes to Castro are: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world's nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons..the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the 'unique' history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence. Given the context - Castro's fear of a nuclear confrontation initiated by Israel - it was, IMO, entirely appropriate for Fidel to suggest, even if fancifully, that Israel would have greater security if it commits instead to nuclear disarmament and, more practically, that the Ahamdinejad government should take the existential fears of Israelis (and widespread Western sympathy for these fears) into account in its diplomatic manuvering with the US and the Europeans. That sounds like good advice to those who would like to see Ahmadinejad's public utterances encourage a shift in Western public opinion towards Iran and away from Israel rather than the contrary. If Goldberg had asked Fidel a direct question about Israel's right to exist, I expect Castro would have been evasive, knowing he was addressing an American audience and wanting to return the conversation to Israel's war threats, and this also would have been all right with me. I have little doubt that Castro is opposed like the rest of us to the political existence of a Jewish state. Goldberg puts words into the Cuban leader's mouth, perhaps with the intention of embarrassing him, but more likely, because he genuinely seems to admire Fidel, it's what Goldberg would like to believe. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Common patterns in recurrent capitalist crises
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, co-authors of numerous studies on the aftermath of financial crises and a current well-publicized book, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, have a new paper out which they presented at the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole meeting two weeks ago. The paper examines the behavior of real GDP (levels and growth rates), unemployment, inflation, bank credit, and real estate prices in a twenty one-year window surrounding selected adverse global and country-specific shocks or events. The episodes include the 1929 stock market crash, the 1973 oil shock, the 2007 U.S. subprime collapse and fifteen severe post-World War II financial crises. The focus is not on the immediate antecedents and aftermath of these events but on longer horizons that compare decades rather than years. The data confirm that the periods of relative prosperity preceding the the global depression of the 30's, the Latin American debt crisis of the 80's, Japan's lost decade in the 90's, and lesser financial crises were all importantly fueled by an expansion in credit and rising leverage that spans about 10 years and were followed by a lengthy period of retrenchment that most often only begins after the crisis and lasts almost as long as the credit surge, characterized in each case by sharp falls in employment, income, growth, prices and other major indicators of economic activity. See: http://www.aei.org/docLib/Reinhart-After-the-Fall-August-17.pdf Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Renewed speculation on the character of the Chinese economy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == World Bank data shows investment by state-run companies accounted for a bigger share of Chinese growth last year, mainly the effect of the massive stimulus injected into the economy to counter the global downturn. Most spending was on infrastructure and a vast expansion of credit by state-run banks; the proportion of production by state-controlled companies only edged up slightly. But there's no compelling evidence that heightened state intervention in China - as everywhere else in the wake of the crisis - marks a reversal of the decades-old trend towards private ownership and property relations and a social democratic political culture, despite it having inevitably fuelled discussion among analysts about whether the economy is really headed in that direction or remains socialist, as the state and party continue to maintain. Still, 99 of the top 100 publicly listed companies are majority controlled by the state, a role assigned to the public sector which goes far beyond what European social democrats and unambiguously pro-capitalist Asian regimes earlier envisaged for the commanding heights of the economy. * * * China Fortifies State Businesses to Fuel Growth By MICHAEL WINES New York Times August 29, 2010 BEIJING — During its decades of rapid growth, China thrived by allowing once-suppressed private entrepreneurs to prosper, often at the expense of the old, inefficient state sector of the economy. Now, whether in the coal-rich regions of Shanxi Province, the steel mills of the northern industrial heartland, or the airlines flying overhead, it is often China’s state-run companies that are on the march. As the Chinese government has grown richer — and more worried about sustaining its high-octane growth — it has pumped public money into companies that it expects to upgrade the industrial base and employ more people. The beneficiaries are state-owned interests that many analysts had assumed would gradually wither away in the face of private-sector competition. New data from the World Bank show that the proportion of industrial production by companies controlled by the Chinese state edged up last year, checking a slow but seemingly inevitable eclipse. Moreover, investment by state-controlled companies skyrocketed, driven by hundreds of billions of dollars of government spending and state bank lending to combat the global financial crisis. They join a string of other signals that are fueling discussion among analysts about whether China, which calls itself socialist but is often thought of in the West as brutally capitalist, is in fact seeking to enhance government control over some parts of the economy. The distinction may matter more today than it once did. China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy this year, and its state-directed development model is enormously appealing to poor countries. Even in the West, many admire China’s ability to build a first-world infrastructure and transform its cities into showpieces. Once eager to learn from the United States, China’s leaders during the financial crisis have reaffirmed their faith in their own more statist approach to economic management, in which private capitalism plays only a supporting role. “The socialist system’s advantages,” Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said in a March address, “enable us to make decisions efficiently, organize effectively and concentrate resources to accomplish large undertakings.” State vs. Private The issue of state versus private control is a slippery one in China. After decades of economic reform, many big state-owned companies face real competition and are expected to operate profitably. The biggest private companies often get their financing from state banks, coordinate their investments with the government and seat their chief executives on government advisory panels. Chinese leaders also no longer publicly emphasize sharp ideological distinctions about ownership. But they never relaxed state control over some sectors considered strategically vital, including finance, defense, energy, telecommunications, railways and ports. Mr. Wen and President Hu Jintao are also seen as less attuned to the interests of foreign investors and China’s own private sector than the earlier generation of leaders who pioneered economic reforms. They prefer to enhance the clout and economic reach of state-backed companies at the top of the pecking order. “China’s always had a major industrial policy. But for a space of a few years, it looked like China was turning away from an active and interventionist industrial policy in favor of a more hands-off approach,” Victor Shih, a Northwestern University political scientist, said in a recent
Re: [Marxism] Part 2 of article on Israel and apartheid
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-08-30, at 4:02 PM, Andrew Pollack wrote: Pathetic. After a very precise analysis of the similarities and differences, he spoils the whole thing by denying the right of return out of concern for the sensitivities of millions of colonialist-settlers. And he mocks the notion of a socialist state, which alone could rectify the theft of land, labor, resources and lives since 1948. Fuck him...Give me the Algerian solution any day. On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/greenstein270810.html= = You could see where Greenstein was going in the first part of the article - in effect, ruling out both a unitary state and two-state solution as utopian given the current configuration of power. Which by default leaves only the possibility of a struggle for democratic rights within what he describes as Israel proper and the occupied territories - which in turn implies a de facto acceptance by Palestinians of the reality of the equally de facto Greater Israel described by Greenstein. If the vice the Palestinians find themselves in is more akin to that faced by the aboriginal nations in the Americas and elsewhere who were unable to resist the inexorable European settlement than it is to the more commonly cited example of South Africa (much less the successful armed struggle waged by the Algerians against the French) then Greenstein, who seems genuinely supportive of Palestinian rights, can't be entirely faulted for his weak and dispiriting conclusion. My sense is that this pessimistic perspective is gaining ground among Palestinians as well, even if they are somehow able to salvage an independent state under Israeli suzerainty from the wreckage of their national aspirations over the past half century and more. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Thorium
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yet another magic bullet we have always been hoping for, this time from the interesting but hyperbolic Telegraph economics columnist Ambrose E-P who should always be taken with a large dose of salt. Maybe David Walters, Ian Angus, and others on the list who are more knowledgeable about energy issues can comment. * * * Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 29 Aug 2010 If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years. We could then stop arguing about wind mills, deepwater drilling, IPCC hockey sticks, or strategic reliance on the Kremlin. History will move on fast. Muddling on with the status quo is not a grown-up policy. The International Energy Agency says the world must invest $26 trillion (£16.7 trillion) over the next 20 years to avert an energy shock. The scramble for scarce fuel is already leading to friction between China, India, and the West. There is no certain bet in nuclear physics but work by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors may be the magic bullet we have all been hoping for, though we have barely begun to crack the potential of solar power. Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor’s day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would light London for a week. Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. It’s the Big One, said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering. Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it’s essentially free. You don’t have to deal with uranium cartels, he said. Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, a radioactive by-product if they try to dig up rare earth metals. The US and Australia are full of the stuff. So are the granite rocks of Cornwall. You do not need much: all is potentially usable as fuel, compared to just 0.7pc for uranium. After the Manhattan Project, US physicists in the late 1940s were tempted by thorium for use in civil reactors. It has a higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. It does not require isotope separation, a big cost saving. But by then America needed the plutonium residue from uranium to build bombs. They were really going after the weapons, said Professor Egil Lillestol, a world authority on the thorium fuel-cycle at CERN. It is almost impossible make nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. It wouldn’t be worth trying. It emits too many high gamma rays. You might have thought that thorium reactors were the answer to every dream but when CERN went to the European Commission for development funds in 1999-2000, they were rebuffed. Brussels turned to its technical experts, who happened to be French because the French dominate the EU’s nuclear industry. They didn’t want competition because they had made a huge investment in the old technology, he said. Another decade was lost. It was a sad triumph of vested interests over scientific progress. We have very little time to waste because the world is running out of fossil fuels. Renewables can’t replace them. Nuclear fusion is not going work for a century, if ever, he said. The Norwegian group Aker Solutions has bought Dr Rubbia’s patent for the thorium fuel-cycle, and is working on his design for a proton accelerator at its UK operation. Victoria Ashley, the project manager, said it could lead to a network of pint-sized 600MW reactors that are lodged underground, can supply small grids, and do not require a safety citadel. It will take £2bn to build the first one, and Aker needs £100mn for the next test phase. The UK has shown little appetite for what it regards as a huge paradigm shift to a new technology. Too much work and sunk cost has already gone into the next generation of reactors, which have another 60 years of life. So Aker is looking for tie-ups with the US, Russia, or China. The Indians have their own projects - none yet built - dating from days when they switched to thorium because their weapons programme prompted a uranium ban. America should have fewer inhibitions than Europe
Re: [Marxism] WikiLeaks Founder Accused of Rape in Sweden, Calls it Dirty Trick
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-08-21, at 11:50 AM, Michael Perelman wrote: The accusations have been withdrawn. = But he and the site remain under pressure, notably from the Pentagon which is threatening to tie them up in the courts and run up their legal bills. Prosecutors Eye WikiLeaks Charges By ADAM ENTOUS and EVAN PEREZ Wall Street Journal August 21, 201 WASHINGTON—Pentagon lawyers believe that online whistleblower group WikiLeaks acted illegally in disclosing thousands of classified Afghanistan war reports and other material, and federal prosecutors are exploring possible criminal charges, officials familiar with the matter said. A joint investigation by the Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still in its early stages and it is unclear what course the Department of Justice will decide to take, according to a U.S. law-enforcement official.He said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had not been identified by the FBI as a target of the probe. WikiLeaks in late July posted on its website some 76,000 classified military documents, the largest such disclosure since the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. It has promised to publish another 15,000 documents from the cache it obtained. The disclosure infuriated the Pentagon, which warned that the release could endanger allies in Afghanistan and undercut the war effort. Several officials said the Defense and Justice departments were now exploring legal options for prosecuting Mr. Assange and others involved on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property. Bringing a case against WikiLeaks would be controversial and complicated, and would expose the Obama administration to criticism for pursuing not just government leakers, but organizations that disseminate their information. The increasingly confrontational tone could be part of Pentagon efforts to dissuade WikiLeaks from posting online the yet-to-be-published documents in its possession. It is the view of the Department of Defense that WikiLeaks obtained this material in circumstances that constitute a violation of United States law, and that as long as WikiLeaks holds this material, the violation of the law is ongoing, Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson wrote in a letter this week to a WikiLeaks lawyer. The letter did not spell out what those circumstances were. People familiar with the matter said investigators and government lawyers were looking at whether WikiLeaks pressed or encouraged army intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley Manning to leak the Afghan war logs after the army private provided the group with a classified Iraq video. Such a finding could increase the chances that prosecutors will pursue charges against WikiLeaks, legal experts said. Steven Aftergood, head of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said U.S. law gives prosecutors a number of tools they could use to prosecute WikiLeaks, such as alleging the group was an accessory to a crime or had unlawfully taken possession of stolen property. If WikiLeaks actively encouraged the transfer of classified documents, the government could allege the group was part of a conspiracy, he said. At issue is whether WikiLeaks should be afforded the same legal protections as a traditional media outlet. Legal experts said the government may view WikiLeaks differently because of the way it gathers and publishes information. Its website actively solicits classified material and promises leaking is safe, easy and protected by law. When established news organizations obtain classified information, they rarely publish it wholesale or without first consulting the government to authenticate the information and to ensure it doesn't compromise national security. WikiLeaks' model eschews that step. If WikiLeaks thought it would make the last move and the government would not respond, they may be mistaken, said Mr. Aftergood. But it would be a terrible new precedent if these legal options were actually employed against a publisher, even a disreputable one. Once such measures were used against WikiLeaks, it would only be a matter of time until they are used against other media outlets and individuals. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell declined to comment on the investigation but said, We believe at a minimum that WikiLeaks has behaved in a reckless and irresponsible manner. The Army unit conducting the investigation and the FBI declined to comment. The lawyer working with WikiLeaks, Timothy Matusheski, said he had been told by a member of the Army Criminal Investigative Division unit investigating the case that Mr. Assange—an Australian national —was not a subject or target of any investigation.
