Chris asked: > why would manufacturers favour a strong dollar policy?
They don't and this was Doug's point. > So does Bush's firing of O'Neill and his preference for > even more radical tax cuts, reflect a shift in the loyalties > between different sectors of capital? I would say, yes. As I see it, the Bush coup in the US was about the revolt of productive capital against finance capital. You cannot imagine how difficult it was for firms who produced tangible or intangible "products" to set up long-term strategies for making money. Maybe you had to witness it first hand as I did to grasp that. If you did not produce profits in two consecutive quarters, you were severely punished by the capital markets. They simply sold your stock to death if your objective was not to please them. Why do you think there was widespread fraud in the US? Because the US executives are genetically immoral? What we have been witnessing for the past few years is the collapse of the so-called "contract theory" and an egg on the face of Business Administration and Economics departments at the mainstream US universities. They claimed that if you let the market decide and tie manager compensation to the performance of company stock, the shareholders and, as a result, the society would be better off. Just the opposite occurred. What we have been witnessing is a proof that they were wrong. I expect that M-M' phase will soon be over because it doesn't work anymore and we will soon be back to M-C-M'phase. Sabri
