Tom Lehman quoting George Becker, president of the USWA, (US steelworkers union) on PEN-L: >While imports of hot-rolled steel declined in January of 1999 from >their peak in November of 1998, with Japan, Russia and Brazil backing away, >numerous other countries have already moved in to take their place. Isn't this what they call a capitalist contradiction? The stock market rises to 10,000 because foreign investors are looking for a safe haven for their capital. The Dow-Jones Industrial average is made up of exactly those companies that are vulnerable to cheap imported commodities, which means that they will suffer as foreign competition steps up. There are all sorts of interesting dark linings showing up around the silver capitalist cloud. The Euro has been in a funk because the European economies can't compete with America's. This leads to pressure to dump social democracy programs or the politicians who refuse to do this, as just took place in Germany. A more "practical" European economy will lead to more competitive pressures on the US as German steel gets into the act. Meanwhile, I heard a couple of Brazilian economists speak at the Brecht Forum the other night and they said that Brazil's crisis had been 10 years in the making and was not caused by Asian contagion. They said that there has been an overproduction of commodities in the 1990s. This, rather than government austerity, has been the main factor in eliminating inflation. A low inflation environment made investing in Brazil attractive, but the flood of capital distorted the economy as it created expectations that could not be met. The unemployment rate in Sao Paulo is now 18%. I think that 1999 will be an interesting year. The tenuous cease-fire in Colombia is coming to an end as the US prepares to step militarily against narco-guerrillas. Meanwhile, the NY Times just revealed that the White House put the kibosh on a DEA operation that was leading to the front door of Mexico's Defense Minister. Why? Foreign policy exigencies. On top of this, Ecuador is in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression because of a combination of plain old fashioned economic crisis and the agricultural ruin brought on by El Niņo, which in turn is related to global warming. Sounds like the "crisis" is very real, whatever the Dow-Jones is doing. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