[Marxism] Sounds like a good candidate for a chat group :)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Angry flight attendant swears at passenger, quits, and leaves plane by emergency chute BY Lindsey Pinto Vancouver Sun, AUGUST 10, 2010 A JetBlue employee has been arrested at his New York City home and will likely be charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, according to Reuters, after sliding down the emergency chute of a passenger plane after an argument with a customer on a flight from Pittsburgh. I've had it. That's it, said flight attendant Steven Slater over the plane intercom, after calling a passenger who had been fiddling with his luggage a mother--. The aircraft had reportedly pulled up to the gate at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport when Slater asked a passenger to obey the 'fasten seatbelt' sign. When the passenger argued and continued struggling with his luggage in the overhead bin, Slater took to the intercom, called the passenger a name, publicly quit, opened the plane door and deployed the emergency chute. He was later arrested at his Queens NY home. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Quantitative easing as an alternative to fiscal stimulus
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Fed appears poised to resume quantitative easing both because legitimate fears of deflation have resufaced and because the strategy incidentally benefits stock and bond investors, seen as preferable to fiscal stimulus which boosts employment but adds to the national debt. As Barron's correspondent Jonathan Laing notes below, a rally in bond prices induced by quantitative easing eventually translates into higher stock prices…it seems plausible that both the economy and stock market might have faltered in recent months as a result of the suspension of the quantitative-easing program on March 31... On the other hand, more fiscal stimulus is politically out of the question, Laing reports, repeating the canard that direct spending on job-creating infrastructure and other government programs doesn't seem to be working, and contradicting the recent CBO and Blinder-Zandi studies suggesting that even the Obama administration's inadequate spending helped stave off a depression. In any event, concludes Barron's: It's high time to get out the money-printing machines. Damn the risks of triggering a bit of inflation and some modest investment bubbles. The alternatives are far worse. - MG * * * Time to Print, Print, Print By JONATHAN R. LAING Barron's August 7, 2010 FED CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE'S recent testimony before Congress was fairly pallid. He described the current economic outlook for the U.S. as unusually uncertain. (When isn't it?) Growth in gross domestic product seems to be flagging some, but Bernanke implied the Federal Reserve wouldn't be reaching into its bag of monetary tools unless the economy were to double dip into recession or financial markets turn unruly again as in 2008. That's a mistake. The Fed should, and probably will change its tune by the fall and fire up the printing presses. Its current stance of watchful waiting in the face of slowing economic growth, inflation cycling below its preferred target rate of 1.7% to 2% and naggingly elevated unemployment strikes some observers as nothing short of mind-boggling. With good reason, these critics are pushing the Fed to adopt the deflation-fighting strategy that Bernanke mentioned in 2002, when he was a newly minted Fed governor. He suggested that the Fed could always buy long-term government bonds and corporate debt to mainline more liquidity into the financial system to counteract incipient deflation. This approach has come to be known in financial circles as quantitative easing, though the tactic rarely has been employed. The Bank of Japan tried it with mixed success early in this decade, and it became a centerpiece of both U.K. and U.S. monetary policies during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown. Indeed, the Fed from early 2009 to the program's conclusion on March 31, 2010, bought some $1.3 trillion of Treasury bonds, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities and agency debt with dollars essentially created out of nothing. Typically, central banks use their control of short-term interest rates to influence money supply, control inflation and hopefully fine-tune the pace of economic activity. But that traditional weapon has been taken out of many central banks' hands with short-term rates effectively standing at zero in Japan for the past 15 years and in the U.S. for the past year and a half. Thus the Bank of Japan and now the Fed buy longer-duration paper to push funds into the economy. Positive interest rates on the paper provide some room to maneuver. The intent of quantitative easing is manifold. By effectively printing money and buying securities, the Fed hopes to create excess reserves in the banking system and induce more lending and therefore output growth. At a minimum, the tactic lowers long-term borrowing costs. making it more attractive for companies to add to capacity and for consumers to spend more, particularly on big-ticket items like cars and homes. In fact, some recent studies show that drops in long-term rates have three times the potency on GDP growth as comparable drops in short-term rates. Finally, quantitative easing is intended to act as an adrenaline shot to confidence and what Keynesians, advocates of fiscal stimulus, like to call the animal spirits. The fact is that all markets are linked across the risk spectrum. So a rally in bond prices induced by quantitative easing eventually translates into higher stock prices and sprightlier GDP growth. It seems plausible that both the economy and stock market might have faltered in recent months as a result of the suspension of the quantitative-easing program on March 31 as much as from the onset of the European credit crisis. As a consequence, pressure is building
Re: [Marxism] Bernanke Says Rising Wages Will Lift Spending
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-08-04, at 12:01 AM, michael perelman wrote: The New York Times Headline Says It all. This beats Greenspan some of Greenspan's worst predictions. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/business/economy/03fed.html?scp=2sq=bernankest=cse And then there's this from the NYT: August 3, 2010 More Workers Face Pay Cuts, Not Furloughs By STEVEN GREENHOUSE New York Times The furloughs that popped up during the recession are being replaced by a highly unusual tactic: actual cuts in pay. Local and state governments, as well as some companies, are squeezing their employees to work the same amount for less money in cost-saving measures that are often described as a last-ditch effort to avoid layoffs. A new report on Tuesday showed a slight dip in overall wages and salaries in June, caused partly by employees working fewer hours. Though average hourly pay is still higher than when the recession began, the new wage rollbacks feed worries that the economy has weakened and could even be at risk of deflation. That is when the prices of goods and assets fall and people withhold spending as they wait for prices to drop further, a familiar idea to those following the recent housing market. A period of such slack economic demand produced a lost decade in Japan, and while it is still seen as unlikely here, some policy-making officials at the Federal Reserve recently voiced concern about the possibility because the consequences could be so dire. Pay cuts are appearing most frequently among state and local governments, which are under extraordinary budget pressures and have often already tried furloughs, i.e., docking pay in exchange for time off. Warning that they will have to lay off people otherwise, many governors and mayors are pressing public employee unions to accept a reduction in salary of a few percentage points, without getting days off in exchange. At the University of Hawaii, professors have accepted a 6.7 percent cut. Albuquerque has trimmed pay for its 6,000 employees by 1.8 percent on average, and New York’s governor, David A. Paterson, has sought a 4 percent wage rollback for most state employees. State troopers in Vermont agreed to a 3 percent cut. In California, teachers in the Capistrano and Pacheco school districts have accepted salary cuts. “We’ve seen pay freezes before in the public sector, but pay cuts are something very new to that sector,” said Gary N. Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Clark University. Outsize pension costs and balanced budget requirements are squeezing many states as tax revenue has come up short. It is impossible to say how many employers have cut workers’ pay, because the government does not keep such statistics. Economists say a modest but growing number of employers have ordered wage cuts, especially in the public sector. In a 2010 survey by the National League of Cities, 51 percent of the cities that responded said they had either cut or frozen salaries of city employees, 22 percent said they had revised union contracts to reduce some pay and benefits, and 19 percent said they had instituted furloughs. Some businesses are also cutting workers’ pay, often to help stay afloat or to eliminate their losses, although a few have seized on the slack labor market and workers’ weak bargaining power to cut pay and thereby increase their profits and competitiveness. Economists note that wages continued to increase in 2008 after the recession began, even adjusted for inflation. But those wages have been flat for the last 18 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Mr. Chaison says the latest wave of private-sector pay cuts is reminiscent of those in the early 1980s, when many companies — especially those with unionized work forces — cut wages in response to a recession, intensified competition from imports and new low-cost competitors spawned by government-backed deregulation. Now, as then, companies frequently say that compensation for unionized workers, in both wages and benefits, is out of line. For instance, the Westin Hotel in Providence, R.I., after failing to reach a new contract with its main union, has sliced wages 20 percent, saying its previous pay levels were not competitive with those at the city’s many nonunion hotels. Factory owners sometimes warn that they will close or move jobs to lower-cost locales unless workers agree to a pay cut. In its most recent union contract, General Motors is paying new employees $14 an hour, half the rate it pays its long-term workers. Sub-Zero, which makes refrigerators, freezers and ovens, warned its workers last month that it might close one or more factories in Wisconsin and lay off 500
[Marxism] Chinese curbs on rare earth metal exports
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Below, standard boilerplate from the Tory economic columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard about the uppity mercantalist Chinese not playing by the rules and selfishly pursuing their own economic interests, but this time in an interesting and little known industry - rare earth minerals - regarded as being of great strategic importance. The alarm over the export curbs introduced by China still seems to have more of the hallmarks, however, of national security considerations being mostly used as a smokescreen for vested interests - in this case, the US Magnetic Materials Association - seeking congressional subsidies. Rare earth materials are apparently not that rare, but Western and Japanese firms have gradually switched their operations from the US to lower-cost Chinese mines over the past two decades, to the benefit of defence, communications, auto and other industries dependent on the metals. Now China has abruptly restricted exports because of its own insatiable domestic demand, and it has shaken these global corporate consumers, as well as provoking renewed interest among mining companies and investors sensing opportunities in the exploitation of new state-assisted sources of supply elsewhere. I omitted E-P's further complaints about China's oil-related territorial claims in the South China sea, but the article is accessible in full at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7921209/Hot-political-summer-as-China-throttles-rare-metal-supply-and-claims-South-China-Sea.html. MG * * * Hot political summer as China throttles rare metal supply and claims South China Sea By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph (UK) 01 Aug 2010 The United States and Europe have been remarkably insouciant about supplies of rare earth minerals so crucial to frontier technologies, from hybrid engines to mobile phones, superconductors, radar and smart bombs. Lack of strategic planning by the West has allowed China to acquire a world monopoly on this family of seventeen metals. Assumptions that Beijing would never risk its reputation as a global team player by abruptly strangling supply have proved naive. China’s commerce ministry has cut export quotas for these metals by 72pc for the second half of this year. It is perhaps the starkest move to date in the Great Power clash over scarce resourses. The Pentagon and the US Energy Department are still scrambling to work out what this means for US security. An interim report from the Government Accounting Office (GAO) has laid bare just how delicate the situation has become. “The US previously performed all stages of the rare earth material supply chain, but now most rare earth materials processing is performed in China, giving it a dominant position. In 2009, China produced about 97 percent of rare earth oxides. Rebuilding a U.S. rare earth supply chain may take up to 15 years, it said. Fifteen years? China's rare earth blockade is becoming more piquant by the day as the country swaps threats with the US over the South China Sea. […] The GAO report said the US had been self-sufficient in rare earth minerals for most of the post-War era. The key mine at Mountain Pass in California shut down in the 1990s when China flooded the market with exports and drove Western mines out of business. One by one, US-based processing plants owned by German and Japanese firms switched operations to China. There are none left. Cutting-edge weapon technologies are classified, but the GAO said the M1A2 Abrams tank and the Aegis Spy-1 radar both rely on chinese samarium. The US Navy's DDG-51 Hybrid Electric Drive Ship needs neodymium, which enhances the power of magnets at high heat. The Hell Fire missile requires Chinese components, as do a host of functions in satellites, avionics, night vision equipment, and precision-guided munitions. Some of the metals such as terbium, dysprosium, thulium, and lutetium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum are more important that others, but crudely speaking they are the salt of life for the high-tech revolution -- sprinkled in iPads, Blackberries, plasma TVs, water filters, or lasers. Each Toyota Prius uses a fistful of rare earth elements, which is why Toyota has purchased the rear metals dealer Wako Bussan. Cerium is used in catalytic converters for diesel engines. Terbium is key for low-energy light-bulbs that cut power costs by 40pc. Neodymium is used in hard-disk drives, wind turbines, and the electric motors of hybrid cars. Fresh research in Tokyo shows that rare metals can cut friction on power lines, slashing leakage. Countries that cannot obtain these minerals --at any price – will not play much part in the technology revolution. Japan already has a
