Reading PEN-L sometimes, I have to remind myself that capitalism isn't on its deathbed.
Really, people, aren't we supposed to know the enemy instead of inventing its weakness? Doug Sandwichman wrote:
That may be a bit misleading in that "bookkeeping manipulation" would seem to suggest that the action takes place at the level of the firm. Actually the bookkeeping manipulation occurs first in the aggregate and can only be capitalized by firms with privileged access to the virtual wealth created there. The notion of the "value subtracting enterprise" has, as far as I know, only been used to refer to entities in the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia but I see no reason to think of the situation there as unique. The way they did it in the SU was to keep manufactured inventory on the books at nominal prices that it could never sell for. The way they do it in the US is with inventories of land and dollars and with inputs of artificially discounted public goods. You might say that there always persists a large "real" economy on the periphery, as it were, of the core virtual economy. Labor and plants are hardly just props. They are the sideshow hosts for the parasitic main event. The Sandwichman Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: and Henry Liu added, inter alia: All profits come from bookkeeping manipulation and tax avoidance. Finance capitalism is not interested in the least about labor efficiency or productivity. Its game is mergers and acquisition,share buy-backs, increasing shareholder value, intellectual property, good-will value,brand names, marketing infrastructure, etc. Labor and plants are merely props for the game.>> Find your next car at <http://autos.yahoo.ca>Yahoo! Canada Autos
