[PEN-L:5160] Re: the exploding Pinto and Gingrich

I don't have an exact figure to give in answer to Doug Orr's question but I do have a very interesting story to tell concerning exploding Pintos. In the period 1978-79, I worked as an assembler at Ford Motor Company's Metuchen (New Jersey) Assembly Plant where we built Ford Pintos and Mercury

[PEN-L:5159] More trouble coming in Mexico

MEXICAN DEBT LOOMING AS AN EXPLOSIVE PROBLEM According to figures by Mexico's Treasury Secretariat, as of March 31, 1995, debt service has increased in a very significant way: Total external public debt outstanding (3/31): $87.5 bn dlls. Total external debt service payments (1Q

[PEN-L:5158] Review of Goldsmith's The Trap

IN THESE TIMES -- APRIL 3,1995 MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING -- By Art Hilgart How is it," Sir James Goldsmith asks, "that nearly two hundred years after the birth of the Industrial Revolution, which produced humanity's greatest period of economic expansion, the absolute number of those living in mise

[PEN-L:5157] Debunking the IMF

AFRICA REPORT, November-December 1994 DEBUNKING THE MYTH BLAME FOR AFRICA'S CONTINUING ECONOMIC DECLINE, THE AUTHORS ARGUE, CAN BE LAID AT THE DOOR OF THE WORLD BANK, THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, AND THE WESTERN DONOR NATIONS THAT HAVE ENTHUSIASTICALLY SUPPORTED THEIR STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT P

[PEN-L:5156] Re: Usury & Exploitation

This discussion may be a waste of time for others, but luckily it isn't for me. (As he reminds me often, I can't speak for Gil.) It allows me to add some important clarifying touches to a paper that I'm finishing, one that tries to explain (rationally reconstruct) the Marxian theory of exploitati

[PEN-L:5155] the exploding Pinto and Gingrich

It is amazing how pieces of important info. slip away. Gingrich wants to limit the maximum product liability award to $250,000. If I remember correctly, when Lee Iaccoca wrote his memo deciding to continue to sell Pintos that he knew would explode into flames in a collision, he used an estimate

[PEN-L:5154] CBPP and CTJ?

Can someone tell me how to get on the mailing list for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for Tax Justice. I keep finding references to the work, but it is usually several months after the release. I would like to get it in a more timely fashion. Thanks, Doug Orr [EMAIL P

[PEN-L:5153] Follow-up re NSF Funding Crisis

>From another list - Doug Henwood >Please feel free to scroll to mid section of this post where action >directives can be found. APA has developed a letter that can be used as >a format for your own letter, should you desire to forward one. There >are also other suggestions noted that might al

[PEN-L:5152] Re: Usury & Exploitation

Re Jim's most recent comments on this subject, I go back to the bottom line: Jim asserts that some form of subsumption (formal, real, or "macro") is necessary for the extraction of surplus value in Jim's sense of the term. This is a very strong claim. Nobody, certainly not Jim, has establis

[PEN-L:5151] Re: Brits, NZ, and inequality

On Tue, 16 May 1995, Jeff Oman wrote: > The sequence is as follows, more inequality reduces > >incentives to save (or to accumulate human capital) to the less > >favoured by the distribution. The amount of savings and human capital > >that is lost is not compensated by the savings and human

[PEN-L:5150] Re: Justice

I agree that being a Marxist worth anything--i.e., a practical revolutionary not just a Kathedersozialist--requires that we manifest appropriate virtues, including justice, in our personal lives, and that these virtues be broadly compatible with those of our comrades. Note that "compatible" doesn

[PEN-L:5149] technological change and Africa today

In Trade, Development and Foreign Debt (London: Pluto Press, 1992) Michael Hudson explains the polarization tendencies in the world economy, so devastatingly demonstrated in Africa this decade: "The preceding pages have established that economic obsolescence in less developed countries is a dir

[PEN-L:5148] Re: profit-rate equalization

Ajit continues his discussion with me on value thus: - In Marx a theory of prices is needed to insure the reproduction of the system, which intails realization of the surplus. Thus prices occupy different places and significance in diffe

[PEN-L:5147] Re: Justice

Curtis offered much more than is here: [deletions] > The book's fallacy lies in thinking that virtuous people will >grow up to become a virtuous society. On the contrary, as >Reinhold Niebuhr taught us, there is a "basic difference between >the morality of individuals and the morality of collec