Re: [Marxism] test
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I had switched to gmail while travelling when I couldn't send from my ISP email account. Turns out that the outgoing mail server port had changed by default as it always does, I was told by my ISP, when out of province. So I reset it and I'm now able to both send and receive copies of my messages to the groups, which I archive on my hard drive. But otherwise gmail works fine and I'm continuing to use for all my other correspondence. On 2010-08-02, at 4:01 PM, Les Schaffer wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 8/2/10 3:56 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Thank Hans, Les. I'll revert to my previous email acct in order to get copies... according to google: When you send a message to any mailing list you subscribe to, Gmail automatically skips your inbox and archives the message to save you time and prevent clutter. The message will appear in your inbox if someone responds to it or if there is an error delivering the message. If you'd like to view your message, you can find it in Sent Mail or All Mail. did you notice your original post showing up once i replied to it sounds like the best of all worlds. i would stick with gmail if you like it otherwise. Les Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marvgandall%40videotron.ca Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The working class is growing poorer, statistics prove it
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-07-26, at 10:26 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: So? == So it angers me when those I know and those I don't know are having trouble finding work and making ends meet in ever increasing numbers and are being made to bear the brunt of a crisis for which they're not responsible. Your response suggests an indifference about the condition of the working class which I don't think you intended. However, even a cold-eyed and unsentimental Bolshevik like yourself would know there's also a relationship between social conditions and the possibilities for social change. Workers' incomes are a reflection of their power in the workplace and outside of it. Their pay, benefits, and job opportunities rise during economic expansions when labour is in short supply (China) and fall during contractions when jobs are lost and pay and benefits are under assault (the US et al). It may or may not be true that workers are more likely develop a greater attachment to the system when their conditions are improving than when they have nothing to lose but their chains or when the system is plunged into one of it's periodic crises. But it is certainly the case that they develop more self-confidence and assertiveness during expansions when there other jobs to go to, and are typically more willing and able to fight for reforms, to join left-wing organizations, and to follow the lead of revolutionaries in their unions and social movements. The inverse is also true, as you've also previously pointed out in contrasting working class insecurity and demoralization at the onset of the Depression to the rise in combativity in the latter half of the 30's when there was a modest resumption of growth. So why the so what in relation to Louis' posting of the NY Times article alluded to in the subject line? Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] blog post: from Boulder North and West to Portland, part 1
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-07-25, at 7:19 PM, MICHAEL YATES wrote: Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/07/25/from-boulder-north-and-west-to-portland-part-1/ We’re in our sixth month on the road. After a stay back in Boulder, Colorado to take care of personal matters, we traveled through Wyoming, Montana, and Washington, on our way to Portland, Oregon, where we lived for fifteen months in 2003 and 2004... michael yates = Hadn't read your blog before, Mike. I will now. It's a delight, and I've spent the better part of this evening reading previous entries. Too bad my wife and I didn't have it as a guide before our recent two month road trip through the States which took us to and through some of the places in New Mexico, California, Utah, Colorado etc. you describe. We loved visiting friends and family at various points along the way as well as the spectacular scenery and the hiking in Zion, Arches, and other national and state parks, but your detailed knowledge of Western labour history would had added an extra dimension to our trip. Better late than never, though; your blog has helped provide that context retrospectively, and many thanks for that. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Political Crisis in the US [was: In and Out of Crisis]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-03-16, at 9:12 AM, Mark Lause wrote: Lajany Otum is reading far too much into my comment that this recently elected president had some leaway when they start their administration. The ruling class wants security and stability, but it rarely has a full blown agenda around the policy minutiae of how this should be done. We need look no further for an American example of this than the presidency going into the last great depression. Obama and the Democrats were not going to have a lot of elbow room on something like Afghanistan or Iraq, but a serious reform of the health care system was not beyond their reach. We need look no further than the other industrial capitalist nations to see that more socialized systems can meet the insurance needs of the ruling class quite handily… = Nope. Sorry. No contradictions within the ruling class. No differences on how to pursue domestic and foreign policy interests. No effect on us if there are. Lying bourgeois press not worth reading. When will people stop being conned by Dumbocrats and Repugnicans? I'm fucking pissed off. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Inside the Tea Party Convention
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == At the Tea Party By Jonathan Raban New York Review of Books March 25, 2010 People who watched the Tea Party Convention in Nashville on television in early February saw and heard an angry crowd, unanimous in its acclaim for every speaker. Standing ovation followed standing ovation, the fiery crackle of applause was nearly continuous, and so were the whistles, whoops, and yells, the Yeahs!, Rights!, and cries of USA! USA! Inside the Tennessee Ballroom of the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, it was rather different: what struck me was how many remained seated through the ovations, how many failed to clap, how many muttered quietly into the ears of their neighbors while others around them rose to their feet and hollered. It wasn't until the last night of the event, when Sarah Palin came on stage, that the Tea Party movement, a loose congeries of unlike minds, found unity in its contempt for Barack Obama, its loathing of the growing deficit as generational theft, its demands for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, smaller government, states' rights, and a vastly more aggressive national security policy. Run, Sarah, Run! everyone chanted, though if Palin could have seen inside the heads of the 1,100 people at the banquet, she might have felt a pang of disquiet at the factional and heterogeneous character of the army whose love and loyalty she currently inspires. I went to Nashville not as an accredited reporter but as a recently joined member of Tea Party Nation. (I had my own quarrels with big government, especially on the matter of mass surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, and the rest, and I counted on my libertarian streak to give me sufficient common ground with my fellow tea partiers.) When I presented my Washington State driver's license at the registration desk, the volunteer said, Thank you for coming all this way to help save our country, then, looking at the license more closely, Seattle—you got a lot of liberals there. I accepted his condolences. As we milled around in the convention center lobby, we might easily have been mistaken for passengers on a cruise ship. We belonged to a similar demographic: most—though by no means all—of us had qualified for membership of AARP a good while ago; 99.5 percent of us were white; in general, smart leisurewear was our preferred style of dress. (The TV cameras made far too much of the handful of exhibitionists in powdered white pigtail wigs and tricorn hats, and of the peculiar, bug-eyed gentleman from Georgia, who was sometimes costumed as an eighteenth-century American revolutionary, sometimes as a kilted Highland chieftain, his copper tea kettle lashed to both outfits, and spoke to his many interviewers in a hokey and ponderous English accent.) Few of us would see much change from the $1,500–$2,000 we'd spent on travel to Nashville, the $558.95 convention fee with service charge, a room at the hotel, and a couple of drinks at the hotel bars, where a glass of the cheapest wine or whisky cost $12. Seen as a group, we were, I thought, a shade too prosperous, too amiably chatty and mild-mannered, to pass as the voice of the enraged grassroots. I asked one woman whether she'd been part of 9/12, as tea partiers call the great taxpayer march on Washington, D.C., last September. No, she'd missed it, she said, and felt really guilty about doing so, but she and her husband had been on vacation. Where did you go? We spent a week in Amalfi, then we toured Tuscany, then we spent a week in Rome. Another woman, hearing my accent, told me about her and her partner's second home in Torquay, England, which they visited three times a year from their base in Atlanta, and about their thirty-five-foot powerboat, in which they'd crossed the Channel to Le Havre and cruised down the French canals to Marseilles. Most of us were political novices. When we were asked how many attendees had never been involved in politics before joining the Tea Party movement, roughly four out of every five people raised their hands. On the outside balcony where the smokers gathered, I was joined at a table by an intense, wiry, close-cropped, redheaded woman from southern Virginia who dated her conversion to hearing Sarah Palin for the first time. She was me! She's so down-to-earth! If Sarah was sitting here with us now, she'd be just a normal person like you and me. You could say anything to her. She's not like a politician—she's real. And Sarah always keeps her word. If Sarah promises something, you know she'll do it. She's just am az ing. Before Sarah, the woman said, her interest in politics had been limited to voting in general elections. Her one big involvement was with her church. Now she was traveling around the country on
[Marxism] Hurt Locker
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My wife and I saw the Hurt Locker on cable last night. I must have missed Louis P's review on it, but amidst all the glowing tributes, dug up this obscure short review on Rotten Tomatoes which exactly mirrors our own responses. Anyone see any redeeming qualities in the film? * * * The Hurt Locker Movie Review: Cowboys And Insurgents By Prairie Miller Daily Blaze December 3, 2009 A kind of 'Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb' - but for real, The Hurt Locker is basically about a military explosives expert in Baghdad who gets a huge rush out of his job, and he's not kidding. Which is to say that The Hurt Locker and its war is fun mantra - move over videogames and those second hand vicarious thrills a minute - is just about as irresponsible as can be. This combo macho glee and military mechanics grating reality show style thriller crafted with icy precision and little else, is written by Mark Boal, a news reporter who spent time embedded in tanks with the US army in Iraq. And it shows. Claustrophobic in the extreme both politically and physically even when prowling the wide open spaces of the Iraqi desert, The Hurt Locker dismally lacks any point of view. Other than to imply that the Iraqi population ranges primarily from predators to ingrates, and without so much as even a hunch as to why we're there or what the locals may resent about that. Which is to say that the story could just as well be taking place in a cops and robbers inner city venue, or right out of a classic western. And the fact that this war movie is directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow - and one with impressive unusual creds for making gritty, testosterone fueled films about men (Point Break, Strange Days, The Widowmaker) that delve into the raw male psyche at that, is inconsequential. Bigelow disappoints here, as a director for hire simply following rules in a man's game. Never mind that a substantial number of female soldiers are part of these bomb detection crews, there's not a military woman in sight. The hurt locker in question is a souvenir box of Iraqi bomb making material that Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) hides under his bed between adrenaline quick fix danger junkie outings either dismantling explosives or killing people. And the other men in the Bravo Company alternate between jealousy and admiration for this mysterious guy, who doesn't let a trifling matter like dying himself at any moment, ruin his day. And in the course of this long and tedious movie, seemingly more from the point of view of screenwriter Boal peering from inside the relative safety of a tank, the audience is subjected to what feels like real time surveillance and shootouts for no particular reason at all. And what plays out as he-men 'hadji hunting' and occasional boy bonding with the typical 'they all look alike' street kid, dubbed 'base rat.' And we're never allowed to forget for a minute that bomb maven and intermittent free lance vigilante James, no matter how depraved from time to time, is a man's man. A big clue is that he doesn't even bother to take off his fatigues while showering after an especially dangerous mission, that tends to be filmed more like a heroin fix or a satisfying sex scene, than warfare. After all, the tag line opening the movie is that 'war is a drug.' So the question is, whose drug. The soldiers, or the filmmakers. And is Bigelow more interested now in scrutinizing the male species, or being one. And how about impressionable kids watching this movie, and being awed by the razzle dazzle industrial light show amidst killing and dying. And with the main character pausing to reflect on his addiction with about as much insight as the filmmakers: 'I don't know, I guess I don't think about it.' The Hurt Locker: War is never having to say you're sorry. Summit Entertainment Rated R 1 star Prairie Miller is a multimedia journalist online, in print and on radio. Contact her through NewsBlaze. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Calling all rebels
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-03-09, at 6:16 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 2010-03-09, at 4:21 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: From Pierre Broue's book on German Communism. I do not endorse what the Communists did but am simply reporting: The Communists systematically sought discussion and public debate with the Nazis, especially amongst the students, who formed one of their bastions. The polemic or dialogue developed in the press... == This would have happened in the context of the Comintern's third period policy when the KPD was denouncing the SPD as social fascist. Nazi and KPD deputies frequently voted as a bloc in the Reichstag to defeat motions by successive Weimer governments, and a de facto red-brown alliance was formed in 1931 in a bid to topple the social democratic government of Prussia by plebiscite. No, this was happening in 1922. The third period began in 1928 after the end of the NEP. = It wasn't clear the discussions took place in 1922. In any case, the KPD was still maneuvering with the Nazis between 28-33, when the stakes were much higher. Later, Tudeh would have the same uneasy tactical relationship with the Islamist forces on it's right (not saying the Islamists were fascist) trying to topple the shah. In each case, the CP's miscalculated that they would emerge on top in the ensuing struggle for power, with disasterous consequences. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Palestinian UDI as bargaining chip
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-03-04, at 5:50 PM, Gary MacLennan wrote: I thought the reference to Israel's colonial ambitions was also very telling. The ground is shifting under the Israelis and the collapse when it comes could be remarkably quick. But I still think that it is in Cairo the main game will be played out. At the moment the USA is still not having to pay a high enough price for its continued support for Israel. the ending of the Mubarak regime would change all that in a very dramatic fashion. = It could, but my own view is that it is in Tehran and Washington where the main game is being played out, as you put it. Any formal agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will first require that the US and Iran settle their differences. I don't foresee an Israeli military collapse or the expulsion of the US from the Mideast anywhere on the horizon. The Palestinians, like all indigenous peoples brutally displaced by colonial settler states, are the historic victims, and will remain so even if they are eventually allowed to form a nominally independent state. On the other hand, if tensions subside, I expect Zionism, which is the political expression of a seige mentality, to progressively lose it's hold on the Hebrew-speaking masses, with politics assuming more of a class rather national character throughout the region. You saw a hint of this before the Oslo accords unravelled, when revisionist Israeli historians began to question the Zionist underpinnings of the Jewish state and rudimentary political alliances began to develop between Israelis and Palestinians, alarming ideologically committed Zionists. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Taiwan Gains Mainland Market Entry
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/technology/12chip.html?partner=rssemc=rsspagewanted=print Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Taiwan Gains Mainland Market Entry
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == sent in error... Begin forwarded message: From: Marv Gandall marvgand...@videotron.ca Date: February 12, 2010 6:32:05 AM EST To: Marxmail marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Taiwan Gains Mainland Market Entry http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/technology/12chip.html?partner=rssemc=rsspagewanted=print Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Obama's Wall Street ass lick: cause and effect
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The effect: Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon By Julianna Goldman and Ian Katz Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimonor the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay. The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.” “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087sid=aKGZkktzkAlA# The cause: In a Message to Democrats, Wall St. Sends Cash to G.O.P. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK New York Times February 8, 2010 WASHINGTON — If the Democratic Party has a stronghold on Wall Street, it is JPMorgan Chase. Its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, a frequent White House guest and a big Democratic donor. Its vice chairman, William M. Daley, a former Clinton administration cabinet official and Obama transition adviser, comes from Chicago’s Democratic dynasty. But this year Chase’s political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts. The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry’s campaign to thwart Mr. Obama’s proposals for tighter financial regulations. Just two years after Mr. Obama helped his party pull in record Wall Street contributions — $89 million from the securities and investment business, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics — some of his biggest supporters, like Mr. Dimon, have become the industry’s chief lobbyists against his regulatory agenda. Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s “buyer’s remorse” with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street “fat cats,” they may fight back by withholding their cash. “If the president doesn’t become a little more balanced and centrist in his approach, then he will likely lose that support,” said Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BBT. Mr. King is a board member of the Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies for the biggest banks, and last month he helped represent the industry at a private dinner at the Treasury Department. “I understand the public outcry,” he continued. “We have a 17 percent real unemployment rate, people are hurting, and they want to see punishment. But the political rhetoric just incites more animosity and gets people riled up.” A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on its political action committee’s contributions or relations with the Democrats. But many Wall Street lobbyists and executives said they, too, were rethinking their giving. “The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’ ” said a top official at a major Wall Street firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House. “We are not going to play that game anymore.” Wall Street fund-raisers for the Democrats say they are feeling under attack from all sides. The president is lashing out at their “arrogance and greed.” Republican friends are saying “I told you so.” And contributors are wishing they had their money back. “I am a big fan of the president,” said Thomas R. Nides, a prominent Democrat who is also a Morgan Stanley executive and chairman of a major Wall Street trade group, the Securities and Financial Markets Association. “But even if you are a big fan, when you are the piñata at the party, it doesn’t really feel good.” Roger C. Altman, a former Clinton administration Treasury official who founded the Wall Street boutique Evercore Partners, called the Wall Street backlash against Mr. Obama “a constant topic of conversation.” Many bankers, he said, failed to appreciate the “white hot anger” at Wall Street for the financial crisis. (Mr. Altman said he personally supported “the substance” of the president’s recent
Re: [Marxism] Obama's Wall Street ass lick: cause and effect
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-02-11, at 6:12 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Marv Gandall wrote: The effect: Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon By Julianna Goldman and Ian Katz Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimonor the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay. Oh, I see. It took Wall Street shifting to the Republicans to get Obama lined up behind Goldman-Sachs. Interesting. That will teach me to vacation on the planet Neptune when such profound changes are taking place. === Newer comrades should know that Gandall is a longstanding apologist for the DP leadership who does not understand it's historic ties to Wall Street... Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The winter of America's discontent
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2010-02-06, at 12:48 PM, Greg McDonald wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten6-2010feb06,0,1034960.column The winter of America's discontent Dissatisfaction with both political parties runs deep. By Tim Rutten February 5, 2010 | 4:26 p.m. [...] In one of his magisterial explorations of German politics between the wars, the historian Ian Kershaw mused that there are times -- they mark the danger point for a political system -- when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing. It would be reckless not to insist that this country and its politics remain, in crucial ways, far distant from Weimar. It would be rash, though, to pretend that the distance remains as great as it once was. === Reading the offhand comment below from the latest Economist the other day reminded me of the German bourgeoisie's growing frustration with Weimar's parliamentary institutions: ...a “Beijing consensus” has been gaining ground, extolling the virtues of decisive authoritarianism over shilly-shallying democratic debate. In the margins of international conferences such as the recent Davos forum, even American officials mutter despairingly about their own “dysfunctional” political system. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] I.F Stone on fighting
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis wrote: The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it. --I. F. Stone === More on Stone, whom we all admire for his radical journalism and fighting spirit: Though he distrusted liberals, he had an ecumenical rather than vitupertive attitude towards them and the other the political tendencies he encountered and disagreed with both inside and outside of the Democratic party. I tried to befriend everyone, he wrote. I had socialists, communists, Trotskyists, Lovestoneites and liberals for friends. My door was open. Like many former members and fellow travellers, he continued to adhere more closely to the the CPUSA's orientation to the DP than to that favoured by the Trotskyists and others opposed to the party - supporting it against the Republicans and, within it, supporting the efforts of radicals and dissaffected liberals to change it's political direction and leadership. In the contemporary context, this would place him closer to groups like the Committees of Correspondence and Progressive Democrats of America and to fellow radicals like Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and others who have held their noses and supported Democratic candidates at one time or another, and would see him encouraging rather than disparaging the efforts of liberal critics of the party like Keith Olbermann, Frank Rich, Arriana Huffington, Markos Moulitsas, Katrina vanden Heuvel, etc., whose political limitations would be familiar to him. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] US still magnet for foreign scientists and engineers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == U.S. Keeps Foreign Ph.D.s Despite Fears of a Post-9/11 Drop, Most Science, Engineering Post-Grads Have Stayed By DAVID WESSEL Wall Street Journal January 26 2010 Most foreigners who came to the U.S. to earn doctorate degrees in science and engineering stayed on after graduation—at least until the recession began—refuting predictions that post-9/11 restrictions on immigrants or expanding opportunities in China and India would send more of them home. Newly released data revealed that 62% of foreigners holding temporary visas who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. Of those who graduated in 1997, 60% were still in the U.S. in 2007, according to the data compiled by the U.S. Energy Department's Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the National Science Foundation. Foreigners account for about 40% of all science and engineering Ph.D. holders working in the U.S., and a larger fraction in engineering, math and computer fields. Our ability to continue to attract and keep foreign scientists and engineers is critical to…increase investment in science and technology, Oak Ridge analyst Michael Finn said. Data for all available cohorts indicate that 'stay rates' of foreign science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2007 are slightly higher than they have been in recent years, Mr. Finn said. His findings, which use tax data to track graduates over time, cover the years before the U.S. plunged into a recession that damped job prospects in many U.S. industries and universities. Other analysts see signs that recent foreign grads are increasingly likely to return home, particularly in today's weak job market. I have no doubt that the 2009 data will show a dramatic shift, said Vivek Wadwha, executive in residence at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, who has been warning loudly about the threat that trend would pose to innovation in the U.S. In October 2008, Mr. Wadwha and others used Facebook to question 1,224 foreigners studying at U.S. institutions at all levels. More than half the Indians and 40% of the Chinese said they hoped to return home within five years. Separate NSF surveys show the fraction of foreign Ph.D.s planning to stay in the U.S. dipped in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack and then rebounded. Nearly 80% of those with temporary visas surveyed in 2007 said they planned to stay; more than half had definite plans to do so. Joy Ying Zhang, the son of a primary-school teacher and a college professor, left China's Hunan Province in 1999 for Detroit's Wayne State University, where he arrived with two suitcases and $2,000 in cash. He later transferred to Carnegie Mellon University, which awarded him a Ph.D. in computer science in 2008. Four or five of his friends have returned to China, he said, and he has discussed doing so. But Mr. Zhang, now a research assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley campus, has decided stay. I have spent 10 years here already, he said. It took me some time to get used to American life. Now, it'd be hard to get used to China. It's called 'reverse culture shock.' Mr. Zhang, 35 years old, has a brother who works for a pharmaceutical company in the U.S. and a sister who is a physician in China and close to their parents. In recruiting for Carnegie Mellon, he finds young Chinese less eager to come to the U.S. than those of his generation. Life in China is getting better. There are research alternatives in China—like Microsoft China, he said. They can get good mentoring and advice there, instead of coming to the U.S. In 2007, foreign citizens accounted for 16,022 of the Ph.D.s awarded in science and engineering in the U.S., or 46% of the total, according to the Oak Ridge data. In contrast, the class of 1997 had 12,966 foreigners, or 30% of the total. Graduates of Ph.D. programs in the physical sciences and computer science are more likely to remain in the U.S. than those in other fields, Mr. Finn said. Those programs are popular with Chinese and Indian students, who are more likely to remain in the U.S. after completing studies than those from Taiwan, South Korea and Western Europe. Among 2002 graduates, 92% of the Chinese and 81% of the Indians were in the U.S. after five years; in contrast, 41% of South Koreans and 52% of Germans were. Aranyak Mehta, 31, came from India nearly a decade ago to study the science of algorithms at Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a Ph.D. in 2005. Today, he is a research scientist at Google—and planning, for now, to remain in the U.S. There's always a trade-off—family, culture, and all that, he
Re: [Marxism] Obama is not a Wimp
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis wrote: ...an open letter signed by some high-profile Obama supporters inviting people to a convention in the Midwest to launch a new progressive party would be a huge step forward. It would be. If a third party of any significance to the left of the Democrats were to emerge during this period it would necessarily be left-liberal, intitiated and composed mainly but not exclusively of activists drawn from the netroots, trade unions, and social movements who threw themselves into the Obama campaign and are feeling his betrayal most keenly. They would not readily respond to a call issued from the outside by groups or individuals whom they perceive both as marginal and to have stood apart from and criticized their efforts to reform the party from the inside - even should they now concur with the criticism. A united socialist ticket is a very, very, very, very bad idea. We need something much more like the Greens before they got subverted by Medea Benjamin and company. Here you are apt to be disappointed. While there will always be those wanting to sharply differentiate the new party from the DP in order to displace it, the majority at this stage would likely view it as still to weak to do so and would seek instead to pressure the Democrats from the outside into enacting the kind of domestic and foreign policy reforms they are now wanting the administration to deliver. Unlike the members on this list, their contempt for Geithner, Summers, Emanuel and the DLC does not extend to the liberal wing of the DP, with which it still identifies and would first look to for alliances, including with it's high-profile congressional, media, and social movement leaders. The Greens as well as the social democrats have always had a left and a right. The only way to avoid confronting the Medea Benjamins is to abstain from the organizations to which they belong. It's also worth reminding ourselves that while the far left has historically played an outsized role in social and political struggles and political education, the fate of mass organizations ultimately depends less on ideological confrontation, however necessary, than on the capacity of capitalism to recover from the crises which afflict it. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Here it comes, Here comes the night
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ralph Johansen writes: S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net wrote From the FRB Beige Book: Overall economic activity continued to weaken across almost all of the Federal Reserve Districts since the previous reporting period. Most Districts noted reduced or low activity across a wide range of industries, although a few Districts noted some exceptions in some sectors. District reports indicate that retail sales were generally weak, clip http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2009/20090114/default.htm -- Joke? Birthday memo? This is dated 01-14-09. Yes, that's from a year ago. The latest Beige Book (January 13, 2010) reports as follows: Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicated that while economic activity remains at a low level, conditions have improved modestly further, and those improvements are broader geographically than in the last report. Ten Districts reported some increased activity or improvement in conditions, while the remaining two--Philadelphia and Richmond--reported mixed conditions. The last Beige Book reported eight Districts with increased activity or improving conditions and four Districts showing little change and/or mixed conditions. http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2010/20100113/default.htm Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Re: Economists Seek to Fix a Defec t in Data That Overstates the Nation’s Vigor (NYT)
Matt Russo posted: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/economy/09econ.html?ref=business A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation. = Maybe also oil... Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower By Terry Macalister Guardian Monday 9 November 2009 The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves. The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies. In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production. Now the peak oil theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year, said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this. Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further... Full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party
Thomas Bias writes: The Fourth International was launched to combat Stalinism and social democracy in the working class, with the belief that without doing so socialist revolution was not possible. It's a little more complicated than that. The Trotskyists had been combatting social democracy and Stalinism within the international working class for more than a decade prior to the formation of the Fourth International, but as open or closed factions within these parties and the organizations they controlled. They chose not to pronounce themselves an independent party under their own banner because they understood they did not have the forces to warrant that status and that appeals to the working class to consider their small band as an alternative to the CP's and SP's would be met with derision, further contributing to their isolation. However, when it became clear that they could not reform these parties from within, they decided in 1938 to proclaim the Fourth International, justifying the decision mostly on the basis of future expectations - that the coming world war was certain to produce the conditions for the triumph of the infant international party over both capitalism and Stalinism. As the FI's founding document put it: At the beginning of the war the sections of the Fourth International will inevitably feel themselves isolated...However, the devastation and misery brought about by the new war, which in the first months will far outstrip the bloody horrors of 1914-18 will quickly prove sobering. The discontents of the masses and their revolt will grow by leaps and bounds. The sections of the Fourth International will be found at the head of the revolutionary tide. The program of transitional demands will gain burning actuality. The problem of the conquest of power by the proletariat will loom in full stature. (The death agony of capitalism and the tasks of the Fourth International http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#op) Trotsky was even more emphatic at an SWP meeting to celebrate the founding of the FI. During the next ten years, he forecast, the program of the Fourth International will become the guide of millions and these revolutionary millions will know how to storm earth and heaven. (On the Founding of the Fourth International http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/1938/10/foundfi.htm) That he well understood the contingent basis for the formation of the new party was evident in his remarks a year later, at the outbreak of WWII in September, 1939, and less than a year before his assassination in Mexico, when he ruminated on the present war and the fate of modern society: By the very march of events this question is now posed very concretely. The second world war has begun. It attests incontrovertibly to the fact that society can no longer live on the basis of capitalism. Thereby it subjects the proletariat to a new and perhaps decisive test. If this war provokes, as we firmly believe, a proletarian revolution, it must inevitably lead to the overthrow of the bureaucracy in the USSR and regeneration of Soviet democracy on a far higher economic and cultural basis than in 1918...If, however, it is conceded that the present war will provoke not revolution but a decline of the proletariat, then there remains another alternative: the further decay of monopoly capitalism, its further fusion with the state and the replacement of democracy wherever it still remained by a totalitarian regime..An analogous result might occur in the event that the proletariat of advanced capitalist countries, having conquered power, should prove incapable of holding it and surrender it, as in the USSR, to a privileged bureaucracy. Then we would be compelled to acknowledge that the reason for the bureaucratic relapse is rooted not in the backwardness of the country and not in the imperialist environment but in the congenital incapacity of the proletariat to become a ruling class. Then it would be necessary in retrospect to establish that in its fundamental traits the present USSR was the precursor of a new exploiting régime on an international scale. ...The historic alternative, carried to the end, is as follows: either the Stalin régime is an abhorrent relapse in the process of transforming bourgeois society into a socialist society, or the Stalin régime is the first stage of a new exploiting society. If the second prognosis proves to be correct, then, of course, the bureaucracy will become a new exploiting class. However onerous the second perspective may be, if the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of fulfilling the mission placed upon it by the course of development, nothing else would remain except openly to recognize that the socialist program based on the internal contradictions of capitalist society, ended as a Utopia. (The USSR in War http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/09/ussr-war.htm) We'll never know whether and how
[Marxism] Rise of the dark pools
From a speech to the Senate by Delaware Senator Ted Kaufman, published in yesterday's Huffington Post: (High frequency or flash trading refers to the growing practice of investment houses like Goldman Sachs to locate and program servers next to exchanges, giving them split second advance access to market information which allows them to engage in automated front-running, executing orders on their own account ahead of their customers and other traders.) *** [...] Due to rapid technological advances in computerized trading, the stock markets have changed dramatically in recent years. They have become so highly fragmented that they are opaque - beyond the scope of effective surveillance. And our regulators have failed to keep pace. The facts speak for themselves. We've gone from an era dominated by a duopoly of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to a highly fragmented market of more than 60 trading centers. Dark pools, which allow confidential trading away from the public eye, have flourished, growing from 1.5 percent to 12 percent of market trades in under five years. Competition for orders is intense and increasingly problematic. Flash orders, liquidity rebates, direct access granted to hedge funds by the exchanges, dark pools, indications of interest, and payment for order flow are each a consequence of these 60 centers all competing for market share. Moreover, in just a few short years, high frequency trading - which feeds everywhere on small price differences in the many fragmented trading venues - has skyrocketed from 30 to 70 percent of the daily volume. Indeed, the chief executive of one of the country's biggest block trading dark pools was quoted two weeks ago as saying that the amount of money devoted to high-frequency trading could quintuple between this year and next. Mr. President, we have no effective regulation in these markets. Last week, Rick Ketchum, the Chairman CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority - the self-regulatory body governing broker-dealers - gave a very thoughtful and candid speech, which I applaud. In it, Mr. Ketchum admitted that we have inadequate regulatory market surveillance. His candor was refreshing but also ominous: There is much more to be done in the areas of front-running, manipulation, abusive short selling, and just having a better understanding of who is moving the markets and why. Mr. Ketchum went on to say: There are impediments to regulatory effectiveness that are not terribly well understood and potentially damaging to the integrity of the markets...The decline of the primary market concept, where there was a single price discovery market whose on-site regulator saw 90-plus percent of the trading activity, has obviously become a reality. In its place are now two or three or maybe four regulators all looking at an incomplete picture of the market and knowing full well that this fractured approach does not work. Mr. President, at the same time that we have no effective regulatory surveillance, we have also learned about potential manipulation by high frequency traders. [...] ...One industry expert has warned about high-frequency malfunctions: The next Long Term Capital meltdown would happen in a five-minute time period. ... At 1,000 shares per order and an average price of $20 per share, $2.4 billion of improper trades could be executed in [a] short time frame. This is a real problem, Mr. President. We have unregulated entities - hedge funds - using high frequency trading programs interacting directly with the exchanges. As Chairman Reed said at last week's hearing, nothing requires that these people even be located within the United States. Known as sponsored access, hedge funds use the name of a broker-dealer to gain direct trading access to the exchange - but do not have to comply with any of the broker-dealer rules or risk checks. [...] Even those on Wall Street responsible for overseeing their firms' high frequency programs are not up to speed on the risks involved, according to a recent study conducted by 7city Learning. In a survey of quantitative analysts, who design and implement high frequency trading algorithms, two-thirds asserted their supervisors do not understand the work they do. And though quants and risk managers played a central role exacerbating last year's financial crisis, 86% of those surveyed indicated their supervisors' level of understanding of the job of a quant is the same or worse than it was a year ago, and 70% said the same about their institutions as a whole. [...] Full: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-ted-kaufman/breaking-wall-streets-boo_b_348494.html YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The dollar carry trade (Was: How to Tell When the Market is Topping)
Artesian writes: From the Financial Times of 19 October: Russian plans to raise $18bn with international bond Russia is to launch its first international bond in a decade to bolster its public finances and take advantage of the surge in demand for emerging market debt. One other point. Despite all the sound and fury about dumping the dollar, please note that this issue is denominated in dollars--not euros, yen, yuan, rubles, rupees, BRICs, SDRs, Virtual trading currency, bahts, bolivars, pesos, drachmas, ounces of gold, etc. etc. etc. === I suspect this move has less to do with Russian public finances and more to do with the falling US dollar and it's increasing role as a funding currency. It's not just the Russian government which has opted to borrow dollars. Germany recently announced it's first USD bond issuance in four years and Switzerland, which is running the largest fiscal surplus in the West, is doing likewise. Venezuela, Belgium, and Spain are other countries which come to mind as having this year floated or announced plans to to float dollar-denominated bonds. Welcome to the dollar carry trade. You remember the Yen carry trade. Wall Street banks, other global banks and big institutional investors - even small investors in Japan betting against their own currency - were borrowing depreciating yen at near zero interest rates and turning an easy profit by investing them in US and other higher-yielding currencies and assets. Now we have Wall Street banks, other global banks and big institutional investors - even small investors in the US betting against their own currency - all borrowing depreciating dollars at near zero interest rates and turning an easy profit by investing them in higher-yielding Australian, Brazilian, Indian, European, and other currencies, as well as in gold and oil on expectations these currencies and commodities will continue to rise against the falling dollar as the Fed, like the B of J previously, engages in quantitative easing and keeps interest rates on hold. The Russian and other governments can play this carry trade by issuing dollar-denominated notes and bonds and swapping these dollar borrowings back into their own and other rising currencies, both eliminating currency risk and in the expectation that they'll be paying back the interest and principal on the USD bonds in cheaper dollars as they continue to depreciate. So far this year, it's been a profitable trade. The dollar has fallen sharply against most currencies except those pegged to it. The ruble hasn't risen as spectacularly against the USD has the the Aussie dollar or the Brazilian real, but it is up more than 10% in line with the rise in the exchange rate of the Canadian loonie and even of the yen, Swiss franc, and euro in other low interest rate environments. Of course, another financial shock could see a rush back into the dollar as a safe haven, in which case the unwinding of the dollar carry trade will likely prove even more painful to investors and destabilizing to the world economy than was the unwinding of the yen carry trade last year. Which has got the BIS and the world's central bankers worried and warning about it . YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thankless Bastards
Bhaskar writes: That .pdf that I linked to is still recommended... = Yes, well worth reading. ...the concept of instrumentalism that is so closely associated with Ralph Miliband’s theory of the state is not merely an oversimplication and caricature of Miliband’s political theory, but an artificial polemical construct superimposed on his and others’ historical and empirical analysis of the state in capitalist society. Ok, overposted for today. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors
Artesian writes: [...] No, I don't consider the end of apartheid a joke-- never said any such thing-- but the sort of Mandela-de Klerk deal does not bring democracy, or secularism, or socialism. Thanks for clarifying. Does anyone think the Afrikaners made this deal out of the goodness of their hearts; a sudden burst of Christian morality? Not I. :) The deal was made for economic reasons-- greater access to the world markets; eliminate the considerable financial burdens of running an apartheid state; and most importantly pre-empting the possibility of actual revolution and expropriation of property by a movement who's real strength was in the organizations of the miners and workers. It either a) pre-empted the possibility of revolution, as you opine, or b) reflected the military stalemate and the willingness, even enthusiastic support, of the black masses, including the miners and other workers' organizations, for a political settlement which gave them the vote and other democratic rights, ended white rule, legalized their institutions, and gave their party control of the government. Even today, I doubt you'd find very few if any allies among the miners and South African workers who - despite their disappointment with the slow pace of progress and of many with the ANC - share your despairing view of that agreement as, in effect, a counter-revolutionary one rather than an historic advance which provided them with an institutional framework for further progress. Truth to tell, if a similar deal was struck in Palestine - the release of Marwan Barghouti, the dismantling of the Zionist state, the unbanning of all Palestinian parties and popular organizations, the enfranchisement of the Palestinian masses under a new constitution, a general election throughout Israel and the occupied territories, and the formation of a government based on the Arabic-speaking majority - I'm certain the Palestinian masses and the international left would similarly hail these developments as an historic victory, even were it to be accompanied by an amnesty for the Zionist leaders, continuing social inequality, and no immediate or appreciable improvement in living standards. Of course, the Palestinians, confronting stronger opponents with weaker leadership, can at this stage only dream of a negotiated end to Israeli apartheid, but were that to be improbably realized, I think we can agree that you, Brasky, and Pollock would still be there denouncing it as a sellout pre-empting the possibility of socialist revolution in the Mideast. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors
Artesian writes: I no more deny that apartheid was broken than I would deny that segregation by race has been dismantled in the South. My last word on the subject but as you know I say that often, usually after I have already given assurances of my last word on the subject. == I found the exchanges helpful. To be continued, I'm sure, whenever discussion of national struggles pops up. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors
Dennis Brasky writes: If the Israeli Jews are offered self determination after the coming socialist revolution, what form will that take? Won't it be a Jewish state in Palestine - where the Palestinians would want their state? But the Jews already have such a state, so why do they need a revolution? This would do nothing to break away the Jewish working class from Zionism. On the contrary, it is an unprincipled concession to it, one that the Palestinians could never support. Any leftists advocating it would earn for themselves distrust. = It's not possible to conceive of a socialist revolution in Palestine/Israel which would not involve the participation of the Jewish masses, and if such were to come to pass, the question of a Jewish state, especially in terms of what it has come to represent, would be moot. It's very unlikely that Hebrew-speaking revolutionaries, having shed their blood with Arabic-speaking Palestinians against the Zionists and the Zionist idea, would be asking, if anything, for more than the new state's support for the preservation of their language and culture. Crucially, however, your stance avoids the question of how to respond to the actual political situation as it exists today. The only discernible movement is in the direction of two rigidly segregated states, with the subordinated Palestinian entity hardly warranting being called such. Fatah and the rest of the world with few exceptions accept the continuation of an Israeli state de jure and Hamas and it's allies are reluctantly compelled to do so de facto. In this context, it's almost utopian to even envisage a federation of two Palestinian and Israeli states as a transitional measure, much less a socialist revolution which dissolves these boundries, but at least the former is something which leftish forces in each society have contemplated as more realizable at the outside, and a possible basis for united action. You invoked Lenin, but neglected to mention or are perhaps unaware that the Bolshevik notion of self-determination allowed for such voluntary federations, perceived as an interim measure accompanying progress towards socialism at the economic level, so it it would not be unprincipled for someone such as yourself to support such a temporary political arrangement in the Middle East as consistent with that tradition. On the other hand, it seems clear that if there is any program at the present time which most Arabic-speaking Palestinians, let alone the overwhelming majority of Hebrew-speakers, could never support, it is placing a revolutionary socialist agenda ahead of their national aspirations, and that any leftists advocating it would earn for themselves distrust from both sides. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors
Artesian writes: Dennis is quite write to point out that there is no such thing as self-determination for the Afrikaners in South Africa, for the Israelis in the Middle East, just as the French in Algeria were not entitled to, nor struggling for self-determination. So you are both saying that, following the dissolution of the Zionist state, you would not support cultural rights for the Hebrew-speaking minority and even a limited measure of political autonomy as an interim measure PROVIDED these were agreed to by the Arabic-speaking majority in the post-Zionist state? If the the Afrikaners in South Africa and French in Algeria accepted the legitimacy of ANC and FLN rule, and the latter were willing to accede to minority demands for some (negotiated) measure of cultural and political autonomy as an interim means of fostering unity and in the economic interest, you would oppose these concessions on principle and condemn the governments for agreeing to these demands? YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors
You're right, of course. Abbas would be much more malleable than a Mandela or even a Mbeki. But such a move would involve the Zionists abandoning Zionism, ie. a Jewish state. The Afrikanner ruling class rejected the notion of a seperate Afrikaner state because they didn't want to be cut off from the South African market which they dominated. The issue of an interim voluntary federation of anti-Zionist Arabic- and Hebrew-speaking Palestinians as a way station to the declared goal of a unitary state is a much different question entirely. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com To: Marv Gandall marvgand...@videotron.ca Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2009 10:08 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors Marv Gandall wrote: It's not possible to conceive of a socialist revolution in Palestine/Israel which would not involve the participation of the Jewish masses, and if such were to come to pass, the question of a Jewish state, especially in terms of what it has come to represent, would be moot. It's very unlikely that Hebrew-speaking revolutionaries, having shed their blood with Arabic-speaking Palestinians against the Zionists and the Zionist idea, would be asking, if anything, for more than the new state's support for the preservation of their language and culture. But the conflict is not about language and culture. It is about power, land, wealth, etc. And, furthermore, what is so amazing about the Zionist project is its inability to think outside the box. South Africa abandoned apartheid but did nothing to attack the power, land, and wealth of the white minority. A more clever Zionist leadership would abandon the racial basis of the state and put the ineffable Abbas in charge of the government. Nothing would change, however. But since the presence of religious zealots in the veins of Israeli society prevents this, the inevitable outcome will be like Algeria no matter how long it takes. The demographics favor this. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marvgandall%40videotron.ca YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] self determination for oppressors
Artesian writes: [...] If, however, you're referring to the the type of deal struck by de Klerk, Botha with Mandela, then preserving cultural identity of the minority is a non-issue at best, a joke at worst, as the economic and social power of the minority has been preserved. === The outcome of those negotiations was the dismantling of the legal and political system of apartheid, including the unbanning of the ANC, which was effectively an agreement to replace white rule with a black majority government. It was a concession forced on the apartheid regime by powerful domestic and international pressures. Because it was a deal resulting from a military stalemate rather than the ANC dictating terms in the aftermath of a successful armed struggle, it necessarily required reciprocal assurances by the Congress that Afrikaner assets would not be seized nor regime officials prosecuted for their crimes. Otherwise, there have been no deal. In this context, I consider that the extension of political and other democratic rights to the black masses was an historic advance, even though the ANC, like most other national liberation movements, subsequently fell well short of the expectations of it's active supporters. I'd be surprised if you really viewed the fall of apartheid as a non-issue at best, a joke at worst. You didn't oppose the enfranchisement of the black majority and the legalization of the ANC because these represented less than a socialist revolution which would have economically and politically expropriated the white ruling class, did you? You wouldn't now reverse that deal if you could, would you? YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Overproduction - underconsumption
Artesian writes: ...so I wouldn't rush out and buy shares in Baosteel based on the WSA article, know what I mean? == Jeez, Artesian, anyone following your investment advice would have been short China and long the US market since 2000, and we know where they'd be now - where you would be if you followed your own forecasts: looking for a job as a Walmart greeter or back on the railroad. :) YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] China's nationalized sector has key role in current gains
Luko writes one might say, that China is saving world wide capitalism from deeper crises, but I prefer China growing than starving so that the working masses in the imperialist countries fall into misery. I have never been a follower of the the worse the better strategy. = Me neither. I assume you meant to say so that the working masses in the imperialist countries don't fall into misery. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] China's nationalized sector has key rol incurrentgains
On crises of overproduction (and underconsumption): Starting from these profound but unsystematic remarks, many interpretations of the ‘marxist theory of crises’ have been offered by economists who consider themselves marxists. ‘Monocausal’ ones generally centre around ‘disproportionality’ (Bukharin, Hilferding, Otto Bauer) - anarchy of production as the key cause of crises - or ‘underconsumption’ - lack of purchasing power of the ‘final consumers’ as the cause of crises (Rosa Luxemburg, Sweezy). ‘Non-monocausal’ ones try to elaborate Marx’s own dictum according to which all basic contradictions of the capitalist mode of production come into play in the process leading to a capitalist crises (Grossman, Mandel). The question of determining whether according to Marx, a crisis of overproduction is first of all a crisis of overproduction of commodities or a crisis of overproduction of capital is really meaningless in the framework of Marx’s economic analysis. The mass of commodities is but one specific form of capital, commodity capital. Under capitalism, which is generalised commodity production, no overproduction is possible which is not simultaneously overproduction of commodities and overproduction of capital (overaccumulation). -Ernest Mandel, Marx's Theory of Crisis http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article289 - Original Message - From: S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net To: Marv Gandall marvgand...@videotron.ca Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 6:22 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's nationalized sector has key role incurrentgains Then Nestor, you really need to sit down and reread your Marx. Overproduction is always the overproduction of capital; the overproduction of commodities beyond the ability of the market, the relations of production, to provide the required return. Overproduction is not underconsumption. Capital is not organized around production for use; production for need. It, capitalist production is about, and is only about the expansion of value. I'm astonished that as a Marxist you aren't aware of that fundamental aspect of Marx's analysis. It's like, not it's not like, it is exactly not understanding the dual role, the dual existence of the commodity. - Original Message - From: Néstor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com To: David Schanoes sartes...@earthlink.net Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 5:24 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's nationalized sector has key role incurrentgains I am astonished at the idea that in a world where at least 2 billion people lack the most essential goods to barely eke out a decent living there are Marxists who believe that China, or Japan, or the US of America or Bangla Desh overproduce something! YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marvgandall%40videotron.ca YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The panic of 2008
Lehman's collapse almost brought down the money-market industry By Sam Mamudi, MarketWatch September 9 2009 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- As the threat of a Lehman Brothers bankruptcy grew last September, many money-market fund managers were wary but not worried. Their industry had quietly grown over the past generation to become a major rival to the banking system, with $3.5 trillion in assets. It had weathered crises such as the collapse of Baring Plc, the Asian currency mess of the late 1990s and the fall of hedge fund giant Long-Term Capital Management. Though some managers were talking to their boards and their staff, there wasn't a feeling of impending disaster. But all that changed in the late afternoon of Sept. 16, the day after Lehman actually went down. Reserve Primary Fund -- the oldest and fifth-largest fund in the business -- said it had about $785 million in Lehman debt that was now worthless and as a result it would price its shares at 97 cents. The impact of the first major retail money-market fund to fall below $1 a share -- to actually lose money for its investors -- was immense. In the two days after Reserve Primary's announcement, roughly 22% of all assets in institutional prime money-market funds -- those that invest in corporate debt -- were pulled out by panicked investors. As Lehman's fall spread fear throughout the financial system, money-market fund managers were squeezed on both sides: investors demanding their money and frozen credit markets where no one was buying. Countless other money-market funds were poised to break the buck, said Peter Crane, president of Crane Data. The mini-run would have spread to all funds. It was a pull-out unprecedented in scale. In the space of just two days -- Sept. 17 and Sept. 18 -- $210 billion was redeemed from institutional prime money-market funds. Overall the money-market fund industry saw roughly 7% of its total assets redeemed in those two days. While some of that was invested back into government money funds, the industry lost almost 4% of its assets in 48 hours, according to data from iMoneyNet. Even managers at funds with portfolios considered safe from the crisis were struggling with the market -- because there were no buyers, pricing the assets in some cases could have meant breaking the buck. In such cases, managers talked to their boards to explain when they didn't do daily pricing for their funds. It was a shock in that the people who keep the machine going -- the broker-dealers -- suddenly weren't there to keep things going, said Mira Stevovich, manager of Ivy Money Market Fund and Waddell Reed Advisors Cash Management. You weren't sure when re-investing that there'd be anyone behind the securities to make a market if you had to sell. There was a lot of fear, and no one knew what was going to happen, added Stevovich. Even without federal bank insurance, money funds had ballooned in the past several years as alternatives to holding cash. They often offered better interest rates than bank deposits, which were insured by the federal government up to $100,000 at the time (now $250,000). The sudden prospect of investors losing their savings following the Lehman collapse caused the run, but because it was mostly in electronic transactions, it didn't summon visions of anxious crowds banging on bank doors during the Great Depression. For many, however, the fear was just as palpable. There was a concern that if something wasn't in place to regain investor confidence, after four or five days [the high redemption rate] would cause problems, said Debbie Cunningham, head of money-market funds at Federated Investors Inc. . Selling into the market [to meet redemptions] was already a problem -- there was no liquidity. The panic was averted only after the Treasury Department on Sept. 19 stepped in and announced it would backstop money-fund assets, in a series of measures that slowly restored investor confidence. But industry officials are under no illusions about what might have happened. A year of trouble In reacting to that week's panic, the industry was both helped and hindered by its experiences over the previous 12 months. Troubles in the asset-backed securities market and exposure to special investment vehicles had hit money-market funds from late 2007 and into 2008. A MarketWatch study conducted at the time found that more than a dozen funds had looked to parent companies or other sources of credit to ensure they didn't break the buck. At least 20 had sought regulatory approval for support if needed. But the fact that the funds had come through such a choppy period unscathed meant that even though some funds were known to hold Lehman paper, few expected a fund to go under. We'd gone through a series of problems leading up to Lehman, said David Glocke, who oversees Vanguard Group's taxable money-market funds and also manages its Treasury and Admiral Treasury funds. The funds didn't hold any Lehman paper. Watching from the
[Marxism] To a surprising degree... (sic)
Finance Overhaul Falters as '08 Shock Fades By DAVID ENRICH and DAMIAN PALETTA Wall Street Journal September 9 2009 Nearly one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent shock waves across the globe, the world is a different place. The investment bank's messy death intensified the deepest recession since the Great Depression. It helped open the way to a bigger role for government in managing the economy. It cast doubts in the public's mind about the wisdom of relying on markets to correct themselves. But to a surprising degree, there are some big things that Lehman's demise hasn't changed. Nearly a year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers helped speed the U.S. toward a recession, the banking industry is getting back on its feet quicker than lawmakers can agree on new regulations. On the regulatory front, Democrats' efforts to rework the rules for finance have bogged down amid infighting between federal regulators, fury among bankers and opposition from many lawmakers who believe that further expanding the government's reach will only create new problems. The all-consuming debate over health care has damped enthusiasm for tackling such complex legislation. Meanwhile, major U.S. banks have regained their footing, and some of their swagger. Profits are off their lows. Large compensation packages are back. And so is risky business. Companies are selling exotic financial products similar to those that felled markets and the world economy last fall. And banks' appetite for risk has grown: The nation's top five banks collectively stood to lose more than $1 billion on an average day in the second quarter of 2009 should their trading bets go sour, a record level. Now, the federal government is locked in a kind of regulatory limbo. U.S. officials say they are committed to preventing history from repeating and have pleaded for fresh powers to do so. But today, they have few new options -- excepting another bailout -- should financial markets seize up again or a large institution totter. There's no fundamental change in the way the banks are run or regulated, said Peter J. Solomon, a former Lehman vice chairman who runs an eponymous investment bank in New York. There's just fewer of them. Washington officials say they are encouraged that financial markets and the economy appear to be healing after the turmoil. But they also say they feel an urgent need to establish new rules. We are under no illusion that things left to their own devices will evolve back to a healthy normal, said White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers in an interview. The concern...is that a resumption of confidence, which is a good thing, not become a return to hubris, which would be a very bad thing. Wall Street's rebound presents a mixed bag for consumers. These banks' clients are demonstrating a renewed appetite for risk, a sign that confidence is returning to markets. But credit remains scarce for all but the healthiest borrowers and lenders are imposing new fees and higher interest rates on credit cards and other products. Corporations, too, are likely to have trouble getting credit if they can't access the capital markets or have less-than-pristine debt ratings. The financial world has been on a wild ride since Sept. 14, 2008, the Sunday that Lehman toppled toward bankruptcy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 11,422 on Sept. 12 to 6,547 on March 9. More than 100 banks have failed. The federal government has pumped more than $200 billion in taxpayer money into banks, and the government temporarily deemed the country's 19 largest as too big to fail in a disorderly fashion. Some of Wall Street's most notorious practices are unlikely to reappear. Banks say they've permanently abandoned housing risky assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles. Top banks have also stockpiled capital to raise their reserves to the highest levels in recent memory, providing a bigger cushion against market downturns. Last December, at a black-tie gala in New York's Plaza Hotel, Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth Lewis told a crowd of bankers to expect a humbler industry to emerge from the wreckage. We play a supporting role in the economy, not a leading role. Financial services are a means, not an end, Mr. Lewis said. There should be some humility in that. The audience applauded. But the mood has shifted as the Dow strengthened this year. Some of the government's rescue programs are coming to an end, and big banks are paying back funds they borrowed under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, releasing them from Washington's control. The top five Wall Street firms -- Bank of America, Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase Co. and Morgan Stanley -- made $23.3 billion in profits in the first six months of 2009. That compared with a $6.7 billion loss a year earlier at those banks and the companies they acquired, but it fell short of the $49.8 billion they earned in the first half of 2007, the peak
Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans
Artesian writes: As for your spark a run on the dollar would lead to a grave international economic and political crisis whose outcome would more likely than not be catastrophic rather than positive for both the Chinese and American working classes, that is simply absurd... It's the logical extension of your statement that a workers'...state, would certainly face a tremendous onslaught from the bourgeoisie within and without its borders, and so the question of 'breaking' with the US by abolishing that connection of purchasing US Treasury instruments will not be a question at all, as the US will immediately embargo sales to China, and will refuse, probably to redeem the instruments that the 'real workers' state' finds in its possession. There's no question an American embargo and debt default would have a devastating effect on the living standards of Chinese, American and other workers and greatly raise the stakes of a military confrontation between the two powers. Do you really dispute this? Do you support the bailouts, Marv? No. I never have. I've previously stated that the Obama administration should have let the insolvent private banks collapse and instead allocated the resources to the formation of a strong national bank providing cheap credit directly to heavily indebted American households. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Lindorff's mea culpa
Dennis Brasky writes: Of course, the proof is in the eating. If it's Obama vs a real greater evil - Palin or Huckerbee in 2012, we'll see if the Lindorffs and Greenwalds continue to hold their noses and vote lesser evil to stop impending fascism. = Maybe some leftists will use impending fascism as justification, but blacks, immigrants, trade unionists, gays, women, environmentalists and other groups will look to the Democratic party - for pragmatic reasons and despite their frustrations with it - to defend their interests against the Republicans in the legislative, judicial, and regulatory arenas. This has always been the case and won't change until there is a third party capable of electing representatives at all levels to perform this function. The appearance of a mass-based third party to the left of the Democrats will require even greater disturbances to the status quo than those currently underway if agitation for an alternative is not to fall on deaf ears. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Guess What? He's a Terrible President
Dennis Brasky writes: On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Marv Gandall marvgand...@videotron.cawrote: At present, as between the two parties, a split within the Republicans seems more likely, with the rich patrician wing which formerly controlled the party now sensing it has more in common with the Democratic leadership than with it's raggedy-ass white working class and petty-bourgeois base. This was apparent in the 2008 election, and I believe the policies of the Obama administration, which have caused such consternation among liberals, have been primarily pitched to winning over the Republican moderates within the ruling class. Seen in this context, they are not as incomprehensible as they have appeared to many outraged liberals and even radicals. Ah, so I finally get it. It's not a question of Democrat/Obama's complicity with the Republicans because of fundamental agreement over goals, it's the cunning (certainly much too cunning for liberals and even radicals to discern!) strategy of splitting the Republicans! This is an apolgia for Obama. Fortunately, the partnership between the two corporate and militarist parties is becoming increasingly obvious to many, but apparently not all on the left. == It would be an apologia only if I supported this orientation to the Republicans by the Democratic leadership, which I don't, and wanted to see the angry opposition of the DP ranks to the administration's policies quelled, which I also don't, so try not to jump to conclusions. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Rape is not necessarily a consequence of war
Jeff writes: I don't know about you, but I supported the fight against fascism as part of the class war, not because I like one of the nations better than the other! If Russians came to view it as a war between nations, I would call that an ideological failure. And indeed one encouraged by Stalin, if we must name names! === A military defeat would have been more catastrophic and far-reaching for the USSR and the global fight against fascism than the ideological failure which Jeff laments. We know the Soviet masses were successfully mobilized to throw themselves into a Great Patriotic War against German troops who invaded the country in the service of the Nazi regime. We don't know that defence of the USSR based on appeals to the Soviet masses to prosecute the war on behalf of socialism and international solidarity with the German working class - such propaganda was not entirely absent - would have had the same effect. Given the brutal character of the Wehrmacht's assault on the USSR and the lack of any mass antifascist sentiment or resistance apparent within Germany, I very much doubt it would have inspired the same sacrifice by the Soviet peoples. In the final analysis, defence of the USSR was more crucial than how it was defended, nothwithstanding that the Soviet wartime atrocities mentioned in this thread were not unrelated to the nationalist character of it's defence. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
